You could be destroying your smartphone by leaving it on charge overnight.
It may not be a good idea to leave your smartphone to charge overnight
That’s according to the guys at Battery University who claim if your gadget is kept charging after reaching capacity, the battery’s chemistry could damage it.
This is because it would be in a constant ‘high-stress’ state, which is not good.
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) are widely used in smartphones
They argue it’s actually better never to fully charge your smartphone.
Instead, they recommend you do it at intervals as this extends the Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery’s lifespan.
These batteries are widely used in smartphones, including iPhones.
‘Li-ion does not need to be fully charged, nor is it desirable to do so,’ they wrote.
‘In fact, it is better not to fully charge, because a high voltage stresses the battery.’
So remember short bursts of charge could better than full ones.
The concept behind the argument is fully explained by the Battery University here.
AS TEMPERATURES continue to soar it's important to keep your gadgets from getting too toasty – here's some top tips on keeping things cool in heat.
After months of wind, rain and cold Britain is finally in the middle of a heatwave.
With the barmy temperatures set to continue over the next few days Brits are clearly enjoying soaking up the sun.
However, the smartphone in your pocket is not such a big fan of these record hot conditions.
Most devices have an optimal temperature and once that's exceeded things can go wrong.
In fact many tech companies, including Apple, state that devices should be stored where the temperature is between -20º and 45º C.
So, if you want to keep your smartphone working at its best, here's some top tips for keeping it cool.
1. Remove any cases
Yes it keeps the phone from getting damaged but, like a big wooly jumper, a case won't allow heat to escape as quickly as it needs to.
Smartphones are meant to get hot as the exterior of the device functions as a cooling surface that transfers heat from inside the device to the cooler air outside.
But a case can make it get too hot in these conditions so remove the protection and just be careful not to drop your phone.
2. DON'T leave your phone in the car
Pets should never be left in car and neither should your phone. Temperatures inside a parked vehicle can easily reach 60º C and that's when things will start to go seriously wrong.
3. KEEP it out of the sun
If you sit in the sun too long you're likely go red and so will your phone so keep yourself, and your phone, in the shade during the hottest times of the day.
4. Turn things off
Some functions such as GPS tracking, navigation in a car, or playing a graphics-intensive game will make your phone hotter than a supermodel so avoid using these feature in the current conditions.
5. DON'T charge it
Plugging your smartphone into the mains will make it heat up so, if it's already burning your hands, keep it away from the power lead.
What happens when your phone gets too hot?
If things do get out of control it's likely your phone will shut itself down to avoid any irreparable damage.
When the device goes off the advice is simple – put it somewhere cool and leave it well alone for a few hours.
And whatever you do DON'T put it in the fridge or freezer...that's only going to leave you needing to buy a brand new phone.
STARING at your phone screen in the middle of the night to quickly check a Facebook notification or skim-read a few emails can leave you with fuzzy vision – or temporary blindness in one eye. This is why.
Blindness due to using bright screens in bed was covered in New England Journal of Medicine
If you've ever checked your smartphone in a dark room – or during the middle of the night – you might have noticed it can temporarily make your vision blur.
Reading a text message or double-checking your Facebook notifications in the night can play havoc with your eye sight.
You may have noticed when you roll-over after ogling your screen that you can see from one eye but have temporarily lost sight from another.
Your eyes will readjust and your vision will return, but it can be a little frightening.
Harsh blue light can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep
Doctors recently detailed the phenomenon as part of a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A 22-year-old woman told her GP that she was having trouble seeing from her right eye at night, but after a swathe of tests, the doctor determined that she was perfectly healthy.
The same frustrating result was thrown up when a 40-year-old woman underwent the same tests after reporting she had difficulties seeing from one eye for up to 15 minutes in the morning.
According to the final findings in the New England Journal of Medicine: "When the women went to an ophthalmic clinic, specialists took detailed histories and figured out that the women were using their phones in the dark before falling asleep and right after waking up, respectively.
Night Shift mode will "shift the colours in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum"
"After asking them to record their symptoms for a few days, they said that the vision problems were always in the eye opposite of the side they were laying on.
"The doctors suspected this was because if a person lays on, say, their left side, their left eye is partially blocked by the pillow and adapts to darkness, while the right eye adapts to the light and does most of the viewing.
"Which is fine until you look away from the phone and, with both eyes uncovered in the dark, the right, light-adapted eye is perceived to be blind until it readjusts to the darkness.
"They tested this theory on themselves and also had trouble seeing out of one eye for a few minutes.
"They said that although people look at their phones with both eyes the majority of the time, we are increasingly attached to the damn things and their brightness is only increasing so they expect doctors will see more and more cases like this."
You have probably experience the temporary blindness described in the doctors' report.
And it looks like things are only going to get worse.
According to the doctors, the displays on modern smartphones and other portable gadgets are only getting brighter, and our bedtime reading habits are getting worse.
