Blog

By Tony Brookhouse on Oct 31, 2016 in Blog, News | 0 comments

Online social interactions are tied to longevity, as long as those online connections foster real-world social ties, new research shows. Source: Facebook & Real-World Friends: What’s a Healthy Balance?   It turns out that logging into Facebook to put a heart emoji under a photo of your best friend’s new baby may actually be good for you — provided that you also actually follow through in the real world, perhaps by buying a coffee for that frazzled new mom. New research shows that a moderate use of social media is linked with living longer, if that use helps strengthen real-world connections. “Interacting online seems to be healthy when the online activity is moderate and complements interactions offline,” study author William Hobbs, a postdoctoral fellow at Northeastern University in Boston, said in a statement. “It is only on the extreme end, spending a lot of time online with little evidence of being connected to people otherwise, that we see a negative association” between Facebook use and mortality, Hobbs said. In the study, Hobbs and his colleagues used a computer program to match the name and birthdate on the Facebook profiles of 12 million people living in California with public records such as birth and death certificates from that state. The study participants were all born between 1945 and 1989. After the researchers made those matches, they removed the names of the people in the study group to protect their privacy, according to the findings published today (Oct. 31) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An algorithm tallied up how many times, over a six-month period, people engaged with others online. Then, the researchers determined whether the participants were still alive, or had died by the end of the study period. They took into account the participants’ age, gender and other factors that could influence their likelihood of dying during the study period. The team found that people who used Facebook more often tended to live longer than those who didn’t. Of course, it is possible that some common factor (such as poor health or economic status) that the researchers did not take into account made people less likely to use Facebook, and that such a factor...

By Tony Brookhouse on Oct 30, 2016 in Blog, News | 0 comments

A fifth (21%) of Brits have thrown away at least one working computer in the last five years in favour of a newer model, according to new research from Crucial. Source: 13m Working Computers Discarded By Brits In The Last Five Years . Based on UK population figures from the ONS, this means that more than 13.87m computers have been binned in the last five years by Brits, according to the company. More than two in five (45%) of those that binned their PCs did so because it had slowed down, a third (32%) said it took too long to turn on and 29% said that their computer kept freezing. The survey of 2,000 people, conducted by Crucial, found that more than a third of Brits (36%) threw away their PC because they wanted a more powerful, newer model. Just 18% gave their old computer to someone else, 14% recycled it and only 6% gave their system an upgrade with new internal components. “The cost of upgrading can be as much as 10 times less expensive that buying a new computer, so consumers are missing a trick by opting for an expensive replacement instead of a simple, cheap upgrade.” Jeremy Mortenson, Crucial memory product line manager, commented: “One of the leading contributors to landfill waste in the UK is e-waste, created by disused or discarded technology including household appliances like old PCs. Our research shows that people are ditching working systems because they’ve slowed down, take too long to turn on and freeze all the time, all of which can be easily fixed. Brits are choosing to spend excessive amount on purchasing new computers when they could be getting a brand new machine for as little as £40 with a simple upgrade that doesn’t require any technical skills.” One in five Brits (21%) have unused working computers sitting at home, which could be upgraded to give them a new lease of life, Crucial says. On average, Brits have owned two computers in the last five years and are seemingly replacing their PCs much more regularly than business users. According to leading IT managers, the average business computer lasts 3 to 4 years before being disposed of (Data from March...

By Tony Brookhouse on Oct 29, 2016 in Blog, News | 0 comments

Source: Google’s AI machines are sending encrypted messages to each other and it’s creepy | TheINQUIRER GOOGLE IS experimenting with seeing what happens if it allows three of its neural networks pass notes to each other with their own encryption cipher. A new research paper shows how ‘Alice’, ‘Bob’, and ‘Eve’, three of Google Brain’s neural networks, have been passing messages to each other using encryption entirely of their own, whilst allowing the third to “eavesdrop” in order to see if it can decipher it. New Scientist reports that, despite not being taught any algorithms, the three were able to learn how to send coded messages, though the results were way below those of a computer generated encryption like those used by banks and the like. At first, Alice and Bob struggled to communicate after each others’ messages had been saved with a predetermined code, and Eve didn’t stand a chance as the onlooker. But after repeating the process 15,000 times, Eve would have been starting to feel a bit of a Billy No Mates, if she could feel, because A and B were happily chatting while Eve was only able to decipher eight of every sixteen bits. Eight out of 16 in a message made of 0s and 1s? That’s one in two. One in two is, basically the same as guessing. Perhaps what’s slightly scary about all this from a “rise of the machines” point of view is that, although Alice and Bob were able to offer their handlers, Martin Abadi and David Andersen, a solution to decrypt the code, they weren’t able to explain how the designed it. This means that, in theory, computers wanting to go rogue could have their own Enigma thing going on, freezing out the humans they are attempting to liberate themselves from. As for humans utilising it, if Alice and Bob aren’t about to show their workings, then it’s going to be increasingly difficult to turn it into anything that will ever be of any use to humans. All we’ve really done is give ourselves more chance of being first against the wall when the revolution...

