The Guardian Do I need to get Snapchat? And would you please explain it to me? Do I need to get Snapchat? And would you please explain it to me? Facebook copies Snapchat feature for 15th time Selfies, Snapchat and sassy ladies: a teen's guide to social media

Do I need to get Snapchat? And would you please explain it to me?

This holiday season, it’s likely you observed teenaged family members posing for selfies with dog ears, flower crowns and other whimsical post-production add-ons. That was Snapchat, a messaging app launched in 2012 that is beloved of teenagers and 20-somethings.

According to the company’s own figures, more than 150 million people use the app every day, including 41% of 18- to 34-year-old Americans, the coveted millennial market. Three years ago its 27-year-old co-founder, Evan Spiegel, refused an offer of US$3bn from Facebook. Today Snapchat is reportedly worth as much as US$25bn (making it a “mega unicorn” of the likes of Uber and Airbnb) – and Spiegel is engaged to Miranda Kerr.

Snapchat’s point of difference is that its pictures and videos are visible for a maximum of 10 seconds, then disappear. Over the past 18 months, new features __have been added, such as stickers and animated lenses to jazz up your selfies that doubtless brought enormous cheer to those around you this Christmas.

But do you need to get Snapchat yourself?

Not with that attitude!

Studies suggest most smartphone users spend most of their time on five or six apps – only you know whether there’s room for another one in your life. But if it’s a vague sense of obligation to keep up with new tech that’s motivating you, or the hope of connecting with your children on their territory, let me give you permission to opt out.

A messaging app is only useful if you know people to message on it: if few of your friends __have Snapchat, it will simply take up storage space on your smartphone until you notice it three weeks later and delete it. Save yourself the hassle and stick to Facebook, which is doing its bald-faced best to replicate Snapchat’s success with its new features on Messenger and Instagram.

Trust me: your children won’t thank you for bursting in on their clubhouse. Compared with Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat is not user-friendly and this is reportedly by design: the barriers to entry keep it full of mostly millennials, like the technological equivalent of clothes shops that blast Top 40 hits at high volume because they’re not able to put a sign in the window that says “YOU’RE TOO OLD”.

My colleague, on only the outer edge of Generation X, marked her Snapchat debut with a 10-second video of her wearing a dressing gown and a pleasantly bemused expression, which she was unaware she had posted publicly.

“We’ve made it very hard for parents to embarrass their children,” said Spiegel at a conference in January. “It’s much more for sharing personal moments than it is about this public display.”

It’s for precisely that reason that it’s in my top three apps. (Yes, I am a millennial. Obviously.) When so much of social media is painstakingly pitched for the appearance of perfection, Snapchat lends itself to spontaneity and one-on-one messaging. There’s an irreverence to it that there’s an absolute dearth of on, say, Instagram.

Instagram posts say: look how rich my life is – at least, richer than yours. Facebook posts say: I care enough about this issue to argue about it at length with distant friends and family members. Tweets say: I am offended.

Snapchats say: I saw this and it reminded me of you and now I do not intend to revisit this moment ever again.

It’s an easy, relaxed way of maintaining ties. A four- to six-second snap may often have no other message than “I’m thinking of you”. Plus, if you’re inclined to drunk messaging – it’s a very real character flaw, trust me – and you use Snapchat, you can’t read them the next day. It is effectively as if you never sent them in the first place.

While Snapchat claims it wasn’t designed for this purpose, sexting is when the self-deleting feature really comes into its own. (Anthony Weiner, the New York mayoral candidate, was asked by BuzzFeed in 2013 why he didn’t use Snapchat for his one-man sexting campaign. He replied: “I don’t have a good answer to that.”)

If you’re new to sending nudes – no judgment here! – keep your face and identifying details out of the shot; send only to people you trust; and always, always check you’ve selected the right recipient. Taking a breath before pushing send is a good habit to cultivate in these cases.

Of course, nothing’s really gone forever on the internet. It is possible (but not easy) to retrieve expired Snapchats and there’s the ever-present risk of screenshots. But if a recipient screenshots a picture you’ve sent them, the app sends you an alert – and it’s viewed as a faux pas.

Other faux pas include sending friends the same picture or video as you post to your public story and posts that are overlong (in almost all cases, 10 seconds is too long) or poor quality (see: all concert footage).

The king of the overlong Snapchat story is the rap music DJ and producer DJ Khaled, who is something of a pioneer of the form. In October he posted the birth of his son to Snapchat. I advise against doing this.

Go easy with the selfies, too. The lenses are good fun and quite remarkably flattering but, in 18 months of use, they have become loaded. The flower crown and the puppy dog ears, in particular, are now seen as cliche, even “basic”. Apply sparingly.

Man dies at Mexican teenager's birthday party that went viral Mexican man's open invitation for daughter's birthday goes too viral

A man was killed and another injured at a birthday party for a 15-year-old Mexican girl that become an internet sensation after more than a million people accepted her father’s invitation to attend.

In December, Cresencio Ibarra, from the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí, inadvertently invited “everybody” to his daughter Rubi’s coming of age, or quinceañera, party.

“There will be a [horse race] with 10,000 pesos (£400), as for second and third places, we’ll work that out,” he said in a video that a local photographer posted on Facebook. Ibarra then added: “Everyone is cordially invited.”

Despite dozens of mocking internet memes and hundreds of thousands of gleeful acceptances, the party went ahead on Monday, with thousands of people turning up.

Although state police and Red Cross workers kept an eye on proceedings, a local man died after being trampled by his own horse, which was taking part in the traditional amateur race, or chiva.

Police had warned the crowds to stay clear of the race as there were no fences to protect them, but the man appears to __have stepped out in front of his horse and died soon afterwards. Another man was reported to __have been injured.

Several hundred guests had arrived by Monday morning for an outdoor mass, but the number swelled as the day progressed so that by evening there were thousands and the event resembled a rock concert.

Family members had to open a path for the girl through dozens of reporters and photographers snapping her picture so she could reach the mass. A large billboard saying, “Welcome to my 15th birthday party”, with Rubi’s picture towered over the tents and tables filled with food.

People had travelled from far and wide to attend the party and to sample their host’s generosity.

“I came to see if they would give me a dress for my granddaughter for her 15th birthday in May,” said Victoriano Obregón, who had come all the way from the northern state of Coahuila.

After the video emerged three weeks ago, Rubi’s mother explained that her husband had only been referring to everyone in the neighbouring communities, not the world, but by then the video had been picked up dozens of times on YouTube and had been seen by millions, sparking tributes by music stars, jokes and offers of sponsorship by companies.

Mexican airline Interjet published a promotion offering 30% discounts on flights to San Luis Potosi, under the slogan: “Are you going to Rubi’s party?”

Internet users published mocked-up photos of troops of turkeys, diggers stirring giant cauldrons of soup and massive crowds “heading for Rubi’s party”.

The actor Gael García Bernal made a parody video of the invitation, while the Mexican singer Luis Antonio López “El Mimoso” composed a song for Rubi. She even received an offer to appear on the soap opera The Rose of Guadalupe.

Sergio Octavio Contreras, a communications professor at La Salle-Bajío University in Mexico, said the saga was an example “of how the internet amplifies and makes hyper-transparent people’s personal lives and how traditional media look for stories on social networks to bring in new audiences”.

The Ibarras’ neighbours, meanwhile, hope the fascination with the quinceañera will endure beyond the festivities and bring money and improvements to the poor community, where there is a mescal distillery but people are pleading for mobile phone coverage.

“More than anything, this can bring attention to us … so people can see the unemployment,” said Rutilio Ibarra, a local resident.

Eight charts that show 2016 wasn't as bad as you think

2016 is likely to be remembered as an annus horribilis for so many reasons that it’s tempting to think everything is doomed.

But things are not always as they seem. There are silver linings. You just __have to look hard to find them.

