Best UK sat navs to buy in 2013 Get back on track with our favourite sat navs

Another addition to the Go line-up, the 500 boasts a 5-inch screen, complete with multi-touch gestures and an updated graphical feel, though the lack of pixels is noticeable. If you’re looking to avoid a jam on your commute, Tom Tom traffic updates you on the roads to avoid, but a smartphone connection is required.
Price: £200 | TomTom

Get the low down on the best UK sat navs to buy in 2013 with our bite-sized reviews for the essential in-car navigation set-ups
Are you lost? If so, you've found your way to the right place. Ironic, we know. Whether you need some GPS guidance to get around, or you're looking for a reason to chuck that map book out to the back seat, we've pulled together a collection of the best sat navs around to guide you into modernity.

Top TV shows: The best Netflix and streaming shows

What is Netflix and Lovefilm good for? A bunch of exclusive new shows, that's what

Once confined to a small group of cult fanatics, Arrested Development’s resurrection has seen it balloon into something a whole lot more popular, and with good reason. This utterly hilarious comedy is packed to the rafters with running gags and requires a good bit of thought to get the full effect. If you weren’t a fan of the show before Netflix gave it new life, then now is a great to get in on the Bluth family action as all four season are streaming now.
T3.com says: Gags aplenty, the Bluth clan’s latest series may not be its best, but it’s good to have it back

So, you’ve just picked up one of our best media streamers and you’re hankering for some glorious online media action? You’re in luck good friend; we’ve rounded up the best shows you should be streaming right now on Netflix and LoveFilm.
From drug-dealing professors, to dodgy US politicians and a dash of werewolf action in-between, original online content is blossoming and it’s about time you got in on it.

Cutting edge telecoms sat launches

The Ariane 5 carrying the Alphasat I-XL blasts off from French Guiana

London-based Inmarsat, which provides mobile satellite telecommunications, has launched its latest spacecraft.

Alphasat I-XL rode an Ariane 5 to orbit, lifting clear of the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 16:54 local time (19:54 GMT) on Thursday.
The satellite is the product of a major public-private partnership involving Inmarsat and the European Space Agency.
The 6.6-tonne Alphasat incorporates a host of new technologies that should benefit both parties.
Thursday's Ariane flight lasted just over half an hour and saw the rocket deploy a second satellite, also - INSAT-3D, a meteorology mission for India.
Alphasat represents the first test of a new heavyweight class of chassis, or bus, that will allow European manufacturers to make telecoms spacecraft that weigh up to 8.8 tonnes with a power output of 22kW.
This has led some to refer to the Alphasat design as the "A380 of space".
For Inmarsat, the most important aspect of the new satellite is the inclusion of an advanced digital signal processor made in Portsmouth in southern England.

Coding skills help geeks get top tables

Regulars at many London restaurants rely on their relationship with staff to secure a table

If you want a good table at a top restaurant in Silicon Valley you had better be a good programmer.

Coders in San Francisco are using custom written programmes, or bots, to grab the good tables leaving other diners frustrated.
The bots watch restaurant websites to spot when tables become available then reserve them before humans can react.
The use of bots has made it almost impossible to get good tables at some of the most popular Valley eateries.
Dinner mix The growing use of bots was uncovered by programmer Diogo Monica who wrote a small programme to help him spot free tables at his favourite San Francisco restaurant State Bird Provisions (SBP).
The code emailed Mr Monica when other diners cancelled reservations or SBP released more tables. While the code helped him get a table now and then it quickly became ineffective. Close scrutiny of the SBP website revealed why.

Chinese firm Huawei controls net filter praised by Pm

Huawei has had considerable operations in the UK for almost a decade

The pornography filtering system praised by David Cameron is controlled by the controversial Chinese company Huawei, the BBC has learned.

UK-based employees at the firm are able to decide which sites TalkTalk's net filtering service blocks.
Politicians in both the UK and US have raised concerns about alleged close ties between Huawei and the Chinese government.
The company says the worries are without foundation and prejudiced.
On Monday the Prime Minister said TalkTalk had shown "great leadership" in setting up its system, Homesafe, which it has offered to customers since 2011.
TalkTalk told the BBC it was comfortable with its relationship with Huawei, and that the service was very popular.

Royal baby: Cybersquatters descend on Prince George domains

Domains were snapped up almost from the moment Prince George was born

Cybersquatters have leapt at the chance to register domain names referring to the new royal baby, Prince George.

Within moments of the baby's name being announced, domains such as GeorgeAlexanderLouis.com and princegeorgecambridge.co.uk were taken.
Purchases of domain names mentioning the name "George" rose by 106.9%, reseller Names.co.uk said.
One buyer of a royal baby-related domain has put it up for sale at £10,000.
The owner, Matt James, snapped up hrhprincegeorgecambridge.co.uk on 24th July - the day of the naming announcement.

Cyber dangers and glass houses

It was marked "URGENT" and promised shocking news about risks to our national security and economy from poor cyber defences.

