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For many people a router is something that's supplied free by their internet service provider. Consequently they don't give much thought to it unless they encounter problems.

Yet, as we attach more and more devices to our home networks we put more demand on our routers and performance can start to suffer. The good news is that there's a whole world of routers out there that offer performance and connectivity features way beyond those of the basic units usually sent out by ISPs.

Apple raised the anger levels of some iPhone users when it was revealed that handset performance was being purposefully reduced to maintain battery health. Some of this anger was dissipated when the company offered up cheap battery replacements, but Tim Cook also promised that users would soon be able to opt out of performance throttling.

The option to disable performance reduction is due to hit the masses with iOS 11.3, and the second beta of this version of Apple's mobile operating system has now been released to developers. It gives us our first glimpse at what the new battery health features look like.

The video game "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" (better known as "PUBG") is wildly popular. With all of the buzz around this title, I decided to buy the PC version last year. You know what? I think the game sucks. Maybe I am just bad at it, but here's my impression of the game -- you parachute into a war zone, and after about 30 seconds, you die. The end. I find it frustratingly short, and quite frankly, the fun just isn't there. Maybe it is because of cheating, but I seem to just instantly die. I'll stick to Mario on Switch...

But OK, if you actually enjoy PUBG like most people seemingly do, Microsoft has a new Xbox One S bundle that might excite you -- if you don't already own the console, that is. The Xbox One S PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Bundle comes with the 1TB "S" game system, the full PUBG game, and more.

Technology’s rapid advance continues, requiring companies to adjust quickly to keep pace. And with the arrival of 5G, businesses can anticipate even more rapid change beginning this year. In fact, it’s predicted that by 2025, 5G will make up 99 percent of all broadband carriers and have over 2.6 billion subscribers -- or one-in-five mobile connections worldwide.

If these numbers sound overwhelming, you’re not alone. Carriers around the globe need to prepare themselves for 5G to transform the way they service customers. But thankfully, with these three easy tips, any carrier can get ahead of the game and be ready for 5G to take the industry by storm.

Just as we work to improve our physical health and well-being, it’s also vitally important to improve our cyber health and keep ourselves safe from online danger.

Here, on Safer Internet Day, are five easy fixes to keep yourself cyber safe this year:

Amazon’s Prime Exclusive Phone Program is very admirable. True, Amazon itself benefits from selling these devices, but ultimately, the true winners are consumers. If you aren’t familiar, these Android phones are priced very low because they are subsidized by lock screen advertisements. It allows people that are struggling financially (or those that just like to save money) to achieve a solid phone at an affordable price.

Today, the Prime Exclusive Phone program gets even better. You see, Amazon is dropping the lock screen ads! In other words, Prime members can now score affordable phones with no gimmicks. Amazon will even issue updates to existing Prime phones to remove ads from them too. Nice!

Without machine learning, fraud detection, web search results, real-time ads on web pages, credit scoring, automation, and email spam filtering wouldn't be possible.

Covering the entry-level topics needed to get you familiar with the basic concepts of machine learning, Machine Learning For Dummies will quickly help you make sense of the programming languages and tools.

Unofficial Kodi add-on provider TVAddons promised to 'change how people access streaming media forever', and two weeks ago it released a new GitHub Browser to make it easier to browse and install Kodi addons.

Following feedback from users, the site has now introduced an updated standalone Git Browser for Kodi with fixes and new functions.

The New York Police Department is finally giving its officers smartphones they can rely on, as it moves to replace its aging Windows smartphones with iPhones. The NYPD made its decision public last year, in August, but has only recently started to hand out the new devices.

According to the New York Daily News, the NYPD started the roll-out around Christmas. Around 600 devices are handed out every day and, based on what the report says, officers are excited about the change.

As businesses are keen to embrace flexible working and digital transformation, there’s increased focus on collaboration and sharing of information.

But with existing regulations like HIPAA and upcoming ones like GDPR it's important to keep collaboration secure. German company Nextcloud is launching a solution in the form of a self-hosted, open source platform offering end-to-end encryption, video and text chat, and enhanced collaboration.

Legacy technology can be a major obstacle to digital transformation projects and, according to a new survey of financial services technology decision makers carried out for business consultancy Janeiro Digital, almost 51 percent say existing technology is holding back innovation.

Three of the biggest roadblocks are seen as lack of support for change (34 percent), legacy technology and infrastructure (31.6 percent) and a lack of in-house technical skill (29.5 percent).

The election authority in Seattle says that Facebook has violated city finance laws. Regulations are in place that require the company to reveal who paid for campaign ads on the social network.

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission is seeking information about advertising spending for city elections that took place last year. Facebook risks a fine of up to $5,000 per ad if this information is not provided.

Most organizations employ some kind of detection-based security to protect their systems. But a new report by cyber security company Bromium reveals that this approach has major hidden costs.

Upfront licensing and deployment costs security-detection tools like anti-virus are dwarfed by the cost of human skills and effort needed to manage and assess the millions of alerts and false-positive threat intelligence generated.

The hostile Get Windows 10 -- often referred to as simply GWX -- push by Microsoft proved controversial around the world. Now the Finnish Consumer Authority has reached an agreement with the company that means the Windows-maker will no longer force apps onto users.

The authority was unhappy with Microsoft not only for pushing the GWX app to computers without consent, but also for changing the design language used in the UI. In the GWX app, clicking the X button did not close the notification window as users would have expected, but instead started the installation of Windows 10.

Despite foolish actions by some US cellular carriers caused by political pressure, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro Android smartphone is still coming to the USA. If you aren't familiar with the controversy, both AT&T and Verizon have refused to carry this device because xenophobic politicians are concerned about Huawei being a Chinese company. Tons of products for sale in the USA are made in China, so it is odd that Huawei is being singled out for alleged espionage. Of course, with the USA's current president, all logic has seemingly gone out the window.

Huawei has wisely decided to just go the unlocked route, meaning the Mate 10 Pro will work on T-Mobile, AT&T, and other GSM carriers in the USA -- Verizon and Sprint are not compatible. If you want to buy this flagship Android smartphone, you can pre-order starting today. Quite frankly, Huawei makes absolutely gorgeous products that are high-quality, so I would recommend that you do.