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We share a lot of stuff on social media sites like Facebook and often this content does not age well. This leaves us in a fix and trying to find ways to delete these unwanted social media posts.

Well, Facebook is finally making it easier for us to delete our old social media posts. It has introduced (opens in new tab)a new Manage Activity Tool that will not only help us delete or hide those old yet irritating social media posts but also will let us do this in bulk.

The feature is being rolled out for the Facebook mobile app as well as Facebook Lite app users across the globe in a phased manner and in case you can't figure out where to find this, you may just need to wait for a few more days. Later, this feature will be introduced on the desktop version as well, explained Facebook.

How to mass delete old Facebook posts?

Once the feature is available on your Facebook application, head right over to the Profile page and follow the below process

Tap on Activity Log

On the next page, tap Manage Activity

Tap "Your Posts" on the new slide-up menu

Next, Tap filters

Select the posts that you want to delete. You can select multiple posts to delete them in one go

Posts that are deleted remain on the account for 30 days in case someone wants to restore them before being removed from the account. Though this tool only lets you delete posts that were made using your account. Posts created by your friends that you were tagged-in needs to be deleted from their accounts.

With the help of the Manage Activity tool, Facebook also allows users to hide the old posts by archiving them. By limiting its visibility from the public, users can still relive old memories as in when they like. This privacy control tool was long overdue and finally puts users in more control of the information shared on Facebook.

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Facebook's new privacy tool helps delete old social media posts easily

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We share a lot of stuff on social media sites like Facebook and often this content does not age well. This leaves us in a fix and trying to find ways to delete these unwanted social media posts. Well, Facebook is finally making it easier for us to delete our old social media posts.

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Automated accounts are all over the Twitterverse, and you can often tell when the software robots are following you.

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The Google Home is one of the most popular smart speakers on the planet, despite landing on the smart home scene later than the Amazon Echo.

Even though it has been usurped by the Google Nest Audio, we think the original Google Home is still worth considering - and it could be in for some fantastic deals this Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday.

Since the launch of the Google Home in 2016, the search giant has released a number of smart speakers in the range, including the Google Home Mini, and Google Home Hub.

More recently, Google Home speakers have undergone a name change; nowadays, new Google speakers fall under the Google Nest mantle, including the Google Nest Hub Max and the Google Nest Mini.

What's common among all these smart speakers is that they come with Google Assistant built-in - and the voice assistant is getting smarter all the time thanks to regular updates and machine learning capabilities.

This means you can ask your Google Home speaker to give you the weather report, lower your smart thermostat for you when you leave your home, tell you a fact, or have it find the funny YouTube clip that had you in stitches last night and send it across to your Chromecast.

Of course, voice assistants aren't perfect, and sometimes you may find your questions are lost in translation when speaking to Google Assistant.

That general problem - something working sometimes, but not all the time - isn't just symptomatic of the $89 / £89 / AU$128 Google Home; its biggest rival, the Amazon Echo, is far from immune to them as well. In due time, both devices will get smarter, but for now, they do make some errors.

One way Google has addressed this is by adding Multiple Actions and Continued Conversation, with both making it easier to ask multiple questions at the same time.

Google Home may not be perfect, but it's sure to get better over time as Google continues to work on its AI voice assistant technology, Google Assistant, and we'll be updating our review regularly as new functionality continues to be added.

What's new for Google Home?

Your Google Home is changing all the time - that's because new updates are being added to Google Assistant all the time. Now you can even teach the voice assistant to better recognize your voice (opens in new tab) so you can receive personalized results to your commands and queries.

The Google Home app is getting a redesign, hopefully making it simpler to use and to control your other smart home devices. That's not the only change to Google Home products, however - the company is trialling simpler controls for its Nest smart displays, including the Google Nest Hub Max.

It's not all good news, though; Google quietly removed a handy Google Home feature called Guest Mode, which used to be a way to cast media to a Google Cast-enabled device without sharing the same Wi-Fi service.

Guests without Wi-Fi credentials could get a four-digit pin, which would be used to directly connect to the speaker. Without that, guests now need the full Wi-Fi password instead. Not the end of the world, but annoying.

It's also emerged that Google Home speakers have been experiencing issues with Bluetooth connectivity. Google says that it's working on a fix, but with some problems dating back over a year, is it too little, too late?

In more positive news, Google announced that Assistant has now made its way to more than 500 million devices. That means not only does it come built-in to Google Home, it works on over 5,000 different devices - from cars to phones.

Google Assistant now supports Pandora Premium - simply set the platform as your default music streaming service and say "Hey Google, play" followed by the name of a song, artist, playlist or station.

Also, if you have an Android smart TV, you can now use Google Assistant to communicate with Netflix, asking it to play content just like if you had the Nvidia Shield set top box.

Google Assistant has a new feature that means you can now assign reminders to different people in your household. That means if you share your home with others you can evenly distribute all of the different chores. A new feature to enable mobile calling is coming to Australia before a wider rollout, too.

Design

Now, because "air freshener" can be a varied description depending on where you are in the world, a more apt description of its shape might be a small vase - it has a wide bottom and a tapered top. Each Google Home comes with a standard, gray fabric base with a rubber bottom that can be swapped out for a different material or color for around $20 / £18 / AU$29.

So far, Google offers two types of bases to match your home decor: metallic and fabric, each with different colors and finishes. Metallic bases are made out of either painted steel or polycarbonate and come in copper, snow or carbon colors. On the fabric side, the three colors are mango, marine and violet, in addition to the standard white mesh listed above.

From a pure aesthetic point of view, Google Home is the far more attractive option when compared to the Amazon Echo's all-black canister shape. It's less ominous than the black monolith and it's also a fair bit shorter at 5.62 x 3.79 inches (142.8 x 96.4mm; H x D), which means it's easier for the Home to blend into its surroundings.

There's also some function to this form, however. The top, flat, inclined surface of the Google Home acts as a touch-capacitive panel, allowing you to change the volume, play and pause the music or activate the Google Home assistant with a tap. Once activated either by pressing the top panel for a couple of seconds or saying the wake word ("OK Google" or "Hey Google"), four multi-colored lights twist and whirl to indicate that you've caught its attention.

While Amazon's Echo has a physical control to change its volume, Google Home's touch controls feel less precise. We do however appreciate the inclusion of a physical button to mute the speaker, which means you can be sure when it is, and is not, listening.

Google Home generally does an ok job of picking up your voice with its two built-in microphones located on the top half of the chassis, but it doesn't work 100% of the time. Whether this is down to Google's software, or its reliance on two microphones rather than the Amazon Echo's five, it means you'll definitely end up repeating yourself or raising your voice to get its attention more.

Uncap the bottom base and you'll find a speaker and two passive radiators, which, considering the sheer volume the little device can put out, is impressive. The Amazon Echo has a few more speakers inside its chassis, and can therefore sound a bit better at higher volumes, however what's under the hood here is enough to get the job done.

Audio performance

While Google Assistant, the voice and smarts inside the speaker, might be the main attraction here, Google Home is actually a pretty capable audio device as well.

It can access all sorts of streaming services - Google Play Music, YouTube Music, Spotify and Pandora - and works as a WiFi speaker thanks to its built-in Google Cast capabilities.

What that means in practice is that you'll be able to ask it to play nearly any song you can think of, and it will either find it on Google Play Music's 30-million-plus catalogue or, if you've taken it up on its free trial offer, pull it up YouTube Music. Think about that for a second. Unlimited access to music on YouTube? Yeah, by far and away, Google Home probably has the largest song library of any audio device on the market.

We tried for an hour to find a song that Google Home couldn't pull up - recalling some seriously obscure music, like the theme song from 1998's Banjo-Kazooie game on N64 to the title track for Requiem for a Dream - to no avail. Of course, you'll likely stumble across something that Google Home can't find, but the fact that we couldn't stump it after arming ourselves with dozens of songs is absolutely unheard of.

Less impressive is how much difficulty the Google Home had with recognising band names that sound similar to one another. Try as we might, we couldn't get the speaker to play any music by the band 'Brontide'. Sometimes it would claim that their music wasn't available (it's on Spotify), or else it would play music or playlists from completely unrelated artists.

It's also too bad the expansive library of songs is stuck - for the most part - inside a less-than-amazing-sounding speaker.

Compared to Bluetooth speakers in its price range like, say, the Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2 or Razer Leviathan Mini, music on the Google Home comes off as less robust with little separation and little punch in the low-end or clarity in the mids and highs.

Now, it's not completely incapable for playing decent-sounding music - it does have some bass and some mids - but, if you're expecting Google Home to replace your Hi-Fi setup, you'll be severely disappointed. (Audiophiles, keep in mind that a vast majority of the time Google Home sources its music from YouTube, a site infamous for its audio compression.)

But Google Home makes up for its less-than-pristine audio quality with a feature that other speakers don't have, and that's its ability to both receive and send Google Cast signals, making it the only audio device that can not only stream music from your phone, but send video streams to any Google Cast-compatible connected devices as well.

Google Cast and Chromecast performance

One of our smaller frustrations with the Amazon Echo Dot, Amazon's smart speaker that's designed to be plugged into an existing audio setup, was that there was no way to control which speaker was used as its output using voice commands.

In theory, Google Home doesn't have this issue. Simply set up a Chromecast with a name that's easy to pronounce, and you can tell your Google Home to cast your favourite songs or even videos to your Hi-Fi and TV respectively.

At launch in both the UK and Australia, it supported a number of local streaming services. For example, in the UK we were able to play BBC Radio 4 on the speaker directly, which it was intelligent enough to automatically stream from iPlayer, and it was also capable of streaming from Channel 4's All 4 streaming app.

In theory it's a great streaming solution, but in practice we had trouble with the functionality.

Take as an example the phrase, "Watch Rick and Morty from Netflix on Jon's Projector." If your pronunciation is perfect then the command will work most of the time, but if the speaker fails to hear any part of the instruction then it will fail completely.

Then there's the issue of selecting specific episodes, which Google Home is unable to do. Ask it to play a show and it will start from where you last left off, but you can't ask it to play a specific episode. Skipping between episodes, meanwhile, works well.

We'd love it if the speaker was intelligent enough to remember part of the command and ask for clarification on the parts that it didn't understand, but as it stands you have to get the whole command right in one go.

It's also a pain to control playback once you've started casting. Instructing the speaker to 'play' or 'pause' works well, but if you tell it to play another song then it suddenly forgets that it's casting and will instead play the new song from the Home's own speaker.

The big promise with Google Assistant was that it would be contextually aware, but from our experience it has a long way to go. You'll find yourself repeating a lot of information that the Home should be able to work out itself.

Google Home as the center of your smart home

Of course, Chromecast isn't the only device that Google Home can talk to. There are a half-dozen devices that can hook into Google Home right now, or will be able to do so soon. (We've compiled a list of the best Google Home smart home devices so you don't have to waste time tracking each one down.)

The highlights of what Google Home can connect to right now are Nest thermostats, Philips Hue lightbulbs and Samsung's SmartThings platform, while support for even more third-party devices like LIFX lightbulbs and LG MusicFlow speakers should be coming soon.

Google Home will also integrate with thermostats from Netatmo and Tado.

Although you'll frequently need to sign into these third-party products, once you're in the functionality works well. We tested the Google Home with a Nest setup and found that its commands were easy and intuitive to give.

Recently, Google announced that Home would support several new smart home ecosystems including products from August, Wink, LIFX, TP-Link, Rachio, Vivent, First Alert, Frigidaire, Logitech, Geeni, Anova and US-retailer Best Buy's Insignia brand. Together, these should give you far more options for which devices you can string together and give you more control of your burgeoning smart home.

While further hardware integration is nice, one of the largest problem Google Home faces is that it can't integrate with many of Google's own services - like Gmail, Voice and Docs - which have been its bread and butter for years.

Take Gmail, for instance. You'd think Google Home might be able to rattle off the subjects of your top 10 emails - but, surprise, it can't. The same goes for Google Calendar (opens in new tab) where it's unable to create new events (although it will happily read out existing events in your calendar), make phone calls with Google Voice or jot down some quick notes in a Google Doc.

Google has a dozen services that the Home should be able to link into and yet, in its current state, simply cannot. Not only is this a big disappointment, but it makes us wonder why this functionality wasn't given more of a priority.

And while it's easy to hammer this point home and point out all Google Home's shortcomings in one long-winded tirade, we're not going to. That's not because we're avoiding the harsh criticism or defending the Home, we're not.

But we've already fallen into that trap of being overly critical of a smart platform once before with Amazon Echo, and since then it has flourished into an amazingly smart, connected platform that can answer hundreds more questions than it could two short years ago. It can order pizza or restock the refrigerator or call an Uber or check what time a restaurant closes, and the list of everything it can do grows week over week.

Google Home can do some of that already, making it far and away a better system now than the Echo was when it first launched. Some of that it can't. But, speaking from experience, it's only going to get better, smarter and more robust in the coming weeks, months and years.

It's just not there yet.

We liked

One thing's for sure: You might never appreciate just how much music is on YouTube without buying a Google Home. While some of the biggest music streaming services in the world boast libraries of 25, 30 and even 40 million songs, they're far from complete. We're not saying Google Home is capable of playing any song you can think of, but after dredging the depths of the '90s we still couldn't find a tune Google Home couldn't find.

And while Google Home excels as a DJ, it's also a surprisingly intelligent smart home hub. It already hooks into some of the largest platforms now by including Nest, Philips and Samsung's SmartThings, and given a few months that number will grow even more.

Its Google Cast functionality is excellent, and has real potential.

We disliked

Clearly the lack of integration into Google's own services is a huge issue. The fact that it can't shoot an email to someone in your contacts or help you schedule events through Google Calendar are massive oversights that vastly reduce how useful the Home could be.

The other problem with Google Assistant is how precise you have to be when asking your questions. Asking what year a song was written might not turn up any results, while asking what year a song was released might unveil the exact answer you were looking for. Follow up any inquiry with a simple request like "OK Google, tell me more about it" and it suddenly forgets what you've been talking about for the past 30 seconds.

A lack of contextual awareness is also a massive problem for its Google Cast functionality right now. Be prepared to reiterate where you want your music to play from a lot when using Google Home.

Admittedly, this lack of contextual awareness isn't something that Alexa deals with - which is surprising considering that the Echo doesn't come from the company with 20-plus years of search engine experience.

Final verdict

It's easy to feel disappointed with Google Home when you buy one and expect it to be the coveted center of the smart home Google has marketed it as. It's just not there yet. It's a bit too rigid in its language comprehension, its list of smart home devices is growing but still a bit underwhelming, and, perhaps the biggest disappointment of all, it doesn't have many of Google's core services built into it.

The best comparison for Google Home, obviously, is the Amazon Echo. They both have identical functions, fetch music from similar sources and are stumped, largely, by the same set of questions. While the Echo is still the more formidable of the two thanks to the dozens of developers who have created bespoke commands, the Home is - at worst - about six months behind in development.

There's also the issue that although the Home is more ambitious with its media playback, it hasn't worked out a way for you to access this functionality in a way that's simple enough to be done with your voice. There's little point in having all that functionality when it's a chore to use.

Given the same attention from hardware and software developers and some of those additional Google services, the Home could quickly grow from a nascent smart speaker with Chromecast integration to the first and most critical piece of the ever-expanding smart home.

For now, the Google Home is simply a smart novelty with access to YouTube Music, built-in Google Cast and the ability to save you a trip to the light switch.
Jon Porter also contributed to this review.

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The Google Home is one of the most popular smart speakers on the planet, despite landing on the smart home scene later than the Amazon Echo. Even though it has been usurped by the Google Nest Audio, we think the original Google Home is still worth considering - and it could be in for some fantastic deals this Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday.

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Hundreds of millions of Facebook users will be offered tips for spotting fake news as part of the social network's latest attempt to address concerns about its role in the spread of false information.

The new "educational tool" is part of a multi-pronged strategy which will also see a growing range of "signals" from user behaviour and third-party fact checkers used to make misinformation less prominent on the social network.

"We're against it and want to take it seriously," said Adam Mosseri, Facebook's vice president in charge of the news feed. "It's a large problem, predates Facebook, predates the internet. We need to take a multi-pronged approach."

From Friday (7 April) users in 14 countries will be presented with a large post at the top of their feeds with messages such as "it is possible to spot false news" and linking to 10 tips for identifying misinformation including checking web addresses and being sceptical about headlines which make shocking claims.

The post will be rolled out over three days and users will only see the message up to three times. The initial rollout will target the UK, the US, Germany, France, Italy, the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Myanmar, Brazil, Mexico, Columbia, Argentina, and Canada, but Facebook said it would also look at pushing it out globally.

Facebook has limited its definition of fake news to articles that set out to deceive, contain objectively provable falsehoods and pretend to be from a "legitimate" news site. The input of third-party fact checkers such as Snopes and PolitiFact will only be used to limit the spread of stories thought to fit that definition, which is deliberately narrow to avoid accusations of politically motivated censorship.

However, other signals which will affect the ranking of articles in the news feed, such as whether a someone is less likely to share a story after they have read it, could affect legitimate publishers including established newspapers, as well as controversial digital outlets such as rightwing US site Breitbart.

Mosseri said the majority of fake news on Facebook was created for financial rather than political gain and its impact could be reduced by limiting how often people see it and cutting off the supply of ad revenue.

However, he said educational measures were also necessary to help people evaluate fake news that made it into news feeds while also encouraging a more critical approach to less clear cut attempts to misinform that Facebook would not target.

"Some false news is going to make it on to our platform, it's not going to go to zero ... Yes we have a responsibility to reduce the amount of time people come across false news ... but also help them to make more informed decisions."

"We're going to need multiple solutions, there is no silver bullet."

Will Moy, director of UK-based fact checking organisation Full Fact, which worked on the tips for spotting fake news, welcomed the move but said he hoped Facebook would "recognise how much more then can do to make it easier for users to spot false news online".

He added: "The launch of this educational campaign is useful and timely but it should just be the start."

Facebook has been criticised for being slow to take responsibility for its role in spreading misinformation, which became hotly debated during the US election when fabricated stories about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were read and shared by millions. At the same time, it has faced questions over its approach to taking down inappropriate and illegal content, such as hate speech or sexualised images of children, while also being accused of censoring legitimate posts.

Facebook has repeatedly said it takes the criticism seriously, but many remain concerned about how its algorithms, which are primarily designed to maximise the time spent on the network, affect the beliefs and opinions of its users. It has also been accused of a lack of transparency around its approach to tackling misinformation and its processes for taking down content.

Governments have increasingly indicated a willingness to intervene to force technology companies to take more responsibility for the what appears on their platforms. The cabinet of German chancellor, Angela Merkel, this week backed legislation that could lead to fines of up to €50m if social networks refuse to remove illegal content or don't give users an effective way to report hate speech and fake news.

Justice minister Heiko Maas told Bloomberg on Wednesday that "social network providers are responsible when their platforms are misused to propagate hate crimes and fake news".

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Facebook to offer users tips on spotting fake news

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Hundreds of millions of Facebook users will be offered tips for spotting fake news as part of the social network's latest attempt to address concerns about its role in the spread of false information.

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In 2014 we took 1tn photos: welcome to our new visual culture | Books | The Guardian

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In 2014 we took 1tn photos: welcome to our new visual culture | Books | The Guardian

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In 2014 we took 1tn photos: welcome to our new visual culture

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We also took an estimated 30bn selfies last year and we load 300 hours of video on to YouTube every minute. How is it affecting the way we see the world?

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Katie Hopkins ‘very likely’ to challenge Jack Monroe libel ruling

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MailOnline columnist says ‘no evidence of harm was produced in the court’ when Monroe was awarded £24,000 damages

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Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.

Joe Marino, a video game player who has more than 40,000 followers on Twitch, wrote of his own health problems after another game streamer died. Credit... Brett Carlsen for The New York Times

Early on Feb. 19, Brian C. Vigneault was nearing the end of a 24-hour marathon of live streaming himself playing the tank warfare video game World of Tanks when he left his computer to buy a pack of cigarettes. He never returned.

