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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While my colleague Mark Wilson endures glacially slow internet, I’m lucky enough to be on a super-fast 100Mbps connection (but even that’s a bit slow for me -- I’ll be upgrading to 152 Mbps early next year).

The average connection speeds for most internet users is a lot slower, but getting better. Broadview Networks took a look at the average internet speeds in America, and listed the results by state, showing average speed in Q1, and comparing the results quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year.

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Microsoft and gadget repair website iFixit have announced the launch of Pro Tech Network, a service designed to teach more people how to fix gadgets.

The partnership should help give people the skills they need to fix devices, set up businesses and recycle the valuable materials within electronic products.

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One of the problems with relying on technology for so many things is that you end up with a whole raft of user IDs, for work, banking, shopping, social media and more.

A new study by the Ponemon Institute and IT management specialist CA Technologies looks at the idea of simplifying things through the use of Bring Your Own Identity (BYOID) initiatives, where social networking or digital IDs are used for application login.

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According to new research, Britons are now spending more time using technology devices than sleeping.

Ofcom has released a fresh report detailing our daily habits, and the results are relatively scary.

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The enfant terrible of the tech world, and the thorn in the side of the NSA, Edward Snowden has been granted permission to stay in Russia for a further three years. The former NSA analyst turned whistle-blower sought exile in the country a year ago and on August 1st he was granted an extension. The three-year residency permit was approved a week ago, but has only just been made public by Snowden's lawyer. Anatoly Kucherena explained that Snowden himself would hold a press conference as soon as possible, reported Russia Today.

The US has tried to force Russia to hand over Snowden so he can face charges in his home country, but for the time being, he will be able to stay where he is. If he feels inclined, the permits allows for him to travel abroad for up to three months, and he is free to travel wherever he wants within Russia. Although he has not expressed an interest in doing so, Snowden would be eligible to apply for permanent residence in Russia in five years' time.

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A new study by the UK's communications regulator Ofcom finds that the "millennium generation" of 14-15 year olds are the most technology aware group but as we get older digital knowledge begins to decline.

The study of 2,000 adults and 800 children measured confidence and knowledge of communications technology to calculate a Digital Quotient (DQ) with the average UK adult scoring 100.

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I had lunch last week with my old friend Aurel Kleinerman, an MD who also runs a Silicon Valley software company called MITEM, which specializes in combining data from disparate systems and networks onto a single desktop.

Had the Obama Administration known about MITEM, linking all those Obamacare health insurance exchanges would have been trivial. Given MITEM’s 500+ corporate and government customers, you’d think the company would have come to the attention of the White House, but no.

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A recent report by Juniper on mobile ad spending estimated that it’s set to reach $40 billion a year by 2018. It's easy to understand why since the data it's possible to collect from a mobile device is valuable to marketers.

In a move to unlock this information media analytics company Visible Technologies has announced a new set of geo-location capabilities for its Visible Intelligence platform that give marketers the power to pinpoint specific locations of consumer social media posts anywhere in the world.

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The scanning of personal emails is almost universally regarded as a terrible thing. Just like the activities of the NSA, when email providers start rifling through private information, it has a tendency to upset people. The justification for governmental mass surveillance has always been that it helps to combat crime -- and of course we never have to wait for long before the words "terrorists", "extremists", and "attack" are used. Google has just demonstrated how email scanning can be used to catch criminals. In this case, Google's image recognition software was used to identify images of child abuse sent via email by a Texan man.

A 41 year old man was arrested after the system detected suspicious material. The police were alerted and requested the user's details from Google after child protection services were automatically notified of the findings. The convicted sex offender's account triggered an alert after automatic, pro-active scans detected illegal pictures and Google then reported it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Google is understandably tight-lipped about how its technology works, but as the Telegraph points out, we do already know a little about the methods used.

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It's reckoned that more than 60 percent of employers offer some form of remote working in order to increase employee satisfaction and retention rates.

But what type of boss makes for a harmonious telecommuting experience? Online forms specialist Formstack has put together an infographic evaluating the traits of different types of manager and how they lend themselves to working with remote teams.

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XBMC has gone through many iterations over the 12 years of its existence. The program, which now powers a number of home theater computers, began life as Xbox Media Player, then morphed into Xbox Media Center, before finally settling on the shorter abbreviation of XBMC.

But the platform has moved so far off from its original Xbox beginnings that it has announced it will get away from the old name as well.

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Facebook is teaming up with mobile operators in Africa in order to bring the Internet to millions of people without online access.

The project, which is being headed up by an organization called Internet.org , is starting in Zambia and could bring benefits to millions who have no experience of the digital world, while also increasing Facebook's user base.

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There was widespread condemnation of Facebook when it was revealed that the social network had been manipulating users' newsfeeds as part of a social experiment. Official complaints may have been made but it doesn’t seem to have served as a lesson for other websites. Now it transpires that OkCupid -- the dating website whose slogan is "We use math to get you dates" -- has been fiddling the figures in a series of experiments on its users. The weird thing is, the site is openly bragging about it.

In a blog post unashamedly titled "We Experiment On Human Beings!", founder Christian Rudder writes that "OkCupid doesn’t really know what it’s doing". Seems like something of an odd admission. The blog post details three experiments the dating site conducted on its subscribers. There must have been more because the post is prefaced with the words "Here are a few of the more interesting experiments OkCupid has run". Does "interesting" just mean "less controversial"? Who knows?

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When I go for runs, my iPhone always comes with me, providing music and motivation through apps like Zombies, Run! Usually I just jam the device in my pocket, but that's not always possible, or practical. There are other ways to carry your phone with you, including using armbands, but SlimClip offers an alternative option.

The plastic case has a thin flap on the back. You lift this up to slide the iPhone into the enclosure, and the flap doubles as a clip so you can attach the device to your waistband. It's a simple, but very clever idea that works well.

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