Death in conflict

Overall, 2016 looks set to __have slightly fewer deaths through armed conflict than 2015, when 167,000 people died. Hardly numbers to celebrate.

But narrow the focus and pockets of progress can be found. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the death toll from the war with Boko Haram in Nigeria has fallen sharply, as Nigerian government troops retake territory.

“The group’s operational capacity within Nigeria was weakened,” notes Anastasia Voronkova, IISS research fellow for armed conflict. “At least 4,500 civilians held captive by the group were rescued in 2015 alone; another around 5,000 people were freed by June 2016. 2016 fatalities are expected to be noticeably lower than the 11,000 recorded in 2015.”

Death tolls are also expected to be lower from internal conflicts in the Philippines, Myanmar and India, according to the IISS. Mark Rice-Oxley

Emissions

Carbon is flatlining, and our planet has breathing space. After more than a century and a half of nearly unbroken growth, the quantity of greenhouse gases we pour into the atmosphere each year has stalled for the third year running. Burning fossil fuels and chopping down forests released about 40 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide last year, roughly the same amount as in the previous two years.

What is more, this plateau in emissions is taking place against a background of quickening economic growth, showing that increasing prosperity and lifting people out of poverty need not come at the expense of the climate.

These are big reasons to be cheerful, and we need them. We are coming to the end of the hottest year ever recorded. The Arctic ice cap is 20C above its normal winter temperatures, a heating that scientists are calling “literally off the charts”, and may soon result in more rapid melting than anything yet seen. Donald Trump is hellbent on destroying the Paris agreement, boosting the coal industry and defunding Nasa’s ground-breaking climate research in favour of sending people into space. But at least our global warming emissions are abating. It has only taken 25 years to achieve.

Stalling emissions should also spell better health, because coal burning in particular pollutes the air with lung-shredding particles and choking chemicals. Finished celebrating? Good. There’s work to do. Flatlining emissions are not enough. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are still at the highest levels since humans first walked the earth. That invisible stock of carbon in the air is what causes warming, so even if we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow the climate would continue to change because of the greenhouse gases already there.

We are not going to stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and emissions need to come down by as much as 80% to have a chance of keeping warming under control. That will take decades. Every molecule of carbon dioxide we release stays in the air for up to 100 years, all the while trapping heat on the planet’s surface. Every tonne of carbon emitted puts the goal of halting climate change just a bit further out of reach. We are not out of the rapidly dwindling woods yet.

For now, we still have a chance of saving the planet from runaway warming, if we act fast to save energy and invest in clean sources. So cheer the carbon slowdown and put up more windmills. Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent

Crime

While violent crime ticked up in the UK in 2016, the overall level of offences continued its long-term decline to the lowest level since 1981. The Office for National Statistics said there were an estimated 6.5m incidents in the year to June 2016.

Various reasons are given for the long-term decline: better security against car and home theft, the drop in the jobless claimant count and a broader sociological shift towards greater civility in richer countries.

But police also report a rise in the number of reported rapes, while hate crime increased after the Brexit referendum in June and cybercrime poses an ever greater threat.

Connectivity

Connectivity is taken for granted in the western world, where smartphone and internet use rise inexorably year on year.

Now there are strong signs that this take-up is at last being mirrored in poorer parts of the world, with positive outcomes for growth, health and democratic participation.

Africa in particular is experiencing the sharpest growth anywhere of smartphone proliferation: by 2020 there will be more than 700m smartphone connections in Africa – more than twice the projected number in North America, according to GSMA, an association of phone operators. In Nigeria alone in 2016, an estimated 16 smartphones are sold every minute.

The mobile industry will account for 8% of GDP by 2020 – double what it will be in the rest of the world. And internet penetration is rising faster than anywhere else as costs of data and devices fall.

Population

Could 2016 go down as the year that the great global population surge finally showed signs of slowing?

The number of people around the world increases by about 80 million every year, and forecasts predict that the global population will continue to mount through this century, to hit about 11 billion people by 2100.

But much depends on behaviour and attitudes in parts of the world that have yet to experience the sudden drop in birthrates that swept across rich countries in the three decades after the second world war.

In January, the latest figures published by the UN showed more women than ever are now using some form of contraception. Some 64% of women aged between 15 and 49 who are married or living with a partner are now using traditional or modern forms of family planning, up from 36% in 1970.

Poorer regions of the world – particularly Asia and Africa, where access to contraception has been a barrier to development – have witnessed the fastest pace of growth. The UN predicts that Africa, a continent with the largest demand for contraceptives but the worst access to services, will record the highest rates of growth over the next 15 years.

In November, the Family Planning 2020 initiative reported that the number of women using contraceptives in its 69 target countries had leapt by 30 million in the past four years alone.

This is not only good news for women and their families: the increase in family planning could cut projections of population growth by as much as 1 billion over the coming years. Jagdish Upadhyay, of the UN population fund, said if by 2030 the average family size was down by the equivalent of one child, then by 2030 the world population would be approximately 8 billion rather than 9 billion. Liz Ford

Homicide

Murder rates have been in decline in western democracies for years, but had persisted at stubbornly high levels in parts of central America. However, 2016 could go down as a good year in El Salvador, for years one of the most murderous places in the world.

The July-September period produced a year-on-year drop in homicides of almost 50%, according to data gathered for the Guardian by the IISS.

“This decline can be attributed to the government’s tightened security policies at prisons, the creation of a new paramilitary force comprising 600 members of the military and 400 police officers, as well as a negotiated truce between the leaders of the three main gangs,” said Anastasia Voronkova at the IISS.

“The timing of the announcement by the gangs seemed to match the downward homicide trend: homicides fell by 42% in April 2016 in comparison with March [from 611 to 353], and have remained stable since then.”

Disease

The standout news in 2016 was that Sri Lanka had become the latest country to be declared malaria free. More than 30 countries that are collectively home to some 2 billion people are hopeful that they might follow suit in the next four years.

The task of reducing the toll of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, which has 90% of cases and 92% of deaths, is hard and needs more resources. But 2016 brought good news from other quarters: the World Health Organisation declared that measles had been eradicated from the Americas; death rates fell in the developed world from some forms of cancer, and the number of people getting Aids treatments continued to rise, from negligible levels in 2000 towards a target of 30m by 2020.

The global assault on infectious diseases has led to ever longer lifespans: life expectancy is on average 10 years longer in 2016 than it was in 1980.

Poverty

The number of people living in extreme poverty has yet to be estimated for 2016, but the long-term trend is a happy one, describing steep decline.

Numbers have more than halved since 1993, despite a growth in the world population of almost 1.9 billion.

Statistically, as economies grow and middle classes expand, almost 50 million people escape poverty every year in net terms — a population equivalent to Colombia or Korea. Put even more simply, every single day over the past 25 years, the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined by 137,000.

According to the newest figures, the east Asia and Pacific region accounted for the greatest reduction in extreme poverty over the 23-year measuring period, based on a $1.90-per-day poverty line.

In just one year alone – 2012 to 2013 – the number of poor in east Asia and the Pacific declined by 71 million, while in south Asia the number of poor dropped by 37 million.

Declining poverty in extreme terms has shown significant regional fluctuations, however. In 2013, Sub-Saharan Africa accounted for nearly 51% of the global poor (389m people), but in 1990, it was east Asia and the Pacific that accounted for half of the global poor.

While the UN aims to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030, the World Bank report warns that economic growth has to be more equally distributed – in other words, the rich can’t keep getting richer – and says that extreme poverty trends depend on the economic success of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Thousands attend Mexican girl's 15th birthday party after invite goes viral Mexican man's open invitation for daughter's birthday goes too viral

Looking overwhelmed by the attention, yet resplendent in an elaborate fuchsia dress and gleaming tiara, Rubi Ibarra celebrated her 15th birthday on Monday on a ranch in central Mexico after the invitation to the event by her father went viral and made her the toast of the country.