During the break, Mr. Vigneault died in his Virginia Beach, Va., home. The medical examiner's office in Norfolk, Va., said that Mr. Vigneault's cause of death had not yet been determined. There was no indication of foul play, according to the police in Virginia Beach.

But Mr. Vigneault's friends wonder if the lengthy live streaming on Twitch, a website owned by Amazon that lets people broadcast themselves playing games, may not have helped. At the time of his death, Mr. Vigneault, 35, had streamed for 22 hours straight to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Two of his friends said that he often broadcast his game playing for long periods.

"He was looking really tired on the stream," said Jessica Gebauer, a live streamer and a friend of Mr. Vigneault's. "We were telling him, 'Just to go to bed. It's not a big deal. Nobody's going to worry about it.'"

Calls to phone numbers registered under the names of Mr. Vigneault and his family members were not returned, and messages left were not answered. Ms. Gebauer said Mr. Vigneault's family did not want to comment.

Mr. Vigneault's death followed reports of other players dying during or after lengthy gaming sessions in Taiwan and South Korea, intensifying a discussion about the health risks of a streaming culture that rewards people for staying online for long periods. At least one video game streamer has blamed long bouts of live streaming for his emergency heart surgery, and others have written about the potential dangers of playing for hours on end.

Live streaming of video game playing has become popular in recent years. The activity has taken center stage on sites like YouTube and Twitch, which has nearly 10 million daily visitors. Professional game streamers, who often combine the prowess of an elite player with the patter of a talk radio disc jockey, can sometimes make a living off these sites through advertising, subscriptions and other revenue sources.

Jackson Bliton, known by his gamer name Bajheera, live streams both his gaming and his workout regimen from his home in Murrieta, Calif. Credit... David Walter Banks for The New York Times

Yet would-be professional streamers typically endure a relentless grind to build an audience. Anytime they leave their computers, they risk having followers peel away to another channel. The resulting lifestyle is often unhealthy, requiring long sedentary periods with little sleep. Some gamers are fueled by junk food, caffeine and alcohol.

The streaming lifestyle, like that of some other stationary professions, "intuitively and medically seems such an unwise way to spend one's years," said Dr. James A. Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic who studies obesity and is the author of "Get Up! Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It." The upshot may be health problems including cardiovascular disease and diabetes, he said.

Twitch's community guidelines bar destructive behavior, without directly addressing what some perceive as excessively long periods of playing. In an email, a Twitch spokesman said of Mr. Vigneault that "we are greatly saddened about the passing of one of the Twitch community."

Wargaming, the company that makes World of Tanks, wrote in an email that it was "saddened to hear of the loss of streamer and tanker Brian Vigneault."

Ben Bowman, 30, a professional Twitch streamer with more than 579,000 followers, published an article on the video game website Polygon in January about the pressure to stream constantly, which he said in an interview could lead to exhaustion, high cholesterol and heart problems. He said he had developed a herniated disk from sitting for hours each day with no breaks because he wanted to attract the biggest audience possible on Twitch.

"As a business thing, doing a 24-hour stream allows you to stretch the widest net," Mr. Bowman said. "There's a cultural understanding that you have to be on eight to 12 hours a day with no breaks. I used my channel like that and that took a really massive toll on me."

Soon after Mr. Vigneault's death, Joe Marino, 45, who has more than 40,000 followers on Twitch, wrote an article on Medium about the emergency heart surgery he had in 2015. In an interview, he said his relentless streaming schedule - at least seven or eight hours a day, seven days a week - led to the surgery, an experience from which he is still recovering.

"Right now, I'm sitting here and I've got massive pain in my chest" he said. "And that's always going to be there."

Mr. Bliton's gaming setup at his home in Murrieta, Calif. Credit... David Walter Banks for The New York Times

Mr. Marino said he had since dialed back his streaming to focus on photography.

"This part of my life is kind of closing off," he said.

Other game streamers have found a way to sustain a large following and a healthy lifestyle. Rob Garcia, who has streamed the widely popular multiplayer fantasy game World of Warcraft on Twitch for six years and has more than 532,000 followers, said he regularly broadcast for 17 hours a day up to seven days a week at his peak in 2011.

"People were loving it. They were like, 'This guy never goes offline,'" Mr. Garcia said. "It became really bad for me."

Mr. Garcia, 36, said his weight had ballooned to 420 pounds from around 280 pounds. He resolved to change things in 2011 after he could no longer walk for 15 minutes without losing his breath. Late that year, he started a strict diet and exercise program that helped reduce his weight to around 250 pounds by 2015. He now works out with a trainer four times a week and often takes days and evenings off.

"There was a point in my streaming where I lost a lot of my viewers because I wasn't binge eating and binge drinking - they like to see the extreme stuff," Mr. Garcia said. "But my core viewers stuck around, and for them, it was amazing."

For Jackson Bliton, 27, who also streams World of Warcraft and has more than 315,000 followers, fitness is now a selling point. Mr. Bliton is a serious bodybuilder and gamer, and live streams both his workouts and fantasy battles.

He said that his workouts draw the same number of viewers as when he plays a game other than World of Warcraft, around half his usual 1,000 to 2,000 concurrent viewers.

Perhaps, Mr. Bliton added, the best way for live streamers to lead healthier lives would be to change their focus from rapid audience growth to longevity.

"A 24-hour marathon to me is more like a sprint," he said. "The marathon for me is doing this consistently for years at a time."

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Gamer's Death Pushes Risks of Live Streaming Into View (Published 2017)

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Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Early on Feb. 19, Brian C. Vigneault was nearing the end of a 24-hour marathon of live streaming himself playing the tank warfare video game World of Tanks when he left his computer to buy a pack of cigarettes.

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'Extreme surveillance' becomes UK law with barely a whimper

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Investigatory Powers Act legalises range of tools for snooping and hacking by the security services

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, has called for tighter regulation of online political advertising, which he says is being used in "unethical ways".

"We urgently need to close the 'internet blind spot' in the regulation of political campaigning," he said, writing in an open letter marking the 28th anniversary of his invention.

The 61-year-old British computer scientist described how political advertising has become a sophisticated and targeted industry, drawing on enormous pools of personal data on Facebook and Google. This means that campaigns create precisely targeted ads for individuals - as many as 50,000 variations each day on Facebook during the 2016 US election, he said.

This can become unethical when voters are pointed to fake news sites and using messaging to discourage people from turning out to vote, as the Trump campaign did with certain groups whose support Hillary Clinton needed to win.

"Targeted advertising allows a campaign to say completely different, possibly conflicting things to different groups. Is that democratic?" Berners-Lee said.

The lack of regulation in political advertising online was one of three trends that threaten the openness of the web that Berners-Lee has become "increasingly worried" about over the past year. The others are the loss of control over our personal data and the spread of misinformation online.

Personal data is the price many of us agree to pay for free services online, but Berners-Lee points out that "we're missing a trick" by letting large data-harvesting companies - such as Google, Facebook and Amazon - control that information.

"As our data is then held in proprietary silos, out of sight to us, we lose out on the benefits we could realise if we had direct control over this data, and chose when and with whom to share it," he said.

A more pernicious side-effect of this data aggregation is the way governments are "increasingly watching our every move online" and passing laws such as the UK's Investigatory Powers Act, which legalises a range of snooping and hacking tools used by security services that "trample our right to privacy". Such surveillance creates a "chilling effect on free speech", even in countries that don't have repressive regimes, he said.

Berners-Lee's final concern was that it is too easy for misinformation to spread on the web, particularly as there has been a huge consolidation in the way people find news and information online through gatekeepers like Facebook and Google, who select content to show us based on algorithms that learn from the harvesting of personal data.

"The net result is that these sites show us content they think we'll click on - meaning that misinformation, or fake news, which is surprising, shocking, or designed to appeal to our biases can spread like wildfire," he said. This allows for people with bad intentions and "armies of bots" to game the system to spread misinformation for financial or political gain.

Berners-Lee said that the Web Foundation, the organisation he founded in 2009 dedicated to improvement and availability of the web, is working on these issues as part of a five-year strategy.

"It has taken all of us to build the web we have, and now it is up to all of us to build the web we want - for everyone."

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Tim Berners-Lee calls for tighter regulation of online political advertising

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Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the worldwide web, has called for tighter regulation of online political advertising, which he says is being used in "unethical ways". "We urgently need to close the 'internet blind spot' in the regulation of political campaigning," he said, writing in an open letter marking the 28th anniversary of his invention.

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Facebook is finally starting to act on fake news, announcing today a number of features it's testing to combat the spread of misinformation.

The social network is beginning by going after "the worst of the worst," posts that are blatantly false and generated for spammers' own gain, writes Adam Mosseri, the vice president who oversees Facebook's News Feed, in a blog post (opens in new tab).

Perhaps the most significant feature it's trialing is tapping into third-party fact checkers to analyze the veracity of an article. Facebook will send suspicious stories to a fact-checking partner organization, among them Snopes, PolitiFact and ABC News, reports The New York Times (opens in new tab). If the org decides it's playing loose with facts, the post will be flagged as disputed. A link to an article explaining why the post is under scrutiny will also be included.

Though users can still share disputed stories, these may be pushed down lower in the News Feed. Even more in your face - a warning will pop up when users go to share the story. Flagged stories will also be banned from being promoted and turned into ads, Mosseri says.

Facebook is also turning to users, testing a way for the community to flag a post they believe is a hoax. After clicking the upper right hand corner of a post, some users will see the option to select "It's a fake news story" as the reason they're singling it out for attention.

And the steps don't stop there. Facebook is looking into incorporating signals that a story is fake into how it ranks articles, such as people not sharing an article after they've read it, usually an indication they found it misleading.

Finally, Facebook is going to hit spammers where it hurts: their wallets. Because hoaxers make money when they pose as legit news organizations and direct users to their ad-filled sites, Facebook is getting rid of the ability to spoof domains. It will also look at publisher sites to see where policy enforcement may be needed.

Even though these features are part of a small test for now, it's a change of course for Facebook, which has been accused of sticking its head in the sand when it comes to its role as a source (and often, the source) of information. While it doesn't want to become the arbiter of truth, as Mosseri writes, Facebook is at least recognizing that, with over a billion people on its service, it has to take fake news more seriously.

Depending on what it learns from these trials, Facebook will release the fake news-fighting features more widely.

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Facebook is testing ways to combat fake news

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Facebook is finally starting to act on fake news, announcing today a number of features it's testing to combat the spread of misinformation. The social network is beginning by going after "the worst of the worst," posts that are blatantly false and generated for spammers' own gain, writes Adam Mosseri, the vice president who oversees Facebook's News Feed, in a blog post (opens in new tab).

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Half the Web Is Now Encrypted. That Makes Everyone Safer | WIRED

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Half the Web Is Now Encrypted. That Makes Everyone Safer | WIRED

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Computer security news is usually pretty dismal, from malware crippling the web to ransomware taking down hospitals. But the web is getting safer in an important way.

Today the average volume of encrypted internet traffic finally surpassed the average volume of unencrypted traffic, according to Mozilla, the company behind the popular Firefox web browser. That means when you visit a website, you're now more likely than not to see a little green lock right next to its address. That little lock indicates that the page you visited came to you via HTTPS, the web's secure protocol, rather than plain old HTTP. Mozilla's estimate represents a two-week running average, so the figure could still slide around over the next few days. But this milestone is a still a big deal.

"The significance of this tipping point really can't be overstated," says Ross Schulman, co-director of the New America Foundation's cybersecurity initiative.

Not that you're free from prying eyes entirely: HTTPS doesn't hide the fact that you're visiting a particular website. But it does mean everyone, including internet service providers and the government, will have a harder time seeing what information you're reading or posting to the web. And it can help ensure that when you visit a website, you're seeing what its authors intended. Without encryption, it's all too easy for, say, a repressive government or a malicious hacker to replace Wikipedia entries or other webpages with their own content, or to trick you into downloading malware.

"Billions of users will start to regularly experience a web that is more encrypted than not," says Josh Aas, the co-founder of Let's Encrypt, an organization that's helping millions of sites add HTTPS to their sites for free. "Expectations for security will continue to rise, and as a result we expect to see sites move to HTTPS even faster than they have been."

Web encryption has been around for years. The original HTTPS protocol was released in 1995. Dubbed Secure Socket Layer, or SSL for short, it enabled companies to handle credit card transactions online by protecting your payment details and helping to prove that the merchants you visited were who they said they were. But it's taken years for SSL's successor, Transport Layer Security (TLS), to become widely used outside of credit card payments.

In part, that's because for many years most website owners didn't see the benefit of encrypting everything. But as the ease of stealing unencrypted passwords and delivering altered websites became apparent, wider use of encryption became a priority.

Over the years big sites like Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, the New York Times, and, yes, WIRED, have switched to HTTPS. Google even announced in late 2015 that its search engine would favor sites that use HTTPS over those that don't.

The problem was that it was still fairly hard for smaller sites to use HTTPS. TLS certificates cost money and required more technical know-how to install. But that's starting to change. Let's Encrypt takes care of the financial part by making all certificates free, thanks to corporate and nonprofit donations. Thanks to Let's Encrypt, web hosting services like WordPress.com and Squarespace started offering HTTPS to all of their users for free without much demanding any technical expertise on the part of users. Cloud companies like Amazon and CloudFlare also launched free encryption certificate programs for their users as well, contributing to the snowballing number of sites that led to today's milestone.

"After taking 20 years to get to 40 percent encrypted page loads, it's incredible that the web jumped to 50 percent in just one year," Aas says.

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Half the Web Is Now Encrypted. That Makes Everyone Safer

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Computer security news is usually pretty dismal, from malware crippling the web to ransomware taking down hospitals. But the web is getting safer in an important way. Today the average volume of encrypted internet traffic finally surpassed the average volume of unencrypted traffic, according to Mozilla, the company behind the popular Firefox web browser.

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Beyond voice control: the future of the ‘zero UI’

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Welcome to the hands-free, face-first future of computing

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Amazon Echo provides evidence in a Murder trial?

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Amazon Echo provides evidence in a Murder trial?

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Mobile phones, computer webcams and now, digital assistants also can be co-opted for nefarious purposes. These are not potential listening devices. They are listening devices---that's why they exist. And if a hotel-room phone can be rigged as a listening device for other than its original purposes, why not something built to listen all the time?

Let's look at a few scenarios. These are more or less specific to Amazon's technology and policies, but variants could apply to Google Home or other digital assistants.

Say you're meeting with your attorney, confess you've had an affair with a woman named Alexa, and happen to say the trigger phrase (after all, more than 100,000 people born in the past 25 years were given that name). Who has access to that recording? Or what if, in a meeting, someone triggers the device to record the conversation without your permission? This would be legal, if unethical, in so-called one-party consent states (California requires permission from both parties before recording).

This brings up a more basic question: Do you have to give informed consent to be recorded each time you enter my Alexa-outfitted home? Do I have to actively request your permission? And who, at Amazon or beyond, gets to see what tendencies are revealed by your Alexa commands? Amazon claims you can permanently delete the voice recordings, though wiping them degrades performance. Even if you're smart enough to clear your browser history, are you smart enough to clear this, too? And what about the transcripts?

Another question: How do you know when your digital assistant is recording what you say? Amazon provides several ways to activate the recording beyond the "wake" word. A light on the Echo turns blue to indicate audio is streaming to the cloud. After the request is processed, the audio feed is supposed to close. You can also set the device to play a sound when it stops streaming your audio, but what happens if the device is hacked or modified to keep recording?

There are endless scenarios where digital assistants could be problematic. Current law, as always with fast-emerging technologies, will struggle to catch up. Amazon's contentions in the Arkansas criminal case, overall, offer a good start for setting some legal standards.

And of course these issues apply beyond Amazon and Alexa. In fact, they may be more problematic with Google Home and other competitors. Among other things, Google Home has access to your private calendar---it knows the events that you feel were important enough to flag for a particular day.

Google's privacy policies and other online materials about Home don't directly address voice-recorded issues. But its policies do say, "Google will share your information with companies, organizations, and individuals outside of Google if Google has a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation, or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to meet applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable government request." In short, it appears that Google doesn't ask for your permission to share your voice recordings.

And yes, you can delete your search history in Google Home, but like Amazon, the company says doing so "will limit the personalized experience for features like the Google Assistant."

Millions of people are putting digital assistants in their lives with no clue about the potential havoc this Trojan horse could bring. Based on what Amazon and Google say about their devices, everyone needs to recognize the unresolved legal issues involving this new technology. Beware of who, or what, is listening.

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A Murder Case Tests Alexa's Devotion to Your Privacy

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Mobile phones, computer webcams and now, digital assistants also can be co-opted for nefarious purposes. These are not potential listening devices. They are listening devices---that's why they exist. And if a hotel-room phone can be rigged as a listening device for other than its original purposes, why not something built to listen all the time?

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Lester Packingham Jr. registered as a sex offender in 2002 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl when he was 21. But that offense isn't what brought Packingham to the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday.

The crime this time around? A Facebook post.

The post itself was benign enough. In 2010, Packingham took to Facebook to celebrate a recently dismissed parking ticket. "Praise be to GOD, WOW!" he wrote. But in posting that message---indeed, in using Facebook at all---Packingham was breaking a 2008 North Carolina law that prohibits registered sex offenders from accessing websites that enable people to exchange information where minors can participate. Facebook is one of those sites.

Packingham fought back against the conviction, arguing that cutting people off from platforms like Facebook amounts to a violation of his First Amendment rights. In taking the case, the Supreme Court could ultimately determine whether sites like Facebook, Youtube, and others banned by the North Carolina law have become so instrumental to 21st century life that Americans now have a fundamental right to use them.

"That's of importance to anyone who uses the internet and digital products and services," says Neil Richards, a Washington University law professor who specializes in privacy and First Amendment theory.

In arguments Monday, Packingham's lawyer, David Goldberg, argued the law "forbids speech on the very platforms on which Americans today are most likely to communicate, to organize for social change, and to petition their government"-that is, rights which clearly fall under the First Amendment.

But the government has demonstrated it has the right to restrict people's use of technology as punishment before. Courts regularly ban hackers from using the internet. That's why the real issue at hand is that the North Carolina law isn't "narrowly tailored," Goldberg argued. The punishment doesn't fit the crime, because the law impacts broad swaths of people, some of whom have never contacted minors over the internet and others who committed their crimes long before Facebook even existed.

This law, Goldberg said, is "most likely to find the people who are doing nothing wrong." Like crowing about beating a parking ticket.

The state's case, meanwhile, hinges on the idea that preventing sex offenders from visiting virtual places is no different from prohibiting them from visiting a playground or a schoolyard. The state's attorney, Robert Montgomery, argued that banning this population from these sites is the only enforceable option, because monitoring each person's individual use of those sites would be impossible.

But social media sites are so many different things to so many different people. Platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are news sites, messaging platforms, government outreach portals, and job sites all rolled into one. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it, "very few of them are purely anything anymore."

Justice Elena Kagan took particular issue with the idea that this law would prevent someone like Packingham from accessing President Trump's Twitter feed, a key communication channel between the president and the public. "This has become a crucial---crucially important channel of political communication," Kagan said.

Montgomery maintained that there are alternative channels on which sex offenders can get their information, like news websites and elected officials' own websites. But the only justice who seemed to agree was Samuel Alito. "I know there are people who think life is not possible without Twitter and Facebook and these things and that 2003 was the Dark Ages," he said, "but I don't know that there are any channels of communication that were available at that time that have been taken away."

Despite Alito's limited reservations, court watchers already predict Packingham will win in a landslide. "This court has been more protective of the First Amendment than probably any court in history," says Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, which co-authored a friend of the court brief with the American Civil Liberties Union opposing the law. Shapiro cites the 2011 Snyder v. Phelps case, which protected the Westboro Baptist Church's right to protest a veteran's funeral, as evidence of the court's commitment to free speech.