The email from the accountancy firm KPMG said its survey of British firms showed they were leaking data on an alarming scale. But I'm afraid it awoke my inner mischief-maker - and set me wondering just how secure was KPMG itself.
The company said its cyber response team had examined public data from every FTSE 350 firm to see if they were vulnerable to attackers. They found that every single one of them was leaking email addresses, employee usernames and sensitive file locations - the sort of material that would make the work of hackers a lot easier

Change the start mode and connection of multiple Office addins at once

If you have a copy of Microsoft Office installed on your PC it is near certain that several Office addins are installed on the computer as well. Office 2013 for example ships with default addins of which some are loaded during startup. Other programs, antivirus software or iTunes for example may also install addins on the system, and you often do not have a say in the matter.

While it is possible to change the status of each addin in the Windows Registry or each individual Office program, it is not the most comfortable of things to do.
You find addins for all Office programs listed under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office key in the Registry. Just select the Office program that you want to check and there then the Addins subdirectory. Here you find all addins listed as directories that you can open. The Load Behavior parameter defines if an addin is loaded on startup or not.

In Office, you would have to click on File > Options Add-ins to manage the active and inactive application add-ins for the selected program. In Outlook, you select Tools > Trust Center > Add-ins instead.

Cutting edge telecoms sat launches

The satellite incorporates a number of new technologies

London-based Inmarsat, which provides mobile satellite telecommunications, has launched its latest spacecraft.

Alphasat 1-XL rode an Ariane 5 to orbit, lifting clear of the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana at 16:53 local time (19:53 GMT) on Thursday.
The satellite is the product of a major public-private partnership involving Inmarsat and the European Space Agency.
The 6.6-tonne Alphasat incorporates a host of new technologies that should benefit both parties.
Thursday's Ariane flight lasted just over half an hour and saw the rocket deploy a second satellite, also - INSAT-3D, a meteorology mission for India.
Alphasat represents the first test of a new heavyweight class of chassis, or bus, that will allow European manufacturers to make telecoms spacecraft that weigh up to 8.8 tonnes with a power output of 22kW.
This has led some to refer to the Alphasat design as the "A380 of space".
For Inmarsat, the most important aspect of the new satellite is the inclusion of an advanced digital signal processor made in Portsmouth in southern England.

Scientists can implant false memories into mice

Optical fibres implanted in a mouse's brain activated memory forming cells

False memories have been implanted into mice, scientists say.

A team was able to make the mice wrongly associate a benign environment with a previous unpleasant experience from different surroundings.

The Internet Explorer 11 Preview for Windows 7 is now available

That was fast, at least if you consider that it took Microsoft a lot longer to make available Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7. Internet Explorer 11 shipped with the Windows 8.1 Preview the company released last month to the public.

Today, Microsoft has released a preview of Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 that interested users can download from this page on the Microsoft website.
Microsoft moved to a faster update cycle recently to publish updates to Internet Explorer more often to the public. While the company won't switch to a six week update cycle like Mozilla, it means that users won't have to wait years before new versions of the default Windows browser becomes available.  That is, at least on the systems the new versions support.

Two days after OpenOffice 4, LibreOffice 4.1 is released

The popular Microsoft Office alternative OpenOffice was updated two days ago to version 4 bringing along with it interoperability improvements and other feature additions and bug fixes.

Today, the LibreOffice team announces that it has released version 4.1 of the application, and it too puts a focus on Office interoperability.
You can download the free Office suite from the official website of the project. Here it is available as a direct download or torrent download for all supported operating systems (which includes Windows, Mac OS X and Linux). Note that you need to download the offline help file manually from the same page if you want to make use of it.
The application is available as a program that you need to run or install, and also as a CD or DVD image, and as source code so that all bases are covered in this regard.
The LibreOffice 4.1 new features highlights all the changes and improvements of the new version. It displays a selection of featured improvements on top, and then a long list of changes to individual programs of the suite and the application's core.

U.S. slips to 9th in Internet speed

Internet connection speeds in the United States rank behind those in countries like Latvia, Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Land of the free. Home of the brave. Bastion of mediocre Internet speeds.

Already getting clobbered by countries like South Korea and Japan, the United States is close to falling out of the top 10 nations in terms of Internet-connection speeds, according to a new report.

The United States fell from 8th to 9th after being passed by Sweden in the first quarter of this year, according to networking firm Akamai's quarterly State of the Internet report. Akamai handles about one-third of the world's Web traffic.

The other countries with quicker Web connections than the United States? Hong Kong, Switzerland, Netherlands, Latvia and the Czech Republic.

Artiphon Instrument 1: Guitar, keyboard, drums and bass, in one place

The Artiphon Instrument 1 was invented by Mike Butera in Nashville. The multi-instrument is powered by an iPhone and can be played as a guitar, violin, bass or keyboard.