Family members had to open a path for the girl through dozens of reporters and photographers snapping her picture so she could reach a Mass for her in a field in the state of San Luis Potosi. A large billboard saying “Welcome to my 15th birthday party” with Rubi’s picture towered over the tents and tables filled with food.

Thousands of people came from across Mexico for the quincenearacelebration, a traditional coming-of-age party similar to American “sweet sixteen” parties in which Mexican families often throw big, costly bashes so their daughter can be a princess for a day.

Rubi’s party gained national and international notoriety in early December after a local event photographer posted on his Facebook page a video of the girl’s father describing a down-home birthday party complete with food, horse races and local bands. In the video, cowboy hat-wearing Crescencio Ibarra haltingly but proudly describes the party and prizes, before announcing that “everyone is cordially invited.”

Rubi’s mother later explained that Crescencio had only been referring to everyone in the neighbouring communities, not the world, but by then the video had been picked up dozens of times on Youtube and had been seen by millions, sparking tributes by musical stars, jokes and offers of sponsorships by companies.

Mexican airline Interjet published a promotion offering 30% discounts on flights to San Luis Potosi, under the slogan “Are you going to Rubi’s party?”

Internet users published mocked-up photos of troops of turkeys, backhoes stirring giant caldrons of soup and massive crowds “heading for Rubi’s party.”

Actor Gael Garcia Bernal made a parody video of the invitation, and singer Luis Antonio Lopez “El Mimoso” composed a “corrido” song especially for Rubi. The humble daughter of ranchers even got an offer to appear on the soap opera The Rose of Guadalupe.

Several hundred guests had arrived by Monday morning for the Mass, but the number swelled as the day progressed so that by evening there were thousands and the event resembled a rock concert. Cars blocked the access roads to the communities and state police and Red Cross workers monitored the situation.

“I came to see if they would give me a dress for my granddaughter for her 15th birthday in May,” said Victoriano Obregon, who had come all the way from the northern state of Coahuila.

“What happened with Rubi is an interesting example of how the internet amplifies and makes hyper-transparent people’s personal lives and how traditional media look for stories on social networks to bring in new audiences” who they __have been losing, said Sergio Octavio Contreras, a communications professor at Mexico’s La Salle-Bajio University.

Rubi’s neighbours say they hope all the attention will bring improvements to the poor community, where there is a mescal distillery but residents are pleading for mobile phone coverage.

“More than anything, this can bring attention to us ... so people can see the unemployment,” said local resident Rutilio Ibarra.

New technologies bring marine archaeology treasures to light DNA from the deep? Antikythera shipwreck yields ancient human bones

No one knows what happened at Atlit-Yam. The ancient village appeared to be thriving until 7000BC. The locals kept cattle, caught fish and stored grain. They had wells for fresh water, stone houses with paved courtyards. Community life played out around an impressive monument: seven half-tonne stones that stood in a semicircular embrace around a spring where people came to drink. Then one day, life ended.

The village that once sat on the Mediterranean coast now lies 10 metres beneath the waves off Israel’s shore. It was inundated when sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age. But Atlit-Yam was destroyed before then, and swiftly, perhaps by a tsunami. Buried under sand at the bottom of the sea, it now ranks as the largest and best preserved prehistoric settlement ever found on the seafloor. Human skeletons still lie there in graves, undisturbed.

For marine archaeologists, Atlit-Yam is a trove from the Neolithic world. Research on the buildings, tools and the remains of past lives has revealed how the bustling village once worked. “It looks as though it was inhabited until the day it was submerged,” said Benedetto Allotta, head of industrial engineering at the University of Florence. But for all the secrets the site has shared, it is only one window into a lost world. For a fuller picture, researchers need more sunken settlements. The hard part is finding them.

In January, work will start on a new project to transform the search for sunken cities, ancient shipwrecks and other subsea curiosities. Led by Italian researchers, Archeosub will build a new generation of robotic submarines, or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), for marine archaeologists. “You can find plenty of human settlements not far from the coast,” Allotta said. “In the Mediterranean there will be a lot more Atlit-Yams waiting to be explored and studied.”

The goal of Archeosub is to put sophisticated AUVs in the hands of cash-strapped researchers. That, in part, means turning the costly, heavy technology of the military and oil industries into far cheaper and lighter robots. They must be affordable for archaeological organisations and light enough to launch by hand from a small boat, or even the shore, rather than from a winch on a large research vessel.

Slashing the cost and weight is only the start. The team behind Archeosub has begun to make the AUVs smarter too. When thrown overboard, the submarines can become part of an “internet of underwater things” which brings the power of wifi to the deep. Once hooked up, the AUVs can talk to each other and, for example, work out the most efficient way to survey a site, or find particular objects on the seabed.

Field tests show the approach can work. When cargo ships near Porto in northern Portugal lose containers overboard, AUVs can be deployed to find the missing goods. And in a trial last year, Allotta’s group sent three AUVs to search for wrecks at Marzamemi, off the Sicilian coast. The site is the final resting place of a Roman ship, known as the “church wreck”, which sank while ferrying pre-formed parts of marble and breccia for an early Christian church in the 6th century AD. “We used the AUVs to pass through and look for new ruins,” Allotta said. “We could do a reconstruction of the area, where old Roman ships sank while bringing marble columns to Italy,” he said.

Creating an internet beneath the waves is no breeze. Slip under the surface and the electromagnetic waves used in wifi networks travel only centimetres. Instead, a more complex mix of technologies is called for. Acoustic waves, which are affected by depth, temperature, salinity and surface wind, are used to communicate over long distances underwater. At close range, AUVs can share data over light beams. But more creative solutions are also envisaged, where an AUV working on the seabed offloads data to a second which then surfaces and beams it home by satellite link. Work is underway on AUVs that can beam pictures from the seabed over acoustic waves, and dock with others that charge them up. Surface buoys that receive GPS signals tell the AUVs where they are.

“If you want to build an internet of underwater things, you cannot use the technology we __have developed for the terrestrial world,” said Chiara Petrioli, a computer engineer who leads the work under the Sunrise project at Rome University. “You __have to be smarter.”

David Lane, a professor of autonomous engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, has created a marine version of Dropbox for the underwater internet of things. It allows AUVs to share information from seafloor scans and other data. So if an AUV on a first pass survey spies an intriguing object on the seabed, it can share the coordinates with a nearby AUV that carries better cameras and sonar, and arrange for a closer inspection once it has left the area.

“The use of these vehicles has huge potential for marine archaeology,” Lane said. “There’s a lot of history wrapped up in what’s lying on the seabed.”

One site where Allotta plans to deploy the new AUVs is the Gulf of Baratti off the coast of Tuscany. In 1974, a remarkable shipwreck was discovered there in 18 metres of water. More than a merchant ship, the 2000-year-old vessel was a travelling medical emporium. More than 100 wooden vials were found on board, along with other ancient medical supplies, including tin containers of tablets that may have been dissolved and used as eyewash. Other Roman ships went down in the waters, shedding cargoes of olive oil and wine held in huge terracotta pots called dolia. Often it is only the dolia that remain, the wooden ships lost, or at least buried, under silt.

Allotta hopes to have the first test results from the Archeosub project in the summer. “Right now, we don’t have the right technology to give to archaeologists,” he said. “But we are close.”

Amazon plans for giant airship warehouses revealed Are drone deliveries a realistic prospect?

Amazon has filed a patent for flying warehouses that could use a fleet of drones to make deliveries to customers.

A patent document filed in 2014 in the US describes giant airships as “airborne fulfilment centres” (AFCs) that could be stationed above metropolitan areas and used to store and quickly deliver items at times of high demand, using drones dispatched directly from the airship.

The technology and e-commerce giant is already testing drone deliveries in the UK, and made its first commercial delivery under the trial in Cambridgeshire this month.