If you decide to use your device in a dark room, turn down the brightness on the screen.
Apple recently tried to address this issue with the introduction of its Night Shift mode, which shifts the colours in your display to the warmer end of the spectrum.
Harsh blue light can affect your circadian rhythms and make it harder to fall asleep.
F.lux – a hugely popular Windows and Mac app that gradually changes your display lighting based on the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day – works on desktop and laptop devices.
The lightweight app, which hopes to reduce eye strain in users who work at night or in dimly-lit areas, has been downloaded more than 15 million times, according to the company.
The attacker can sometimes even spoof their identity - so the text looks like it comes from Google, or Facebook
he hacker enters the victim's password, followed by an ill-gotten 2FA code, and they're in
Two-factor authentication is a godsend for securing your accounts.
It requires a second level of proof of who you are - typically a code sent to your phone - before you can log in. This prevents anyone from gaining unauthorised access to your account, even if they manage to get hold of your password.
However, hackers and hijackers are managing to find ways around it.
Earlier this week, Alex MacCaw, cofounder data API company Clearbit, shared a screenshot of a text attempting to trick its way past Two-factor authentication (2FA) on a Google account.
Here's how it works:
The attacker sends the target a text message, pretending to be the very company that the target has an account with.
They say they have detected “suspicious” activity to the account, and so are sending the 2FA code to the target, which they should then text back to them to avoid having their account locked.
The victim, worried they are being hacked and not wanting to lose access to their data, sends the code back, believing they have thwarted the attempted hack.
But in doing so, they actually give the hacker the one thing they needed to break into the account.
The hacker enters the victim's password, followed by this ill-gotten 2FA code, and they're in.
The attacker can sometimes even spoof their identity - so the text looks like it comes from Google, or Facebook, or Apple, rather than an unknown number.
Of course, the attacker still needs the victim's password for this to work. But there are a number of ways they could get hold of it. Often they look at data dumps from old hacks for emails/usernames and passwords which they then try on other sites, because so many people reuse passwords across multiple accounts and platforms.
Huge databases of tens of millions of email addresses and passwords have been floating around in the last few weeks - notably from LinkedIn and MySpace. So if you reuse passwords, your login details may be being shared online right now without you realising.
The text message that Alex MacCaw shared on Twitter is above.
To stay safe, use a strong, unique password for every account you have - managing them all with a password manager if necessary - and don't text your Two-factor authentication codes to anyone, even if they appear legitimate.
Facebook is going to delete your synced photos in a few weeks’ time unless you install another of its apps.
Facebook is going to delete your synced photos
Now if that sentence puzzled you, you’re not alone. Many users have no idea that the synced photos album even exists, or that Facebook may have had access to their private photos since 2012.
Back then, the ‘synced’ or ‘synced from phone’ section of Facebook photos was launched, but most users did not know that this gave the app access to their private albums.
Mark Zuckerberg wants users to download the Moments app
The update allowed Facebook users to sync automatically all the photos taken on their iPhone with their social profile, reports TechCrunch.
The company now wants users to download the Moments app, which was launched last year.
This makes the ‘synced photos’ feature in the existing app unnecessary.
Facebook wants users to transfer or download these photos to your desktop before the next update, which takes place in the first week of July.
Mobile phones are increasingly becoming the most important part of people’s work and social lives – which means they’re more and more vulnerable to attack
A man uses an iPhone 5C at the Berlin Apple Store
The next text message you receive could ruin your life.
Increasingly, SMS messages are being used as a way of duping people into giving up their online accounts, and out of their identities and their money.
Many of those messages arrive looking perfectly innocent, and even useful. But they could be incredibly dangerous – and so it’s important to make sure to know how to spot them.
One of the major problems with such scams is that it is now relatively easy to pretend to be someone else, over text. The technology that powers texts allows people to put custom names in when they send messages – allowing people to easily pretend to be Google, Apple or anybody else.
As such, the main thing is to never give any information over text message, and only use it as a way of showing alerts. You never know who is texting you, or who you are texting – so treat it with extreme caution.
iCloud scams
One of the more recent scourges coming over SMS are iCloud scams. They aim to trick people into giving up the password that they use to get into their Apple account – and, once hackers are into that, then they can easily get your bank account details, your location, and more scary stuff besides.
Most of these notifications just work like traditional phishing scams, where cyber criminals pretend to be a company so that users send them details. But because they are done through the very personal but notoriously sketchy technology of SMS, they can be easy to spot.
It isn’t clear why there has been such a huge amount of these in recent months, but reports of them definitely do seem to be surging. The advice is the same as traditional phishing: responsible companies will never ask you to reply to a message with your personal details, or tell you to click on a dodgy link, so make sure that you always only give your information to official websites and be careful that you are.
Two-factor authentication
Another more new development is tricks that try and get around the two-factor authentication that many products now have built in – and which, for the most part, serves as a big problem for people breaking into your account. That's why it's also become such a security risk.