Is it a guitar? Is it a piano? Nope, it is a crazy iPhone-powered combination of both. Plus it has a built in bass, violin and drum machine to boot. The Artiphon Instrument 1 looks something like a medieval lute, but with a smart phone jammed into its belly.

The new instrument, released for pre-order this month, combines a keyboard, fret board, built-in plectrum and accelerometer-powered wawa effect. Named the Artiphon Instrument 1, it is the invention of Mike Butera, a Ph.D. in sound studies, from Virginia Tech.

The Instrument 1 draws on the computational power of a modern smart phone to make and record sound. A downloadable app on the phone allows you to select different modes, helping you to change swiftly between instruments.

Wearable tech that will turn man into machine by 2015

The dress that turns transparent when the wearer is aroused. Would you try it? Dutch design collective Studio Roosegaarde have developed a sensual dress called Intimacy 2.0 together with designer Anouk Wipprecht. Made of leather and smart e-foils, it 'explores the relationship between technology and intimacy'. The high-tech panels are stimulated by the heartbeat of the wearer. Initially opaque or white, they become increasingly transparent when exposed to an electric current -- in this case a beating heart.

You wake up to a gentle vibration on your arm, you look down and see your wrist-mounted Lark Pro alarm throbbing silently. It is 7 o'clock, Friday April 25, 2015 -- time to get up to go to work.

How YouTube changes everything

It took Hunter March just days to go from TV studio intern to on-air personality, and on a recent morning he is practicing his newfound craft. Standing atop a three-inch wooden platform, he fidgets as he prepares to tape his daily show. There's no soundproof room and no on air sign to shush passersby. The shoot takes place next to the receptionist's desk in a Los Angeles studio as delivery men and employees come and go. March, a hyperactive 22-year-old with spiky hair and boyish good looks, operates the tripod-mounted camera himself. His backdrop is a graffitied chalkboard with the phrase "Be Awesome" scribbled on it. March takes a deep breath and looks down at his iPhone to read a couple of lines of his script.

Next he turns on the charm -- his smile broadens, his eyes widen -- and he parrots the lines for the camera with the suavity of a seasoned entertainment-show anchor. He repeats the routine with the next line, and the next one, until, well, everything there is to say about the latest Miley and Justin rumors has been said. The show, all 60 seconds of it, airs online the next day, and within a few hours after it's posted, more than 10,000 people have watched it. A few days later the view count is up to 44,000 and still climbing.
source cnn

Beats Studio headphones get a makeover

Beats Studio headphones got their first redesign in five years.

The Beats Studio were the very first pair of Beats headphones to be introduced more than five years ago. But it's only now that the wildly successful "cans" are receiving their first major overhaul.

Beats are a controversial brand. Trendsetters and bass-loving music fans gravitate towards the headphones for their flashy looks and noticeable emphasis on the low end audio spectrum. Audiophiles criticize them as style over substance, decrying their overall lack of clarity in favor of bass.

The new Beats Studio headphones are better than the last generation, but they aren't improved enough to sway the nonbelievers.

Photo site Flickr to go down for six hours

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer speaks during a May 2013 announcement related to its Flickr photo-sharing site.

Flickr, the Yahoo-owned photo site, will be down for six hours Thursday evening for maintenance.

The outage, which the company announced Wednesday in a blog post, is expected to last from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. ET.

"During this time, Flickr will be unavailable on web and mobile, and the API (the interface used by developers) will not be reachable," the post reads. "There will also be a site-wide notice an hour beforehand to make sure no one is taken by surprise.":

Google unveils upgraded Nexus 7 tablet

Hugo Barra, vice president of Android product management at Google, holds up a new Nexus 7 tablet Wednesday.

(Google is tightening its grip on the booming tablet market, with a new tablet, updated version of Android and a social take on games.

The company announced a new version of its popular Nexus 7 tablet during a press event Wednesday in San Francisco. Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president of Android and Chrome, unveiled a slimmed-down, speedier version of the tablet, which will start at $229 when it goes on sale next week.

The new Nexus 7, made by Asus, has undergone some subtle physical changes. The size of the device has been trimmed down while keeping the screen the same dimensions. The higher resolution screen is now 1,920 by 1,200 pixels, packing in 323 pixels per inch. The amount of RAM has been doubled, and the CPU is twice as fast as the previous Nexus 7. The company also said that it has improved its speaker performance and that it can last for nine hours of high-definition video playing.

How Obamacare's 'privacy nightmare' database really works

When shoppers apply for health insurance through the forthcoming state-based Obamacare exchanges, the online system will verify each applicant's information by pulling in data from more than half a dozen federal agencies ranging from the IRS to the Peace Corps. It will know who you are, how much money you make, and whether or not you're in the United States legally.

The prospect of one online system having access to so much personal information is making some watchdogs nervous. In a USA Today op-ed decrying the system as a "privacy nightmare," researchers Stephen Parente and Paul Howard penned these scary words: "This hub will achieve what has, until now, only appeared in pulp thrillers: a central database linking critical state and federal data on every U.S. citizen for real-time access."