The art experiments were produced in 1985 by Warhol under commission from Commodore - creator of the Amiga computer.

Commodore paid the artist to produce a series of works to aid the launch of the Amiga 1000.

A painstaking three-year project was required to recover the images which were saved in an obscure data format.

Lost format The digital images were discovered and recovered by staff and students who are members of Carnegie Mellon University's computer club.

The club was enrolled in the attempt to find and restore the images by self-confessed Andy Warhol fanatic and artist Cory Arcangel. He noticed Warhol's involvement in the Commodore Amiga launch thanks to a video uploaded to YouTube of the 1985 event.

At the launch news conference, Warhol used the Amiga's graphics program to paint a portrait of Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry. Arcangel wondered if Warhol had produced any other works with the Amiga and contacted the Andy Warhol Museum in 2011 to get permission to search its collection.

The search turned up an Amiga computer and lots of floppy disks and led Arcangel to approach Carnegie Mellon for help in cataloguing what was on the storage media. At that time it was not known if any Warhol works were on the old disks.

Magnetic imaging tools were used to copy data on the disks so no damage was done to the original floppies. Examination of the copied data revealed several files that had titles such as "campbells.pic", "flower.pic" and "marilyn1.pic" that were reminiscent of Warhol's best-known works.

The recovery project was initially thwarted from viewing the actual images as the data was saved in an obscure format that modern Amiga emulators could not read.

Reverse engineering of the format helped to recover the images many of which turned out to be signed electronic facsimiles of Warhol's more famous creations. In total 18 images were recovered, a dozen of which are signed by Warhol.

"What's amazing is that by looking at these images, we can see how quickly Warhol seemed to intuit the essence of what it meant to express oneself, in what then was a brand-new medium: the digital," said Arcangel in a statement.

The World Health Organization reports that 780 million people don't have access to clean water, and 3.4 million die each year due to water-borne diseases. But an Israeli company thinks it can play a part in alleviating the crisis by producing drinking water from thin air.

Water-Gen has developed an Atmospheric Water-Generation Units using its "GENius" heat exchanger to chill air and condense water vapor. "The clean air enters our GENius heat exchanger system where it is dehumidified, the water is removed from the air and collected in a collection tank inside the unit," says co-CEO Arye Kohavi.

"From there the water is passed through an extensive water filtration system which cleans it from possible chemical and microbiological contaminations," he explains. "The clean purified water is stored in an internal water tank which is kept continuously preserved to keep it at high quality over time."

Energy efficient

Capturing atmospheric humidity isn't a ground-breaking invention in itself -- other companies already sell atmospheric water generators for commercial and domestic use -- but Water-Gen says it has made its water generator more energy efficient than others by using the cooled air created by the unit to chill incoming air.

"Several companies tried to extract water from the air," says Kohavi. "It looks simple, because air conditioning is extracting water from air. But the issue is to do it very efficiently, to produce as much water as you can per kilowatt of power consumed." He adds: "When you're very, very efficient, it brings us to the point that it is a real solution. Water from air became actually a solution for drinking water."

The system produces 250-800 liters (65-210 gallons) of potable water a day depending on temperature and humidity conditions and Kohavi says it uses two cents' worth of electricity to produce a liter of water.

Civilian uses Developed primarily for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Water-Gen says it has already sold units to militaries in seven countries, but Kohavi is keen to stress that the general population can also benefit from the technology.

According to US reports, the Federal Communications Commission will allow a fast lane for data-heavy services when new rules are published in May.

If true it would undermine the net neutrality principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally.

The Federal Communications Commission said the reports were "flat out wrong".

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources saying that the FCC is planning to allow internet service providers (ISPs) to offer a fast lane into people's homes for content providers willing to pay for it.

It would mean that ISPs such as Comcast and Verizon would be able to charge companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney or Google different amount for priority services.

The reports claim that although ISPs would be prohibited from blocking or discriminating against online content, they would be able to strike special deals as long as they acted in a commercially reasonable manner.