The question now is whether the court will issue a broad decision that effectively makes access to Facebook and other platforms a basic right or rule narrowly, striking down the North Carolina law but not making any grand statements about, for instance, a person's right to access information.

Richards, for one, anticipates the latter. "I don't think it'll do much more than correct an error," he says. "The court doesn't want to set precedent for other cases unexpectedly without having those facts in front of it."

And yet, Richards says, the fact that the Supreme Court took this case on at all---highly unlikely given the volume of applications it receives each year---is a positive sign that the court cares about ensuring the law evolves with the times.

Technologists have argued for years that access to the web is a fundamental right. By this summer, the country may know if the Constitution is on their side.

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The Supreme Court Could Soon Decide if You Have a Right to Facebook

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Lester Packingham Jr. registered as a sex offender in 2002 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl when he was 21. But that offense isn't what brought Packingham to the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday. The crime this time around? A Facebook post.

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Lauren Laverne challenges conservative commentator Laura Perrins and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq to swap social media and news feeds for 48 hours.

Are we all living in bubbles these days? Lauren Laverne challenges conservative commentator Laura Perrins and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq to swap social media and news feeds for forty-eight hours to find out.

"If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet", Barack Obama recently advised Americans, "try talking with one of them in real life." The outgoing US President was expressing an idea that's gained growing weight with commentators and politics watchers on both sides of the Atlantic: increasingly, we all exist in 'bubbles' that shield us from ideas and truths other sections of the population hold dear. The recent US elections, and the Brexit vote, both seem to suggest that common political ground is shrinking. How much do our online lives contribute to that sense of alienation?

Eli Pariser explained in his 2011 book The Filter Bubble how social media sites and search engines use algorithms to give us more of what we like to click on, increasingly confining us in an echo chamber of our 'likes' and 'follows', and shutting out alternative views. Charles Murray's book Coming Apart featured a quiz entitled "How Thick Is Your Bubble?", designed to reveal how a subject's work, class and cultural tastes might cut them off from mainstream society.

So what can we learn about the bubbles we may live in by putting aside our own online life for a day or two, and embracing someone else's?

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BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Late Night Woman's Hour

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Lauren Laverne challenges conservative commentator Laura Perrins and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq to swap social media and news feeds for 48 hours. Are we all living in bubbles these days? Lauren Laverne challenges conservative commentator Laura Perrins and Labour MP Tulip Siddiq to swap social media and news feeds for forty-eight hours to find out.

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his week three men have been arrested in Sweden on suspicion of raping a woman in an apartment in Uppsala, about an hour north of Stockholm. It wasn't difficult for the police to find the suspects because they broadcast the alleged assault on Facebook Live. Several viewers reported the footage and police swarmed the apartment to take the men into custody.

Facebook Live allows anyone to broadcast a video directly from their smartphone to the social network. Despite a wide-reaching advertising campaign urging people to use the feature to share heartwarming life moments, it's gained a reputation for much grittier subject matter: the torture of a young man with disabilities in Chicago; the musings of a spree killer being chased by police; child abuse and now gang rape.

In each case the impulse to 'go live' was ferociously self-incriminating, providing neatly packaged pieces of evidence of crimes - or their aftermath - that may have otherwise gone unobserved and possibly unpunished. And yet, according to researchers, the practice of documenting one's crimes is on the rise. So what drives this self-defeating behaviour?

"Stupidity comes to mind. You might as well go down to the police station and commit the crime in the lobby," said Raymond Surette, professor of criminal justice at the University of Central Florida, who has studied the phenomenon.

It's not always that simple, however. Terrorists, political protesters and narcissistic criminals have long carried out crimes designed to further their agenda or demonstrate their own perceived cleverness, power or bravado. In these cases, calculated use of the media can ensure that "bragging" or "performance" crimes make maximum impact - something even Jack the Ripper, who sent letters about his murders to the police and local press in the 1880s - recognized.

"Historically there's always been crimes committed with an audience in mind, but it's been a low level background noise in the general crime picture," said Surette, citing pre-internet cases of self-immolation.

What's new is the access people have to tools, via the smartphone, that allow for the creation, publication and distribution of content at the touch of a button - through photos, tweets, status updates, videos and now live streaming. Facebook isn't the only app that allows smartphone users to broadcast in realtime, but it's the only one available to an audience of 1.79 billion users.

"Committing a crime for an audience has never been easier!" said Surette.

The allure of attention from online peers, reinforced by immediate feedback in the form of shares, likes and other "engagement" indicators, can be intoxicating.

"Social media is the new way of bragging for those who commit crimes to gain a sense of self-power or self-importance. The audience is larger now and, perhaps, more seductive to those who are committing antisocial acts to fill personal needs of self-aggrandizement," said media psychologist Pamela Rutledge.

The allure of a big audience can overcome common sense, leading to people broadcasting the very information that law enforcement can use to catch and punish them.

For some "digitally native" perpetrators, it's a logical progression in a world where the online documentation of life moments - through Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and other apps - is key aspect of communication and self-expression.

"A lot of younger people have grown up under self-surveillance. They are always on camera, taking pictures, selfies and driving towards the big umbrella of oversharing," said Surette.

Sveinung Sandberg, who has been studying why people film their crimes in his native Norway, agrees.

"There's a snapshot culture. If we come across something extraordinary it doesn't count unless we've filmed it or taken a picture. It becomes an instinct," he said.

"So then when you commit a violent crime or a rape the same instinct might strike you. You just grab for the phone and film it without thinking about the consequences."

Celebrity culture also plays a role, said Surette.

"It's better to be famous for being bad than to be unknown. Criminality has become part of our infotainment world," he said.

In the 19th and 20th century there were celebrity criminals like Billy the Kid and Al Capone. Today, you're more likely to see regular celebrities become involved in criminality - from Justin Bieber's dangerous driving, Paris Hilton's drug arrest and Lindsay Lohan's DUIs and subsequent probation violations.

"Being drawn into a criminal case used to be a career killer. Now it seems that for a lot of younger celebrities a little bit of criminality can be a good transitional device for your career," said Surette.

"It gives the message that criminality isn't all that bad. The shame has been taking out of it and there's no expectation of punishment or bad stuff happening."

"A lot of these people are shocked the police are showing up at their door."

A darker aspect of this trend is the way that the act of recording furthers the humiliation of the victim, as seemed to be the case in the Chicago torture video. Sandberg believes this has ties to a broader online culture of humiliation that includes prank videos and some genres of pornography. In his analysis of 51 criminal cases involving the use of a camera (although none of them involved live streaming), Sandberg found 17 examples where images were recorded for this purpose. Most involved sexual abuse and were not intended to be funny, but in some cases images were produced for their comic potential, in the vein of Jackass-style violent stunts (remember happy slapping?).

"You get two-fold victimization," said Surette. "The actual crime and then the humiliation and sharing."

Even if the footage isn't actually distributed online, the mere threat of it being shared can add to the victim's suffering, said Sandberg.

In most cases he looked at, the recorded images weren't widely distributed. Sandberg believes this is because the perpetrators have second thoughts after the fact.

With live streaming, however, regret comes too late. "You are living in that moment and you don't have time to rethink it," he said.

"This can be a painful lesson," added Rutledge, "as the internet is permanent and searchable."

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Why a rising number of criminals are using Facebook Live to film their acts

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his week three men have been arrested in Sweden on suspicion of raping a woman in an apartment in Uppsala, about an hour north of Stockholm. It wasn't difficult for the police to find the suspects because they broadcast the alleged assault on Facebook Live.

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If you're a Windows Phone user, there's another kick in the teeth today as the BBC has announced it's dropping support for the platform from April this year.

A specific date for when the service will stop hasn't been announced, but the BBC has no intention of offering an alternative app for the platform.

Instead it encourages you to update to Windows 10 Mobile and watch BBC content through the Edge browser.

Downloading programs to your phone won't be possible through Edge, so you'll need to just grab it on the go and stream it directly to your Windows Phone device.

No more Poldark

The BBC said in a statement, "When the BBC iPlayer app was originally created it was not technically possible to playback BBC programmes via the browser.

"As it's now possible to playback via the browser it's no longer cost effective for the BBC to maintain a BBC iPlayer app for Windows mobile devices."

Back in May last year, it was revealed Windows Phone's market share dropped below 1%. With an install base so low, most companies don't find it financially viable to create and support apps for the platform.

The BBC has never developed a BBC News app for Windows Phone, and considering Microsoft's platform is missing apps such as Snapchat, Tinder and even Gmail it's a difficult sell to get people on board.

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BBC iPlayer is dropping Windows Phone support

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If you're a Windows Phone user, there's another kick in the teeth today as the BBC has announced it's dropping support for the platform from April this year. A specific date for when the service will stop hasn't been announced, but the BBC has no intention of offering an alternative app for the platform.

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A number of interesting new features have been spotted in the WhatsApp beta for iOS and Android recently, one of which appears to be live location tracking.

It appears that the Live Location feature will display your real-time location to those you chat to in groups using WhatsApp. The feature was spotted by Twitter user WABetaInfo, (opens in new tab) although exactly where your location will be made visible isn't clear.

Naturally, a feature like this has the potential to raise concerns with regards to privacy. To address these concerns, the Live Location feature will be disabled until the user manually opts in via the app's settings menu.

Just think of all the fibs and lame excuses that could be exposed if this wasn't the case - all those people who tell you they're five minutes away when they haven't left the house yet would be rumbled.

In or out

Those who don't want to have their location constantly on display (that'll be the majority of users we imagine), but who would find the feature useful in certain scenarios, will have the option to enable the feature for a limited window of one, two or five minutes.

This isn't the only interesting feature that's been spotted in the app's Android beta. There are also reports that we could soon see the ability to edit messages we've sent, as well as recall messages you wish you hadn't sent at all.

It would only be possible to edit or recall messages that haven't been read, though, so you'll still have to live with those mid-conversation regrets - at least until WhatsApp develops a memory-wiping feature.

Although these features have been spotted in the beta it's not clear when they'll be rolled out, or whether they'll be rolled out exactly as they appear in the beta.

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WhatsApp will soon let you track your friends

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A number of interesting new features have been spotted in the WhatsApp beta for iOS and Android recently, one of which appears to be live location tracking. It appears that the Live Location feature will display your real-time location to those you chat to in groups using WhatsApp.

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If you use a pattern lock to keep your Android phone secure, you might want to consider switching to a PIN, or better yet a fingerprint scanner, as researchers have found (opens in new tab) that patterns are fairly easy to crack.

Pattern lock is currently used by around 40% of Android device owners, who prefer it to PIN codes or text passwords. But according to research from Lancaster University, Northwest University in China, and the University of Bath, attackers can reliably get into your phone in just five attempts.

In fact, they found that the more complex the pattern you use, the easier it is to crack.

Of course, this isn't pure guesswork on the part of attackers - it involves the use of video recording and computer vision algorithm software.

You're being watched...

According to the researchers, if an attacker was sitting across from you in a public place and spotted you using your phone, all they'd have to do is subtly record you unlocking your phone while pretending to use their own phone.

They'd then be able to use software on their phone that tracks finger movements relative to the position of your phone and produce a small number of possible patterns.

This might sound like an unlikely scenario, but interestingly the researchers found that the recording didn't have to have a view of your screen, or even show information about the screen size, in order to work.

In fact, this method was found to be effective from up to two and a half meters away, so this isn't a case of noticing a suspicious individual hovering over your shoulder. It would be fairly easy to achieve in a busy public place, particularly if attackers targeted those who behave like they're performing a magic trick when they unlock their phones.

According to the researchers, this kind of attack could easily be used by thieves who pre-plan their theft to get a phone's code before taking it.

Out of the 120 unique patterns collected, the researchers were able to use this method to crack 95% of them in less than five attempts.

Keep it simple

Complex patterns, which the researchers classed as those which use more lines between dots, were said to be easier to crack as they greatly helped the finger tracking algorithm narrow down the possible patterns.

Dr Zheng Wang, principle investigator and co-author of the paper, and Lecturer at Lancaster University, said: "Pattern Lock is a very popular protection method for Android Devices.

"As well as for locking their devices, people tend to use complex patterns for important financial transactions such as online banking and shopping because they believe it is a secure system.

"However, our findings suggest that using Pattern Lock to protect sensitive information could actually be very risky."

So how could you avoid falling victim to this kind of attack if you just can't let that pattern lock go? Well, according to the researchers it's as simple as making sure you completely cover your hand when you're unlocking your phone.

Of course, remembering to do that every time is easier said than done.

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Your Android phone's lock pattern can be cracked in just five attempts

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If you use a pattern lock to keep your Android phone secure, you might want to consider switching to a PIN, or better yet a fingerprint scanner, as researchers have found (opens in new tab) that patterns are fairly easy to crack.

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ews that a few dozen Wikipedia editors had decided that the Daily Mail should be "generally prohibited" from being used as a source caused consternation among many in the media. That's not least because the anarchic way in which policy is set at the "world's public library" is a million miles away from what most of the journalists and academics referenced by the site are used to.

The decision, disclosed last week, did not even involve Katherine Maher, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, and that's by design: the foundation doesn't interfere in editorial policy. Speaking from the US the following day, Maher seems relaxed about the process that led to the decision, and the possibility that it could be reversed.

"We are always looking for what characterises reliability, and the various characteristics of reliability, and what the [discussion about using the Mail] really focuses on is issues of fact-checking prior to publication and the issuing of corrections when articles are wrong," she said.

"It's my understanding that in this instance they were looking at how well the Daily Mail adheres to those standards of reliability. I presume that should circumstances change, Wikimedians would be very open to reconsidering the usage of the Daily Mail as a source they can use as widely as in the past. There's nothing to stop it being used again."

Maher took charge of the foundation last summer, after two years as its chief communications officer following a career in IT and advocacy taking in Unicef and the World Bank. Does she find it stressful being responsible for the health of the such a huge resource while also having little control of what its millions of editors put on it, or the rules they apply?

"That would only be the case if somebody stepped into the Wikimedia Foundation with some sort of expectation it controls Wikipedia,. It doesn't set editorial policy and everybody knows and accepts that. This is a community with a foundation, not a foundation with a community."

That community - more than 30m registered accounts, more than 130,000 of which have edited in the past month - has become hugely influential. But while Wikipedia has become an invaluable tool, it has also been criticised for inaccuracies both large and small. As the Mail pointed out to the Guardian in its response to the decision to prohibit its use as a source, the newspaper itself banned reliance on Wikipedia as a "sole source" in 2014.

That particular prohibition is one Maher would actually agree with, and she says Wikipedia should be a "jumping-off point", rather than a source in its own right.

"If you are going to do original research, especially if you are going to write a paper or do a piece for publication, it should go into more detail, talk to primary and secondary sources and the like. Wikipedia fills a different role."

Wikipedia fulfils that role surprisingly well, whether it's to settle a pub bet about who won the FA Cup in 1976 (Southampton) or look up the name of the Prussian general who helped Wellington beat Napoleon at Waterloo (Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher). For many, it's the only reference work we'll regularly consult, and most of the time it's right.

Much of its ongoing success is due to the behind-the-scenes work of the foundation, which is all the more impressive because of its size. While its commercial web peers such as Google, Facebook or Amazon have tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of employees, the Wikimedia Foundation's latest budget makes room for just 277.

The foundation is funded through donations, with this financial year's target set at $67m (£53m). The average donation is $15, and its December fundraising campaign hit its $25m goal in record time, though there has been criticism of the decision to keep the campaign going after it crossed the line.

About half that income goes on software engineering and new technology, and much of the rest goes on community outreach to editors, both organised by the foundation and grants to groups around the world. A big focus is building contributions to the non-English language versions.

"There are more than five million articles on English Wikipedia, but then the drop-off is significant," Maher told the Guardian during a visit to London a couple of weeks before the Mail decision. "We cover some of the major European languages really well. Russian is quite large, Japanese as well. But when you then get into some of the other languages such as Arabic, it is only 464,000 articles, for 350 million speakers. There is a clear gap, and we need to be better at engaging with those communities."

It's amazing it works in practice, because in theory it is a total disaster

Katherine Maher, ​ ​executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

Another core job for the foundation - and Maher - is political advocacy. While copyright and press freedom are important issues for Wikipedia, there is one area even more fundamental to its operation - the rules that protect web firms from full liability for what their users post.

No matter how hard Wikipedia's volunteers work, wrong and sometimes defamatory entries will inevitably appear, with editors engaged in a game of whack-a-mole to correct them. Like other web platforms, Wikipedia has some protection in law, which effectively treat it as a carrier of information rather than publisher, meaning its liability for what users post is not as strict.

That protection is integral to the way Wikipedia operates, but increasing concerns about "fake news", copyright violations and hate speech, particularly on Facebook, have led to pressure for stricter rules on legal liability. That would be a huge and costly problem for Facebook, but it could prove fatal to Wikipedia.

"When we talk about reform, regardless what position or side of the discussion you are on, rarely does that include what happens to the world's public library [Wikipedia] or what happens to the world's archive of all things digital, the internet archive," says Maher.

"We think it's critical to make sure there is space in those conversations for a voice that is not necessarily the biggest, not necessarily the loudest and not necessarily the best funded.

"We are one of the only non-commercial organisations out there that is engaged with making sure information is available and reliable online. Sometimes [in] those conversations, because of the dominance or commercial nature of the internet, there is not a perspective of a site like Wikipedia, so we want to be in some of those conversations."

That doesn't mean Maher is not in favour of improving the way platforms tackle problem content, and she thinks Wikipedia offers some pointers for the likes of Facebook. Wikipedia's transparency around editing creates accountability that she says is lacking in most other web platforms.

"One of the things with that algorithmic news feed is that you have no idea why that information is being presented to you, you don't know whether it is because it is trending, whether it is because it is popular in its network, whether it is relevant to the things you are interested in.

"That element of trust that people can make decisions, when you strip away the context and you strip away the transparency in the algorithmic feed, really goes away. That's when it becomes harder and harder for us to be able to make sense of signal from noise."

It sounds great until you realise quite how unusual the way Wikipedia operates is, which is underlined by Maher's own wonder that it operates at all. "There's this expression about Wikipedia that it's amazing it works in practice, because in theory it is a total disaster, and yet it does," she says. "And the fact that it does is a testament to the fact that there are people out there who care very passionately about doing this and getting it right."

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'Reliability is all for Wikipedia, which is why the Daily Mail was banned'

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ews that a few dozen Wikipedia editors had decided that the Daily Mail should be "generally prohibited" from being used as a source caused consternation among many in the media. That's not least because the anarchic way in which policy is set at the "world's public library" is a million miles away from what most of the journalists and academics referenced by the site are used to.

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Governments and security services across Europe have sounded public warnings about Russian interference in upcoming elections, amid mounting concern about a spate of cyber attacks on political parties and government institutions.

Officials and security officers in France, Germany, and the Netherlands have agreed to share information as they brace for "influence operations," including the leaking of hacked emails and using internet bots to spread fake or misleading news on social media, in the run up to presidential and general elections this year.

"[It is] a way not to convince people, but to confuse them, not to provide an alternative viewpoint, but to divide public opinion and to ultimately undermine our ability to understand what is going on."

That is NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu's view of Russia's state-owned foreign language news services, Sputnik and RT. .

The Crime

In the starkest warning yet, the DGSE, France's equivalent of MI6, said this week it expects Russia to intervene in the presidential election in April and May on the side of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front. The agency's director general believes Russia will use internet bots to spread fake news favourable to Ms Le Pen on social media and may leak embarrassing emails stolen from her opponents by hackers, Le Canard Enchaîné , a French weekly, reported on Wednesday.

In just the past two weeks, Denmark has publically identified Russia as a key cyber espionage threat, Norway said its Labour Party and email accounts belonging to several civil servants had been targeted by Russian hacking group, and Italy said it suspected Russia was behind a four-month malware attack against its foreign ministry last year.

