The world's most wanted house guest - Independent

For the past fortnight, Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has been at the centre of a global firestorm. Wanted by Interpol, by the Swedish police, even, briefly, by Scotland Yard, he has been called a terrorist and a revolutionary. Several leading American politicians and commentators have called for him to be killed, while Russia and China have also been loud in their condemnation. Yesterday, Assange appeared at City of Westminster magistrates’ court to fight extradition to Sweden on sex charges that he says are politically motivated. He was granted bail – subject to an appeal by Swedish prosecutors that could see him spend a further 48 hours in custody – on condition that he provides a security of ?200,000 to the court, with a further ?40,000 guaranteed in two sureties of ?20,000 each – and that he spends between now and 11 January as the house guest of Captain Vaughan Smith, a former Grenadier Guard and founder of the journalists' Frontline Club.

He will be under curfew every day from 10pm to 2am and from 10am to 2pm and will be required to report daily to the police from 6pm to 8pm. He must spend every night at Cpt Smith's home and will be electronically tagged.

Mr Assange has for several months been staying as a guest of Cpt Smith and other members at the Frontline Club in London, which he founded seven years ago to stand for independence and transparency, and he has also stayed at Cpt Smith's home in Suffolk. Below is Cpt Smith's account of the past weeks...

Having watched Julian Assange give himself up last week to the British justice system, I took the decision that I would do whatever else it took to ensure that he is not denied his basic rights as a result of the anger of the powerful forces he has enraged.

This decision – which will result in one of the most unusual Christmases I have ever experienced – began to take shape last Monday night, as we gathered round a computer in my home, talking via Skype to Mark Stephens, Julian’s solicitor, in London.

This is how I remember the scene...

It is late in the evening. The screen periodically goes to sleep and Sue, a friend, keeps tapping the keyboard to keep it awake, relighting their faces.

Julian is completely still except his foot, which he rocks from side to side. I remember being told that he always did this when he was concentrating.

I feel that I am intruding, but Julian smiles at me. He does that: brings you in and makes you feel you are important to him when most of us would feel too preoccupied to do such a thing.

Julian is in front of a computer all the time. Immersed and uninterruptable; you feel you could arrive in a clown suit and he wouldn’t notice you.

But often you can gently greet him while he is typing furiously and he will immediately stop what he is doing and report developments for half an hour, well beyond the time you feel he should get back to his work.

The call is finished, and Julian is standing by the fireplace. Miles away. We start discussing the call. A couple of other friends and supporters are there too. Julian is still quiet but he is listening to us. The conversation dries up because the call to Mark has brought it all home.

There seemed to be other options, but they are all of straw. Julian dismisses each as it is suggested. He doesn’t want to look as if he has something to hide. The British police have said they want him and he is going in.

Sue and the other friends start discussing his statement. I get my camera set to film it for them and start working on the logistics. I don’t work for WikiLeaks, but I get drawn in. The police have given less time than expected and he cannot be late.

Julian sits on the sofa. Then he lies down. Then he sleeps. He’s been up for 48 hours. We don’t film any statement.

Then it is morning. He has to be at the police station at 9am, and Mark and the defence team need to see him at 7am. Sue and Jeremy are struggling to get Julian out of the building and trying to keep everyone’s spirits up by joking with him that he is never on time for anything.

We are all exhausted, and I can see that Sue is holding back tears as she bundles Julian into the car. Sue, Julian and I drive off but everyone expects us to be back by the evening.

We get to Mark’s home and it’s still dark. I notice a photographer getting his camera out of the boot of his car as we are about to park behind it, and we drive past. He deserved a picture for getting up that early on a cold morning to stake out Julian’s solicitor’s home, but he didn’t get it.

We meet Mark in a nearby greasy spoon and have breakfast in a back room. Julian is hungry, as he had no dinner last night. Mark gets straight into discussing the case and tells us that the police have changed the station that Julian is to report to.

Mark’s manner is grave but comforting and I can see that Julian and Sue are feeling the pressure. Sue goes out for another cigarette.

Jennifer joins us from Mark’s team and we drive to Kentish Town Police Station. Sue drives, Mark is on his mobile for most of the journey and we are all trying to be quiet. Julian is in the back, between Mark and Jennifer, on his computer, working on the statement.

I look at the familiar glow of the computer screen on Julian’s face, and after a while I notice the computer go to sleep. But Julian doesn’t switch it on again. He stares through it and I look away as I find myself feeling a surge of empathy for him. The statement is not finished as we arrive at the police station.