The patent filing also suggests smaller aircraft and other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could ferry workers to and from the ship as well as replenish stock.

“The AFC may be an airship that remains at a high altitude (eg 45,000ft) and UAVs with ordered items may be deployed from the AFC to deliver ordered items to user-designated delivery locations,” the filing reads.

“As the UAVs descend, they can navigate horizontally toward a user-specified delivery location using little to no power, other than to stabilise the UAV and/or guide the direction of descent. Shuttles (smaller airships) may be used to replenish the AFC with inventory, UAVs, supplies, fuel, etc. Likewise, the shuttles may be utilised to transport workers to and from the AFC.”

Many firms experimenting with drone technology __have had difficulty increasing the range of the craft, which can be restricted by the size and weight of the battery. Amazon’s UK drone trial is limited to items weighing 5lb or less that can be delivered within 30 minutes.

Amazon’s patent filing suggests the unfixed position of an airborne warehouse could be used to meet demand in different areas as needed, as well as reduce delivery times. The documents suggest that in some instances airships could be moved close to sporting arenas or festival sites and used to sell merchandise.

Amazon has not commented on the filing.

UK needs a more joined-up approach to broadband provision

Last week’s government announcement of investment into superfast broadband under the Broadband Delivery UK programme (theguardian.com, 22 December) is welcome news for the UK economy, as there is plenty of evidence to suggest that lack of broadband coverage is preventing many businesses from operating to their full potential, particularly in rural areas. But beyond the investment headlines, we also need to see evidence of a joined-up approach to finding a long-term solution to providing universal superfast broadband, which, as well as improving 4G and 5G, will mean converging fibre broadband and local wireless infrastructure, rather than still relying in many areas on the old copper systems we __have today. Ultimately, the government should invest in a gold-standard solution using fibre and wireless technology to create a future-proof broadband infrastructure that will enable the UK to become a global leader in communications networks.
Professor Will Stewart
Vice-president, Institution of Engineering and Technology

Calls to Childline about online sexual abuse up 250% in three years Carry on sexting? That’s no way to help your kids… | Barbara Ellen

A sharp jump in calls about online sexual abuse to a helpline has sparked an appeal for parents to discuss internet safety with children receiving smartphones, games consoles and tablet computers this Christmas.

The NSPCC said there were 3,716 Childline counselling sessions about the issue in 2015-16 – a 24% increase on the previous year’s 2,994.

Over the past three years, the number of contacts to Childline about online sexual abuse has surged by 250%.

The category can include grooming, child sexual exploitation, sexting, being made to perform sex acts on webcam, meeting in person and viewing distressing sexually explicit content.

Some children contacted Childline because they felt trapped by their situation, because they felt guilty and ashamed, were being blackmailed or were considering a meeting in person.

The NSPCC said it was vital that parents spoke to their children about being safe online. Peter Wanless, the chief executive of the children’s charity, said: “In the last year we’ve seen a staggering rise in online sexual abuse, with many children turning to Childline when the situation has escalated.”

Advice for parents includes exploring sites and apps alongside their children, asking about things children might see that make them feel uncomfortable, and promising not to overreact.

Stay and be safe: Facebook tidies up advice on preventing online bullying Facebook revenge pornography trial 'could open floodgates' Facebook censors Le Monde's mammogram screening photo

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.”

Commercial NAS Operating Systems - Exploring Value-Additions - Part I

The market for network-attached storage units has expanded significantly over the last few years. The rapid growth in public cloud storage (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and the like) has tempered the expansion a bit amongst consumers who are not very tech-savvy. However, the benefits provided by a NAS in the local network are undeniable, particularly when public cloud services can act in a complementary manner. Enterprise users obviously need NAS units with different performance and feature requirements. Our NAS reviews __have focused more on the performance aspect. With feature set and ease of use becoming important across all market segments, we believe that a qualitative evaluation of the different commercial NAS operating systems is needed to educate consumers on the options available. The core features were addressed in a comprehensive overview last month. Today, we take a look at three of the top value-additions to NAS operating systems.

Introduction

The core aspects of NAS operating systems include the user interface, storage management features and services and configuration of the network ports. These are closely tied to the hardware. Value-added features can be either on the hardware or software side. As an example of the former, some vendors ship NAS units with HDMI ports - these ports can be used to either drive a display for a software media player like Kodi or a video management system to view feeds from surveillance cameras. Our focus in this piece, however, is on the value additions from the software side.

The advent of smartphones has led to an explosion in the amount of user-generated multimedia content (photos and videos). Music collections (iTunes libraries and the like) also add to the consumers' digital multimedia content. Heavy users are loath to rely on only the public cloud for backing up or accessing these files. Many NAS vendors, therefore, make it a point to simplify the serving and management of such multimedia content. Media services form one of the most important value additions in NAS operating systems.

The transition from analog to digital surveillance (CCTV to IP cameras) has made video surveillance cheaper and simpler to set up for both home and business users. However, the storage of the recorded video is a challenge, and many NAS vendors __have dedicated hardware lineups for NVR purposes (network video recorder). However, for the casual users with 3 or 4 IP cameras, a NAS unit can easily double up as a NVR while performing other duties. Simplifying the set-up, usage and control of IP cameras in the network is another value addition that NAS vendors have targeted.

The average consumer's first introduction to a seamless backup and sharing strategy has most probably been through public cloud services such as Dropbox. These services allow data to be accessed from anywhere on the Internet while using an authenticated device. NAS vendors have realized that these types of services have resulted in users demanding two things - being able to back up the content that they store on the NAS to one of more public cloud services, and, provision of features available in public cloud services such as seamless access to content over the Internet and simplified content sharing. Consumers also want to be able to access the data on their private NAS from the outside network over the Internet. This 'cloud' aspect has also become an important feature expected by NAS users.

In the rest of this article, we will go over each of the above value additions in detail and see how various NAS vendors and their operating systems tackle them. The following vendors and OS versions are currently covered in this article

• Asustor [ ADM 2.6.5R9N1 ]
• Netgear [ ReadyNAS OS 6.6.0 ]
• QNAP [ QTS 4.2.2 ]
• Synology [ DSM 6.0.2-8451 Update 2 ]
• Western Digital [ My Cloud OS 2.21.19 ]
• ZyXEL [ FW v5.20(AATB.0) ]

It must be kept in mind that many of the value additions come in the form of add-ons (either first-party (NAS vendor) or third-party). The exact version of the relevant add-on is specified in the specific section where the feature is addressed.

AWS-Related Command-Line Interface Commands You Should Know

The Command-Line Interface (CLI) presents an uncomfortable environment for many people. Given that the CLI for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) free tier relies on Linux and that many administrators aren’t familiar with the operating system, the situation becomes even less comfortable.

However, by using the AWS consoles as much as possible, you can reduce the need for the CLI to a minimum. Even so, you find that some tasks still require the CLI, which is where this handy list of CLI commands comes into play. (Information you must replace with a specific entry appears in italics.)

• cat /proc/mounts: Displays a list of mounted drives.
• ls: Lists the contents of a directory. You may optionally provide a directory path to list.
• rm <filename>: Removes the specified file from the current directory.
• rpm -ql ‘<package name>‘: Obtains a list of utilities contained within a package.
• sudo chmod <options>: Changes the access mode for the current directory.
• sudo mkdir <directory name>: Creates a new directory to hold files.
• sudo reboot: Reboots the remove AWS system so that you can see the results of any changes you make.
• sudo rmdir <directory name>: Removes the specified directory.
• sudo yum groupinstall “<group package name>“: Installs the specified group of packages.
• sudo yum search ‘<package name>‘: Searches for a package.
• sudo yum update: Performs required AWS updates.
• sudo yum -y install <service or feature>: Installs a required support service or feature onto the AWS system.