Two-factor authentication works by attaching a phone number to a person’s account. When they try to log-in, it will send a unique code to that phone number, and that has to be typed into the site. It’s built to foil people who steal passwords and then use them to get into accounts, because it requires physical access to the phone; and that’s why people are now trying to get around it with scams.
One highlighted this weekend shows a message that claims to be from Google and tells people that their account may have been hacked. If they want to have it shut down, it says, they need to reply to the message with the 6-digit verification code that they are about to receive.
It’s a sneaky way of getting people to put the authentication message that they have received from Google into a text message so that scammers can get around the security setup. But it’s a curiously convincing one.
Again, the key is never to enter any important codes into a text message or any unverified sites. And sites such as Google and others that use two-factor authentication will only ever send you the messages if you ask for them; if you’re receiving them without asking, it probably means someone is trying to break into your account.
Have you ever been locked out of your smartphone or tablet because it would not recognise your fingerprint?
Five fingerprints are better than one
If you have, you may want to register more than one digit in the future, which is something many people do not realise you can do.
It’s quite simple and doesn’t take more than a minute to complete.
Below are instructions on how to do it for iOS and Android devices, which should hopefully bring an end to the frustration of not being able to access your smartphone.
Many of the devices allow you to register up to five fingerprints so if your mobile fails to recognise one, just move on to the other.
And of course you can register someone else’s digit as well.
iOS (iPhone and iPad)
In order to register another finger click on the settings app, select Touch ID & Passcode, enter passcode, then add new fingerprint.
Android (Lollipop, N or Marshmallow)
Again click on settings, select security, then fingerprint, which will allow you to add another digit for fingerprint identification. You should be prompted for a passcode to complete this registration.
If your phone runs out of juice while you're out-and-about it might be much safer (but a whole lot more frustrating, obviously) to wait until you can use your own charger to beef up your battery.
According to research from Kaspersky Lab, all kinds of information can be transferred from your phone when you charge it up. Such as the name of your device, the model, serial number and electronic chip ID. (But it'll all depend largely on the manufacturer and model of phone that you have.)
Sure the serial number of your phone getting into the wrong hands may not sound too important, but Kapersky Lab claims that those details might be all that some hackers need to break into your phone and get access to stuff that is really important.
If the public charging station hooks up directly to a power supply that's okay. But often there's no way of telling if there's hardware installed at the other end. And if there is hardware at the other end, the research team has proved that you can install a "root application" on a dummy smartphone, which then compromised the device.
So what do you do if you're on-the-move and really need to charge up your device? Well, if you're using iOS and the 'Trust this computer?' warning pops up, hit 'Don't trust' to just charge and not share anything. And don't unlock your phone when it's charging. Most Android devices have similar settings, so if you plug your phone in and you're asked what to share, always opt for 'Charging Only'.
Here's how to crime-proof your profile and protect yourself online
Is your Facebook a goldmine for criminals? Here's how to protect your profile
FACEBOOK has become a staple in many of our day to day lives, but is your Facebook profile a gift for cyber criminals?
Most of us make the easy mistake of including too much detail on our social media profiles, but there are some things which you really should not be flaunting on Facebook.
With rates of cyber crime on the rise, it’s more vital than ever that Facebook users know how to stay safe online, especially since social media can represent a goldmine for hackers, thieves and fraudsters.
Here are the 8 things you would be wise to delete from your Facebook profile, in order to crime-proof your page and protect your family.
1. Your birthday
Receiving all those ‘Happy birthday!’ wall posts on the big day may be nice, but it’s actually not a great idea to display your birthday anywhere on social media.
Whilst it may seem like a harmless detail, your birthday represents an important piece of information for identity thieves and fraudsters.
Along with your name and address, a hacker with your birth date could use the information they’ve seen on your profile to access your bank account or other personal details.
2. Where your children or young family members go to school
There should be nothing on your page about where your child is at any time, and it’s especially dangerous to share any information which could identify their school.
According to the NSPCC, police recorded the highest ever number of sexual offences against children in the past decade, meaning parents should be taking no risks when it comes to broadcasting anything about their children on social media.
Even proud pictures of your kids in their new school uniform could help predators identify where they spend most of the day whilst you’re at work.
Hackers and thieves can use any location information on your page to plot a break-in or steal your identity
3. Photos of your children or young family members
It’s not advisable to share pictures of your children on the internet, as you never know who might end up in possession of those pictures.
According to Victoria Nash, acting director of the Oxford Internet Institute, another issue is to do with your child’s consent.
She asks: “What type of information would children want to see about themselves online at a later date?”
4. Location Services
When using the mobile version of Facebook on Android or iPhones, posts can come tagged with your current location automatically.
This not only means that anyone who wants to harm you knows exactly where you are, but it can also alert burglars when you’re not at home – making your house the perfect target for a break-in.
Smart phones can automatically broadcast your location for all to see
5. Where and when you’re going away
You may be rightly excited about spending some time away from home, but you should never broadcast this on social media.