We drive through large blue gates and bland and besuited policemen and women are around the car. Mark and Julian get out and I try to observe while Sue struggles to park in the absurdly small parking space that she is directed to. I feel intimidated by the brutish ordinariness that this damned place exudes from every structure and person. I have visited police stations and prisons but never felt so uncomfortable before.

We are gathered behind Julian and Mark and a policeman reads out four Swedish charges, but I am not listening. Where I am standing, on one side, I can see Julian’s still face as he hears them. I admire his courage. He knows more clearly than anybody that he pressed the trigger long ago. Or, rather, the return key. The leaks are unstoppable whatever happens to him.

I ponder the disservice to Julian done by the media. With their stockings stuffed by WikiLeaks they dehumanise him with images printed and screened of a cold, calculating Machiavelli pulling strings from secret hideouts. The main hideout, of course, being the Frontline Club, where many of them have interviewed him.

They made him out to be the internet’s Bin Laden. The likeness might be poor, but that was OK because the colours were familiar and bright. Now the focus is on Julian’s court fight, instead of on the opaque political system that his leaks have exposed. The charges that Julian faces have already been dropped once, from a Swedish court that even Glenn Beck, the incendiary US Fox News TV host, rubbishes.

Julian is different to most of us. He is clever and obsessive but also funny and self-deprecating. But he has started something seismic but inevitable, a consequence of modern communications that cannot be stopped. One day we might be governed better as a result. Vengeance by the authorities is weakness here and will not help us face the challenges of the times.

I resolved then, and on that ugly spot, that I would never abandon Julian. It wasn’t any more about whether Wikileaks was right or wrong, for good or bad. It was about standing up to the bully and the question of whether our country, in these historic times really was the tolerant, independent and open place I had been brought up to believe it was and feel that it needs to be. If to fight for this country we will have to fight for its fundamental principles of justice then I declare my position in the ranks.

Vaughan Smith is the founder of the Frontline Club. He has personally stood surety for Julian Assange in court and provided his bail address. The names of Julian's supporters have been changed for their security

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Why Cisco Umi Doesn't Have What Chambers Wanted - PC World

With Cisco's introduction of its Umi home TelePresence system on Wednesday, a vision that Chairman and CEO John Chambers has been talking about for years finally saw the light of day. But one piece of his dream is still missing.

Cisco introduced TelePresence for enterprises in late 2006 and not long afterward began promising a version of the high-definition videoconferencing system for home use. Chambers, one of the biggest cheerleaders for that concept, has referred to it repeatedly over the past few years as part of his vision of a world connected over a high-speed "network of networks."

As Chambers predicted, Umi lets consumers with a high-definition TV and a good broadband connection see their family and friends while they talk, all in the comfort of their living rooms. But nearly every time he has referred to home TelePresence, Chambers has asked listeners to picture themselves watching a sports event on live TV while bantering back and forth long-distance with friends or relatives on the same TV. That's not possible in the Umi product Cisco announced on Wednesday.

The problem with making Chambers' vision a reality turns out to be more complicated than simply implementing a "picture-in-picture" feature in Umi, according to Philip Graham, vice president of engineering and chief technology officer for Cisco's TelePresence business.

While Umi users can talk to each other in real time, the action of a live sporting event often doesn't appear in a synchronized way in two different homes, Graham said. Part of the reason has to do with delays in the networks that deliver the broadcast across a continent from where it's taking place to where it's being viewed. But a major culprit is the DVR (digital video recorder), which can introduce a noticeable delay, he said. If a DVR is recording a program while it's being broadcast, typically the viewer is actually seeing the DVR's recording of the show, which it can't deliver in exactly real time, Graham said.

Therefore, if one viewer is recording the game on a DVR while the other isn't, or even if they both are, the action may not appear on both TVs at the same time. That makes it very awkward to talk about the game as it's taking place, Graham said.

Cisco wants to solve this problem, but to do so it will have to work with broadcasters and cable companies, which have never had to make sure shows were perfectly synchronized in viewers' homes, Graham said.

"It requires a lot more work, with people who don't have to do that today," Graham said.

One solution Cisco is looking at is a system of signaling to the broadcaster that a viewer is watching the event while participating in a Umi session with someone else who was also watching it. The idea is that the broadcaster, tipped off by that signal, could switch on a system to synchronize the program on both viewers' TVs, Graham said. He did not give an estimate for when this feature may be offered.

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