Linux provides the same wealth of CLI commands that Windows does, but these are absolute essentials when working with AWS. You can find many sources for these commands online, but one of the better resources appears at Linux Command Directory. The important thing is to remember to use the consoles when you can in order to keep things simple.

AWS For Admins For Dummies Cheat Sheet

Amazon Web Services (AWS) started out small but has become a vast collection of cloud services that businesses can use to support any activity without having to invest in an IT infrastructure.

A Quick Overview of the Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is all about knowing which service to use. Amazon provides a considerable number of free-tier services that you can try, but some of them are better for experimentation purposes than others are. The following table presents a quick overview of the services best suited to experimentation needs.

Service Name	Description	Console Access URL
Amazon CloudFront	Defines a Content Delivery Network (CDN) used to send content from Amazon services to end users. This service supports dynamic, static streaming and interactive content.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/
Amazon CloudWatch	Monitors the AWS cloud resources used by applications that you run on AWS. You can use this service to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, set alarms, and automatically react to changes in your AWS resources. Essentially, this service enables you to track application activity through a variety of methods, such as log files.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/
Amazon DynamoDB	Provides access to a NoSQL database service that supports both document and key-value store models. A NoSQL database is a high-speed nonrelational database model that specializes in ease of development, scalable performance, high availability, and resilience.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/dynamodb
Amazon Elastic Transcoder	Converts (transcodes) media files from one format to another, normally to make the media play on devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and PCs.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/elastictranscoder/
Amazon ElastiCache	Creates an in-memory data cache that improves application performance by transferring data from a long-term storage service, such as Amazon RDS, to memory. This service supports two open-source, in-memory caching engines: Memcached and Redis	https://console.aws.amazon.com/elasticache/
Amazon Elasticsearch Service	Deploys the open source Elastisearch service, now simply called Elastic (https://www.elastic.co/) to the AWS cloud where you can use it to perform both search and analysis tasks. Analysis tasks can include checking logs, monitoring applications, and performing clickstream analysis.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/es/
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)	Allows storage of data objects as part of a relational database. Amazon RDS currently supports six database engines: Amazon Aurora Oracle Microsoft SQL Server PostgreSQL MySQL MariaDB You can also use any combination of RDS General Purpose (SSD) or Magnetic storage.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)	Enables you to send transactional email, marketing messages, or other types of high-quality content as email messages. You can use this service to deliver messages to an Amazon S3 bucket, call custom code using an AWS Lambda function, or publish notifications to Amazon SNS.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)	Creates a publication/subscription model for providing notifications to subscribers. You use this service to deliver messages. This service relies on the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)	Provides a fully managed queuing service. Queuing lets you decouple cloud application components so that components need not run at the same time. This service is often used with Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/sqs/
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)	Allows storage of data objects of any sort in the cloud. The three levels of storage enable you to perform short-term (Standard service), middle-tier (Infrequent Access, IA), and long-term storage (Glacier). You can also configure data to the various storage levels based on policies and uses.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/
AWS IoT	Allows connected devices to interact with cloud applications and other devices. Developers can also use this service to add AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, Amazon Machine Learning, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, and Amazon Elasticsearch Service support to applications.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/iot/
AWS Lambda	Runs custom application code without the need for provisioning or managing servers. You upload the code you want to run, and AWS Lambda does everything needed to run and scale your code with high availability.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/lambda
Database Migration Service	Makes it possible to transfer data from one kind of database to an entirely different kind of database. Moving data between databases is an essential administration tasks. You can find all sorts of reasons to move data. Some of the most common reasons are a change in database vendor, creating a common platform for all elements of an organization, upgrading to obtain an improved feature set, and a change in platforms (such as moving from a corporate server to the cloud).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/dms
Elastic Beanstalk (EB)	Creates an environment for working with web applications. A focus of EB is to be able to upload, configure, and manage applications of all sorts with ease. An application isn’t useful unless people can access it with ease and make it perform whatever tasks it’s designed to perform in the most seamless manner possible.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)	Provides access to a web service that offers resizable cloud-based compute capacity. You use this service to access virtual server hosting.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/
Elastic File System (EFS)	Defines a cloud-based file system for storing data. Most business users are quite familiar with the file system level because they use it to retrieve files when working with applications such as word processors. A file system uses the filing cabinet metaphor, where individual files appear in folders and folders appear in drawers (individual hard drive partitions).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/efs
Glacier	Provides data archival functionality for data that you no longer need to access actively. Archiving data, the act of moving it from expensive high-speed storage to low-cost, low-speed storage, used to be an act akin to moving paper files from an office to the basement. Someone might use those files sometime, in some way, some day, but not today and possibly not ever.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/glacier/
Identity and Access Management (IAM)	Helps you configure AWS security for all the services. You use this service to ensure that your other services remain safe and inaccessible to others.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/

AWS-Related Command-Line Interface Commands You Should Know

The Command-Line Interface (CLI) presents an uncomfortable environment for many people. Given that the CLI for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) free tier relies on Linux and that many administrators aren’t familiar with the operating system, the situation becomes even less comfortable.

However, by using the AWS consoles as much as possible, you can reduce the need for the CLI to a minimum. Even so, you find that some tasks still require the CLI, which is where this handy list of CLI commands comes into play. (Information you must replace with a specific entry appears in italics.)

• cat /proc/mounts: Displays a list of mounted drives.
• ls: Lists the contents of a directory. You may optionally provide a directory path to list.
• rm <filename>: Removes the specified file from the current directory.
• rpm -ql ‘<package name>‘: Obtains a list of utilities contained within a package.
• sudo chmod <options>: Changes the access mode for the current directory.
• sudo mkdir <directory name>: Creates a new directory to hold files.
• sudo reboot: Reboots the remove AWS system so that you can see the results of any changes you make.
• sudo rmdir <directory name>: Removes the specified directory.
• sudo yum groupinstall “<group package name>“: Installs the specified group of packages.
• sudo yum search ‘<package name>‘: Searches for a package.
• sudo yum update: Performs required AWS updates.
• sudo yum -y install <service or feature>: Installs a required support service or feature onto the AWS system.

Linux provides the same wealth of CLI commands that Windows does, but these are absolute essentials when working with AWS. You can find many sources for these commands online, but one of the better resources appears at Linux Command Directory. The important thing is to remember to use the consoles when you can in order to keep things simple.

A Quick Overview of the Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is all about knowing which service to use. Amazon provides a considerable number of free-tier services that you can try, but some of them are better for experimentation purposes than others are. The following table presents a quick overview of the services best suited to experimentation needs.