Increasingly the biggest US ISPs are keen to charge for data-hungry services such as Netflix, and ISP Verizon recently won a court case in which it successfully challenged the FCC's right to stop it.

The case forced the FCC to rethink its rules but chairman Tom Wheeler was quick to deny the reports that it was about to do a major U-turn.

He said: "There are reports that the FCC is gutting the Open Internet rule. They are flat out wrong.

"Tomorrow we will circulate to the Commission a new Open Internet proposal that will restore the concepts of net neutrality consistent with the court's ruling in January.

"There is no 'turnaround in policy'. The same rules will apply to all internet content. As with the original Open Internet rules, and consistent with the court's decision, behaviour that harms consumers or competition will not be permitted." Free Press, a group which advocates an internet where all traffic is treated equally, is convinced that the FCC is on the verge of a U-turn and warned that would be a disaster for consumers.

"Giving ISPs the green light to implement pay-for-priority schemes will be a disaster for start-ups, non-profits and everyday internet users who cannot afford these unnecessary tolls," said chief executive Craig Aaron.

Most experts predict that if content providers are forced to pay extra fees to get their services on the network, those costs will be passed on to consumers.

The social networking giant said Wednesday that mobile ads accounted for 59% of its advertising revenue in the first three months of the year, up from 30% a year prior. That's good news for Facebook, because Web users are flocking to mobile devices and leaving their desktops behind. January marked the first time ever that Americans used smartphone and tablet apps more than PCs to access the Internet, according to comScore. Overall, Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) reported $2.5 billion in first-quarter sales, up 72% versus a year ago.

The company recorded $642 million in profit, triple what it recorded a year earlier. Both sales and earnings came in ahead of analyst expectations, sending shares up more than 4% in premarket trading Thursday.

It's been a busy year for the company, which bought mobile messaging service WhatsApp for a whopping $19 billion in February and snatched up virtual reality developer Oculus VR last month for $2 billion.

Why Facebook bought Oculus

Both purchases reflected a recognition that desktop computing is rapidly becoming secondary to smartphones and tablets when accessing the Internet.

"The theory for WhatsApp... is that they're on a path to have a billion people using their product in the near future, and there just are not that many services in the world that can reach a billion people," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month. "Similarly, with Oculus, there are not that many companies that are building core technology that can be the next major computing platform."

Mr Obama, who is on a four-nation Asia tour, warned against escalation in the dispute and said he wanted to see the row resolved peacefully.

But he confirmed that the islands fell under a security treaty that commits the US to act if Japan is attacked.

The two leaders also discussed a major trade deal as well as North Korea.

The US president arrived in Japan late on Wednesday ahead of stops in South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines. He is not going to Beijing but relations with China are expected to dominate his meetings with regional leaders.

'Deep belief'

Mr Obama's trip - which ends on 29 April - comes nearly seven months after he cancelled a visit to the region because of a US government shutdown.

Officials say it is aimed at reassuring America's Asian allies of its commitment to the region amid concern over China's growing power.

On Wednesday Mr Obama had an informal dinner with Mr Abe. The two leaders then held talks on Thursday morning and gave a joint press conference.

"Article five [of the US-Japan security treaty] covers all territories under Japan's administration including [the] Senkaku islands," Mr Obama said, echoing comments published in Wednesday's Yomiuri newspaper. "We do not believe that they should be subject to change unilaterally." "This is not a new position. This is a consistent one," he said.

However, Mr Obama also said he told Mr Abe that it "would be a profound mistake to continue to see escalation around this issue instead of dialogue".

The islands are called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Japan controls the islands but China has been strongly pressing its claim in recent months, flying and sailing vessels in and out of what Japan says are its waters and airspace.

Japan depends on the US for its security, under a decades-old alliance that dates back to the end of World War Two. If Japan is attacked, the US is obliged to come to its aid.

Nuclear test?

China's foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it opposed the US stance.

