According to a new report from telecommunication company Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Security Labs security threats to mobile and residential devices and attacks on communications networks all rose in 2014.

It estimates that 16 million mobile devices worldwide have been infected by malware. It also points out many retail cyber-security breaches in 2014 were the result of malware infections on cash registers or point-of-sale terminals, not online stores, so shopping offline isn't guaranteed to keep your details safe.

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When designing smartwatches, manufacturers tend to miss what makes plain old watches attractive. So they come up with products that look overly geeky, have short battery life, and feel too fragile. Motorola is the only one to have come close to an appealing design with its Moto 360, but it, sadly, missed the mark in other areas.

With the newly-announced Watch Urbane, LG gives the impression that it too understands that smartwatches have to look great, first of all, and then woo us with all the bells and whistles that come with the software. But does it also nail the other bits?

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Windows error messages are never exactly clear, and Windows Update is a particular offender. One common alert complains that "Windows could not search for new updates", displaying the cryptic code: "80072EE2". Which it then helpfully translates as "Windows Update encountered an unknown error".

Error Lookup is a portable free tool which can help by translating error codes into a (hopefully) more meaningful text description.

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It is just about impossible to be an internet user without being aware of the surveillance that has been carried out by the NSA; cheers for the tip, Mr Snowden. While it was the NSA's activities that hit the headlines, governments in other countries used -- and continue to use -- similar surveillance techniques and even share information between each other.

We already know that GCHQ believes that online privacy has never been an absolute right, but this does not change the fact that data sharing between the NSA and GCHQ was illegal before December. Now Privacy International, one of the organizations opposed to such spying, has launched a campaign to help people find out if GCHQ illegally received information about them from the NSA.

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I'm a GNOME 3 man through and through, but I love KDE too. Quite frankly, you can't go wrong with either desktop environment, but if you are new to Linux, KDE may seem a bit more familiar. Why? It more resembles the traditional "Windows" user interface.

What makes Netrunner the best KDE-based Linux distribution, and one of the best distros overall, is the polish. The team behind it pays close attention to detail, making it a cohesive and positive user experience. It comes pre-loaded with plenty of software and it is drop-dead gorgeous. Today, you can download version 15, codenamed "Prometheus". The most exciting aspect? It has been redesigned and comes with KDE Plasma Desktop 5.2 -- yeah, you want this.

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UserIdleStarter is a Windows console program which runs an application when your system is idle, maybe to back up files, launch or close an application, anything you like.

The program syntax is fairly straightforward. An example command might look like this.

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If you want to chat about the relative merits of Kickass Torrents, it seems that Steam chat is not the place to do it. The censoring of words deemed offensive is nothing new, but gamers have found that any messages they post which included references to Kickass Torrents or the URL http://kickass.so are stripped.

Like the Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents has fallen victim to domain name seizures, but even though the site has been taken offline, it would appear that Steam does not want its users to discuss it. A ban on mentioning the site has been described by some gamers as "covert censorship".

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We always knew that the US government would have a very tough time stopping civilians from using drones -- formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). First of all, they are easily available and can be had for very little money. You can order one today from Amazon for less than $100. And, second, flying does not require the operator to have any special skills, as proven by numerous videos posted by enthusiasts all across YouTube.

So, instead of taking on that Herculean task, the Federal Aviation Administration has come up with a proposed set of rules that aim to regulate the use of small UAVs, weighing less than 55 lbs (or 25 kg), by the civilian sector. And under this new set of rules, Amazon might have to ground its package delivery drones for good. What's more, operators will have to meet certain requirements just to get theirs up from the ground.

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The Internet of things (IoT) will overhaul the way in which we use technology and its proliferation will offer endless advantages from being able to turn on your washing when you are in the office to alerting your doctor that your heart rate has risen.

However, the premise of connecting all things to the Internet carries with it a corollary statement; everything that can be connected to the Internet can be hacked which raises a host of security questions.

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Chief Information Officer (CIO) is usually seen as a plum role in technology organizations. But new information from search specialist Lucidworks reveals that day-to-day responsibilities are holding back CIOs from driving innovation.

Some 25 percent of CIOs are solely responsible for leading tech-driven innovation at their organizations, but most of their time is being taken up with problem solving and troubleshooting.

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The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruling that GCHQ’s access to information intercepted by the NSA breached human rights laws is feeding a growing and increasingly heated global debate regarding the whole issue of digital privacy.

Earlier this month, the tribunal held that the British intelligence and security agency had been in breach of articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, referring to the right to private family life and to freedom of expression. But hard on the heels of the UK ruling came news that the US government is creating a dedicated agency to monitor cybersecurity threats, pooling and analyzing information across a spectrum of risks. The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC)’s mission will be to 'connect the dots' between various sources of intelligence.

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Google managed to ruffle a few feathers recently by disclosing bugs and security problems in widely used software. Project Zero is used to encourage companies to fix issues that have been detected by imposing a 90-day deadline before details of the vulnerabilities are made public.

Microsoft was angered a month ago when Google published details of a security issue in Windows 8.1 just a few days before a patch was due to be released. A few days later, two more bugs were revealed leading to complaints not just from Microsoft but from software users. Now Google has backed down and announced a slight relaxing of its previously strict 90-day disclosure policy.

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If Google's vice president is to be believed, we are in danger of losing an entire generation of information to the digital realm. Look to the history books, and you do just that -- look in a real, physical book. Pictorial histories can be found in photo albums. The works of Oscar Wilde, Samuel Pepys, and Charles Dickens are stored in real, tangible formats.

But now just about everything is stored digitally. Photos are rarely, if ever printed; millions of words are published online each day on blogs, online newspapers, and message boards. These are all important social, political, literary, and historical records. There's no guarantee that the sites, apps and technology needed to access all of these records will still be available in 50 years or more. Could our history be lost to the cloud?

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However much money you have flowing through your bank account, you probably take measures to keep it secure. You protect your PIN, you use secure passwords for online banking, and ensure that your computer is free from keyloggers and malware. It's only right that you expect your bank to be similarly eagle-eyed about security... right?

A new report from security firm Kaspersky Lab shows that banks' security is not up to the standard that many would expect. In fact Kaspersky says that sophisticated malware has allowed criminals to help themselves to up to $1 billion. Has your bank been hit? The affected financial institutions are now aware of the attacks, but non-disclosure agreements and on-going investigations prevent them from being named.

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XnShell is a handy Explorer shell extension which makes it easier to view, process and generally work with images.

The program allows you to preview any picture, in just about any format, directly from its right-click menu. No need to turn on Icon View, enable the preview pane or open the full image (which may not work, anyway, if it's not supported by your default viewer): just right-click, select XnShell, and you'll see a thumbnail in the context menu.

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