By sharing when you’re out of the house, burglars know when they can safely strike, and how long it’ll take you to get home and realise your house has been broken in to.
According to financial website This is Money, travellers who are burgled while they are on holiday may get their insurance claim rejected if they posted their holiday plans on their social media accounts.
6. Location Tags
When you tag yourself as ‘at home’, this can reveal your address to anyone who has access to your profile.
Giving away your address online is dangerous in so many ways – partly because identity thieves can use it to piece together your profile, and partly because absolutely anyone who wants to come knocking at your door now knows exactly where to find you.
Mobile apps can tag your location, meaning theives can find out when you're not at home
7. Your phone number
On a public page, revealing your phone number could prove to be a serious mistake.
Sharing your number with the world could lead to constant harassment if it ends up on a telemarketing database, or worse – if a stalker finds it.
8. Any credit card details
Hopefully, nobody out there thinks that this could ever be a good idea – you’re making things incredibly easy for thieves by sharing such sensitive information online.
WINDOWS 10 has an in-built feature, dubbed Delivery Optimisation, that turns your PC into a file-sharing hub for other Microsoft users. Here is how to switch it off.
Microsoft has created a new optimised update delivery system for Windows 10
Microsoft has created a new optimised update delivery system for Windows 10.
<>The nifty new feature means Windows 10 users can pull operating system updates and Windows Store apps from your machine, when Microsoft's own servers are busy.
These updates can be sent over your local network, or over the internet.
Delivery Optimisation can be incredibly useful. For example, if you have an unstable internet connection, or want to update your computer at peak times when Microsoft's servers are clogged up, this will let Windows 10 still update correctly.
Delivery Optimisation is on by default when you install Windows 10 on your computer, turning your home machine into an update-sharing hub that feeds updates to other devices.
The feature leverages peer-to-peer file-sharing, which could trigger some security concerns amongst users.
According to Microsoft, Delivery Optimisation employs the same security measures as Windows Update and the Windows Store to avoid any privacy beaches.
Your operating system will verify the authenticity of each portion of the OS update or app.
Microsoft hopes to have billions of devices running Windows 10 in the next few years
Delivery Optimisation will never access your personal files, or make any changes to the content on your machine.
However the feature could still impact on your data limit. If your PC is busy feeding updates to other computers, it could tie-up your bandwidth.
If you want to switch the feature off – navigate to Settings > Update & Security.
In the Windows Update menu, listed under the Update Settings. tab, click Advanced Options.
This will load the Advanced Options menu, click Choose How Updates Are Delivered. Then click the toggle next to the option marked Updates From More Than One Place.
Once this toggle is turned off, you will no longer be able to send or receive updates to other PCs
Once this toggle is turned off, you will no longer be able to send or receive Windows updates to other computers.
The news comes as Microsoft announced plans to ban terrible, insecure passwords.
Windows 10 is available for free to any customers running genuine copies of Windows 7 or Windows 8 – although this offer is set to end soon.
Microsoft previously revealed it is quietly working on a new tool to help users perform a clean install of Windows 10 on their computers, smartphones and tablets.
If you thought plugging your phone into a computer to charge it up was fairly safe, you thought wrong
When your phone starts complaining that its battery is running low, you probably wouldn't think twice about plugging it into a computer to charge it up.
But security experts claim that this simple act could be enough to get you hacked.
According to researchers at Kaspersky Lab, plugging your iPhone or Android smartphone into a computer results in a whole load of data being exchanged between the two devices.
This could include the phone's name, the manufacturer, the device type, the serial number, firmware information, the operating system information, the file system and the electronic chip ID.
The amount of data sent varies depending on the device and the host, but each smartphone transfers the same basic set of information - like device name, manufacturer and serial number.
While this information may seem fairly innocuous, it is enough for a hacker to break into a smartphone and take control, according to Kaspersky.
Using a regular PC and a standard micro USB cable, the researchers were able to silently install a "root application" on a test smartphone, amounting to a total compromise of the device.
This is not the first time theft of data from a mobile connected to a computer has been observed.
This technique was used in 2013 as part of the cyberespionage campaign Red October . The Hacking Team group also made use of a computer connection to load a mobile device with malware.
In both of these cases, the hackers found a way to exploit the supposedly safe data exchange between the smartphone and the PC it was connected to.
By checking the identification data received from the connected device, the hackers were able to discover what device model the victim was using and then use this information to tailor their attack.
This would not have been as easy to achieve if smartphones did not automatically exchange data with a PC upon connecting to the USB port.
"The security risks here are obvious: if you’re a regular user you can be tracked through your device IDs; your phone could be silently packed with anything from adware to ransomware," warns Alexey Komarov, researcher at Kaspersky Lab.
"And you don't even have to be highly-skilled in order to perform such attacks, all the information you need can easily be found on the Internet."