Last week the Dutch government scrapped vote-counting computers and ordered March's general election to be counted by hand because of fears vote-counting software could be hacked and manipulated by foreign intelligence services. "Now that there is also international evidence that the Russians, for instance, might have an interest in the electoral process, we must, before the coming elections, fall back on good old paper," Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch home affairs minister, told RTL television.

The Motives

Many of those in what Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherlands' Party for Freedom, calls the "revolution of the Right" have openly expressed sympathy with key Russian foreign policy priorities.

Mr Wilders, Ms Le Pen, and Frauke Petry, the leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), have all called for the EU to drop sanctions imposed on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and war in eastern Ukraine. And their general Euroscepticism, like Mr Trump's view of Nato as "obsolete," fits well with Russia's longer-term goal of dismantling what it views as a hostile Cold War-era security arrangement in Europe.

The idea that the Kremlin is prepared to interfere in elections in order to help potential allies into power hit the headlines in January, when the US intelligence services said they believed Vladimir Putin had ordered a wide-ranging "influence campaign" to assist Donald Trump and embarrass Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race (the Kremlin dismissed the accusations as nonsense).

The East StratCom Task Force, which the European Union set up to monitor and respond to Russian propaganda, now believes Russia is now preparing a similar effort in Europe. Angela Merkel, who will seek a historic fourth term as chancellor of Germany at federal elections in September, has been singled out as a priority target in the coming year, the group warned earlier this month.

March's vote in the Netherlands, the French presidential elections in April and May, and polls in Norway, the Czech Republic, and Serbia, may also be targeted.

Security officials believe there are two basic elements to the Russian strategy: leaking hacked documents, such as the Democratic National Convention emails obtained by Wikileaks during the US presidential election, and creating - or seizing on and exaggerating - false or misleading news events.

The most notorious example of the latter came in January 2016, when Russia's state-owned Channel One reported that "Lisa," a 13-year old girl from a Russian-immigrant family, had been abducted and raped by "southern looking" asylum seekers in Germany. The news was not exactly fake - Lisa had indeed vanished for a night, and had initially claimed to have been raped.

But before police established neither crime had occurred (she had stayed overnight at a friend's house), protesters from Germany's Russian speaking diaspora appeared outside Mrs Merkel's office waving banners reading "our children are in danger!" and Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, accused the German government of a cover-up. The Lisa case is widely viewed the most egregious example of Kremlin propaganda to date, and nothing on the same scale has been seen before or since.

One European official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he believed it was an experiment, a "test" to see how far such tactics could be used to inflame discontent with Angela Merkel's policy on immigration.

Some observers believe a less spectacular, but no less coordinated, combination of leaks and misinformation were on display last weekend, when Russian news outlets ran a series of stories about Emmanuel Macron, the only French presidential candidate who does not advocate a rethink of Paris's position on sanctions.

Last Friday, Julian Assange told the pro-government paper Izvestia that Wikileaks had obtained material compromising to Mr Macron. On Sunday night Dmitry Kiselev, a notoriously partisan pro-Kremlin television presenter, used his weekly news roundup on national television to launch a blistering attack on Mr Macron in what he called "the Battle for France."

On Monday, Sputnik, the Russian state news agency, ran an interview with a conservative French MP who said Mr Macron works for the American banking interests, is supported by a "powerful gay lobby," and is rumoured to be in a long-running extra martial affair with another man.

Mr Macron laughed off the allegations, saying on Monday that "If you're told I lead a double life with Mr Gallet [his alleged lover] it's because my hologram has escaped."

The Countermeasures

The private and public sectors have begun to fight back.

Eight leading French media organisations, including Le Monde and AFP, last week launched a scheme with Facebook to combat fake news on social media in the run-up to the election in April.

Facebook launched a similar initiative in Germany last month.

Meanwhile, the European Union's recently launched task force is busy mapping patterns of disinformation, and how they are spread.

But so far, some experts say, these efforts have been stymied by a failure to appreciate the nature of the threat.

"We have to realize this is not a media strategy run by public relations executives," said Dr Stefan Meister, who studies Russian propaganda in Germany.

"This is a security strategy, run by security agencies," he said, "it is part of the security doctrine of the Russian Federation"

The Mistakes

Proving that is another matter, however. A year-long investigation the BND (German foreign intelligence) and BfV (German domestic intelligence) concluded last week that Russia was pursuing a "hostile strategy," but failed to establish a definite link between the Lisa case and the Russian authorities.

"We have't found a smoking gun," Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted an unnamed government source as saying. "We'd have liked to have shown them the yellow card."

The report also examined suspicions of Russian funding or other links to the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party but found no evidence.

Another case examined in the report was a claim, spread last year from a Russian Whatsapp message and heavily circulated by Russian-speaking Germans, that Arab men were planning a Valentine's Day mass rape of German women. Unlike the Lisa case, this was a complete fabrication. But the report concluded the effort was amateurish and the Kremlin was not involved.

The Witch Hunt

That has left some Western politicians feeling "Russian hacking" has become a convenient means with which to smear the Euro-sceptic right.

"I find many of the accusations about hacking and false news and everything are being presented without much clear evidence," said Thierry Baudet, a Dutch MEP and the founder of Forum voor Democratie, which campaigns for Holland to leave the European Union.

"And it seems to suit the opposition's position surprisingly well. I would be much more suspicious and demanding a factual basis for what they are saying," he told the Telegraph. Mr Baudet, who says he sees himself as an ally of Daniel Hannan, the arch Eurosceptic Tory MEP, is no stranger to accusations of pro-Russian bias.

He campaigned for a no vote in a Dutch referendum on ratifying the EU association agreement with Ukraine and has questioned the independence of the investigation into the downing of Malaysian airlines flight MH17 over east Ukraine - both positions that fit closely with Kremlin interests.

He describes his position on both issues as ""pro-Dutch" rather than "pro-Russian" and says he does not have strong opinions about Nato's current confrontation with Russia.

"What we were saying, and the Dutch people agreed with us, is that it was not in our national interests to associate ourselves with a country as corrupt as Ukraine. I don't know if that is the same as being pro-Russian," he said.

The Dutch foreign ministry admitted this week that it had not verified that the signatures gathered to trigger the referendum were genuine. Mr Baudet denied that called the legitimacy of the vote into question, saying no one had presented any evidence that the signatures had been tampered with.

Discriminating between inconvenient news and a security threat, and the dangers of legitimate concerns turning into a witch-hunt against dissenting thought, are two of the biggest problems of fighting what Russian hawks call an "information war." Perhaps worse is over-reacting.

"A couple of months ago we underestimated Russian influence in media and cyber attacks and so on - no one was looking at it and no one was thinking about it," said Dr Meister. "Now I think it is just the opposite - we are overestimating Russian ability to influence electoral behaviour. There is even a kind of a panic now," he added

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How Vladimir Putin and Russia are using cyber attacks and fake news to try to rig three major European elections this year

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Governments and security services across Europe have sounded public warnings about Russian interference in upcoming elections, amid mounting concern about a spate of cyber attacks on political parties and government institutions.

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Yahoo Says 1 Billion User Accounts Were Hacked - The New York Times

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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has posted 5,500 word missive on the social network, in which he discusses many topics - including how the company aims to tackle the promotion of terrorist activities and so-called "fake news" using AI and algorithms.

The size of the global Facebook community, with more than a billion people posting several billion messages and posts each day, has made it impossible for individuals to effectively police the network in its entirety.

"The complexity of the issues we've seen has outstripped our existing processes for governing the community," said Zuckerberg.

"We are researching systems that can read text and look at photos and videos to understand if anything dangerous may be happening."

Long term plans

However, Zuckerberg admits that these systems will take time to perfect.

"This is still very early in development, but we have started to have it look at some content, and it already generates about one third of all reports to the team that reviews content," he continued.

"Right now, we're starting to explore ways to use AI to tell the difference between news stories about terrorism and actual terrorist propaganda."

It's an approach that could help turn the tide against unreliable, "fake" news sources too, though Zuckerberg also notes that the nuances a human can discern between tasteful and trustworthy and distasteful and untrustworthy content will initially be difficult for an AI to comprehend.

"It's worth noting that major advances in AI are required to understand text, photos and videos to judge whether they contain hate speech, graphic violence, sexually explicit content, and more," he said.

"At our current pace of research, we hope to begin handling some of these cases in 2017, but others will not be possible for many years."

So, despite the long term goal, the crux of Facebook's defences will remain, for the time being at least, within community moderation.

"Where is your line on nudity? On violence? On graphic content? On profanity? What you decide will be your personal settings," Zuckerberg said.

"For those who don't make a decision, the default will be whatever the majority of people in your region selected, like a referendum."

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Forget fake news - Facebook wants to use AI to tackle terrorism

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Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has posted 5,500 word missive on the social network, in which he discusses many topics - including how the company aims to tackle the promotion of terrorist activities and so-called "fake news" using AI and algorithms. The size of the global Facebook community, with more than a billion people posting several billion messages and posts each day, has made it impossible for individuals to effectively police the network in its entirety.

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When I ask Mark Zuckerberg if the presidential election changed the way he sees Facebook---if he made poor assumptions, if Facebook functioned in ways he didn't intend---he pauses.

I've interviewed Zuckerberg before, and he tends to pause like this, gathering his thoughts in complete silence, sometimes turning to face the empty space across the room. But this dead air lasts particularly long. Five seconds. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. "I don't know," he finally says. "It's a very interesting question." Pause.

"If you continue giving people voice and work to create a diversity of ideas and common understanding and strengthen the social fabric," he says, not directly answering the question, "then over the long term we will go in the right direction regardless if you disagree on short-term things."

In other words, as Facebook monopolizes the world's attention and helps Americans construct parallel factual universes, undermining old-media business models and altering the dynamics of electoral politics, Zuckerberg isn't budging from the belief that Facebook is on the right path. As he has repeatedly said since the election, he believes his platform brings people together---despite the sea of evidence that in its stated mission to "connect the world" Facebook may be helping to tear it apart.

But in that long, painful pause, I get the sense that Zuckerberg is wrestling with Facebook's flaws. His unease also lies just below the surface of a 5,000-word treatise the company released this afternoon in which Zuckerberg expounds on his vision for Facebook's future. In the letter, he doesn't really concede the point that Facebook may be responsible for the warping of civil discourse. Instead, he reframes. For Zuckerberg, this is a decisive moment in his company's short history, the first major restatement of Facebook's mission since he published his manifesto, "The Hacker Way," before the company went public in 2012. Facebook, as his new letter re-imagines it, should function as a global "social infrastructure," the technological underpinning of a world more tightly connected in real life.

"When I started Facebook, the mission of connecting people wasn't a controversial thing. The default assumption was that the world was coming closer together," he tells me. "But for the last couple of years, it's really been much more of a question." Now, he wants the world to know he still believes that Facebook is the answer. In his letter, he vows to build a Facebook that forges new connections capable of strengthening ties in the real world. But Zuckerberg still doesn't seem to know how exactly Facebook will take a platform that has driven so many people apart and use it to pull off a great global coming together.

After spending a decade portraying Facebook as a service for connecting friends and family, Zuckerberg's grand vision is now to build technology that creates far bigger and more complex communities. "Humanity has always pushed to come together in greater numbers to accomplish better things and improve our lives individually in ways we couldn't in smaller groups," he tells me. If your News Feed now feels like a tiny town, Zuckerberg seems to want to build cities. Or at least churches.

In our conversation, he says his model for an online community might look something like Saddleback, the evangelical Southern California megachurch led by pastor Rick Warren. It's a surprising example from a man who seems steeped in the liberal pluralism of Silicon Valley. But the key for Zuckerberg is that Warren built a community in which tens of thousands of people gather under a capable leader's guidance, but also divide themselves into smaller groups by interest, affinity, and aspirations.

In Zuckerberg's new vision for Facebook, leaders in the mold of Warren will have tools to guide and shape the more complex communities they're trying to create. At the same time, the smaller groups within those communities will provide places to connect in more intimate ways, while also feeding the larger whole. "Just like becoming friends with people on Facebook can strengthen real-world relationships, there is no reason to believe that building communities on Facebook and the internet can't also strengthen real-world communities," he says.

Except that as the 2016 presidential election showed, Facebook is also incredibly effective at weakening the norms that hold real-world communities together. Zuckerberg likes to speak in sweeping visions. But when I press him on how he hopes to build a Facebook that shows everyone more than just what they want to see, he is still light on the details.

Zuckerberg says that breaking open the echo chambers into which Facebook users have sorted themselves will take more than showing people opinions that contradict their own. "The research suggests that showing one opposite opinion entrenches your belief even further," he says. "The goal is to show a more complete picture of the whole. There are things we can do that can serve different viewpoints, help you see an issue on a spectrum and then decide for yourself where you want to be."

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Mark Zuckerberg's Answer to a World Divided by Facebook Is More Facebook

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When I ask Mark Zuckerberg if the presidential election changed the way he sees Facebook---if he made poor assumptions, if Facebook functioned in ways he didn't intend---he pauses. I've interviewed Zuckerberg before, and he tends to pause like this, gathering his thoughts in complete silence, sometimes turning to face the empty space across the room.

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Internet users will find it harder to search for pirated films and music and illegally streamed live football matches under a new plan to crackdown on piracy websites.

Search engine companies Google and Bing have signed up to a voluntary code of practice aimed at preventing users from visiting disreputable content providers.

The code, the first of its kind in the UK, will accelerate the demotion of illegal sites following notices from rights holders.

It means those who search for content such as music videos, digital books and football coverage will more likely to be taken to bona fide providers rather than pirate sites, where a user's security may be at risk.

The changes are expected to be rolled out by the summer.

The Intellectual Property Office led the discussions to create the code, with the assistance of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Ofcom has supported the discussions by examining in detail the way that search results are presented to internet users, and the group has explored possible techniques and metrics that can help drive UK consumers away from illegitimate content.

Organisers say this agreement will run in parallel with existing anti-piracy measures aimed at reducing online infringement.

These include court ordered site blocking, work with brands to reduce advertising on illegal sites and the Get it Right From A Genuine Site consumer education campaign, which encourages fans to value the creative process and directs them to legal sources of content.

Eddy Leviten, director general at the Alliance for Intellectual Property, said: "Sometimes people will search for something and they will end up unwittingly being taken to a pirated piece of content.

"What we want to ensure is that the results at the top of the search engines are the genuine ones.

"It is about protecting people who use the internet, but also protecting the creators of that material too."

Stan McCoy, of the Motion Picture Association in Europe, said: "Pirate websites are currently much too easy to find via search, so we appreciate the parties' willingness to try to improve that situation.

"We look forward to working on this initiative alongside many other approaches to fighting online piracy, such as the Get it Right campaign that aims to help educate consumers about the many ways to enjoy film and television content legally and at the time of their choosing."

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, representative body for UK record labels, and the Brit Awards, said:"BPI has long campaigned for search engines to do more to ensure fans are directed to legal sources for music or other entertainment.

"There is much work still to do to achieve this.

"The code will not be a silver bullet fix, but it will mean that illegal sites are demoted more quickly from search results and that fans searching for music are more likely to find a fair site."

UK Music chief executive Jo Dipple said: "This is the culmination of years of discussions between rights-holders and search engines.

"UK Music welcomes any progress that makes our digital markets more efficient."

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Google and Bing to deprecate piracy websites

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Internet users will find it harder to search for pirated films and music and illegally streamed live football matches under a new plan to crackdown on piracy websites. Search engine companies Google and Bing have signed up to a voluntary code of practice aimed at preventing users from visiting disreputable content providers.

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Facebook has announced (opens in new tab) that it's extending its Safety Check feature to allow users to seek and offer help in times of emergency as well as notify friends and family that they're safe.

Called Community Help, the new feature will let users offer things like food, shelter and transportation after a crisis and provide those seeking such things a means of finding access to them.

The feature will activate whenever Safety Check is triggered in a particular area whether as the result of a natural disaster or an accidental emergency such as a building fire.

Helping hand

To use Community Help a user will simply have to access Safety Check when it appears, after which they'll be able to make a post seeking or offering help. Those seeking help will then be able to organize posts by category and location and directly message anyone offering what they need.

Just like Safety Check, this is an idea that's been inspired by and grown from trends Facebook has picked up on in its own user base.

Having noticed that in times of disaster people tended to offer help to others in their community via Facebook posts and Groups, Facebook has now formalized a way to do so, saying "we knew we could do more."

Despite good intentions, Facebook's Safety Check hasn't had the smoothest run and Katherine Woo has explained the challenges of implementing the feature.

At launch, Community Help will be available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia, with Facebook saying it'll be rolled out to more countries at a later date.

You can see a video detailing Community Help below:

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Facebook extends Safety Check so that you can help others in an emergency

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Facebook has announced (opens in new tab) that it's extending its Safety Check feature to allow users to seek and offer help in times of emergency as well as notify friends and family that they're safe.

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Wikipedia editors have voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website in all but exceptional circumstances after deeming the news group "generally unreliable".

The move is highly unusual for the online encyclopaedia, which rarely puts in place a blanket ban on publications and which still allows links to sources such as Kremlin backed news organisation Russia Today, and Fox News, both of which have raised concern among editors.

The editors described the arguments for a ban as "centred on the Daily Mail's reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication".

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia but does not control its editing processes, said in a statement that volunteer editors on English Wikipedia had discussed the reliability of the Mail since at least early 2015.

It said: "Based on the requests for comments section [on the reliable sources noticeboard], volunteer editors on English Wikipedia have come to a consensus that the Daily Mail is 'generally unreliable and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist'.

London offices of the Mail titles. The Wikimedia Foundation urged Wikipedia editors to use media outlets 'with caution'. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty

"This means that the Daily Mail will generally not be referenced as a 'reliable source' on English Wikipedia, and volunteer editors are encouraged to change existing citations to the Daily Mail to another source deemed reliable by the community. This is consistent with how Wikipedia editors evaluate and use media outlets in general - with common sense and caution."

The proposal was made by an editor known as Hillbillyholiday early in January, and fellow editors had weighed in with arguments for and against the ban over the past month. Those who opposed the move said the Daily Mail was sometimes reliable, that historically its record may have been better, and that there were other publications that were also unreliable.

Some of those who opposed the ban also pointed to inaccurate stories in other respected publications, and suggested the proposed ban was driven by a dislike of the publication.

Of the more than 90 editors who contributed to the discussion, 58 expressed support for the ban, however the final decision was taken by editors designated as "closers", who are authorised to enact consensus decisions.

Summarising the discussion, a Wikipedia editor wrote: "Consensus has determined that the Daily Mail (including its online version dailymail.co.uk) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles. An edit filter should be put in place, going forward to warn editors attempting to use the Daily Mail as a reference."

The move is likely to stop short of prohibiting linking to the Daily Mail, as there will be instances, such as when a Wikipedia entry is about the newspaper or one of its writers, when the editors believe a link is necessary. Instead a system for flagging any uses of the newspaper as a source will be introduced, asking editors not to use it and find alternatives.

The editors have also asked for volunteers to review about 12,000 links to the Daily Mail already on Wikipedia and replace them with alternative sources wherever possible.

The decision by Wikipedia comes amid widespread debate over the rise of fake news, which has widened to include concerns about misleading information in traditional publications. A recent BuzzFeed analysis claimed that there was "little appetite" for completely fabricated "fake news" in the UK because the country already had a highly partisan press.

Wikipedia was set up in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become one of the most popular websites in the world. It allows anyone to make edits, sometimes leading to instances of false entries and vandalism of pages, but is policed by thousands of people who regular weed out deliberate and accidental errors.

The site's rules on reliable sources state: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published, sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered ... If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."

A spokesman for Mail Newspapers said that only a tiny portion of the site's millions of anonymous editors had been involved in the decision, adding: "It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry at this move by Wikipedia. For the record the Daily Mail banned all its journalists from using Wikipedia as a sole source in 2014 because of its unreliability.