Their system for producing bubbles onto which images can be projected and which release a scent when burst will be unveiled at a major conference on human-computer interfaces this weekend.

The video demonstration of what is described as a "chrono-sensory mid-air display system" shows how bubbles of varying sizes can be created, then tracked so that images can be projected on them.

The man leading the project is Professor Sriram Subramanian from the computer science department at Bristol, for whom I have one nagging question - what on earth have bubbles got to do with human-computer interfaces?

He explains that his team's primary interest is in different kinds of display surfaces for information. "We are interested in creating new and exciting experiences for people. Think about your laptop or phone - you can't put your finger through the screen." Whereas his bubbles deliver short-term messages which disappear when popped but leave behind a longer term scent.

The technology has already attracted interest from shopping malls. The professor imagines a future where a bakery chain releases bubbles containing the scent of sausage rolls to entice people into their stores - although it sounds to me as though that could turn into an olfactory nightmare, with different scents competing for shoppers' attention.

Another idea involves an educational use. "There's an iPhone game which involves bursting bubbles to learn maths - we could project numbers onto different bubbles, so the children would have to burst the right bubble."

He also sketches out ideas for what he calls an ambient notification system - for instance, a bubble that would float around your office every now and then with a number showing how many unread emails are in your inbox. "You could go even further. If we encode each category of email with a different scent, the smell would tell you vaguely how many emails you had from family as opposed to work-related ones."

The SensaBubble, as it has been named, will be unveiled in Toronto at CHI2014, a conference of scientists working on new interfaces between computers and humans. The conference's preview video gives some idea of the breadth of new ideas emerging, as researchers look beyond the traditional model of keyboard, screen and mouse. And you can see more of the Bristol team's work in this area on their YouTube channel.

The long-awaited proposal would subject the $2 billion e-cigarette industry to federal regulation for the first time.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at a briefing that the proposal represented the first "foundational" step towards broader restrictions if scientific evidence shows they are needed to protect public health.

Critics of e-cigarette advertising say it risks introducing a new generation of young people to conventional cigarettes when little is known about the long-term health impact of the products. And they lamented the fact that limits were not included in the proposed rule.

"It's very disappointing because they don't do anything to rein in the wild-west marketing that is targeting kids," said Stanton Glantz, a professor at the Center of Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco. "They should not have been so timid."

Hamburg said the current proposal "lays the foundation for many more actions and activities."

Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, said the proposal "by no means does everything we think needs to be done, but it starts the process. What is critical now is that they finalize this rule and then move quickly to fill the gaps."

NO FREE SAMPLES

A law passed in 2009 gave the FDA authority to regulate cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco and stipulated the agency could extend its jurisdiction to other nicotine products after issuing a rule to that effect. E-cigarettes use battery-powered cartridges to produce a nicotine-laced inhalable vapor.

In the short term, the rule would prohibit companies from distributing free e-cigarette samples, forbid vending machine sales except in adult-only venues and prohibit sales to minors. Companies would be required to warn that nicotine is addictive, but no other health warnings would be required. The addiction warning would have to be added no later than two years after the rule is set. The companies would not be allowed to make health claims in any advertising.

The proposal is subject to a public-comment period of 75 days. Willmore said the FDA should aim to establish the rule within a year.

Some are skeptical that restrictions on marketing or flavors will come any time soon.

The long-awaited proposal would subject the $2 billion e-cigarette industry to federal regulation for the first time.

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said at a briefing that the proposal represented the first "foundational" step towards broader restrictions if scientific evidence shows they are needed to protect public health.

Critics of e-cigarette advertising say it risks introducing a new generation of young people to conventional cigarettes when little is known about the long-term health impact of the products. And they lamented the fact that limits were not included in the proposed rule.

"It's very disappointing because they don't do anything to rein in the wild-west marketing that is targeting kids," said Stanton Glantz, a professor at the Center of Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco. "They should not have been so timid."