It you're worried about getting hacked in this way, Kaspersky Lab says there are several ways to protect yourself:
Use only trusted USB charging points and computers to charge your device
Protect your mobile phone with a password, or with another method such as fingerprint recognition, and don’t unlock it while charging
Use encryption technologies and secure containers (protected areas on mobile devices used to isolate sensitive information) to protect the data
Install some kind of antivirus software that is capable of detecting malware even if a "charging" vulnerability is used
Are you plagued by nuisance calls from sales and marketing companies? There is now a way to opt out... permanently
Are nuisance calls driving you mad?
Mobile phone users can send a text message to opt out of nuisance calls from today.
The "text-to-register" service allows mobile users to add their number to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) "do not call" database.
Those wanting to sign up need to text "TPS" followed by their email address to the shortcode 78070.
They will receive a text reply from the TPS confirming their number has been successfully added to its database.
Registrants should notice a gradual reduction in unsolicited sales and marketing voice calls after a few days, although it can take up to 28 days for the service to become fully effective.
Finally! There is a way to opt out
It is illegal for organisations to make unsolicited sales and marketing calls to numbers registered with the TPS, unless they have a person's consent to do so.
Only 48% of people familiar with the TPS are aware that mobile numbers can be registered, compared to 88% for landline phone numbers, according to Ofcom.
The regulator said this helped to explain why only 2.9 million mobile numbers (around 3%) were registered on the TPS database, compared with 18.5 million landline numbers (around 85%).
John Mitchison, head of the TPS, said: "Rogue callers operate illegally and against the interests of ordinary people.
"Texting will make it easier for people to register their mobile numbers on the TPS, which is the only official no-call list, and help us stamp out rogue callers once and for all by giving the Information Commissioner more ammunition to prosecute these cases."
Don't let them get to you
Ofcom consumer group director Lindsey Fussell said: "Many millions of landline customers already take advantage of the protection the TPS gives against nuisance calls, and we want to ensure it's as easy as possible for mobile users to do the same.
"We encourage anyone who wants to reduce the number of frustrating and unwanted calls to their mobile phone to register with the TPS today."
Baroness Neville Rolfe, the minister responsible for data protection, said: "Nuisance calls are incredibly intrusive and can cause significant distress, particularly to elderly and vulnerable members of society.
"This new service from the TPS and Ofcom will help protect people with mobile phones, making it easier for them to register via text and opt out of the call list."
There are features many users haven't yet discovered
There's currently over 1 billion groups on WhatsApp
WhatsApp, the app Facebook bought for $19 billion (£12 billion), is used by more than 900 million people around the world and has become one of the best ways to connect with people in different countries or have group conversations.
Unlike with text messaging, WhatsApp uses a data connection, which means sending a message is essentially free, especially for those with unlimited data plans .
While the app is reasonably simple, there are features many users haven't yet discovered.
Here are the top nine "hidden" features in WhatsApp that everyone should know about and use.
1. See how many messages you and your friends have sent to each other.
To find out whom you communicate with most on WhatsApp, go to Settings > Account > Network Usage.
A number appears next to each contact that represents the total number of messages sent back and forth. Selecting a person reveals more information, including how many messages have been sent by whom.
2. Mute group chats.
Group-chat notifications — especially in a big group — can become annoying, particularly if you aren't involved in the conversation. While muting group chat may seem drastic, sometimes these things have to be done.
Go to the group chat in question, click on its name and select “Mute,” where you will be presented with three options: eight hours, a week, and a year.
3. Hide your "Last Seen" time.
Hiding your “Last Seen” time is a useful feature if you don't want people to know when you last checked in to WhatsApp.
To switch it off, head to Settings > Account > Privacy > Last Seen. From here, you can select who gets to view your “Last Seen” time.
The feature does come with a trade-off: You won't be able to see anyone else's “Last Seen” time either.
4. Change your WhatsApp number if you switch phone numbers.
Setting up WhatsApp and then changing phones can be a pain. The service is not linked to your actual phone number, just the first number you enter and verify. This “number” will then follow you onto your next phone, creating confusion for everyone.
If you get a new number, you can change your WhatsApp number quite easily by going to Settings > Account > Change Number and following the steps from there.
5. Create custom group-chat notifications.
An alternative to muting group chat is having different notifications for each one, allowing you to check your phone only for the important ones.
As with the muting feature, head to the chat, click the name and go to “Custom Notifications,” where a different sound can be selected.
6. Stop photos from being saved to the camera roll.>
Phone storage space is a precious thing, and WhatsApp can consume a lot of it.
To avoid this, head to Apple Settings > Privacy > Photos and then un-select WhatsApp from the list, banning the app from saving new pictures to the camera roll. Pictures do still download, however, so you won't be missing out.
7. See when someone has read your message.
Checking when someone read your message is useful for all kinds of reasons, especially in a group-chat setting.
<>To check, select the message and drag it left, revealing the time it was delivered and the time it was read. In a group chat, a list of whom the message has been delivered to and who has read it shows instead.