Service Name	Description	Console Access URL
Amazon CloudFront	Defines a Content Delivery Network (CDN) used to send content from Amazon services to end users. This service supports dynamic, static streaming and interactive content.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/
Amazon CloudWatch	Monitors the AWS cloud resources used by applications that you run on AWS. You can use this service to collect and track metrics, collect and monitor log files, set alarms, and automatically react to changes in your AWS resources. Essentially, this service enables you to track application activity through a variety of methods, such as log files.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/cloudwatch/
Amazon DynamoDB	Provides access to a NoSQL database service that supports both document and key-value store models. A NoSQL database is a high-speed nonrelational database model that specializes in ease of development, scalable performance, high availability, and resilience.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/dynamodb
Amazon Elastic Transcoder	Converts (transcodes) media files from one format to another, normally to make the media play on devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and PCs.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/elastictranscoder/
Amazon ElastiCache	Creates an in-memory data cache that improves application performance by transferring data from a long-term storage service, such as Amazon RDS, to memory. This service supports two open-source, in-memory caching engines: Memcached and Redis	https://console.aws.amazon.com/elasticache/
Amazon Elasticsearch Service	Deploys the open source Elastisearch service, now simply called Elastic (https://www.elastic.co/) to the AWS cloud where you can use it to perform both search and analysis tasks. Analysis tasks can include checking logs, monitoring applications, and performing clickstream analysis.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/es/
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)	Allows storage of data objects as part of a relational database. Amazon RDS currently supports six database engines: Amazon Aurora Oracle Microsoft SQL Server PostgreSQL MySQL MariaDB You can also use any combination of RDS General Purpose (SSD) or Magnetic storage.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)	Enables you to send transactional email, marketing messages, or other types of high-quality content as email messages. You can use this service to deliver messages to an Amazon S3 bucket, call custom code using an AWS Lambda function, or publish notifications to Amazon SNS.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses/
Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS)	Creates a publication/subscription model for providing notifications to subscribers. You use this service to deliver messages. This service relies on the Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/sns/
Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)	Provides a fully managed queuing service. Queuing lets you decouple cloud application components so that components need not run at the same time. This service is often used with Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/sqs/
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)	Allows storage of data objects of any sort in the cloud. The three levels of storage enable you to perform short-term (Standard service), middle-tier (Infrequent Access, IA), and long-term storage (Glacier). You can also configure data to the various storage levels based on policies and uses.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/s3/
AWS IoT	Allows connected devices to interact with cloud applications and other devices. Developers can also use this service to add AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, Amazon Machine Learning, Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon CloudWatch, AWS CloudTrail, and Amazon Elasticsearch Service support to applications.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/iot/
AWS Lambda	Runs custom application code without the need for provisioning or managing servers. You upload the code you want to run, and AWS Lambda does everything needed to run and scale your code with high availability.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/lambda
Database Migration Service	Makes it possible to transfer data from one kind of database to an entirely different kind of database. Moving data between databases is an essential administration tasks. You can find all sorts of reasons to move data. Some of the most common reasons are a change in database vendor, creating a common platform for all elements of an organization, upgrading to obtain an improved feature set, and a change in platforms (such as moving from a corporate server to the cloud).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/dms
Elastic Beanstalk (EB)	Creates an environment for working with web applications. A focus of EB is to be able to upload, configure, and manage applications of all sorts with ease. An application isn’t useful unless people can access it with ease and make it perform whatever tasks it’s designed to perform in the most seamless manner possible.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk
Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)	Provides access to a web service that offers resizable cloud-based compute capacity. You use this service to access virtual server hosting.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/ec2/
Elastic File System (EFS)	Defines a cloud-based file system for storing data. Most business users are quite familiar with the file system level because they use it to retrieve files when working with applications such as word processors. A file system uses the filing cabinet metaphor, where individual files appear in folders and folders appear in drawers (individual hard drive partitions).	https://console.aws.amazon.com/efs
Glacier	Provides data archival functionality for data that you no longer need to access actively. Archiving data, the act of moving it from expensive high-speed storage to low-cost, low-speed storage, used to be an act akin to moving paper files from an office to the basement. Someone might use those files sometime, in some way, some day, but not today and possibly not ever.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/glacier/
Identity and Access Management (IAM)	Helps you configure AWS security for all the services. You use this service to ensure that your other services remain safe and inaccessible to others.	https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/

Electronics All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition

More about This Book

ISBN: 978-1-119-32079-1 or 9781119320791

555 and 556 Timer Integrated Circuit Pinouts

The 555 is one of the most popular integrated circuits (ICs) ever made. When you use it, you need to be aware of the purpose of each of the eight pins in the 555 package. You may also occasionally use a 556 IC, which consists of two 555 timers in a single package, and the same applies to knowing its pinouts as well.

Function	555 Timer	556 First Timer	556 Second Timer
Ground	1	7	7
Trigger	2	6	8
Output	3	5	9
Reset	4	4	10
Control Voltage	5	3	11
Threshold	6	2	12
Discharge	7	1	13
Vcc	8	14	14

Electronics All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet

As you design and use electronic circuits, you invariably find yourself scratching your head trying to remember what color stripes are on a 470 resistor or what pin on a 555 Timer IC is the trigger input. Never fear! This handy Cheat Sheet helps you remember such mundane details — plus the decidedly not mundane but essential safety info — so that you can get on with the fun stuff, efficiently and safely.

Staying Safe: Electronics Safety Rules

Safety first! Electronics is a potentially dangerous hobby. Any circuit that works with 230 VAC power from an electrical outlet is especially dangerous and can kill you. Here are some basic safety guidelines to keep you safe while you work:

• Never work on a circuit while power is applied.

• Don’t connect power to a circuit until the circuit is finished and you’ve checked your work carefully.

• If you smell anything burning, immediately disconnect the power and examine your circuit to find out what went wrong.

• Keep your work area dry.

• Always wear safety goggles.

• Be careful around large capacitors; they can continue to hold voltage long after they’re disconnected from power.

• Be especially careful when you solder; a hot soldering iron can easily burn you.

• Always work in a well-ventilated space.

• Keep safety equipment nearby, such as a fire extinguisher, a first-aid kit and a phone.

Remembering Electronic Resistor Colour Codes

Resistor values are marked with small coloured stripes. The first two stripes represent numeric values and the third stripe is a multiplier. The fourth stripe gives you the resistor’s tolerance; that is, it tells you how close to the indicated value you can expect the resistance to be.

For example, a resistor with brown, black, orange and gold stripes is a 10,000-ohm resistor whose actual resistance may vary by as much as 10 per cent.

Here’s the full list to keep handy:

Colour	Digit	Multiplier (in Ohms)	Tolerance (%)
Black	0	1	20
Brown	1	10	1
Red	2	100	2
Orange	3	1 k	3
Yellow	4	10 k	4
Green	5	100 k
Blue	6	1 M
Violet	7	10 M
Grey	8	100 M
White	9	1,000 M
Gold	‒	0.1	5
Silver	‒	0.01	10

Ohm’s Law in Electronics

Sometimes in electronics you __have no alternative but to whip out your calculator and do a little maths. The most likely reason is to calculate how much resistance you need for a given situation, how much current a circuit is going to pull or how much voltage will be dropped between two points in a circuit.

You can make all these calculations by using one of the following formulas derived from Ohm’s law:

In the above formulas, V represents voltage (in volts, naturally), I represents current (in amperes), and R represents resistance in ohms.

555 and 556 Timer Integrated Circuit Pinouts

The 555 is one of the most popular integrated circuits (ICs) ever made. When you use it, you need to be aware of the purpose of each of the eight pins in the 555 package. You may also occasionally use a 556 IC, which consists of two 555 timers in a single package, and the same applies to knowing its pinouts as well.

Function	555 Timer	556 First Timer	556 Second Timer
Ground	1	7	7
Trigger	2	6	8
Output	3	5	9
Reset	4	4	10
Control Voltage	5	3	11
Threshold	6	2	12
Discharge	7	1	13
Vcc	8	14	14

Understanding LM741 Op-Amp Integrated Circuit Pinouts

Operational amplifiers are one of the most common types of IC. The LM741 is a popular single op-amp IC, and you need to understand the purpose of each of its pins to make your electronics projects run smoothly.

Pin	Function
1	Not used
2	V‒ Inverting input
3	V+ Non-inverting input
4	‒V power
5	Not used
6	Vout output
7	+V power
8	Not used

Ohm’s Law in Electronics

Sometimes in electronics you __have no alternative but to whip out your calculator and do a little maths. The most likely reason is to calculate how much resistance you need for a given situation, how much current a circuit is going to pull or how much voltage will be dropped between two points in a circuit.

You can make all these calculations by using one of the following formulas derived from Ohm’s law:

In the above formulas, V represents voltage (in volts, naturally), I represents current (in amperes), and R represents resistance in ohms.

Political reporter says a malicious tweet sent to him caused an epileptic seizure The tech winners and losers of 2016 (hint: Facebook – and Facebook)

A Newsweek reporter who has epilepsy said he had a seizure after being sent a message on Twitter intended to trigger such an episode and is seeking information from the social media company to identify the person responsible for the tweet.