Hamburg said the current proposal "lays the foundation for many more actions and activities."

Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, said the proposal "by no means does everything we think needs to be done, but it starts the process. What is critical now is that they finalize this rule and then move quickly to fill the gaps."

NO FREE SAMPLES

A law passed in 2009 gave the FDA authority to regulate cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco and stipulated the agency could extend its jurisdiction to other nicotine products after issuing a rule to that effect. E-cigarettes use battery-powered cartridges to produce a nicotine-laced inhalable vapor.

In the short term, the rule would prohibit companies from distributing free e-cigarette samples, forbid vending machine sales except in adult-only venues and prohibit sales to minors. Companies would be required to warn that nicotine is addictive, but no other health warnings would be required. The addiction warning would have to be added no later than two years after the rule is set. The companies would not be allowed to make health claims in any advertising.

The proposal is subject to a public-comment period of 75 days. Willmore said the FDA should aim to establish the rule within a year.

Some are skeptical that restrictions on marketing or flavors will come any time soon.

The New York Times and Der Spiegel last month cited documents leaked by former U.S. security contractor Edward Snowden as saying the National Security Agency (NSA) obtained sensitive data and monitored Huawei executives' communications.

Last year's revelations of global U.S. surveillance programs have undercut some U.S.-based multinationals' businesses in the world's second-biggest economy, as Beijing pressured Chinese enterprises to avoid purchasing U.S. products.

IBM Corp reported last week that China earnings for the first quarter fell 20 percent, the third consecutive quarter of 20 percent declines, as it struggled to restore trust in the wake of Snowden's leaks.

Analysts at a conference in Shenzhen raised concerns about Huawei's business suffering from similar worries over the security of its products, following the New York Times and Der Spiegel reports.

But Xu expressed confidence Huawei, long hounded by U.S. lawmakers' accusations that it is a tool of Chinese state espionage, would not be negatively affected.

"On the NSA ... it does not have a big impact on business growth," Eric Xu, Huawei's executive vice president and one of its rotating CEOs, told an analyst conference on Wednesday in Shenzhen.

"But it has an impact on workloads, in communicating with and persuading current industry stakeholders (that products are secure), and that's more tiresome."

ROTATING CEO

Xu also revealed that the private company's system of rotating CEOs would end and Huawei eventually would be managed by a leadership team rather than an individual.

While Xu gave no indication of when the new management structure would be in place, his comments shed some light on how the company intends to permanently replace powerful founder Ren Zhengfei, 69, as chief executive.

"I can clearly tell everyone here that in the future the successor to Mr. Ren will not just be one person," Xu said.

Huawei introduced a rotating CEO system in 2011, where three top executives, Xu and deputy chairmen Ken Hu and Guo Ping, take turns as acting-CEO for six-month stints. Ren maintains his CEO title.

Ren has ruled out handing over the reins to his son or daughter who work at Huawei, saying his children do not have the qualities required to lead the company.

"In the last few months, we’ve grown fastest in countries like Brazil, India, Mexico, and Russia, and our users are also sharing more than 700 million photos and 100 million videos every single day," wrote WhatsApp chief executive Jan Koum in a blog post.

Koum provided more details in an interview with technology site Recode, claiming that WhatsApp has 48m active users in India and 45m in Brazil. "The message growth rate in Brazil — it’s not like a hockey stick, it’s like a vertical line," he said.

He also took a potshot at rivals like Line and KakaoTalk, which have ambitions to expand globally from their strongholds in Asia.

"There’s not enough money and not enough celebrities in the world to convince people to use a shitty product," said Koum. "People are so savvy these days. People expect a good user experience."

WhatsApp has encountered a few gremlins on that front since the Facebook deal was announced, including a three and a half-hour outage that week in February and another early in April, the same day it announced record figures of handling 64bn messages in a 24-hour period.

Koum was referring to what he sees as "bloated" apps from rivals, which are adding games, shopping, music and other features to their core messaging functions. WhatsApp has focused on text, photos and videos, with plans to add voice calling by the summer.