Note: If you uncheck Read Receipts to prevent people from seeing when you have read their messages, you also won't be able to see when other people have read your messages (explained next).
8. You can switch off Read Receipts — just like iMessage.
Reading someone's messages without replying is, in 2015, considered the height of bad digital etiquette. Luckily, WhatsApp can help.
By going to Settings > Account > Privacy and switching off Read Receipts , your friends will never know that you are ignoring them.
9. You can access WhatsApp on the web.
WhatsApp Web, accessed via web.whatsapp.com, brings the phone experience to your computer and is available in all major browsers.
To access it, go to the website and scan the QR code with the WhatsApp app and you will be logged in. From here you can start, continue, and end conversations with all the usual features that are in the app.
IF YOU'VE had a Facebook account for a while, chances are, the hugely-successful social network has a few memories and photos you'd rather not see plastered across your News Feed.
Facebook could kickstart your day by dragging up a painful memory
Facebook knows a lot about you.
And the more times goes by, the more dirt the US-based social network collects on you.
Facebook introduced its On This Day timehop feature back in March 2015.
The nifty tool pulls in past status updates, photos, posts from friends and other things you’ve shared or been tagged in – from one year ago, two years ago, and so on.
It can be a convenient way to stroll down memory lane and fondly remember some of the times you've spent with friends and family.
You cannot disable the app, but you can turn off any notifications
Unfortunately it can also resurface some painful memories from your miserable past.
Facebook does offer some customisation tools, as well as the ability to turn off the feature altogether.
To switch-off On This Day completely, you'll need to login to the Facebook website.
When your News Feed loads, click on On This Day, which is listed in the rundown of apps on the left-hand side of the screen.
Alternatively, you can filter the On This Day notifications for certain people or dates
When facebook.com/onthisday loads, you will be presented with a list of your social media memories. In the top right hand-corner, there is a button marked Notifications.
Click this and chose the option marked Off.
Unfortunately Facebook does not let you remove the app altogether, so you'll always be able to navigate to facebook.com/onthisday and scroll through your past posts.
But at least Mark Zuckerberg's social media behemoth won't pester you with cringe-inducing past statuses every time you login.
And if its just a few select memories you're looking to avoid, you can customise the On This Day alerts from the same menu.
Tap the Preferences button, next to Notifications on the On This Day page. This presents you with two filters, which allow you to purge a particular date or person from your memories.
You don't need to be friends with people to ditch them from the On This Day app, so you can easily get rid of a terrible ex you're no longer friends with.
The news comes as police warned social media users to avoid certain new features on Facebook.
First things first, the solution to taking better Instagram photos is probably not to use Instagram in the first place.
The unfortunate truth is that National Geographic's photographers aren't usually getting those incredible animal photos it shares on its Instagram account with their iPhones.
Instead, Instagram lets you import images from your device's gallery, so you can easily upload photos taken on a better camera than your smartphone.
For photographers, this means you can then use your computer to edit and tweak your image to get it looking spectacular before you upload it to Instagram.
Still, there are times when it's convenient to whip out the Instagram app to grab a photo for quickly sharing on the social media platform.
So if you are using Instagram's camera, there are certain tips and tricks you can use to get your photos looking their best.
Square crop
Instagram's built-in camera still takes photos in a 1:1 aspect ratio, which you might also hear being referred to as a "square crop". The square crop harks back to Polaroid instant cameras, so have a certain nostalgic appeal.
How you crop an image can have a major impact on how the image is perceived by viewers. It’s a technique used by photographers to change the tone or the eye-lines (the route your eyes take as they’re drawn into an image) or to salvage a poorly framed photo by cropping it in different ways.
Your average compact camera likely takes photos in 3:2 aspect ratio but as Instagram limits you to 1:1 you'll need to frame your shots accordingly when using the built-in camera.
Even when working in a square crop, basic photographic composition techniques like the well-known "rule of thirds" still apply. This essentially means dividing your frame up into thirds horizontally and vertically, then placing your subject or point of interest on one of these thirds.
If you’re taking a landscape shot of beautiful scenery, this can mean placing the horizon on the bottom vertical third to accentuate the dramatic skies or placing the horizon on the top third to highlight the foreground.
You can also experiment with placing objects on where the horizontal and vertical thirds intersect, which often results in more dynamic-feeling images.
As well as the rule of thirds, a square is a symmetrical shape. This means it can be used to great effect to highlight the symmetry of the world. Some of the best Instagram shots are perfectly symmetrical, taking advantage of geometry and a balanced frame.
Don’t stick too hard and fast to the "rules", however. It's worth experimenting with different results and to find your own distinctive style.
Angles
If ever there was a quintessential Instagram photo, the top-down food shot is it. In part, it's because it gives you a clear view of all the beautiful food on your plate, but also because the square crop helps accentuate the geometry on display. The circular plates within a square frame make for a naturally aesthetic image.
