Wayne Williams

Ofcom’s seventh International Communications Market Report, which examines take-up, availability, price and use of broadband, landlines, mobiles, TV, radio and post across 17 major countries, has discovered that people in the United Kingdom typically spend more on online shopping, watch more TV on the web, and download more data on their mobiles and tablets than any other leading nation.

I’m British, do all my shopping online (even groceries), almost never watch live television and access the web on the go pretty much daily, so this news doesn’t come as any great surprise to me, but even so the gap between my country and other much larger nations is a bit of a revelation (and also slightly suspect in some cases).

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It’s hard to imagine a more keenly anticipated tweet than the first one scheduled to be sent today -- 12/12/12 -- by his holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Shortly after news broke that the Pope had signed up to the micro-blogging site, Twitter users flocked to follow his account, @pontifex and speculation began to grow about what he might say.

Since the Vatican asked for questions of faith to be sent to #askpontifex it was generally assumed his first tweet might address a particular weighty matter of faith. But showing that the 85-year totally gets Twitter, the first message he sent was anything but momentous: "Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart."

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When Marissa Mayer took over the reins at Yahoo, it was largely expected that Yahoo Mail would be one of the first services to be revamped. Despite still being hugely popular, it lags behind Gmail in terms of features and has, for a long time, felt rather neglected.

Well, the good news if you’re a Yahoo Mail diehard, is the service has undergone some major changes. Improvements include a redesign made with speed in mind. An easier to navigate, more intuitive and less distracting inbox will apparently allow users to get through their emails much quicker. Recognising the importance of mobile devices, finally, Yahoo is also rolling out new Yahoo Mail apps for Windows 8, iPhone/iPod touch and Android.

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Microsoft might want all users of Windows 8 to use its new tiled interface, but if you really don't like it, or it's the one thing that's preventing you from switching to the new OS full time, there's a clever hack which will disable it for good -- or until you want to switch back, at least.

Ex7ForW8, or "Explorer 7 for Windows 8", is a wrapper created by a developer named Tihiy which basically allows Windows 7's explorer.exe to run on the new OS. Once installed and activated it will take users straight to the Windows 7 desktop upon boot up, and when I say "straight to" I mean it. The new UI doesn't load at all. The wrapper doesn't modify any system files or system protected registry entries, and you can switch back to the Windows 8 UI at any time.

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Just days after Instagram said it would no longer allow the micro-blogging site to display its photos, Twitter has responded by giving users the ability to apply colored filters to pictures they upload.

There are eight Aviary-powered filters to choose from -- Vignette, Black & White, Warm, Cool, Vintage, Cinematic, Happy, and Gritty. A grid view shows how each of the filters will affect your image, and you can tap any of the choices and then scroll left or right to view the alternatives.

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Apple’s replacement for Google Maps isn’t the most reliable of mapping apps, especially outside of the United States. The first time I used it, requesting directions to Blackpool on the north-west coast of England, it sent me to the south coast, some 248 miles the wrong way. Of course, I didn’t actually make that journey, but had I been visiting from outside of the United Kingdom, and knew no better, I would have been in for a very nasty surprise if I’d followed the app’s directions. But at least I wouldn’t have been misdirected into a potentially life threatening situation, unlike some motorists in Australia.

Victoria police have been forced to issue a warning after Apple Maps routed a number of motorists off the beaten track and into the middle of a national park with no water supply and where temperatures can reach up to 46 degrees.

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The South Korean tech giant has released a short YouTube teaser promising a new product which will be revealed on January 8-11 2013, presumably at the International CES in Las Vegas.

"The world awaits" the video says at the beginning before quickly flashing up words like "Innovation", "Ideas", "Design", "Technology", "Dreams", "Wonder", and "Future". It's obviously just an attempt to drum up interest in the forthcoming product and get the Samsung faithful speculating, as there are no other clues as to what the product might be. There are already plenty of guesses in the comments under the video, of course.

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In a lengthy new blog post, Richard Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, criticizes Canonical for its decision to add surveillance software to the latest version of its Ubuntu operating system, calling on users to give it a wide berth.