This focus has driven startling growth for WhatsApp over the last year. In April 2013, the company had more than 200m active users, and was processing an average of 8bn inbound (sent) and 12bn outbound (received) messages a day – the difference comes from messages sent to multiple recipients.

WhatsApp reached 250m active users in June 2013, then 300m in August, when it was processing 11bn inbound and 20bn outbound messages a day, while users were sharing 325m photos a day.

By December 2013, WhatsApp had 400m active users, and now four months later it has 500m. At the start of April, the company tweeted that it had just processed 20bn inbound and 44bn outbound messages in a 24-hour period.

In short, WhatsApp has doubled its daily message and photo counts since August 2013, while adding 200m active users in that eight-month period.

Obama's remarks, aimed at reassuring Japan and other allies, set against a robust commentary from China's state news agency Xinhua that also called the United States "myopic", demonstrate the delicate balancing act Obama faces on a week-long Asia tour.

The four-nation trip that starts in Tokyo later on Wednesday comes at a time of rising tension in the region, and as the United States urges Japan's unpredictable neighbor North Korea not to conduct another nuclear test.

Obama, who will be making the first full state visit to Japan by a U.S. President since 1996, must assuage worries by Tokyo and other allies that his commitment to their defense in the face of an increasingly assertive China is weak, without hurting vital U.S. ties with Asia's biggest economy.

Noting Beijing and Washington could work together on issues such as North Korea's nuclear program, Obama told the Yomiuri newspaper, in written remarks: "In other words, we welcome the continuing rise of a China that is stable, prosperous and peaceful and plays a responsible role in global affairs."

He added: "And our engagement with China does not and will not come at the expense of Japan or any other ally."

Such assurances are likely to be high on the agenda when Obama meets Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a symbolic summit on Thursday.

Japan, whose ties with rival China have chilled over the past two years, has been beset by anxiety over the degree to which reality matches rhetoric in Obama's promised "pivot" of U.S. military and diplomatic assets to Asia.

China, for its part, fears the U.S. is pursuing a policy of containment through its network of Asian allies, several of whom have long-standing territorial disputes with Beijing in the East and South China Seas.

Wednesday's Xinhua commentary criticized U.S. policy in the region as "a carefully calculated scheme to cage the rapidly developing Asian giant".

Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto rubbished the magazine's story in the video, which was uploaded on Tuesday, and said he wished to "hug" the thousands of people who donated money to clear his name during his "ordeal".

"I'm very thankful for you, all these people, in US, Europe and Asia and Africa and South America who supported me throughout. I want to hug you, this 2,000 of you, who donated. I'm very happy, each one gives me a tick in my heart."

He spoke in occasionally halting English and held up a copy of the magazine's 6 March issue, which declared him "The face behind bitcoin".

The three-minute video returned Nakamoto, 64, to the spotlight a month after the cover story created a media circus around his modest home in Temple City, a suburb in east Los Angeles.

The article, written by senior reporter Leah McGrath Goodman, identified him as the anonymous, enigmatic founder of the digital currency – a huge scoop if true. Bitcoin's explosion in popularity in 2013 supposedly made its founder – whoever they are – worth $400m (£238m).

Amid near-slapstick scenes, with journalists chasing Nakamoto through Los Angeles, Nakamoto, a Japanese-American retired engineer, denied any link to bitcoin and said he had never heard of it until February 2014 through Goodman's inquiries.

Newsweek has defended its story but critics have accused the magazine of blundering and putting an innocent man of humble means – Nakamoto said he had been unemployed and sick – through the wringer.

"I am not Satoshi Nakamoto," he said in the YouTube video. "My name is Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto and of course if I were the creator I would never use my real name. So from that point of view, I'm sure you guys would know, that Satoshi Nakamoto is not me. But Leah thinks so and Newsweek said so, but it's not true."

Goodman did not immediately respond to an interview request on Tuesday.