"Last year, the Daily Mail and MailOnline together published more than half a million stories and yet received just two upheld adjudications each for inaccuracy from the UK industry's regulator IPSO.

"All those people who believe in freedom of expression should be profoundly concerned at this cynical politically motivated attempt to stifle the free press."

This article was updated on 9 February to include the Mail Newspapers' response

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Wikipedia bans Daily Mail as 'unreliable' source

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Wikipedia editors have voted to ban the Daily Mail as a source for the website in all but exceptional circumstances after deeming the news group "generally unreliable". The move is highly unusual for the online encyclopaedia, which rarely puts in place a blanket ban on publications and which still allows links to sources such as Kremlin backed news organisation Russia Today, and Fox News, both of which have raised concern among editors.

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It looks like Google is about to cull a whole heap of apps that don't meet the terms of its User Data Policy (opens in new tab), with notices being sent out to app developers around the globe.

In particular, the message has been sent to developers whose apps request "sensitive permissions (e.g. camera, microphone, account, contacts, or phone)" (opens in new tab)but don't have a valid privacy policy. The notice asks that a link to such a policy be provided in the Store Listing page as well as in the app itself, or alternatively, that the app-maker remove these sensitive permissions from the app altogether.

The best Chromebook runs a plethora of Google Play apps

Developers have been given until March 15 to comply with this request, at which point Google will either limit visibility of offending apps, or remove them altogether.

Presumably, this would mean a mammoth mop-up of millions of dead apps - many of which haven't seen any sign of development in years - that will hopefully lead to a cleaner and less-cluttered marketplace, maybe even rivalling the tidiness of Apple's App Store.

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Google is planning to remove millions of apps from the Play Store

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It looks like Google is about to cull a whole heap of apps that don't meet the terms of its User Data Policy (opens in new tab), with notices being sent out to app developers around the globe. In particular, the message has been sent to developers whose apps request "sensitive permissions (e.g.

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When I started this blog in 2006, Twitter was three months old and Facebook was on the verge of providing public access. Google was up and running, turning a profit, and just beginning to destroy the business model of newspapers.

Since then, the disruption to traditional media has accelerated. While lamenting the loss of newsprint, I envisioned a world where journalism would thrive despite its passing.

Thus far, it hasn't worked out that way. I know journalism's future is online and the digital deniers are fooling themselves if they think mass-market newspapers will survive. But we need to beware of losing what we have.

I think print in future will largely serve a niche market (a reality already for magazines). An educated, affluent elite will most likely be prepared to pay for the pleasure of getting ink on their hands.

What is worrying is whether anyone can find a business model to support independent, trustworthy, quality journalism on a large enough scale to stage a daily national conversation.

Equally problematic is the growing use of social media to access news. Aside from questions about the "echo chamber" or "filter bubble" effect, will it improve the spread of news and information?

By chance, as I was preparing to write this final blog piece, I heard from a colleague at City, University of London, Neil Thurman.

He has just published a study, Newspaper consumption in the mobile age, which shows that 89% of newspaper reading is still in newsprint, with just 7% via mobile devices and 4% on PCs.

The study by Dr Thurman (also of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich) relies on data from the UK National Readership Survey (NRS) for print and from comScore for online.

It is the first research to comprehensively account for the time spent reading newspapers via mobile devices.

Although online editions have doubled or tripled the number of readers that national newspapers reach, Thurman argues that this increased exposure disguises huge differences in attention paid by print and online readers.

He said: "My research shows that while print newspapers are read for an average of 40 minutes per day, online visitors to the websites and apps of those same newspapers spend an average of just 30 seconds per day.

"Scale those numbers up and you can see why newspapers still rely on print for the vast majority of the attention they receive."

Fascinatingly, the data almost exactly mirrors the split in newspapers' print/digital revenues (88% to 12%) as reported in last month's NMA/Deloitte report. As Thurman notes: "It looks like revenues closely match audience attention."

His study covered 11 UK national newspaper brands, using a full year's worth of data (from April 2015 to March 2016).

As well as shedding new light on newspapers' multi-platform performance, the research is the first to follow Ofcom's recommendation that market share be "calculated from time-spent".

Dr Thurman added: "My calculations show the UK national newspaper market is more concentrated than is commonly believed, with one title having close to a 30% market share."

Full disclosure: I teach at City, University of London
*An earlier version of this article referred wrongly to an earlier study Topics

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Would you believe it? Print remains a favourite with readers

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When I started this blog in 2006, Twitter was three months old and Facebook was on the verge of providing public access. Google was up and running, turning a profit, and just beginning to destroy the business model of newspapers. Since then, the disruption to traditional media has accelerated.

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Ads for Google products topped Google search results 91 percent of the time - Recode

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Ads for Google products topped Google search results 91 percent of the time - Recode

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n 1971, Intel, then an obscure firm in what would only later come to be known as Silicon Valley, released a chip called the 4004. It was the world's first commercially available microprocessor, which meant it sported all the electronic circuits necessary for advanced number-crunching in a single, tiny package. It was a marvel of its time, built from 2,300 tiny transistors, each around 10,000 nanometres (or billionths of a metre) across - about the size of a red blood cell. A transistor is an electronic switch that, by flipping between "on" and "off", provides a physical representation of the 1s and 0s that are the fundamental particles of information.

In 2015 Intel, by then the world's leading chipmaker, with revenues of more than $55bn that year, released its Skylake chips. The firm no longer publishes exact numbers, but the best guess is that they have about 1.5bn-2 bn transistors apiece. Spaced 14 nanometres apart, each is so tiny as to be literally invisible, for they are more than an order of magnitude smaller than the wavelengths of light that humans use to see.

Everyone knows that modern computers are better than old ones. But it is hard to convey just how much better, for no other consumer technology has improved at anything approaching a similar pace. The standard analogy is with cars: if the car from 1971 had improved at the same rate as computer chips, then by 2015 new models would have had top speeds of about 420 million miles per hour. That is roughly two-thirds the speed of light, or fast enough to drive round the world in less than a fifth of a second. If that is still too slow, then before the end of 2017 models that can go twice as fast again will begin arriving in showrooms.

This blistering progress is a consequence of an observation first made in 1965 by one of Intel's founders, Gordon Moore. Moore noted that the number of components that could be crammed onto an integrated circuit was doubling every year. Later amended to every two years, "Moore's law" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy that sets the pace for the entire computing industry. Each year, firms such as Intel and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company spend billions of dollars figuring out how to keep shrinking the components that go into computer chips. Along the way, Moore's law has helped to build a world in which chips are built in to everything from kettles to cars (which can, increasingly, drive themselves), where millions of people relax in virtual worlds, financial markets are played by algorithms and pundits worry that artificial intelligence will soon take all the jobs.

But it is also a force that is nearly spent. Shrinking a chip's components gets harder each time you do it, and with modern transistors having features measured in mere dozens of atoms, engineers are simply running out of room. There have been roughly 22 ticks of Moore's law since the launch of the 4004 in 1971 through to mid-2016. For the law to hold until 2050 means there will have to be 17 more, in which case those engineers would have to figure out how to build computers from components smaller than an atom of hydrogen, the smallest element there is. That, as far as anyone knows, is impossible.

Yet business will kill Moore's law before physics does, for the benefits of shrinking transistors are not what they used to be. Moore's law was given teeth by a related phenomenon called " Dennard scaling " (named for Robert Dennard, an IBM engineer who first formalised the idea in 1974), which states that shrinking a chip's components makes that chip faster, less power-hungry and cheaper to produce. Chips with smaller components, in other words, are better chips, which is why the computing industry has been able to persuade consumers to shell out for the latest models every few years. But the old magic is fading.

Shrinking chips no longer makes them faster or more efficient in the way that it used to. At the same time, the rising cost of the ultra-sophisticated equipment needed to make the chips is eroding the financial gains. Moore's second law, more light-hearted than his first, states that the cost of a "foundry", as such factories are called, doubles every four years. A modern one leaves little change from $10bn. Even for Intel, that is a lot of money.

The result is a consensus among Silicon Valley's experts that Moore's law is near its end. "From an economic standpoint, Moore's law is dead," says Linley Gwennap, who runs a Silicon Valley analysis firm. Dario Gil, IBM's head of research and development, is similarly frank: "I would say categorically that the future of computing cannot just be Moore's law any more." Bob Colwell, a former chip designer at Intel, thinks the industry may be able to get down to chips whose components are just five nanometres apart by the early 2020s - "but you'll struggle to persuade me that they'll get much further than that".

One of the most powerful technological forces of the past 50 years, in other words, will soon have run its course. The assumption that computers will carry on getting better and cheaper at breakneck speed is baked into people's ideas about the future. It underlies many technological forecasts, from self-driving cars to better artificial intelligence and ever more compelling consumer gadgetry. There are other ways of making computers better besides shrinking their components. The end of Moore's law does not mean that the computer revolution will stall. But it does mean that the coming decades will look very different from the preceding ones, for none of the alternatives is as reliable, or as repeatable, as the great shrinkage of the past half-century.

A smartphone that packs more computing power than was available to nations in 1971 can last a day on one battery charge

Moore's law has made computers smaller, transforming them from room-filling behemoths to svelte, pocket-filling slabs. It has also made them more frugal: a smartphone that packs more computing power than was available to entire nations in 1971 can last a day or more on a single battery charge. But its most famous effect has been to make computers faster. By 2050, when Moore's law will be ancient history, engineers will have to make use of a string of other tricks if they are to keep computers getting faster.

There are some easy wins. One is better programming. The breakneck pace of Moore's law has in the past left software firms with little time to streamline their products. The fact that their customers would be buying faster machines every few years weakened the incentive even further: the easiest way to speed up sluggish code might simply be to wait a year or two for hardware to catch up. As Moore's law winds down, the famously short product cycles of the computing industry may start to lengthen, giving programmers more time to polish their work.

Another is to design chips that trade general mathematical prowess for more specialised hardware. Modern chips are starting to feature specialised circuits designed to speed up common tasks, such as decompressing a film, performing the complex calculations required for encryption or drawing the complicated 3D graphics used in video games. As computers spread into all sorts of other products, such specialised silicon will be very useful. Self-driving cars, for instance, will increasingly make use of machine vision, in which computers learn to interpret images from the real world, classifying objects and extracting information, which is a computationally demanding task. Specialised circuitry will provide a significant boost.

IBM reckons 3D chips could allow designers to shrink a supercomputer that now fills a building to something the size of a shoebox. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

However, for computing to continue to improve at the rate to which everyone has become accustomed, something more radical will be needed. One idea is to try to keep Moore's law going by moving it into the third dimension. Modern chips are essentially flat, but researchers are toying with chips that stack their components on top of each other. Even if the footprint of such chips stops shrinking, building up would allow their designers to keep cramming in more components, just as tower blocks can house more people in a given area than low-rise houses.

The first such devices are already coming to market: Samsung, a big South Korean microelectronics firm, sells hard drives whose memory chips are stacked in several layers. The technology holds huge promise.

Modern computers mount their memory several centimetres from their processors. At silicon speeds a centimetre is a long way, meaning significant delays whenever new data need to be fetched. A 3D chip could eliminate that bottleneck by sandwiching layers of processing logic between layers of memory. IBM reckons that 3D chips could allow designers to shrink a supercomputer that currently fills a building to something the size of a shoebox.

But making it work will require some fundamental design changes. Modern chips already run hot, requiring beefy heatsinks and fans to keep them cool. A 3D chip would be even worse, for the surface area available to remove heat would grow much more slowly than the volume that generates it. For the same reason, there are problems with getting enough electricity and data into such a chip to keep it powered and fed with numbers to crunch. IBM's shoebox supercomputer would therefore require liquid cooling. Microscopic channels would be drilled into each chip, allowing cooling liquid to flow through. At the same time, the firm believes that the coolant can double as a power source. The idea is to use it as the electrolyte in a flow battery, in which electrolyte flows past fixed electrodes.

There are more exotic ideas, too. Quantum computing proposes to use the counterintuitive rules of quantum mechanics to build machines that can solve certain types of mathematical problem far more quickly than any conventional computer, no matter how fast or high-tech (for many other problems, though, a quantum machine would offer no advantage). Their most famous application is cracking some cryptographic codes, but their most important use may be accurately simulating the quantum subtleties of chemistry, a problem that has thousands of uses in manufacturing and industry but that conventional machines find almost completely intractable.

A decade ago, quantum computing was confined to speculative research within universities. These days several big firms - including Microsoft, IBM and Google - are pouring money into the technology all of which forecast that quantum chips should be available within the next decade or two (indeed, anyone who is interested can already play with one of IBM's quantum chips remotely, programming it via the internet).

A Canadian firm called D-Wave already sells a limited quantum computer, which can perform just one mathematical function, though it is not yet clear whether that specific machine is really faster than a non-quantum model.

Like 3D chips, quantum computers need specialised care and feeding. For a quantum computer to work, its internals must be sealed off from the outside world. Quantum computers must be chilled with liquid helium to within a hair's breadth of absolute zero, and protected by sophisticated shielding, for even the smallest pulse of heat or stray electromagnetic wave could ruin the delicate quantum states that such machines rely on.

Each of these prospective improvements, though, is limited: either the gains are a one-off, or they apply only to certain sorts of calculations. The great strength of Moore's law was that it improved everything, every couple of years, with metronomic regularity. Progress in the future will be bittier, more unpredictable and more erratic. And, unlike the glory days, it is not clear how well any of this translates to consumer products. Few people would want a cryogenically cooled quantum PC or smartphone, after all. Ditto liquid cooling, which is heavy, messy and complicated. Even building specialised logic for a given task is worthwhile only if it will be regularly used.

But all three technologies will work well in data centres, where they will help to power another big trend of the next few decades. Traditionally, a computer has been a box on your desk or in your pocket. In the future the increasingly ubiquitous connectivity provided by the internet and the mobile-phone network will allow a great deal of computing power to be hidden away in data centres, with customers making use of it as and when they need it. In other words, computing will become a utility that is tapped on demand, like electricity or water today.

The ability to remove the hardware that does the computational heavy lifting from the hunk of plastic with which users actually interact - known as "cloud computing" - will be one of the most important ways for the industry to blunt the impact of the demise of Moore's law. Unlike a smartphone or a PC, which can only grow so large, data centres can be made more powerful simply by building them bigger. As the world's demand for computing continues to expand, an increasing proportion of it will take place in shadowy warehouses hundreds of miles from the users who are being served.

Google's data centre in Dalles, Oregon. 'As the world's demand for computing continues to expand, an increasing proportion of it will take place in shadowy warehouses hundreds of miles from the users who are being served.' Photograph: Uncredited/AP

This is already beginning to happen. Take an app such as Siri, Apple's voice-powered personal assistant. Decoding human speech and working out the intent behind an instruction such as "Siri, find me some Indian restaurants nearby" requires more computing power than an iPhone has available. Instead, the phone simply records its user's voice and forwards the information to a beefier computer in one of Apple's data centres. Once that remote computer has figured out an appropriate response, it sends the information back to the iPhone.

The same model can be applied to much more than just smartphones. Chips have already made their way into things not normally thought of as computers, from cars to medical implants to televisions and kettles, and the process is accelerating. Dubbed the " internet of things " (IoT), the idea is to embed computing into almost every conceivable object.

Smart clothes will use a home network to tell a washing machine what settings to use; smart paving slabs will monitor pedestrian traffic in cities and give governments forensically detailed maps of air pollution.

Once again, a glimpse of that future is visible already: engineers at firms such as Rolls-Royce can even now monitor dozens of performance indicators for individual jet engines in flight, for instance. Smart home hubs, which allow their owners to control everything from lighting to their kitchen appliances with a smartphone, have been popular among early adopters.

But for the IoT to reach its full potential will require some way to make sense of the torrents of data that billions of embedded chips will throw off. The IoT chips themselves will not be up to the task: the chip embedded in a smart paving slab, for instance, will have to be as cheap as possible, and very frugal with its power: since connecting individual paving stones to the electricity network is impractical, such chips will have to scavenge energy from heat, footfalls or even ambient electromagnetic radiation.

As Moore's law runs into the sand, then, the definition of "better" will change. Besides the avenues outlined above, many other possible paths look promising. Much effort is going into improving the energy efficiency of computers, for instance. This matters for several reasons: consumers want their smartphones to have longer battery life; the IoT will require computers to be deployed in places where mains power is not available; and the sheer amount of computing going on is already consuming something like 2% of the world's electricity generation.

User interfaces are another area ripe for improvement, for today's technology is ancient. Keyboards are a direct descendant of mechanical typewriters. The mouse was first demonstrated in 1968, as were the "graphical user interfaces", such as Windows or iOS, which have replaced the arcane text symbols of early computers with friendly icons and windows. Cern, Europe's particle-physics laboratory, pioneered touchscreens in the 1970s.

The computer mouse was first demonstrated in 1968. Photograph: Getty Images

Siri may leave your phone and become omnipresent: artificial intelligence will (and cloud computing could) allow virtually any machine, no matter how individually feeble, to be controlled simply by talking to it. Samsung already makes a voice-controlled television.

Technologies such as gesture tracking and gaze tracking, currently being pioneered for virtual-reality video games, may also prove useful. Augmented reality (AR), a close cousin of virtual reality that involves laying computer-generated information over the top of the real world, will begin to blend the virtual and the real. Google may have sent its Glass AR headset back to the drawing board, but something very like it will probably find a use one day. And the firm is working on electronic contact lenses that could perform similar functions while being much less intrusive.

Moore's law cannot go on for ever. But as it fades, it will fade in importance. It mattered a lot when your computer was confined to a box on your desk, and when computers were too slow to perform many desirable tasks. It gave a gigantic global industry a master metronome, and a future without it will see computing progress become harder, more fitful and more irregular. But progress will still happen. The computer of 2050 will be a system of tiny chips embedded in everything from your kitchen counter to your car. Most of them will have access to vast amounts of computing power delivered wirelessly, through the internet, and you will interact with them by speaking to the room. Trillions of tiny chips will be scattered through every corner of the physical environment, making a world more comprehensible and more monitored than ever before. Moore's law may soon be over. The computing revolution is not.
This article is adapted from Megatech: Technology in 2050, edited by Daniel Franklin, published by Economist Books on 16 February

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.

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Vanishing point: the rise of the invisible computer

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n 1971, Intel, then an obscure firm in what would only later come to be known as Silicon Valley, released a chip called the 4004. It was the world's first commercially available microprocessor, which meant it sported all the electronic circuits necessary for advanced number-crunching in a single, tiny package.

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Netflix Earnings Are Driven by Investment in Original Content | WIRED

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Netflix Earnings Are Driven by Investment in Original Content | WIRED

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Netflix Is Killing It—Big Time—After Pouring Cash Into Original Shows

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Netflix is killing it. And its strategy is actually shockingly simple: spend aggressively, dominate, and make it way too difficult to compete.

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Minecraft paedophile groomed boys online

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Minecraft paedophile groomed boys online

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A man who groomed young boys through the online game Minecraft has been jailed for two years and eight months.

Adam Isaac, 23, from Merthyr Tydfil, previously admitted eight sexual offences against children.

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard he targeted two boys, aged 12 and 14, and asked them to send intimate photos of themselves.

Judge Richard Twomlow QC said: "This predatory behaviour is a worry and a concern to parents."

Isaac admitted causing or inciting child prostitution or pornography, performing sexual acts in the presence of a child, encouraging a child to engage in a sexual activity and the possession of indecent photos of a child.

He committed sexual acts himself while on video calls with the boys and also possessed indecent images of an unidentified third boy.

In a statement to the court, the family of one of the victims said: "We never believed he could be manipulated in this way after we warned him about the dangers online.

"We are now so scared to allow him online. He has matured so quickly - we are fighting to stop him going down a destructive path and we are trying to get him back to being the child he was."