By Tony Brookhouse on Oct 26, 2016 in Blog, News | 0 comments

The Start menu in Windows 10 has similarities to its counterpart in Windows 7 but also has some surprises. So how does it all work now? Source: How to use the Windows 10 Start menu   With Windows 10, Microsoft has returned the Start menu to its rightful place. But the new menu offers a few surprises with its dual-personality of part Start menu and part Start screen. How can you use and even personalize the menu so it works best for you? Assuming you’ve installed Windows 10 on a PC, click the Start button after Windows appears, and you’ll see the new Start menu with its hybrid approach. On the left, the familiar menu column appears with shortcuts to your applications and settings. On the right, a screen full of tiles to Windows apps displays so you can access key Windows apps right from the menu. Click the All Apps setting on the left, and Windows displays all of the apps installed on your PC. Click any shortcut on the left to open that particular app or setting. Click any tile on the right to open a specific Windows app, such as Mail, Calendar, or News. Need to search for an app, file or other item? Simply type your word or phrase in the search field, and a list of suggestions pops up. Want to shut down or restart Windows? Click the Power button at the bottom of the left column, and Windows will at the very least display options to Shut down and Restart. Want to lock your PC or sign out of your account? Right-click your account name at the top of the menu, and you’ll see a menu with three options: Change account picture, lock and sign out. OK, now let’s say you want to change or personalize some aspects of the Start menu. Here’s where your right mouse button comes into play. For example, you want to add File Explorer as a tile on the right side of the menu. Right-click the link for File Explorer and click Pin to Start. A tile for File Explorer appears on the right. Maybe you want to add Files Explorer to the taskbar instead. Right-click the link...

By Tony Brookhouse on Oct 22, 2016 in Blog, News | 0 comments

Windows 10 Here’s what’s new with the action center You can find the action center by clicking the dialogue box at the bottom right corner of your screen, by using the keyboard shortcut Windows key + A, by swiping left from the screen edge on touch devices or by tapping four fingers on the track pad. There you’ll see the new, fully customizable quick actions – settings you can change quickly, without going through the settings panel. The action center is also your one-stop shop for notifications to see what’s going on with apps and other programs from across your device. Plus, now you can also get web notifications in your action center via Microsoft Edge sites like web.skype.com or web.groupme.com. And as always, the action center is fully customizable – check out settings, then system, then notifications and actions to enable and disable what notifications you see in the action center. Have a great week!...

By Tony Brookhouse on Oct 22, 2016 in Blog, News | 0 comments

  BEGINNER’S GUIDE How to use Cortana on Windows 10 Cortana is your personal digital assistant on Windows 10 part of the next generation of search, and in this guide will show you how to get the most out of the experience. The name Cortana by now should sound very familiar. Cortana is your personal digital assistant on Windows 10 to help you find virtually anything on your device, track your packages and flights, inform you about weather and traffic information, manage your calendar and create reminders, and it can even tell you jokes. About Cortana How Cortana integrates into your digital life Ways to use Cortana How to set up Cortana Getting familiar with the Cortana user interface Cortana supported regions and languages About Cortana Cortana was first introduced on Windows Phone 8.1, and then it made its appearance on the desktop and mobile devices with the release of Windows 10. Originally the name “Cortana” was the codename of the project when the assistant was still under development. The name comes from the Microsoft’s franchise Halo game, where the main character, Master Chief, has his own assistant named Cortana and helps him in a lot of situations and to get out of many jams, which the company felt was an appropriate name. How Cortana integrates into your digital life Cortana integrates with the Windows 10 search feature for local searches, and it’s also capable of bringing you relevant search results from the web and provide intelligent answers to any question using Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Thanks to its ability to connect to the cloud, it works seamlessly on your desktop PC, laptop, tablet, Xbox One, and phone — even on Android and iPhone using the Cortana app. In addition, you can interact with Cortana in other products, such as on the Microsoft Edge web browser, and the assistant can also control certain Windows Store apps like Netflix, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hulu, Wikipedia, and many other apps. The assistant is always at your fingertips, right next to the Start button on your device, or a voice command away, when you use the assistant hands-free with the “Hey Cortana” feature to answer any question and perform many tasks that would otherwise...