But aside from shooting your food, thinking about how you angle your photos can have an impact on their tone and feel.
It’s a classic cinematic technique, but shooting up makes an object or subject feel empowered while shooting down makes them feel, well, looked down on. You can apply the same technique in day-to-day photography. Furthermore, looking up or down at the world can lead to seeing things you might not have noticed.
Filters and Effects
Probably as famous as Instagram’s square crop, filters play a big role in the photography sharing platform’s fun and appeal.
Many of Instagram’s filters emulate different film types or apply different photo effects from changing the colour temperature to applying vignettes to de-saturating the image completely. You can adjust the level of each filter, too.
Instagram has been adding more and more filters, as well as making previously video-only filters available for photographs.
At the time of writing, there are currently 40 different filters available. Not all of them are available by default but you can turn on the options for the extras by scrolling to the end of the filters list and selecting ‘Manage ’.
You’ll then be presented with a checklist of filters to add to your options, which will then be available in the horizontal list.
The right filter can transform a flat, lifeless image to one that becomes instantly more visually interesting, so try different filters until you find a favourite.
Different filters also naturally apply themselves to different styles of photography. A filter like Aden is great for portraiture as it naturally softens skin tones. If you’re interested, this is a fascinating study of the most popular Instagram filters around the world
As well as the filters, you can also make finer adjustments to your final image. You can manually adjust variables such as contrast, saturation, and sharpness to get the image the way you want.
If Instagram has taken the image in the wrong orientation, you can also rotate the image from the ‘Adjust’ menu, which will also let you correct the perspective.
Use Layout to combine multiple photographs
Technically, Layout is a separate app to Instagram, so you will need to install it. It's an official companion app to Instagram that lets you easily combine multiple images.
It’s accessible from within Instagram by tapping the icon that looks like a frame split into various images. This then lets you select multiple images from your camera roll or gallery to combine into one.
Based on how many images you select you’ll be presented with different layouts. You’re able to adjust the size and position of each image by dragging the borders.
Within the Layout app you can also use the Photo Booth mode to quickly take various different selfies in quick succession using your smartphone's front-facing camera. It's a fun little addition.
SHUT IT DOWN: Putting your PC to sleep isn't always the best idea
Closing the lid on your laptop without hitting the off button could be causing you a host of issues.
Although it's faster and easier to simply send your PC to sleep, not turning it off can lead to infuriatingly slow performance and problems with your Wi-Fi.
This is because over time, your operating system, apps and programmes begin to accumulate some leftover digital mess.
These include temporary files, disk caches, page files, open file descriptors, zombie processes, and more.
And there's another common problem as applications you thought you'd quit weeks ago can end up hogging valuable space in your memory.
This can then cause rival apps to run significantly slower than usual.
If that wasn't reason enough to hit the off button there's also another issue.
If you have any driver crashes or software hiccups, you can experience problems with your Wi-Fi connectivity, too.
Putting your laptop or desktop machine to sleep or enabling hibernate mode will not solve the issue.
That's because sleep mode still sips enough power to keep the computer’s state in memory.
Other parts of the computer are shutdown to save battery, but the disk caches, zombie processes, memory leaks, and more, will remain intact.
Windows' hibernate mode is a similar affair.
This mode saves its current state to your hard drive – dumping the contents of its RAM into a file on its hard drive.
Your PC will use about the same amount of power as one that's shutdown, but the same troublesome processes are saved.
Fortunately, shutting down your computer every once in a while can give your machine a fresh start.
SuperUser technology blog contributor David Zaslavsky claims: "Different computers and OS’s are not all equally affected by this phenomenon.
"Generally, a computer with a lot of RAM can go for much longer than a computer with only a little RAM. A server, on which you just start up a few programs and then let them work, will be fine for much longer than a desktop computer, where you’re constantly opening and closing different programs and doing different things with them.
"Plus, server operating systems are optimised for long-term use.
"It’s also been said that Linux and Mac OS tend to run for longer than Windows systems, although in my experience that mostly depends on what programs you use on them, and not so much on any differences between the kernels of the operating systems themselves."
If you notice that your computer is slogging through some simple tasks – and you find yourself struggling to remember the last time you shutdown your PC – it might be time to reboot.
Nationwide's prototype app recognises how you hold, swipe, or type into device
People could be able to access their mobile banking by an app recognising how they hold, swipe, or type into their device, due to an innovation from Britain's biggest building society.
Nationwide has developed a prototype within a mobile banking app, which could provide an extra layer of 'behavioural biometrics' security by recognising unique patterns from people's natural interactions with their smartphone or tablet.
New research from Nationwide has also found the average UK adult now has to remember six different passwords - and one in four people has more than 10 passwords to remember.
While the prototype is still in the early stages, Nationwide said that eventually it could be used as additional security for mobile banking alongside more 'traditional' methods such as Pins and passwords, as well as using other technology such as fingerprint scanning and voice recognition.