A spokesman for children's charity the NSPCC said it was "every parent's nightmare".

Minecraft, which has more than 100 million registered users, is a 3D game in which players build their own worlds using cubes, as well as exploring and gathering and crafting resources.

Prosecutor Rachel Knight said: "The defendant sent money to the boys on PayPal and used the game to groom them.

"The parents of the boys did not know what was happening. In the case of the 12 year old he was playing the game at night while his parents were asleep."

The court heard the boy's father found his chats on Skype involved an adult asking him about his sex life, so he contacted the police.

Judge Twomlow told Isaac he had gone on to "an innocent type of game, very far removed from the type of contact you engaged in.

"You knew you would find teenage boys. This was clearly a grooming process."

Susan Ferrier, defending, said Isaac apologised to the boys and their parents.

"He was subjected to bullying from the age of 12 and is far more comfortable in the online world than the real world," she added.

A father of one of the victims said before the case: "Nobody my son's age would have stood a chance."

He read 170 pages of chat between the two and described Isaac as "callous and cold", adding: "The way he gained his trust, built the relationship, he was an expert.

"There is no way that any child, once drawn into that world, would ever have seen it coming."

While he initially felt disbelief, the father now believes any amount of parental training could not have prevented it happening.

He said his son was totally unaware and is finding it hard to cope with the realisation that he was "calculatedly groomed".

A spokeswoman for Microsoft said: "Helping promote a safe online experience has always been a priority for us, particularly when it comes to children.

"We also offer resources to help parents understand how to help keep their kids safe."

Speaking after the sentence, Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan said the case "highlights the need for parents and children to understand the dangers of online gaming.

"Social media and online games like Minecraft are now central to our children's lives but they provide a channel for abusers to easily reach and influence both boys and girls online," he said.

"Recent research into children referred to five of Barnardo's specialist services found that nearly two-thirds of children groomed online went on to meet their abuser.

'Planned and calculated'

"Parents need to understand the mobile technology their children are using and what they're doing online so they can protect them. And children themselves need to be aware of danger and how to keep themselves safe."

Lucy Dowdall, senior crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service Wales Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit, said: "This was a planned and calculated course of action on the part of Isaac and it is right that he has been made to face up to what he did in a criminal court.

"This case serves as another reminder to anyone who has caring responsibilities for children to be alert to online safety matters so that wherever possible, children are prevented from coming into harm's way.

"Nevertheless we hope this case also sends a clear message that where offences have taken place, the criminal justice agencies will act to bring online offenders to justice."

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Minecraft paedophile Adam Isaac groomed boys online

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A man who groomed young boys through the online game Minecraft has been jailed for two years and eight months. Adam Isaac, 23, from Merthyr Tydfil, previously admitted eight sexual offences against children. Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard he targeted two boys, aged 12 and 14, and asked them to send intimate photos of themselves.

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Twitter has officially pulled the plug on video-sharing app Vine.

The app, once a social network for making and sharing six-second videos, is being converted into a camera app. That means people can still make Vine's signature looping videos, but will have to share them on Twitter.

Twitter, which bought Vine in 2012 before it had even launched, announced in October that it would be shutting the app down. For many social media stars, the news promised to deal a significant blow to their online followings. Many young comedians, actors and singers - including Andrew Bachelor, Cameron Dallas and Shawn Mendes - got their start on Vine, though most have since moved to other platforms like YouTube or Instagram.

In December, after speculation that Twitter could sell Vine, the company announced in a blog post that it would live on as a camera app that is stripped of all its social media functions.

Tuesday is the final day for Vine account holders to download the videos they made through the app. The website, Vine.co, remains up for now.

Many social media creators are paying tribute to the app on its final day.

Vine you shall be missed. Instagram and YouTube will raise me now

- King Bach (@KingBach) January 17, 2017

today is officially @vine last day of existence. better watch this with the volume up three hundred more times https://t.co/iaYC7sSErt

- Casey Neistat (@CaseyNeistat) January 17, 2017

Heck YES to all the awesome Viners nominated for the final Shorty Award for Vine!!! You all are so talented and deserving!!

- Thomas Sanders (@ThomasSanders) January 17, 2017

PS..I forgot to save all my vines. If anyone decides to make an all Amanda Cerny lifetime youtube vine compilation on ill support it 😉

- Amanda Cerny (@AmandaCerny) January 17, 2017

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Vine Stars Pay One Last Tribute as Twitter Shuts Down Video App

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Twitter has officially pulled the plug on video-sharing app Vine. The app, once a social network for making and sharing six-second videos, is being converted into a camera app. That means people can still make Vine's signature looping videos, but will have to share them on Twitter.

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Governments struggling to retain trust of citizens, global survey finds

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Survey spanning 40 countries reveals how officials are failing to keep up with changes in way voters gather information and form opinions

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The number of children and young people tormented by online trolls has increased by 88% in five years, according to a report by a leading children's charity.

The NSPCC study shows that the charity's helpline service, ChildLine, counselled 4,541 children about online bullying in 2015-16, compared with 2,410 in 2011-12.

The findings follow recent figures that showed that almost a quarter of a million children and young people are receiving help from NHS mental health services for problems such as anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

To coincide with the start of anti-bullying week, the NSPCC said that in a quarter of its counselling sessions children and young people were also given help with mental health and wellbeing issues including low self-esteem, self-harm, suicidal thoughts and depression.

Children as young as seven told ChildLine counsellors how they were being tormented and abused by malicious and hurtful messages from which they felt there was no escape. The comments posted on their social media profiles, blogs and online pictures ranged from bullying and abusive words about the way they looked to death threats and even being told to kill themselves.

In nearly a third (31%) of counselling sessions for online bullying, children and young people talked about gaming or social networking sites as platforms for abuse or humiliation.

According to the NSPCC, online bullying is quickly becoming the main type of bullying that children and young people contact ChildLine about, and the 24/7 nature of social media only exacerbates the issue.

The charity gave the example of one girl who told ChildLine that every day she woke up scared to go to school, about the comments people would make and about walking home. "Then I get in and log on to my social networking site and there are horrible messages everywhere," the girl said. "It's like there is no escaping the bullies. I'm struggling to cope with how upset I feel so sometimes I cut myself just to have a release but it's not enough. I can't go on like this."

Another young person who contacted ChildLine said: "It might sound like not much of a problem but there's a group of people I play with online and they told me to kill myself. I won't kill myself but it upsets me. My parents don't realise how upset it's making me and they tell me to stand up for myself or just not play anymore but they don't know how hard that is. I don't know why they have suddenly started picking on me but it hurts so much."

An annual survey by ChildWise research agency revealed this year that young people were spending more time playing and socialising online than watching television programmes, in what the agency described as a "landmark change". The average time spent online is three hours per day, up 50% from two hours last year.

ChildWise research also shows that in 2011, 68% of seven- to 16-year-olds had used social media in the week prior to being surveyed, but that by 2016, this number rose to 78%.

The proportion of children and young people that can go online in their bedroom has also increased dramatically. In 2011, 58% of five- to 16-year-olds could do this, but in 2016 the proportion rose to 71%.

And while mobile phone ownership has dropped slightly in the past five years, this is because tablet ownership has increased dramatically, from 11% of five- to 16-year-olds in 2011 to 67% of the same age group in 2016.

Simon Leggett, research director at ChildWise, said: "Over the last five years, children's access to internet-connected portable devices has increased rapidly, along with wider access to the internet out and about and in their own rooms. Their use of social media has likewise increased, exposing them to more potential online dangers."

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC. The 24/7 nature of the internet means that a child can be targeted around the clock, he said. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian

Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: "Online bullying is one of the biggest child-protection challenges of this generation. It is a problem intensified by the ever-increasing presence of the internet. Years ago a child could escape their bullies when they left the playground and get some respite in the safety of their home; now the 24/7 nature of the internet means that a child can be targeted around the clock.

"Bullying, regardless of whether it occurs online or in person, can have a devastating impact on a young person, affect their self-worth, leave them feeling isolated and can be a trigger for depression. In the worst-case scenarios, bullying has driven children and young people to self-harm and even suicide."

Dame Esther Rantzen, president of ChildLine, said the report must act as a wake-up call. "Bullying can wreck young people's lives, especially now that the bullies don't stop at the school gates," she said. "Cyberbullying can follow them home until it becomes a persecution they cannot escape. It is imperative that adults, parents and teachers intervene to protect them, because we have learned over the years from ChildLine callers that bullying does not stop on its own, left alone it gets worse."

Nick Harrop, campaigns manager at YoungMinds, said: "Because of social media, young people feel under pressure to live their lives in public, to present a personal 'brand' from a young age, and to seek reassurance in the form of likes and shares. Trolling and cyberbullying have also become a fact of life for many, and can have a devastating effect on self-esteem.

"But it's important to remember that the online world also offers huge emotional benefits, and that many young people with mental health conditions see social media as an essential way to reach out for support."

Children and young people can contact ChildLine for free, confidential support and advice, 24 hours a day on 0800 1111 or at www.childline.org.uk

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NSPCC records 88% rise in children seeking help for online abuse

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The number of children and young people tormented by online trolls has increased by 88% in five years, according to a report by a leading children's charity. The NSPCC study shows that the charity's helpline service, ChildLine, counselled 4,541 children about online bullying in 2015-16, compared with 2,410 in 2011-12.

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Internet users who post derogatory hashtags or humiliating Photoshopped images could face prosecution under new legal guidelines.

But sexting - exchanging sexualised images - between those aged under 18 should not normally become the subject of a police investigation if it involves children of a similar age in a relationship, the Crown Prosecution Service has recommended.

The public consultation on updated guidance for lawyers about when antisocial internet use tips over into illegal activity is published at the start of Hate Crime Awareness Week to help prosecutors decide when to act. It follows a Childnet report this year that found one in four teenagers suffered abuse online from trolling because of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disability or transgender identity.

The CPS's social media guidelines also cover attacks on disabled people, violence against women and girls, and racial and religious, homophobic and transphobic hate crime. Their publication will stimulate debate about the limits of free speech online and may help develop a clearer consensus about what is acceptable behaviour.

As well as "virtual mobbing" and "dog-piling" which incite hatred, other forms of online harassment that the CPS believes can amount to criminal activity are encouraging the retweeting of grossly offensive messages, "doxxing" - publishing personal information such as home address or bank details - or devising derogatory hashtags to target victims.

Perpetrators who participate in or initiate hate campaigns may be charged with encouraging an offence under the Serious Crime Act 2007, the new guidelines suggest.

Sexting cases, the CPS acknowledges, need to be carefully assessed particularly when they involve children. "While it would not usually be in the public interest to prosecute consensual sharing of an image between two children of a similar age in a relationship, a prosecution may be appropriate in other scenarios, such as those involving exploitation, grooming or bullying," it is proposed.

In more serious cases, the guidelines say, consideration may be given to the offence of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Other practices that may be considered illegal are "baiting" - humiliating someone by labelling them as sexually promiscuous or posting Photoshopped images to disparage victims.

"Social media can be used to educate, entertain and enlighten but there are also people who use it to bully, intimidate and harass," Alison Saunders, the director of public prosecutions, said. "Ignorance is not a defence and perceived anonymity is not an escape. Those who commit these acts, or encourage others to do the same, can and will be prosecuted."

The DPP added: "We welcome the comments and opinions of communities and those affected by hate crimes to help us inform the way we deal with such cases in the future. Our latest hate crime report showed that in 2015-16 more hate crime prosecutions were completed than ever before.

"More than four in five prosecuted hate crimes result in a conviction, with over 73% guilty pleas, which is good news for victims. We have undertaken considerable steps to improve our prosecution of hate crime and we are committed to sustaining these efforts."

There was a large reported rise in racial hate crimes in the aftermath of the EU referendum. Police forces have also complained about the growing burden of cybercrime investigations.

Prosecutors are reminded in the guidelines that the threshold for legal action under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and the Communications Act 2003 is the sending of a communication that is deemed grossly offensive.

It adds: "A communication sent has to be more than simply offensive to be contrary to the criminal law." Messages that are merely satirical, iconoclastic, rude or involve expressions of unpopular or unfashionable opinion will not constitute a criminal offence.

Consultation on the CPS guidelines opens on Monday and lasts for 13 weeks. The CPS, created in 1986, is celebrating its 30th anniversary this month.

Virtual mobbing or dog-piling: encouraging social media users to harass individuals.

Doxxing: publishing personal information such as home address or bank details.

Trolling: inciting hatred by posting abusive or inflammatory messages.

Baiting: humiliating someone by accusing them of being sexually promiscuous.

Sexting: sending sexually explicit messages, usually from one phone user to another.

Cyberstalking: threatening behaviour or unwanted approaches.

Spamming: directing vast quantities of unwanted messages at a victim.

Flaming: subjecting users to abuse often in live chat forums.

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Sexting between children not automatically a crime, says CPS

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Internet users who post derogatory hashtags or humiliating Photoshopped images could face prosecution under new legal guidelines. But sexting - exchanging sexualised images - between those aged under 18 should not normally become the subject of a police investigation if it involves children of a similar age in a relationship, the Crown Prosecution Service has recommended.

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Training older people to use social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and physical well-being, according to a study carried out in the UK and Italy.

During the two-year project, 120 elderly and vulnerable people from two regions renowned for the longevity of its populace - the south west of England and the Marche region of central Italy - were given specially-designed computers, broadband connections and training in using e-mail, Skype, Facebook and other social media tools. A control group simply received their usual care.

Researchers found most of those who had the hardware and the know-how reported feeling less isolated because of the connections they could make with relatives, friends and people with shared interests. More surprisingly, they also found those who had begun to use social media performed better in tests to gauge cognitive capacity and personal identity. Some reported that they were mentally and physically healthier than before while, in general, those in the control group steadily declined.

Margaret Keohane, a 70-year-old mother of six and grandmother of 23 from Somerset, said she had been amazed by the transformation she had noticed in herself since she had begun to use social media as part of the study. "It's brought fun into my life again. It's changed my life," she said. "Everyone will tell you, I'm a different person. I've lost weight. My hair was grey. It's blonde again now. I've started taking care of my appearance again. My life feels bigger now. I was slipping away into a slower pace of life. I feel invigorated."

Thomas Morton, of the University of Exeter's psychology department, who led the Ages 2.0 project in the UK said: "Human beings are social animals, and it's no surprise that we tend to do better when we have the capacity to connect with others. But what can be surprising is just how important social connections are to cognitive and physical health.

Keohane has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair. She lives in a flat in a complex run by Somerset Care and lost her husband, Mike, six years ago. Some members of her family live abroad. "But now they are all floating there on my computer all the time, even my husband. I can give him a kiss when I want."

Her Facebook profile picture is a motto: Dream Big...Believe in Miracles. Her "likes" include the vintage television series Dixon of Dock Green and (possibly influenced by her grandchildren) the films Finding Nemo and Up. Among her friends are her son, Tim, who is living away in the Gulf region and dozens of younger relatives who are scattered around the UK.

The study found that around three quarters of those given the computers and training found e-mail and Skype useful. Actually, fewer - less than a half - found Facebook worthwhile. But Keohane finds its an excellent way of keeping watch over her younger relatives. "My grandchildren are all over Facebook. I can keep an eye on them and tell them off when they do something I don't approve of."

The ageing population is one of the major challenges facing society. It is expected between 2010 and 2060, the number of people aged 65 and over across Europe will grow from 17% to almost 30% of the total population.

Emma Green, the care technologist from Somerset Care who delivered training to Keohane and others in the study, said she had seen dramatic changes in participants. "I have seen people come of themselves and grow, I've seen people start to express themselves again."

One woman Green trained was delighted to be able to invite an Italian friend around who could take her on an online guided tour of Rome using Google Earth.

Green Skyped one participant from her holiday caravan in Cornwall and he was able to - remotely - join her group around the campfire. "He use to be a keen camper. He loved the chance to join us around the campfire. That was a special moment."

Figures from the Office for National Statistics shows that the number of over-65s who use the internet increased from 9% in 2006 to 37% in 2013 but Tony Watts, chairman of the South West Forum on Ageing said much more needed to be done.

"The digital divide between the generations is in real danger of becoming a digital gulf, with many older people being left on the wrong side of the revolution that has changed the way society connects and communicates.

"The main barriers for older people have been cost, complexity, fear and relevance... many people tell me they've got on perfectly well in life so far without a computer, why do they need to learn now?

"My belief is that we need to get away from the concept of 'computers' - instead using tablets that are intuitive and easy to use - and focussing on apps like Skype that demonstrate immediately to people that being online really can enhance the quality of your life."

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Study finds social media use beneficial to overall health of elderly

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Training older people to use social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and physical well-being, according to a study carried out in the UK and Italy.

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Legislation criminalising indecent or grossly offensive communications should be clarified to help tackle abuse and "trolling" on the internet, the Law Commission has suggested.

Launching a public consultation on laws that may need reform, the body that identifies legal flaws also proposed reviewing ineffective or outdated parliamentary acts governing weddings, surrogacy, the "Maxwellisation" process - in which individuals facing criticism are given an opportunity to respond during public inquiries - codification of the law in Wales and confiscation of the proceeds of crime.

Many of the laws used to prosecute online abuse predate the digital age. Part 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 makes it an offence to send a communication which is "indecent or grossly offensive" with the intention of causing "distress or anxiety" while section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 applies to threats and statements known to be false.

More than 1,200 people were convicted under section 127 in 2014, compared with only 143 people in 2004. There was also a tenfold increase over the same period in convictions under the Malicious Communications Act.

Free speech campaigners, such as Article 19, have raised concerns about the confusion surrounding the broad definition of "grossly offensive" in the 1988 and 2003 acts. "This confusion is increased by the scarcity of legal argument available due to the frequency of guilty pleas in cases of this nature," the Law Commission says.

Other laws governing harassment, public order offences and revenge porn are also used to prosecute online behaviour deemed to be criminal.

"There is a clear public interest in tackling online abuse and 'trolling'," the Law Commission notes, "but this must be done through clear, and predictable legal provisions."

The Law Commission says it could consider whether the current law is capable of dealing with offensive internet communications, and whether there is scope for simplifying the law.

On weddings, the commission said it had identified a series of problems raised by recent legal changes. They include where a marriage can take place - for example, outside, which is not currently generally permitted by the law. At present, some religious marriages are found to be invalid because they took place in a location permitted by religious or cultural practices but not currently permitted by law.

There are also problems over who should be able to solemnise a marriage, the content of any ceremony, notice and registration requirements for a marriage, insufficient clarity on the formalities required for a marriage to be valid and how far the rules governing the formation of a civil partnership should be aligned with those for the solemnisation of a marriage.

The government has called for changes to the way the surrogacy laws operate. The main issue has been the dilemma faced by courts, which cannot make a parental order in favour of a single person.

The Law Commission notes: "There is potential uncertainty caused by surrogates (and sometimes their husbands) being entered as parent(s) on the birth certificate of a child born as the result of a surrogacy arrangement. Currently, parental orders can only be obtained after the birth of the child and upon an application to court by the intended parents. In one case, the effect of the law 'was that the children were marooned stateless and parentless'."

The conditions for making parental orders are alleged, by some lawyers, to be over-restrictive.

The time taken to complete public inquiries has aroused concern. "The recent publication of the report of the Iraq inquiry almost seven years after the committee chaired by Sir John Chilcot began its work on 30 July 2009 is one example, but by no means the only one," The Law Commission observes.

One factor said to be a cause of delay is the practice of sending witnesses relevant sections of a draft report in which they are criticised. This practice is known as Maxwellisation, following the 1974 inquiry into the publisher Robert Maxwell. Maxwellisation, it is suggested, goes far beyond what natural justice requires. The Law Commission is asking for public support to investigate the problem.

The commission's next programme of law reform begins in October but it is seeking public responses to help it identify priorities.