The image in question – which included a strobe effect and the words, “You deserve a seizure for your posts” – was apparently sent in response to Kurt Eichenwald’s outspoken criticism of President-elect Donald Trump. Eichenwald, who has a home in Texas, said in court documents that the image triggered a seizure.

Eichenwald posted a signed copy of a Dallas County district court order to Twitter on Tuesday that allows him to depose Twitter executives and orders the company to preserve any information or documents regarding the person who sent the image. Eichenwald wrote that “Twitter agreed to an expedited order”.

A Twitter representative said via email that the company does not comment on individual accounts or investigations. Guidelines for law enforcement listed on the company’s website include a requirement for a court order or subpoena before it releases user information.

That deposition request, filed on Monday, says Twitter suspended the account of @jew_goldstein “upon learning of the assault”. The sender had identified him or herself with the alias Ari Goldstein.

The sender “succeeded in his effort to use Twitter as a means of committing assault, causing Petitioner to __have a seizure which led to personal injury”, Eichenwald’s attorneys wrote.

Eichenwald’s attorney did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday, and the reporter did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

Eichenwald told ABC’s Good Morning America that he has received numerous copycat strobe messages from “people who identify themselves as Trump supporters” and that he is reporting each of them to Twitter to ask that their accounts be suspended.

“It is amazing to me that simply because I am a political reporter, simply because I write about Donald Trump that we __have become so sick and twisted in this country that people think they have the right and obligation to inflict potentially very serious injury,” he said.

Mark Bennett, a Houston criminal defense and free speech attorney, said he believes a lawsuit alleging physical harm from a tweet would be “novel”.

“I don’t know of a case where someone has been sued or prosecuted for speech online causing physical harm,” he said. “It’s a tough sell because there’s a lot of distance between the speech and the injury.”

However, Houston attorney Joe Larsen said Eichenwald does not appear to be challenging the speech.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say [Eichenwald] is saying he was harmed by the form of speech. I don’t think he’s suing about that. I think the ultimate suit will be one for assault,” said Larsen, who is a board member of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

Twitter’s transparency report shows more than 2,500 requests for user information were made regarding criminal allegations in the United States in the first six months of this year. The company released some information in 82% of those requests, according to the report.

Mark Hamill: ‘Part of the fun is escaping the drudgery of real life’

Being the hero of a blockbuster entertainment franchise, you might expect Mark Hamill to be far removed from the sort of merchandise-obsessed fans who probably own five different plastic re-creations of his lightsaber-wielding Jedi, Luke Skywalker – all of course still in their original packaging. But as it turns out, Hamill is, and always has been, one of them.

He now looks more like Obi-Wan than Luke thanks to the greying hair and beard, but in his new web-based docu-series Pop Culture Quest we see the happy hoarder of toys, comics and other assorted geekery Hamill has been for decades.

Hamill’s show – on the subscription streaming service launched by uber-fan gathering Comic-Con this year – finds him probing a different kind of galaxy. It’s one populated by aficionados of popular culture who, like him, seek out all kinds of oddball prizes from rare monster toys to pinball machines.

In it Hamill seeks out and chats with those collectors. They’re as idiosyncratic a set of characters as you’d find in a Mos Eisley cantina, yet there’s also something compelling in the interaction between them and Hamill as he explores the motivations behind their obsessions. That goes for the star host too, some of whose prized possessions include comics he keeps in storage, a prototype of the original unused Chewbacca mask that George Lucas didn’t like and decided to let Hamill keep, and Beatles model kits that Hamill has never opened.

Pop Culture Quest is a look at the nature of fandom and, as Hamill tells the Guardian, the escapism it provides..

“Part of the fun of all this is escaping the drudgery of real life,” Hamill says. “Whether you’re having a difficult time at work or you’re not achieving career goals – there’s things that make you personally happy. And collecting is a way to sort of express your personality. To show appreciation for the things that you value.

“In a way, I’m in a really trivial business. I __have a brother who’s a doctor, and to me that’s something that’s a really tangible skill that helps people. But he was saying to me, you know, that entertainment and diversion is really important for people’s wellbeing overall. They need that escape mechanism from how harsh life can be.”

Pop Culture Quest is many things in one. It might be a celebration of frivolity, yet there’s also a subtext of innocence and even melancholy – of a natural urge to chase the illusion of permanence. The movie ended, the TV show was eventually cancelled, the hero got the girl, but by collecting the mementoes and trinkets, in a way the show doesn’t end.

It’s a common language, pop fandom; a thing to pass down. Mapping the topography of a person’s life invariably meanders to their diversions and individual tastes. We are the things we love.

And of course, a lot of people love Star Wars. “I don’t take it for granted,” Hamill says about the passion of Star Wars fans. “In this business, you want to make people happy. And the fact so many people get such joy out of it and pass it on to their children – to be a part of people’s lives like that is something I’ll always be grateful for.”

Speaking a few days before the franchise’s latest instalment Rogue One hits cinemas, Hamill admits to not knowing as much about it as fans might expect, but he shares their anticipation.

“What I think is exciting about the standalone films is since they don’t __have to follow that three-act structure of a trilogy, they can really get in, establish the story, and get out and leave you wanting more,” Hamill says. “And each standalone film can have its own identity.

“[Rogue One] looks like a gritty second world war film, in a way. It looks hyper-realistic. When they do the young Han Solo film, he’s a rogue and a womaniser, and it could be much more of a comedic thing. The swashbuckling rogue. But that’s what’s exciting about the standalone films. They can be vastly different in style and still within the Star Wars universe.”

Next year’s various Comic Con events around the world, which will attract hordes of fans dressed as their favourite sci-fi or fantasy characters, will almost certainly see its fair share of outfits inspired by Rogue One. But Hamill’s show and the new streaming service it airs on – called Comic Con HQ – are part of an attempt to tap into that fandom on a more regular basis..

Seth Laderman, the service’s executive vice-president and general manager, says the idea is to make Comic-Con “a year-round situation”, with Pop Culture Quest central to the project.

“I asked the guys who created Comic-Con: how did you make this so successful? And they said: ‘We programme an event for us, because we are the fanbase,’” he says. “I think our goal is to try to be a complement to some of these other platforms out there. We’re not trying to compete with Netflix. We’re trying to hit that real passionate audience and programme stuff specifically for them.”

Laderman won’t give audience figures but says the response since Comic-Con HQ’s launch in May has been “resoundingly positive”. At the moment, the service is only available in the US via the web, iOS and Android devices, Amazon Channels, Roku and AppleTV. Fans around the world can for now stream individual Comic-Con HQ series on other platforms such as Vimeo. Comic-Con HQ original series are also available for download in select territories via services such as iTunes and Google, and on games consoles.

Hamill’s show is an example of what the service wants to offer fans – content programmed for them, that in a way also celebrates them. Not that it’s an easy hill to climb, launching a service into a media landscape chock-a-block with competition.

The biggest players such as Netflix and Amazon have deep pockets and reach, and other niche services keep emerging, like the new streaming service BritBox – a partnership between BBC Worldwide and ITV.

The answer for Comic-Con HQ is to look for well-known talent such as Hamill and turn them loose.

“We’re in a lot of conversations for our next shows right now,” Laderman says. “We’re working with people and brands that have pre-existing audiences attached to them. One of our goals is to allow innovators like Mark the opportunity and platform to create and bring their own ideas to life.”

And for Hamill, that idea is straightforward: pop culture is a way for people to gravitate to brands and ideas and tangible things to “communicate through what you love”.

Hamill loves, among other things, pinball machines. And he points to one episode of his show that sees him visit a man with a warehouse full of them. The collector can talk about their histories, which ones are rare and valuable. But the joy of the show, Hamill explains, is that you don’t have to be as enthusiastic about pinball machines to appreciate his passion.

