The UK's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has today published new social media guidelines that set out online offenses for which people could be prosecuted. Launched as part of Hate Crime Awareness Week, the guidance will be used to decide whether criminal proceedings should be brought against individuals.

Among the offenses outlined in the document is 'virtual mobbing' -- encouraging others to engage in online hate campaigns. The CPS points out that anyone doing this could face charges under the Serious Crime Act 2007. Also published today is the Public Policy Statements on Hate Crime which is due to be put to public consultation and will focus on hate crimes against disabled people, as well as attacks of a racial, religious, homophobic and transphobic nature.

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According to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), network operators around the world lose around $38 billion annually to fraud and uncollected revenues. Currently the biggest threat to telecommunications service providers comes from loss of termination revenues.

Termination revenues come from when a network handles someone else’s call -- for example when someone on one network contacts someone on another -- or when you dial abroad. Telecommunications service providers naturally want to have a reward for handing on the call to the final recipient. Annual declines in revenue from termination in many countries are 10 percent or more.

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Google Chrome has received plenty of updates to make it lighter on resources, but it can still be a bit of a hog in certain areas. Its higher memory consumption remains a weak point, as you can easily notice on systems with a lower amount of RAM. However, an upcoming update is touted to greatly lower its footprint.

Google Chrome 55, which is expected to arrive in December, should improve the average memory consumption by up to 50 percent compared to the current release, version 53.

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With Windows 10, Microsoft has encouraged users away from the Control Panel in favour of the newer Settings. This is fine for many things, but there are still times when the Control Panel is needed.

In recent builds of Windows 10, the Control Panel shortcut has vanished from the Win + X menu (which can also be accessed by right clicking the Start button), leaving some people perplexed about how to change certain settings. Thankfully, there is a way to get the shortcut back in the latest Insider builds.

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You may not have heard of the tofu problem, but you have almost certainly experienced it. If you visit a website or open a document that can't display a particular character, you'll see a white box symbol resembling a cube of tofu. Now Google has a solution.

The Noto font project (it's a mashup of 'NO more TOfu') has been something of a labor of love, taking five years to reach its conclusion. But the result is an open source Noto font family which Google says includes "every symbol in the Unicode standard, covering more than 800 languages and 110,000 characters".

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It's reckoned that by 2020 three-quarters of new cars shipped globally will have some form of internet connectivity.

But while this brings benefits in terms of practicality and ease of use it also adds cars to the list of IoT devices that are vulnerable to attack. We've already seen Fiat Chrysler recalling cars to fix a vulnerability and this could be just the tip of the iceberg.

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S-Ultra PNG Compressor is a $14.95 Windows application for lossless compression of PNG files.

The program’s interface won’t win any design awards. It’s all very basic: click an "Add" button to select your files, check a couple of boxes to set compression levels and click "Start" to kick the process off.

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Just about all of the key players in social media have turned to algorithms to control the order in which posts appear in users' timelines. Google has already introduced algorithmic sorting for Google+, and now it is rolling out to Communities.

Just as with Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, the decision to move towards algorithms rather than a simple chronological timeline is one that will be divisive. But Google has made it easy to toggle the setting, helping to keep everyone happy.

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While Windows 10 introduced massive changes, some things have remained constant -- such as the bundled Paint app. After years of minor tweaks, Paint is finally in line for a major upgrade.

In recent days, details of the overhauled Paint have appeared online, including introductory videos that show the app will deal with 3D work as well as regular 2D drawing. Now the app has leaked online so you can try it out for yourself.

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A class action lawsuit has been filed against Google accusing the company of discriminating against older job seekers and employees. The case against the company has been certified by the Northern California District Court, which is allowing aggrieved applicants aged 40 and older to join together to file a single suit.

Now that the case has been certified, the court has given plaintiffs the right to challenge Google in court as opposed to individually which will make it easier to deal with the company's expert legal team. This move by the court also increases the chances of the company offering those involved in the case a favorable settlement.

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The Galaxy Note7 has been nothing short of an unmitigated disaster for Samsung. Problems with exploding batteries wiped billions off the value of the company and led to a recall, but it soon transpired that even replacement handsets were problematic, with a number of reports of replacement handsets overheating, catching fire, or exploding.

Now South Korean news agency Yonhap reports that Samsung has temporarily suspended production of the flagship Android smartphone. It's a move that will unnerve investors, but one that is being carried out in conjunction with safety regulators from South Korea, the United States and China.

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The Android smartphone market is in disarray. Samsung smartphones are exploding like bombs, while Google's too-high Pixel pricing and likely cancellation of the Nexus line are both recent bombshells. In other words, it is a confusing time for consumers looking for a high-quality and safe Android device.

Luckily, a lot of value can be found by choosing lesser-known brands, such as Honor by Huawei. The affordable Honor 8 Android smartphone is rather inexpensive at $399, offering a beautiful design and respectable specifications. To celebrate Columbus Day tomorrow, the company is giving a special one-day $50 discount. Yes, you can score yourself a seemingly good phone starting at a very low $349 -- a fraction of the cost of flagships from some other companies.

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Whenever a major tragedy hits, there is an immediate need for communication. Whether it is a natural disaster, terrorism, or some sort of accident, friends and family want to confirm the safety of their loved ones. After 9/11, for instance, it was heartbreaking to see people not know the fate of the missing -- quickly connecting people can quell fears and anxieties.

Cellular phones and other technologies can make communication easier, but running out of data or talk minutes can make it useless. After all, if you can't connect to the internet or make/receive calls, what is the point? Some Verizon customers impacted by Hurricane Matthew will not have to worry about this, however, as the cellular provider is giving them unlimited data, text, and talk at no additional charge.

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We’ve known for a long time that public Wi-Fi is one of the weakest links in mobile security. But what is proving even weaker is public awareness of just how vulnerable that connection technology can be.

According to iPass, which tracks the global growth of Wi-Fi, there are now 54 million Wi-Fi hotspots in the US, representing a 4,414 percent increase since 2013. Many of these Wi-Fi hotspots are insecure, leaving users open to cyber attack and at risk of significant financial loss. In our recent study Uncovering the True Costs of Enterprise Mobility, 28 percent of US companies report having suffered a mobile breach in the last 12 months -- with the cost of remedying the breach at $250,000 to $400,000 in many cases.

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Starting in December, smartphone manufacturers will no longer be required to install Hangouts on their handsets. Instead, phone makers will need to provide users with the recently-launched Duo.

This is not to say that Hangouts is being killed off -- not yet, at least. But Duo, complete with end-to-end encryption, will replace the app as part of the core Google Mobile Services package.

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