Sir David Bean, the chairman of the Law Commission, said: "We must not forget, however, that there are still many other areas of the law which cause real problems for our citizens and require urgent reform. The need for modern, simple and accessible law remains as great as ever."

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Trolling legislation needs to be simplified, says Law Commission

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Legislation criminalising indecent or grossly offensive communications should be clarified to help tackle abuse and "trolling" on the internet, the Law Commission has suggested.

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Is there a truly secure messaging app? One could spend hours examining all the encrypted communications tools available, from popular services such as WhatsApp and Facebook's Messenger to newcomers such as Signal and Wire. But while experts agree that some of these options are more secure than others, there always seems to be another flaw waiting to be discovered. This makes the search for a perfect app resemble the hunt for the goose that laid the golden egg.

That point was driven home on Friday with the report that a trade-off between security and usability in the service's implementation of end-to-end encryption, which is supposed to make it all but impossible for messages to be read by anyone except their intended recipient.

The problem stemmed from WhatsApp's ability to create new encryption keys for offline users. This is common for secure communication tools, but WhatsApp is set apart by its decision to re-encrypt messages with the new keys without informing their sender or recipient.

This could allow someone to intercept communications with no indication to anyone involved with the conversation. WhatsApp has therefore effectively undermined the basic principle of end-to-end encryption.

It would be easy to overreact to this issue. WhatsApp did not create a backdoor into its service - a claim with which Brian Acton, the company's co-founder, publicly took issue on Friday, saying WhatsApp would "fight any government request" to create one.

Nor did it introduce a vulnerability so critical that people should remove the app from their devices. Concerned users can verify someone's identity by comparing the "fingerprints" associated with their key, and they can enable a setting that notifies them when a message has been re-encrypted with a new key.

Yet even the nature of those notifications is up to question. There are two options, blocking or non-blocking, which refer to requiring users to manually verify that a new key is legitimate or simply notifying them when a key has been changed. WhatsApp notifications are non-blocking. Signal, the encrypted messaging tool from Open Whisper Systems (OWS) whose end-to-end encryption protocol is used in WhatsApp, Messenger and other apps, uses blocking notifications.

Moxie Marlinspike of OWS said Signal planned to make blocking notifications an option for some users and use non-blocking notifications by default.

"The feedback we've gotten is that most of our users don't want these messages to be blocking," he said. "What they want is just to have the ability to verify the integrity of their communication and to see when these things are happening, but they don't want it to interrupt their ordinary workflow."

Which brings the conversation back to the root of the problem: should messaging apps prioritize convenience or security?

"It really depends on the service provider and the risk it wants to take," said Alan Duric, chief technology officer at the Wire secure communications provider.

"It is relatively difficult for WhatsApp to put it as 'blocking' when it has a billion users. And by doing it [the way WhatsApp has done it] you have a trade-off with the user experience and sacrificing something on security."

Wire takes the opposite approach by valuing security over convenience.

Some messaging apps follow WhatsApp in not informing users of key changes by default. Others, like Wire, don't send messages to people with new keys without user consent. These companies will face criticism no matter what they choose - WhatsApp users might worry that their messages are insecure; Wire users might grow tired of security notifications - and might change their approach based on user feedback as OWS is doing with the Signal app.

There is no right or wrong answer. The same can be said for other decisions, such as Google's Allo and Facebook Messenger's "secret conversations" not using end-to-end encryption by default, which the companies say allows them to offer features that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Apps that do use encryption by default - such as Signal and Wire, among others - require people to convince everyone with whom they wish to communicate to switch to unfamiliar messaging tools.

Which is why these companies have different approaches to the same problem. WhatsApp has to decide between making 1 billion people more secure in non-obtrusive ways or notifying them every time a security key has changed. Google must balance efforts to make people more secure with the desire to offer features that could help a newcomer like Allo compete with established services. Even more privacy conscious apps like Signal have to design with their users in mind.

There will never be a one-size-fits-all in the secure communications market. Just as these services have to decide on what problems they wish to solve, consumers must choose the app that best suits their needs. More apps support end-to-end encryption than ever, and even if none of them are perfect, this means private communications are more secure than before. These are nuanced problems that must be considered with care instead of being oversimplified.

"WhatsApp has designed a pretty good thing with really considerable care and has successfully deployed it to the largest network of end-to-end encryption in the history of the world," Marlinspike said.

"Approaching questions of the best user experience and how we should think about these problems by just calling this a 'backdoor' and telling everyone to uninstall WhatsApp does a lot more harm than good, because it's just going to drive people to other apps that use way less consideration and care that users are also not capable of evaluating the goodness of."

Don't kill the goose for laying a bunch of silver eggs, just because people would have preferred gold.

This article was amended on 28 June 2017 following review and amendment of the news article which prompted this article.

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As WhatsApp comes under scrutiny, are any messaging apps truly secure?

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Is there a truly secure messaging app? One could spend hours examining all the encrypted communications tools available, from popular services such as WhatsApp and Facebook's Messenger to newcomers such as Signal and Wire. But while experts agree that some of these options are more secure than others, there always seems to be another flaw waiting to be discovered.

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In an effort to keep up with big online streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, the BBC is planning to re-invent the iPlayer with the aim of becoming the UK's top online streaming service by 2020.

The changes are to be announced by the BBC Director General Lord Hall when he addresses his staff as the BBC enters its new charter period.

According to Mr Hall, while "iPlayer was the biggest revolution of the last charter" it now needs to "make the leap from a catch-up service to a must-visit destination in its own right".

Bid to be the best

How might the service achieve its goal? Through three strategic priorities, which fall under the headings of creativity, culture and global ambition.

These headings don't really tell us much, but in terms of specifics it's anticipated that one possible change could see the BBC taking binge-watching enabling tips from Amazon and Netflix, by allowing users to download entire series before they appear on television.

Lord Hall is expected to say that the BBC must find new ways to embrace technology, and make using its service a more personal experience for viewers, if it has any hope of remaining a power in the TV streaming market.

To become the number one online TV service in the UK by 2020, the BBC would have to double its online viewership. It's a lofty goal, but recent figures have shown that 2016 was iPlayer's best year yet in terms of audience, so at the very least the BBC only has to continue its growth rather than turn things around.

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In an effort to keep up with big online streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, the BBC is planning to re-invent the iPlayer with the aim of becoming the UK's top online streaming service by 2020. The changes are to be announced by the BBC Director General Lord Hall when he addresses his staff as the BBC enters its new charter period.

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IOT

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With its new Smart Remote, Sevenhugs presents a compelling use case for a universal remote. The gadget connects to a proprietary indoor positioning system that uses sensors to triangulate the exact location of the remote. What that means is when you point the remote at one of more than 25,000 different connected devices, it will know exactly what it's looking at. Aim it at a lamp and it might pull up Hue's app interface. Point it at your TV, and a Roku menu will appear. It's this contextual awareness that could makes the incredibly fragmented experience of the smart home feel a little more simple, and a little more like home.

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Sevenhugs's Sensor-Laden Remote Control Knows Where You're Pointing It

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With its new Smart Remote, Sevenhugs presents a compelling use case for a universal remote. The gadget connects to a proprietary indoor positioning system that uses sensors to triangulate the exact location of the remote. What that means is when you point the remote at one of more than 25,000 different connected devices, it will know exactly what it's looking at.

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Britain's growing appetite for services such as Netflix and Amazon has helped push streaming and downloads of films and TV shows ahead of sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs for the first time.

The rise in popularity of paying for TV content helped power total UK revenue from music, TV shows, films and video games to a record £6.3bn last year.

Video: the death of the DVD

Total revenues from digital video - which includes services such as Apple's iTunes as well as Sky's store and Now TV - surged almost 23% to £1.3bn last year.

The digital boost came as high street sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs fell 17% to £894m - the first time it has fallen below the £1bn mark. The once mighty physical rental market fell 21% to just £49m.

Total revenue from physical and digital sales rose 2.2% to £2.25bn, with the biggest seller of the year Star Wars: The Force Awakens with sales of 2.3m .

"We've seen an explosion of technology that has allowed people to consume entertainment in different ways," said Kim Bayley, chief executive of the Entertainment Retailers Association, which compiles the annual figures.

streaming chart

Netflix has rapidly grown to 6 million UK subscribers since launching in 2012. Amazon, which has shows including The Man in the High Castle as well as Jeremy Clarkson's The Grand Tour, is estimated to have attracted 2.3 million regular users of to its UK video service since its launch in 2014, according to Ampere Analysis.

Sky had more than 3 million customers to its Sky Store in the year to the end of June, while its "buy and keep" service - where by customers download a film and get a DVD posted out - grew by 80%.

Despite the digital revolution, Bayley said that it was too soon to ring the death knell of the DVD, with physical sales of music, TV shows, films and computer games still worth £2.2bn annually.

"Physical entertainment retailing is clearly off its peak," she said. "A multichannel economy is going to exist for some years to come. The strength of the DVD and CD formats over the Christmas period shows that physical still dominates when it comes to gifting, for instance."

Music: digital, Adele and compilations

The digital onslaught is also continuing in the music market, with subscription revenues increasing by 65% to £418m, driven by services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer.

Physical sales of CDs fell by 13%, a steep decline after a 3.7% fall in 2015.

Consumer spend in £m
Consumer spend in £m

Overall physical sales were 7.3% down as a surge in vinyl sales, up by 56% to £65.6m, helped stabilise the decline.

Total music revenues were up 4.6% to £1.1bn, with the top two sellers Now That's What I Call Music compilations followed by Adele's 25, which was the biggest-selling album by a single artist.

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Adele's album 25 on CD. Photograph: Alexander Schippers/AFP/Getty Images

Digital services now account for 57% of all music sales.

Video games: the back of the digital net

Total revenue from games grew 2.9% to £2.95bn last year. Digital sales from online and mobile grew by 12% to £2.2bn, while physical sales of games fell 16% to £776m.

The biggest selling game of the year was Fifa 17, with sales of 2.5m. This was almost the same number as its chart-topping predecessor Fifa 2016.

Almost three-quarters (74%) of the UK games market is now accounted for by digital revenues.

Last year marks the second in a row that the UK entertainment industry has seen growth after almost a decade of declining sales as businesses struggled to take advantage of the digital revolution.

"The music, video and games industries were understandably nervous about the advent of new digital services, but these figures provide resounding evidence of the benefits of our members' investment in innovation," said Bayley. "Take away today's digital services and the entertainment market would be barely a third the size it is today."
Topics

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Film and TV ​streaming and downloads overtake DVD sales for first time

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Britain's growing appetite for services such as Netflix and Amazon has helped push streaming and downloads of films and TV shows ahead of sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs for the first time. The rise in popularity of paying for TV content helped power total UK revenue from music, TV shows, films and video games to a record £6.3bn last year.

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It is widely held that people are meaner on the internet than in person. Now Facebook is attempting to teach its users how to play nice.

Its newly updated safety centre, including its "bullying prevention hub" are central to its strategy to improve the quality of discourse on the platform - for the sake of its future as much as for its users' experience.

"If people don't have a positive experience, they're not going to keep using Facebook, so safety is actually integral to everything we do," says Mia Garlick, director of policy and communications for the platform in the Australia-Pacific region.

Asked if she has statistics that show whether disillusioned users are closing their accounts, Garlick says no - somewhat surprisingly, given the volume of data that Facebook collects. It certainly records growth: in its third quarter report for 2016, Facebook had 1.79 billion monthly active users, an increase of 16% year-on-year. There are now 15 million Australians active on Facebook, 62.5% of the total population.

At that size, it's an unwieldy community, encompassing a wide range of investment: for example, it has about 600,000 fewer daily active users than those who log in monthly. Facebook's hope is that its new resources will equip them with the knowledge and resources they need to be a somewhat self-policing community.

Developed in tandem with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence in 2013, the bullying prevention Hub is a website, linked to but separate from Facebook's homepage. Newly updated to put greater focus on video, it delivers support for teenagers, parents and educators on how to prevent and respond to online abuse.

Much of the advice seems obvious. The hub advises teenagers to remember "that bullying is never your fault, and it can happen to anyone". If your child is being bullied, "try to stay calm". And if you are unsure, you can download a document that explains "What is bullying?"

The separate safety centre is geared towards explaining Facebook-specific tools, resources and policies, as well as advice as to how to apply them: "Before you share, ask yourself: could somebody use this to hurt me?"

Garlick says there is a generation gap that Facebook must help its users bridge. Parents, in particular, need to be confident about using the platform to educate their children about the risks.

"Young people are very sophisticated about how they use technology, but sometimes they haven't actually gone through all of the thought processes that they should."

But the usefulness of the resources depend on people knowing they exist and how to find them, which Garlick says is a "challenge". She says instructional videos are posted to Facebook's regional branded pages, and it has "reached out" to educational partners in the hope that they will share it within their networks.

If Facebook wanted all 1.8 billion monthly users to be aware of the hub, it could simply push it out to them top of their news feeds - where the network on occasion posts messages as anodyne as the hope that users have a "fun and happy" summer.

And it does - occasionally.

"The thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of conversations and interactions on our platform are really, really positive," Garlick says. She says Facebook's tools and resources are about empowering users to look after themselves, and to encourage them to exercise control over their interactions on the platform.

One relatively recent addition is the security checkup, which explains who can see your posts and how to restrict their access, step by step. It's straightforward for irregular Facebook users to grasp but in-depth enough to bring value to the confident ones.

Garlick says 4,000 privacy checkups are carried out on the site each day. Even she benefited from the tool, using it to do "a bit of spring cleaning" of the apps she had used since 2007.

Self-sufficiency is a cornerstone of Facebook's reporting process, which asks that users flag objectionable material for review against its community standards - still the best tool the platform has for ruling what is and is not acceptable.

Automation is used to prevent malware and crack down on fake accounts, and some software is used for child exploitation images and, soon, extremist content. But Garlick says calls about individual posts that "go through the flow" are made on a case-by-case basis, by human moderators.

"It's very hard to understand nuance if you're a machine."

Managing those 1.8 billion users, three-quarters from outside the US, is not easy for a human. The community standards are deliberately broad, but there are nonetheless some lines in the sand that users keep coming up against. Nipples - sometimes sexual, often not - are one of the recurring sticking points.

"Don't even get me started," says Garlick, somewhat ruefully. "Some of the conversations I have around nipples ... "

In July Facebook removed a video posted by the Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, that showed abuse in juvenile detention facilities, because it included child nudity. The ABC posted a new version with blurring.

There is a "pretty tough line" drawn around children in particular, Garlick says. "We get the majority of reports right."

Allowing users control over their Facebook presence through the news tools helps them to "create and curate a positive experience", she says.

It also helps foster a sense of ownership, maybe even of community. This seems to be top of mind for the platform. It has has started asking users: "How much does this post help you feel like you are part of a larger community on Facebook?" The possible answers range from "Not at all" to "Completely".

But an integral part of community is support. If people feel equipped to have positive experiences on Facebook, maybe they will be more inclined to look out for it.

"You take care of your house," Garlick says. "If somebody graffitied your front yard, you'd clean it up. It's the same if people are saying stuff in your space on Facebook."

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Stay and be safe: Facebook tidies up advice on preventing online bullying

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It is widely held that people are meaner on the internet than in person. Now Facebook is attempting to teach its users how to play nice. Its newly updated safety centre, including its "bullying prevention hub" are central to its strategy to improve the quality of discourse on the platform - for the sake of its future as much as for its users' experience.

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Teens spend 9 hours a day using media, report says - CNN

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A new report by Common Sense Media, exploring the daily media habits of tweens and teens, has implications for parents, educators and policymakers.

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The latest technology news and reviews, covering computing, home entertainment systems, gadgets and more

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Facebook Messenger just added group video messaging

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Another week, another video push out of Facebook headquarters.

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In September, Yahoo had the unfortunate distinction of disclosing an enormous 500 million-account breach. Tough stuff. Somehow, though, the company seems to have topped even that staggering figure. Yahoo announced on Wednesday that hackers, in what's likely a separate attack, compromised one billion of the company's user accounts in August 2013. One billion. That makes this the biggest known hack of user data ever, and it's not really close.

The most important thing we know so far is that Yahoo says "this incident is likely distinct from the incident we disclosed on September 22, 2016." That other breach happened in late 2014, so this new (even bigger) one took place about a year earlier. Yahoo has been working with law enforcement and a third-party cybersecurity firm to to verify the hack and trace its origin, but the company says that so far it doesn't know who the perpetrator was.

Yahoo says that the breached data includes names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays, hashed passwords, and a mix of encrypted and unencrypted security questions and answers. If you're looking for a silver lining, Yahoo says the breach does not include unencrypted passwords, credit card numbers, or bank account information. Specifically, the company says that financial data is stored in a separate system that it doesn't believe was compromised.

Another component of the company's disclosure is a separate attack that took place in 2015 and 2016 in which hackers used forged cookies (small files that track web users) to bypass security protections and access users' accounts without a password. Yahoo says that it believes this situation is connected at least in part to the allegedly state-sponsored hackers that committed the 2014 breach it disclosed in September.

"I would have thought it could happen to anyone two or three years ago, you know everybody can have a major breach, it happens," says Jeremiah Grossman, who was an information security officer at Yahoo for two years in the early 2000s and is now the chief of security strategy at SentinelOne. "But some of the details [about Yahoo] that have come to light since have signaled that there's confusion, there's frustration, and there's not a lot of support for the security team."

There may be overlap (even significant overlap!) between the accounts that were compromised in this hack and the ones that were disclosed in the previous breach in September, but even in the best case scenario a billion Yahoo accounts are involved. At an unlikely worst-case scenario, it's 1.5 billion. For some context, in fall of 2013 Yahoo announced that it had 800 million monthly active users total, though it's not clear how many inactive users it had. Either way, if you had a Yahoo in 2013 or 2014, this is cause to reset passwords and security questions on any account that used the same info immediately. Unfortunately, you won't be able to undo whatever damage this data trove has already done, though. "Given that this was three years ago I'm wondering how many of the breaches in the last three years originated from data stolen from Yahoo," Grossman says.

How Serious Is This?

I mean. It's really serious. Considering there are about three billion internet users total, a billion accounts is sobering, as is the fact that it took this long to discover and disclose. Broadly, the prevalence of large-scale corporate and government hacks over the past few years has shown that many institutions do not invest enough resources in securing their networks and digital infrastructure, either because they don't know they need to, they don't think they can prioritize it in their budget, or they don't think a hack will happen to them. Yahoo in particular appears to have made some or all of these mistakes.

While the passwords were hashed with MD5, that particular method is known to have several vulnerabilities, meaning users can't consider them safe. Yahoo says it is in the process of notifying users impacted by this breach, and will require all of them to change their passwords. The company is also voiding unencrypted security questions, and has been encouraging users to move away from security questions altogether since the last disclosure in September.

Not that it's paramount to Yahoo users past and present, but the disclosure may also impact Verizon's proposed acquisition of the company's core internet business. The NY Post previously reported that Verizon had requested a billion-dollar discount on the $4.8 billion deal after September's revelation. The telecom giant has not yet responded to an inquiry about Wednesday's twice-as-large hack.

Hopefully this is the last breach Yahoo will need to come clean about, but it will be difficult for the company to salvage consumer or corporate trust, especially since the full repercussions of these incidents are still not known. "How do we know, how can we be sure, that Yahoo actually kicked the bad guys out when they had three years to bury themselves in that system," Grossman says. "I think [Yahoo] could do it if they had the mandate to be very transparent, but it's going to be hard to get any assurance."
This post has been updated to include comments from Jeremiah Grossman.

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Hackers Breach a Billion Yahoo Accounts. A Billion

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In September, Yahoo had the unfortunate distinction of disclosing an enormous 500 million-account breach. Tough stuff. Somehow, though, the company seems to have topped even that staggering figure. Yahoo announced on Wednesday that hackers, in what's likely a separate attack, compromised one billion of the company's user accounts in August 2013.