That appreciation of pop culture and collections is, he says, the “connective tissue behind all the episodes of our show”. And given the number of toy Luke Skywalkers appreciated by fans the world over, it’s a topic he is almost uniquely suited to explore.

EU charges Facebook with giving 'misleading' information over WhatsApp

The European commission (EC) has filed charges against Facebook for providing “misleading” information in the run-up to the social network’s acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp after its data-sharing change in August.

The charges will not __have an affect on the approval of the $22bn merger and is being treated completely separately to other European cases against Facebook, but could lead to Facebook being fined up to 1% of its global turnover in 2014 when the merger was approved, which was greater than $10bn for the first time.

The European competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said: “Companies are obliged to give the commission accurate information during merger investigations. They must take this obligation seriously.

“Our timely and effective review of mergers depends on the accuracy of the information provided by the companies involved. In this specific case, the commission’s preliminary view is that Facebook gave us incorrect or misleading information during the investigation into its acquisition of WhatsApp. Facebook now has the opportunity to respond.”

The commission said that Facebook informed regulators that it would not be able to perform automated matching between user-held Facebook accounts and WhatsApp accounts. However, Facebook’s privacy policy change for WhatsApp in August, for which the EC was notified in January, specifically enabled automated matching and data sharing after technical changes, including one for Apple and its iOS, allowed the matching of the majority of accounts not using a phone number with Facebook.

The commission’s review of the merger in 2014 revolved around whether Facebook would or could merge the two messaging services, making them cross-compatible; a technically difficult feat that was made harder in 2016 with the roll out of WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption for messages by default.

Facebook has until 31 January 2017 to respond to the charges.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company was pleased that the EC stands by its clearance of the company’s WhatsApp acquisition and would continue to co-operate with regulators to resolve their complaints. It said: “We respect the commission’s process and are confident that a full review of the facts will confirm Facebook has acted in good faith.

“We’ve consistently provided accurate information about our technical capabilities and plans, including in submissions about the WhatsApp acquisition and in voluntary briefings before WhatsApp’s privacy policy update this year.”

Facebook halted the use of user data shared between WhatsApp and Facebook for advertising purposes in November after pressure from the pan-European data protection agency group Article 29 Working Party in October.

• Why we should worry about WhatsApp accessing our personal information - Elizabeth Denham
• EU proposals will force multinationals to disclose tax arrangements
• Facebook wins appeal against Belgian privacy watchdog over tracking

O click, all ye faithful: church expands online in 'paradigm shift'

If shopping online looks likely to play a bigger part in your Christmas than singing carols or eating mince pies, the Church of England has a plan to reclaim some of its territory – via your phone.

The C of E has launched a website, A Christmas Near You, with details of more than 34,000 carol services across the country. Perhaps surmising that some possible attendees will not be motivated by faith alone, it includes full details of which services offer refreshments alongside O Come, All Ye Faithful – so that you can quickly find one of the 3,000 offering mulled wine, or 4,500 offering mince pies. And you can tap in your postcode and find a service that suits you – traditional, contemporary, or child-friendly – near your home, add it to your calendar or share it with friends and family.

For people accustomed to using their phones and tablets to find the arrival time of the next bus, order sushi for home delivery, book cinema and theatre tickets and plan their next weekend break, this is not a big deal.

But for the Church of England, it is the latest stage of a digital revolution that it says is connecting it to a wider audience than ever before. In the past four years, the church has devoted significant resources to expanding and improving its websites and presence on social media, taking “steps in a paradigm shift”, according to the Rev Arun Arora, its director of communications.

The Church of England is not alone in recognising the power and reach of digital technology. “Trends in social media and apps are changing religion,” said Heidi Campbell, associate professor of communication at Texas A&M University and the author of Digital Religion. “For faith organisations and communities, lack of digital literacy these days means you don’t exist.”

Pope Francis has attracted more than 10 million followers on Twitter in four years, posting messages in nine languages including Latin and Arabic and, according to a Vatican source, personally approving each tweet before it is launched. The Dalai Lama has 13.1 million followers; Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, clocks in at 98,000.

Last month the Catholic church in Edinburgh and St Andrews announced it was launching a confession finder app allowing users to locate their nearest or soonest Mass. Christians all over the world can follow daily Bible readings and prayers online via services such as Pray as You Go, an app pioneered by the Jesuits 10 years ago.

Muslims __have a huge range of apps to choose from, including quotations from the Qur’an, directories of halal restaurants and other businesses, prayer times and Mecca-finding apps.

Jews can watch videos about Judaism on YouTube’s TorahChannel or play games set in biblical times. Buddhists can perhaps achieve mindfulness more easily with the assistance of a wide range of meditation apps, such as Buddhify.

The C of E is targeting Facebook users who are posting about Christmas, pushing links to A Christmas Near You to people who would not naturally search for faith content online.

Partly as a result of this targeted promotional advertising, a video featuring Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the chaplain to the House of Commons Speaker, was viewed more than 130,000 times a week after its launch. The film is one of a series of four celebrating Christmas; the final one, featuring the Gogglebox vicar Kate Bottley, was launched on Monday.

Next year the church will relaunch its website to shift the focus from serving a core audience of clergy and churchgoers to the needs of the wider public, building it around the key life stages of birth, marriage, death, moving house, and young people going to school and leaving home. It plans to partner with Christian coders to set up an “innovations lab” for radical digital change.

According to Arora, the church has moved in the past few years from being fearful of digital communication to embracing it. “We recognised that digital offers the holy grail of unmediated communication with the world, whereas before we were dependent on the traditional media to get our message to the wider world. Everyone else had already figured that, but the church hadn’t seen digital as a priority. Now we can talk to the 97% of the population that aren’t regular churchgoers, as well as the committed 3%.”

Among the lessons the church had learned over the past four years, he said, was that there was much higher engagement with video than text among young people; that social networks were now an established and lasting form of communication; and that the model of communication was changing.

“For centuries, church leaders stood in a pulpit and preached at a congregation. Now it’s about relationship, conversation, dialogue,” said Arora.

In September the C of E appointed Adrian Harris as its head of digital communications to drive its strategy forward. Harris had previously led digital communications teams at Bupa, Tesco and the Conservative party. He said there was “a huge amount of untapped potential”.

Bex Lewis, senior lecturer in digital marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University, said she had “clapped my hands very loudly” at the appointment, but argued that the church was still slow to adapt to and embrace the digital age.

“At the top [of the church] it’s like trying to turn round an oil tanker,” she said, although the C of E’s engagement with Pokémon Go players earlier this year had been encouraging. “But there’s some really interesting stuff happening at the bottom.”

Christian meme sites such as Anglican Memes and Jesus Loves You were popular, Lewis said. “Fun is important. The general perception of religion is that it’s overly judgmental, and we can show that’s not the case.”

The diocese of Lichfield appointed the church’s first online pastor this year, a move that other dioceses were likely to follow, said Lewis.

Other denominations in the UK __have also stepped up their digital games. The (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland this month launched an online advent calendar featuring a series of videos covering issues such as refugees and domestic violence. It expects 250,000 viewers by Christmas Day.

Last month the Catholic church in England and Wales updated the medieval manuscript Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying) for the digital age with a website featuring animations and videos for people entering the final stages of life and their families.

In the US, Twitter has appointed a senior executive, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, to bring more religious leaders into its orbit, after discovering that tweets by some Christian evangelicals can outperform those of celebrities such as Lady Gaga. Diaz-Ortiz now travels across the US offering advice, training and analytics to church leaders, according to the New York Times.

At the C of E, after four years of leading its communications team, Arora is returning to frontline ministry in 2017 as the vicar of St Nicholas in Durham, and will be employing his digital expertise on the ground.

“At its best, digital joins up physical and virtual communities. Social can bring people together and carry on the conversation outside the church walls,” he said. “Churches that use digital well and intentionally are churches that grow.”