Currently, it is being used as a way of authenticating payments made within an app as an extra layer of security, but it could be used in future as a way of logging in alongside other security methods.
It could in principle be used in place of other security - but it is thought that it would likely remain as an additional level of security.
The prototype is being developed by Nationwide's 'innovation team' in partnership with technology companies BehavioSec and Unisys. It gives people a certain percentage score.
People would have to achieve a certain percentage likeness to the way they personally use their phone or tablet to get the go-ahead within the app.
James Smith, head of innovation at Nationwide Building Society, said: 'Behavioural biometrics monitor the patterns and habits that are unique to each mobile banking user - everyone holds and interacts with their mobile device in a different way.
'The prototype provides an exciting insight into what the future may hold, as we investigate new ways to enhance security.'
Seven in 10 people surveyed for Nationwide said they struggle to remember their passwords and end up clicking 'forgotten password' links twice a month on average.
New research from Nationwide has also found the average UK adult now has to remember six different passwords - and one in four people has more than 10 passwords to remember
People in the South West, London and Yorkshire and the Humber were the most likely to say they struggle to remember passwords, while people in East Anglia were the most likely to say this is not a problem for them.
Nationwide's research among 2,000 people found 70 per cent of those surveyed want more security but do not want to add to the number of passwords or Pins to remember.
When asked what the future could hold for mobile phone security, nearly 60% think retina scanners would be built into devices within 10 years, with nearly 30% suggesting that a whole face scanner will be the way to unlock the mobile phones of the future.
Mr Smith continued: 'While we all know it's important to change our passwords regularly, this research highlights just how many different passwords people need to remember in an increasingly digital world.'
Experts have revealed what really happens if you don't put your phone on flight mode during a plane journey
It's commonly believed that a device's signal can interfere with a plane's electrical and telecommunications systems but can they cause a crash?
Now experts can reveal the truth behind the popular belief and found out exactly what does happen, according to the MailOnline Travel.
Despite some passengers believing their phones could bring the plane down, they claim modern technology is safe and reliable and there's no evidence electronics have ever caused a crash.
Despite many passengers believing their phone signals could cause the plane to crash, there isn't any evidence of this actually occurring
In fact, the most likely reason for airlines asking passengers to put their devices on flight mode is to avoid annoying the pilots and air traffic controllers with awful sounds.
Airline workers experience the same sort of unpleasant sounds that we do if a mobile phone is too close to a set of speakers.
Writing on a blog post for the site AirlineUpdates, a pilot revealed that although mobiles can cause audible interference with the aircraft's radios, it's rare.
While writing a blog post for the website AirlineUpdates, a pilot revealed that it's very rare for a device's signal to interfere with the radio signals but there have been occassions when they cause unpleasant sounds
The pilot continued: "You’ve probably heard this interference yourself when a phone is set near a speaker.
"It sounds like a “dit-dit-dit-dit” tone and it’s pretty annoying."
If a plane makes 50 journeys, the interference occurs only twice, on average, over that period of time and often this can be because of cabin crew member's phones.
But, if there are repeated interferences, it can cause the pilot or crew to miss a crucial radio call from air traffic control.
Now, some international airlines are introducing telecommunication base stations that operate at very low power and designed not to interfere with crew's signals.
And here are 5 more facts you didn't know about planes:
1. The toilet DOESN'T empty out into the sky
Contrary to some people’s beliefs, when you go to the loo during a flight, the faeces and urine don’t just fall from the sky.
Patrick Smith, a pilot and author of Cockpit Confidential, a book about air travel explains what really happens.
“At the end of a flight, the blue fluid, along with your contributions to it, are vacuumed into a tank on the back of a truck,” he says.
2. Those little holes in the windows are there for a good reason
Although the little holes in plane windows can make people feel a little uneasy, they’re actually there to improve our flight.
The tiny gaps are actually used to regulate air pressure inside the plane’s cabin to prevent any potentially deadly depressurising in mid-air.
3. They don't dim the lights to create extra power to land safely
Dimming the lights for landing may seem like a strange idea to many but the safety measure could save lives.
Pilot Chris Cooke explains the precaution is taken so if an emergency situation broke out, the travellers’ eyes would’ve already adjusted to the darkness.
4. Smoking is banned... but planes DO still have ashtrays. Here's why
Smoking on planes was banned for US domestic flights in 1988, with most airline companies jumping onboard by the end of the 1990s.
So, why are there still ashtrays dotted around the plane?
Well, According to a British Airways spokesperson: "It is a legal requirement, under air navigation orders, to have ashtrays because while smoking is not permitted on flights, if someone were to light a cigarette on board there must be somewhere to safely extinguish it."
5. The toilet is NOT the dirtiest part of the plane
Many would assume the toilet seat is the filthiest part of a plane, but worryingly it doesn't even make the top five.
Below is the list of the most germ-ridden spots so next time you're flying, make sure you bring the hand sanitiser.