The "Home Lens" universal search feature built into Ubuntu 12.10’s Unity Dash, sends off details of users’ search requests to Canonical's servers. This information is used to integrate relevant Amazon search results. Stallman doesn’t have a problem with the adverts themselves, more the spying aspect. "Canonical says it does not tell Amazon who searched for what. However, it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would have been for Amazon to collect it," he explains.

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An interactive online map showing the location of bombs dropped on London during World War II proved so popular when first launched earlier today, that the site immediately went down under the barrage of visitors. Like the survivors of that infamous moment in history, the site picked itself up, dusted itself off, kept calm, and carried on once more, but is still going offline periodically.

The Bomb Sight project was created by a team from the University of Portsmouth using London WWII bomb census data (taken between October 1940 and June 1941) supplied by The National Archives, and shows visitors where the bombs fell during the Blitz, and what type they were.

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Apple’s stunning $1.05 billion victory over Samsung in August might have had the fanboys punching the air in delight, and left the South Korean company reeling, but it was never going to be the end of the matter. While patent battles continue to rage in other countries, all eyes are still on the U.S. courts as the two rivals square up once more for a second round.

Apple was back in court yesterday to defend its billion dollar award and persuade U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to permanently ban a number of older, infringing Samsung devices. Samsung for its part is trying to get the figure awarded against it reduced, or for the verdict to be dismissed (and a new trial arranged) following alleged juror misconduct. The jury foreman, Velvin Hogan, was sued by his former employer Seagate Technology in 1993, and as Samsung holds a stake in that company, lawyers for the South Korean giant argued Hogan’s failure to disclose the issue brought into serious question his impartiality.

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If you want to know what people are talking about on Twitter, you just need to check what’s trending. Twitter automatically generates Trends using an algorithm to identify topics that are breaking, and from today the site is adding 100 new cities from around the world to its regional options, including 12 in the United Kingdom.

The new UK cities are Belfast, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Portsmouth and Sheffield (Birmingham, Glasgow, London, and Manchester have been available for a while). Other new global locations include Istanbul, Turkey; Frankfurt, Germany; Guadalajara, Mexico; and Incheon, South Korea.

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Google has spent millions of dollars funding channels offering high quality content in a bid to compete with television, and more importantly, offer brand-safe shows for major companies to attach their adverts to. Some of the channels have been wildly successful, while others -- it’s fair to say -- haven’t reached anywhere near their full potential.

Still, YouTube remains committed to funding high-quality programming and in the next fortnight or so will start showing content from five of its flagship channels on Virgin America flights across the U.S. and Mexico.

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Passwords exist to keep our personal data secure. They prevent snoopers accessing our computers, and stop hackers from getting into our Facebook or email accounts. Passwords can be a pain at times -- thinking up something secure, and remembering it whenever prompted isn't always easy -- but they’re a necessary evil.

And yet, time and again we hear stories of people being hacked because they used simple-to-guess passwords, and/or the same passwords everywhere. Signing up to multiple websites with the same login you use for your email account is just asking for trouble, but people do it. The reason I bring this up is cybersecurity company ESET has just released new data from a Harris Interactive study that once again shows how lackadaisical we are when it comes to password protection.

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I know what you’re thinking. There just aren’t enough social networks. Sure, there’s Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn and MySpace, but what the world really needs is one that bills itself as an experiment in social search, right? Fortunately Microsoft’s Fuse Labs has been working on such a project, and has finally opened its endeavour to the world.

Socl (pronounced "social") was launched quietly back in May, as an invite-only offering for students. It was described then as an "experiment in learning" (which is hardly the sexiest of taglines) but from today the site is open to all, and if you’re the sort of person who appreciates seeing slightly raunchy animated GIFs of Katy Perry, or still enjoys all things Gangnam Style, you’re going to love it.

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Although there was an odd blip where Google’s new Gmail app appeared in the App Store, and then vanished mysteriously (a "rollout issue" according to Google), it’s back again and is available to actually download this time. And the good news is: it’s worth grabbing.

As a Gmail user, and an owner of an iPad and a few iPod touches, I’ve never really rated the old, official app, preferring to just to stick with the mobile web version. After ten minutes use I can say that while the update is not perfect, it is a huge step in the right direction and a massive improvement over its predecessor.

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