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Kevin Owocki woke up at 4am this morning with an idea. When someone visits a news site and their web browser uses an ad blocker, he thought, what if the site replaced ads with an invitation to donate a fraction of a bitcoin? Even in blocking its ads, readers could instantly contribute to the site's well-being. They could pay, albeit a very small amount, for the stories they want to read.

"You read all the time about how publishers are having trouble migrating their business model to the 21st century," says Owocki, a software developer in Colorado. "It just seems like micropayments is where that should go."

So, at 4 am, Owocki built a tool that makes this possible and threw it onto GitHub. By mid morning, the tool-AdBlock-to-Bitcoin-was a popular topic at Hacker News, a major online hangout for software engineers. "Personally, I think bitcoin is the move," said one commenter. "The long-term deflationary nature, the hivemind of sage engineers swarming around scalability, with the end-goal being tiny machine-to machine-payments, and the precision of value that you can achieve make it perfect." In other words, he liked the idea.

This isn't something that will appear on news sites and online magazines tomorrow. But it's designed to prompt conversation about the possibility of funding online publishers via micropayments. In that sense, it's already working. In fact, it's stirring up similar ideas publishers and engineers have offered in recent years-and in recent weeks-in an effort to mitigate the influence of ad blocking. Developers have built similar tipping services for publishers. And early this fall, the bitcoin outfit Coinbase proposed a browser that would let people pay small amounts of bitcoin for almost anything.

Mainstreaming Micropayments

Using micropayments to fund publishers is an old idea that's never really caught on. But various tech trends are converging toward a point where such a thing finally seems viable-due in large part to bitcoin, a digital currency readily broken into tiny pieces. The rub is that bitcoin, though it continues to mature, has not reached widespread acceptance. "If your real objective is to get actually some income in place of the ad, I would highly suggest supporting traditional forms of payment in addition to bitcoin," another Hacker News denizen said in response to AdBlock-to-Bitcoin. "Although Bitcoin is interesting/cool/worthy of existence, 99.9 percent of users don't have a Bitcoin wallet, so you'll be missing out on a lot of potential income."

To make bitcoin donations via a tool like Adblock-to-Bitcoin, you need a bitcoin wallet, which is a service that lets you store, send, and receive bitcoin. And Owocki acknowledges that the number of people with such a thing is limited. But he says his tool can work with other payment methods. Make it easy enough for people to make small payments, he believes, and such a tool can underpin a viable business model for publishers. As it stands, the tool generates a QR code readers use to make a bitcoin donation. It suggests a donation size. And it can track how many people actually respond to these donation invitations-and how they respond.

The idea still certainly a rough draft. But Owocki's project shows how easily coders and developers can bring new ideas to the masses and refine them. Owocki built his prototype in about two hours, leaning on bitcoin and an existing open source tool called FuckAdBlock, which detects when someone is using an ad blocker. And thanks to Github, the Internet's central repository for open source software, he could distribute the code even faster. As new ideas and new suggestions arrive, they can almost instantly come to fruition. The future of publishing may be closer than you think.

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Hate Ads? Maybe You Should Give News Sites Some Bitcoins

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Kevin Owocki woke up at 4am this morning with an idea. When someone visits a news site and their web browser uses an ad blocker, he thought, what if the site replaced ads with an invitation to donate a fraction of a bitcoin? Even in blocking its ads, readers could instantly contribute to the site's well-being.

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India's telecoms regulator has blocked Facebook's Free Basics internet service app as part of a ruling in favour of net neutrality.

The scheme offered free access to a limited number of websites.

However, it was opposed by supporters of net neutrality, who argued data providers should not favour some online services over others.

The free content included selected local news and weather forecasts, the BBC, Wikipedia and some health sites.

"No service provider shall offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content," ruled the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The body had been investigating whether any online content should be prioritised over others, or offered for free while others were not.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he would work to make Free Basics legal.

"While we're disappointed with today's decision," he wrote, "I want to personally communicate that we are committed to keep working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world.

"Connecting India is an important goal we won't give up on, because more than a billion people in India don't have access to the internet. We know that connecting them can help lift people out of poverty, create millions of jobs and spread education opportunities."

The World Wide Web Foundation, founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, welcomed the regulator's decision.

"The message is clear: We can't create a two-tier Internet - one for the haves, and one for the have-nots," said programme manager Renata Avila.

"We must connect everyone to the full potential of the open Web.

"We call on companies and the government of India to work with citizens and civil society to explore new approaches to connect everyone as active users, whether through free data allowances, public access schemes or other innovative approaches."

Internet picks

Vikas Pandey, digital producer for the BBC in India, said there had been an intense publicity campaign on both sides of the debate, with Facebook taking out front page advertising in national newspapers to defend the scheme.

"The people who live in cities and are aggressive users of the internet said: 'You can't dictate the terms, give free internet to villagers and then tell them how to use it'," he said.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has maintained that it is "not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free".

The firm previously said it believed the project - which it launched in 2013 as Internet.org and was offered in 36 countries - had brought more than 19 million people online who would not otherwise have been able to afford access.

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India's telecoms regulator has blocked Facebook's Free Basics internet service app as part of a ruling in favour of net neutrality. The scheme offered free access to a limited number of websites. However, it was opposed by supporters of net neutrality, who argued data providers should not favour some online services over others.

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The number of people reporting being raped on their first date with someone they met on a dating app has risen six-fold in five years, figures show.

There were 184 rape allegations in the UK in 2014, up from 33 in 2009, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

It said 85% of the victims of sexual offences linked to online dating were female in the period 2003-15.

The agency said it was concerned the number may be under-reported, and it encouraged victims to come forward.

More than nine million people in the UK have signed up to dating websites.

'Make people aware'

The overall number of rapes recorded in England and Wales similarly rose between 2009 and 2014, but far less sharply, figures for the Office for National Statistics suggest.

Sean Sutton of the NCA's Serious Crime Analysis Section said further work was needed to understand the increase, but the team was considering whether this could include:

The fact that people feel protected online, and their communication can escalate rapidly to become sexual in nature, leading to mismatched expectations

Deliberate targeting of online sites and apps by those who intend to commit sexual assault

Victims having more confidence to report assaults to the police

Whether more people are spending time in private on a first date

There was some evidence of coercion and persuasion being used by offenders to encourage, often reluctant, victims to meet sooner than they would like, Mr Sutton said.

He said data from 2003-15 suggested 43% of first face-to-face meetings between a victim and offender took place within one week of their initial contact online.

"This initial work clearly raises a lot of questions and we will be working with academia to build a more complete picture," Mr Sutton said.

"Our aim here is to make people aware of the potential danger, so they can be better prepared and make the choices that are right for them.

"A rape victim is never at fault and we do not want the circumstances in which these assaults take place to cause any victim to doubt that.

"Sexual assault is a crime, full stop, and we want victims to feel confident reporting it to the police."

Online dating safety advice

1. Plan it. Say it. Do it - It is your date. Agree on what you both want from it before you meet up. Do not feel pressured to meet before you are ready or for any longer than you are comfortable with - a short first date is fine.

2. Meet in public - Stay in public. The safest plan is to meet somewhere public and stay somewhere public. Make your own way there and back and do not feel pressured to go home with your date. If you feel ready to move to a private environment, make sure your expectations match your date's.

3. Get to know the person, not the profile - The way people interact online is not always the same face-to-face. Do not be offended if your date is more guarded when meeting in person or if things do not progress as fast face-to-face.

4. Not going well? Make your excuses and leave - Do not feel bad about cutting a date short if you are not keen. You do not owe the other person anything, no matter how long you have been chatting or what has been suggested.

5. If you are raped or sexually assaulted on your date, help is available - Contact Rape Crisis or The Survivors Trust for more information and advice.

George Kidd, chief executive of the Online Dating Association, (ODA) which represents online dating businesses and which is supporting the campaign, said: "Sexual assault or abuse is never acceptable.

"Even one incident of harm is one too many.

"The NCA is right to look at what happens online and the ODA are already working with them in getting the right messages out to people."

Katie Russell, spokeswoman for Rape Crisis England and Wales, said the report showed that dating websites and apps were now established among the range of means sexual offenders use to target and access women and girls.

"Attention clearly needs to be focused on targeting the minority who abuse dating services to perpetrate rape and other forms of sexual violence," she said.

Earlier this month, security firm Symantec warned that almost half of people using dating sites or apps had been scammed or spammed.

It said daters fell victim to blackmail, were subjected to revenge porn and were tricked by people who assumed fake identities to steal cash.

Correction 17 February 2016: This report has been amended to clarify that figures for the proportion of victims being female and the proportion of first face-to-face meetings between victim and offender taking place within a week of first online contact both apply to the period 2003-15.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

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Rise in first-date rape claims linked to online dating

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The number of people reporting being raped on their first date with someone they met on a dating app has risen six-fold in five years, figures show. There were 184 rape allegations in the UK in 2014, up from 33 in 2009, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

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The latest technology news and reviews, covering computing, home entertainment systems, gadgets and more

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Whether you are a sceptical IT person, an excited marketing professional or just a bemused business bystander, you can't have missed the rise of Digital. It's everywhere. We all need to have a Digital Strategy, following the Digital Agenda, so we can sell to Digital Natives. Digital Marketing uses the Digital Offerings every supplier now wants me to buy, and us poor IT types are looking nervously over our shoulders at the rise of the Chief Digital Officer on an apparent mission to erase CIOs from existence.

But what does it actually mean? Isn't it just a responsive website and social media marketing? Do I need an iPhone to join in? Is it even possible to understand if you're over the age of 25?

I get asked this sort of thing a lot, and I've seen lots of people at conferences asking and answering the same question on stage, with a remarkable variety of answers (often framed by what they are trying to sell). Which is where people's confusion comes from. Even more than the ever morphing meaning of Cloud, this is a phrase that people are struggling to understand, and I get the feeling there are lots of folks nodding enthusiastically along for fear of drawing attention to their ignorance. It's all very well to observe that Uber is the world's biggest taxi company and owns no cars, but what does that mean I need to do in my business?

At one end you have traditionally conservative IT people who are convinced this is just marketing spin on things we've always done, or possibly a way to steal all the fun sexy stuff from us while we get left behind with boring ERP systems and security policies. At the other end you have cool creatives and visionaries surfing the wave of technology, without being encumbered by those old dinosaurs with their rules and negative attitudes.

So, for what it is worth, here is my take on things. Firstly, both groups above are right, and both are also wrong. One of the key elements of Digital is that it is more than traditional IT, but equally it's not a completely new paradigm that means we can just forget decades of knowledge and experience the IT industry can bring to bear.

There are two fundamentals to the new Digital world that is being built. One is the confluence of a whole range of new technologies that individually are powerful, but together are revolutionary. The Internet of Things can generate masses of data, connectivity and new options for interaction with the world. Big Data is allowing that information to be stored and used in ways impossible a decade ago. Cloud platforms give the agility and global presence to tie it all together. Devops and Agile working means ideas can be put together and into practise faster than ever before, and the ever rising march of Mobility allow these things to be anywhere and everywhere.

The other fundamental is a similar confluence in the way we use these things. It's not just about new tech, or connecting bits of tech together, its about finding new ways to use and interact with technology that allow opportunities that didn't previously exist. It's about how the usability of technology is finally catching up with human beings. It's a cliché that you should change your computer to match your world, not the other way round, but the reality is that we all adapt to our technology all the time as we are much more flexible than it is. But that is now changing as technology becomes so versatile and powerful that it is entering all fields of life in un-intrusive but powerful ways.

At a recent conference I saw an excellent presentation from R "Ray" Wang on digital, and he gave a really interesting example. GE in America has used Internet of Things sensors along power distribution lines to capture all sorts of routine data about use and wear. Individually this allowed them to predict when lines would fail up to a week in advance. But then they took all this data and put it into a Big Data platform for analysis, and rather than taking a traditional BI approach with charts and graphs, they employed creative UI designers to build a live 3D visualisation of the data, overlaid over maps and allowing people to move in and around the data looking for patterns and correlations in a natural and intuitive way.

So what you have is new technology opportunities, coupled with some traditional IT connectivity and data storage, but then used in new and creative ways. Which is what I think Digital really is, the merging of technology with many other parts of life and business to create new opportunities.

But it's a broad church and it needs everyone inside if we want it to work. Traditional IT can't do it on their own, as we need creative skills and human centric approaches that generally aren't found in the technical world. We'll deliver a big ugly database that no one will use. But the creative people can't deliver it on their own either, as sooner or later they will hit a problem with security, integration, scalability or architecture and it'll all fall over. This technology stuff generally isn't as easy as it looks. Everyone needs to collaborate and use their combined strengths to make it work.

Which isn't as easy as it sounds. We've seen this in microcosm for years now in web design, which was the forerunner of current Digital trends and still a very relevant part of the picture, where bridging the gap between creative designers and technical architects can be a real challenge. It's certainly possible, but it needs effort, leadership and an open mind from all concerned. IT can't sit in their bunker, but equally the creative world can't leave IT behind.

Those challenges are now going to be writ large across many fields, and we are only just beginning to see the breadth of scope this will cover. Even more technology options are starting to open up, we've yet to really see what 3D printing, wearables or drones will enable, and the rate of innovation is only increasing. But even the humble website is still being used to find new and innovative ways to do business. What's important isn't the particular technology being employed, but the mind-set of exploring what we can do with all these ideas and being open to doing something new.

Businesses are being transformed by these new opportunities, and it is rightly said that Digital is now a measurable and tangible commercial advantage. Every business does need to have a Digital Strategy, and whether we call the person who owns it a CIO, a CDO, or just a leader, the important thing is that someone has the vision and open mind to make it happen.

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Whether you are a sceptical IT person, an excited marketing professional or just a bemused business bystander, you can't have missed the rise of Digital. It's everywhere.

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Today, Google announced a new tool for selectively blurring sensitive parts in videos uploaded to YouTube, such as faces. This is an important option for preserving anonymity in visual media, at a time when video is taking over the web. To protect the ability to speak out in our visual age, we need obfuscation tools in the platforms we all use.

As Mark Zuckerberg recently said: "We're reaching this period where video is going to be the primary thing we use on the Internet, because of the emotional weight of it." The figures bear this out: an explosion of video on YouTube to more than 400 hours uploaded a minute, more than eight billion videos viewed daily on Facebook, six billion viewed on Snapchat, and 40 years of video watched on Periscope every day.

All this video is powerful. Activists like myself use it to capture the world on camera and make our voices heard. But we must balance our desire to show what happening in our communities with the need to protect people at the same time. This is particularly true for activists in repressive countries. For them, every time someone speaks out to them or is seen on camera, that person faces the risk that there will be a knock on their door in the coming days, and the authorities will come and take them away. Being able to expose atrocity while protecting the identities of the vulnerable or innocent is of vital importance.

Why Visual Anonymity Matters

The downsides of being recognized online have already been made all too clear for people in high-risk situations over the last few years. The Burmese military junta trawled online images to target activists as far back as the Saffron Revolution in 2007. The Iranian government did the same during the Green Revolution marches of 2009, and Syrian authorities singled out citizens who appear in videos of anti-regime demonstrations.

In countries like Brazil people caught on the margins of live streams shot during protests have found that material arbitrarily used against them. And indeed the greater risk may be to the lone witness or victim who speaks out about abuse or injustice, from denouncing politically motivated sexual violence to LGBT activists in hostile environments. Additionally, now that police from Brazil to Boston, and companies like Facebook, are trying out tools that can utilize facial recognition on a large scale, the need for a new understanding of how to protect ourselves is critical.

YouTube is taking the lead in the effort to make visual anonymity possible with the tool Google announced today. It's a custom blurring feature that allows anyone to easily selectively obscure faces or regions, like license plates, in videos they upload. My organization, WITNESS, advocated for and then advised Google in its development of an initial version of this feature that blurred all faces, in 2012. Since then we've continued to advocate for the feature launched today---a feature that can be used in a more effective way to protect vulnerable people. As citizen witnesses become a more frequent source of news and as more people turn to the Internet as a tool for exposing abuses and defending their rights, the need for this tool has only grown. Other companies with a growing stake in visual media---from Facebook to Snapchat to Twitter---should follow YouTube's lead.

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It's Far Too Hard to Anonymize Video-We Have to Do Better

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Today, Google announced a new tool for selectively blurring sensitive parts in videos uploaded to YouTube, such as faces. This is an important option for preserving anonymity in visual media, at a time when video is taking over the web.

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When people talk about "the next big thing," they're never thinking big enough. It's not a lack of imagination; it's a lack of observation. I've maintained that the future is always within sight, and you don't need to imagine what's already there.

Case in point: The buzz surrounding the Internet of Things.

What's the buzz? The Internet of Things revolves around increased machine-to-machine communication; it's built on cloud computing and networks of data-gathering sensors; it's mobile, virtual, and instantaneous connection; and they say it's going to make everything in our lives from streetlights to seaports "smart."

But here's what I mean when I say people don't think big enough. So much of the chatter has been focused on machine-to-machine communication (M2M): devices talking to like devices. But a machine is an instrument, it's a tool, it's something that's physically doing something. When we talk about making machines "smart," we're not referring strictly to M2M. We're talking about sensors.

A sensor is not a machine. It doesn't do anything in the same sense that a machine does. It measures, it evaluates; in short, it gathers data. The Internet of Things really comes together with the connection of sensors and machines. That is to say, the real value that the Internet of Things creates is at the intersection of gathering data and leveraging it. All the information gathered by all the sensors in the world isn't worth very much if there isn't an infrastructure in place to analyze it in real time.

Cloud-based applications are the key to using leveraged data. The Internet of Things doesn't function without cloud-based applications to interpret and transmit the data coming from all these sensors. The cloud is what enables the apps to go to work for you anytime, anywhere.

Let's look at one example. In 2007, a bridge collapsed in Minnesota, killing many people, because of steel plates that were inadequate to handle the bridge's load. When we rebuild bridges, we can use smart cement: cement equipped with sensors to monitor stresses, cracks, and warpages. This is cement that alerts us to fix problems before they cause a catastrophe. And these technologies aren't limited to the bridge's structure.

If there's ice on the bridge, the same sensors in the concrete will detect it and communicate the information via the wireless internet to your car. Once your car knows there's a hazard ahead, it will instruct the driver to slow down, and if the driver doesn't, then the car will slow down for him. This is just one of the ways that sensor-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication can take place. Sensors on the bridge connect to machines in the car: we turn information into action.

You might start to see the implications here. What can you achieve when a smart car and a smart city grid start talking to each other? We're going to have traffic flow optimization, because instead of just having stoplights on fixed timers, we'll have smart stoplights that can respond to changes in traffic flow. Traffic and street conditions will be communicated to drivers, rerouting them around areas that are congested, snowed-in, or tied up in construction.

So now we have sensors monitoring and tracking all sorts of data; we have cloud-based apps translating that data into useful intelligence and transmitting it to machines on the ground, enabling mobile, real-time responses. And thus bridges become smart bridges, and cars smart cars. And soon, we have smart cities, and....

Okay. What are the advantages here? What are the savings? What industries can this be applied to?

Here's what I mean when I say people never think big enough. This isn't just about money savings. It's not about bridges, and it's not about cities. This is a huge and fundamental shift. When we start making things intelligent, it's going to be a major engine for creating new products and new services.

Of all the technology trends that are taking place right now, perhaps the biggest one is the Internet of Things; it's the one that's going to give us the most disruption as well as the most opportunity over the next five years. In my next post in this two-part series, we'll explore just how big this is going to be.
Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world's leading technology forecasters and innovation experts, and is the founder and CEO of Burrus Research. He is the author of six books including the New York Times best seller "Flash Foresight."

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The Internet of Things Is Far Bigger Than Anyone Realizes

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When people talk about "the next big thing," they're never thinking big enough. It's not a lack of imagination; it's a lack of observation. I've maintained that the future is always within sight, and you don't need to imagine what's already there. Case in point: The buzz surrounding the Internet of Things.