Encouraging the elderly to use the internet can not only help them keep in touch with friends and family and take advantage of the best deals, it can also reduce the likelihood of dementia.

The results of an eight-year study of 6,500 50-90 year-olds reveal that those who regularly go online experience less mental decline compared to those who don't use the internet. The study shows a significant improvement in delayed recall over time for those who were frequent online users, highlighting the role played by the internet in preventing the degeneration of mental abilities in the elderly.

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The current uproar around various facets of data collection and use -- be it "the right to be forgotten" or the emergency data legislation being considered by Prime Minister David Cameron in the UK -- is divisive to say the least.

If your only source of information is the mainstream press, you’d be forgiven for thinking it comes down to two immiscible sides of an argument. On one side there’s the posited right for governments and people to access whatever information they need, whenever they need it. On the other side are those who believe that they have an absolute right to privacy, whatever the threats governments say we’re facing.

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Using managed services used to mean outsourcing complex IT projects to expensive consultants. Now though thanks to technologies like the cloud they're enabling businesses to focus on their core business while increasing their efficiency, reducing costs and taking advantage of new technologies.

Infrastructure as a service specialist GoGrid has compiled some industry findings that demonstrate the market opportunities and benefits companies can gain by using managed services.

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Tanner Helland has announced the first beta for PhotoDemon 6.4, the latest edition of his open source portable photo editor. But don’t be fooled by the apparently minor version number: this is a massive update with a host of significant new features.

Strong support for layers is a highlight. PhotoDemon 6.4 gives you an unlimited number which you can hide, show, reorder, merge or duplicate as required. There are 24 blend modes on offer and you’re able to resize, rotate, mirror or flip any layer without flattening the image.

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In a Reddit AMA yesterday, the Internet Explorer team discussed the negative reputation surrounding Microsoft’s browser and confirmed that internally they had considered changing the name.

Front-end Engineer Jonathan Sampson admitted, "I remember a particularly long email thread where numerous people were passionately debating it. Plenty of ideas get kicked around about how we can separate ourselves from negative perceptions that no longer reflect our product today".

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If you're specifying a notebook for your kids or your school, the attractive world of ultra-portables probably won't be top of your list of possibilities. Robustness, durability and value are far more likely to be your chief considerations. Dell's Latitude 13 Education Series 3340 is designed specifically to satisfy this kind of need. It's clearly built to last, and has both a specification and price that should appeal to the target audience.

The Latitude 3340 is not going to win any style awards, but it is very sturdy. The dark gray plastic chassis feels tough and is surrounded by rubber edges on the base and screen bezel. The hinge is similarly solid, and rotates 180 degrees so it can lie flat on the desk alongside the base, although the screen isn't touch-enabled so this facility is less useful than it could have been.

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I have a confession. It's hard to admit, and I know it might make me a bit of a social pariah and an outcast in the industry I work in but I need to get this off my chest:

I used a single password for many online services *deep breath* for a long time.

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Wannabe medical students everywhere, it’s time to rejoice: popular PC game Surgeon Simulator is finally out on Android.

As usual, you get to save the lives of your grateful patients on a daily basis. Or butcher them mercilessly; it’s your call, really.

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America loves celebrities. Scam artists, the only criminals we refer to as artists, are well aware of our fascination with the lives and sometimes untimely deaths of celebrities, and exploit this interest through a number of schemes aimed at turning the public's fascination into the identity thief’s treasure.

The sad and tragic death by suicide of Robin Williams has become the latest opportunity for identity thieves to exploit a celebrity death for financial gain. In one Robin Williams related scam, a post appears on your Facebook page -- it often can appear to come from someone you know, when, in fact, it is really from an identity thief who has hacked into the Facebook account of your real friend. The post provides a link to photos or videos that appeal in some instances to an interest in Robin Williams related movie or standup performances. However, in other instances, the link will appeal to the lowest common denominator and purport to provide police photos or videos of the suicide site. If you fall for this bait by clicking on the link, one of two things can happen, both of which are bad.

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Google’s Safe Browsing service protects users from malicious websites and warns against potentially dangerous downloads in Chrome. According to Google, over three million download warnings are being viewed every week, and because it’s available for other browsers, this technology is helping to keep 1.1 billion people safe.

From next week, Google says it will be protecting users from additional malicious software, delivering warnings whenever you attempt to download something that might try and make unwanted changes to your browser or computer.

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Many of us use Twitter, and we do so for a variety of reasons that include both following friends and family, as well as keeping up with current events. Services like Breaking News and Breaking Weather can be indispensable in daily life.

What many don't know is that some of these services are little more than automated bots. While that sounds scary, and in some cases it is, it's not always something to worry about.

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Ever wondered why hackers do what they do? Thycotic, a software firm specializing in privileged access password protection, conducted a survey of 127 hackers at Black Hat USA 2014 to try and understand their thinking.

The company found that more than half of the hackers (51 percent) were driven by the fun/thrill, while 19 percent were in it for the money. Few hackers fear getting caught with 86 percent confident they will never face repercussions for their activities.

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An msi file is a setup program based on Windows Installer, and, most of the time, it’s very easy to handle. You want to install some application, you’ve downloaded the appropriate msi, so now just run it and work your way through the setup process.

But what if you’re not sure what the msi file does, what it contains? Maybe you’d like to extract one or two of its files without installing the whole application. Either way, you need a copy of lessmsi.

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Internet access doesn’t make people happy, but it is a sign of the probability of happiness.

A 2013 poll by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index measured people’s happiness state by state across America. We cross-referenced the Happiness Index from the Gallup Poll with US census numbers on the percentage of a states’ residents who access the Internet from their homes and found an interesting correlation. Nearly 40 percent of the happiness index score for any given state can be estimated by knowing the Internet access percentage of that state.

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Though it's one of the most popular big data tools, Hadoop is still evolving and as a result doesn't always have the sophistication of more traditional databases, which can lead to higher support and operation costs.

A new product from big data security specialist Zettaset aims to streamline Hadoop deployment for the enterprise with software automation that eliminates many of the manual configuration processes.

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