Articles about Digital Lifestyle

It sounds like something from the Cold War, but it is happening today. A top secret court order requires Verizon to hand over telephone records for millions of its subscribers to the NSA on an "ongoing daily basis". The order, in place since April this year, forces the telecom company to hand over a range of "tangible things" about phone calls placed within the US and to foreign countries.

This is not entirely unprecedented -- the recording of telephone data has long been used as a means of gathering intelligence during periods of war -- but this time things are a little different. Not only was the court order passed in secret, but there are no specific targets to the operation. It would be quite normal for the call of suspected terrorists or other criminals to be logged and recorded, but in this instance all phone calls are considered fair game.

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A study by CAST in conjunction with Rackspace reveals that users of wearable technology -- such as the Nike+ FuelBand and Jawbone UP -- feel using such devices boost their intelligence levels. The study looks at residents of the UK and US, and finds the wearable tech users not only feel cleverer, but also more self-confident.

These are not the only benefits the study unearths. US participants were generally rather more impressed with the benefits of wearable technology -- 71 percent of American users felt their health and fitness had improved as a result of using such devices, compared to 63 percent of those in the UK. More than half (53 percent) of US users believe wearable tech helps to improve intelligence, compared to just 39 percent of UK users.

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Email is often cited as the killer application that turned the Internet from a novelty for geeks into a serious business tool. Why then is it so hard to get right? The recent changes to Gmail and Yahoo Mail  sparked a bit of debate amongst the BetaNews team as to what makes a good email service. What are the features we really want and what can we happily live without?

Until around 12 years ago you were most likely to access your email via a client program, downloading messages from the server and dealing with them on your PC. This was mostly down to slow dial-up connections which meant that you weren’t online all the time. Since then -- for personal mail at least -- there’s been a shift towards webmail services. Mainly this is thanks to broadband connections and ever increasing storage allowances which mean that you never have to throw anything away. But despite this shift a whole generation of mail users still think of Outlook Express, with its classic three-pane view, as the way email should be.

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Facebook is great for sharing thoughts, links, complaints and pictures with your friends, family and colleagues but, until now, there has been no easy way to share files through the social network. Pipe is a Facebook app that has undergone private testing for some time, but is at last available for everyone to use. Once installed, Pipe will let you send files of up to 1GB in size to your Facebook friends.

The app works by setting up a P2P connection between you and anyone you decide to share a file with. Ordinarily, file transfers are carried out in real-time, but if you want to send a file to a friend who is not currently online, it will be securely stored until they are available. This reduces the size limit right down to 100MB but it is possible to send an unlimited number of files in this way.

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The importance of having virus and malware protection installed is something that is drummed into every computer user. There are countless security tools to choose from these days, and numerous reviews to help you to decide between them. But how can you be sure that the software you have opted to use is doing its job properly?

AMTSO (the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization) has a series of tools that can help you to find out whether your computer really is protected. Does the fact that your system seems to be free from malware mean that your security software is offering suitable protection, or that you have just been lucky so far?

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British libel law is a veritable minefield and the difficulty of policing many aspects of the internet mean that websites and social networks have often been treated rather differently to newspapers and magazines. But a court ruling means that this is set to change. A judge has ruled that a 46 character tweet made by Sally Bercow, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, is indeed libellous.

The tweet read "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*". For the uninitiated, Lord McAlpine is the former Deputy Chairman and Party Treasurer of the Conservative Party and he denied claims that he was involved in alleged sexual abuse at a Welsh foster care home in the 70s and 80s.

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The first version of Windows I ever installed was Windows 3.1, and the most recent was a leaked build of Windows 8.1. In between those two points I’ve installed every new version of Windows Microsoft has produced, most more times than I care to recall.

The installation process has definitely improved over the years, but I shudder to think how much of my life has been spent waiting for each install and reinstall to complete.

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Courts ordering ISPs to block access to known torrent sites is nothing new -- UK ISPs have already been told that the likes of the Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy are out of bounds -- but Sky Broadband has decided, seemingly of its own volition, to take things a step further. Not content with following the letter of the law and preventing subscribers from accessing a number of well-known torrent sites, the ISP is widening its net and blocking access to torrent proxies.

Proxies are a common means of bypassing restrictions that may have been put in place by ISPs or employers, and there are countless sites and services that exist with the sole purpose of enabling users to access blocked torrent sites. While court rulings have publicly named a number of sites, the list of domains that Sky and other ISPs feel duty-bound to block remains rather more secretive.

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The clock is very much ticking for anyone still working with Yahoo Mail Classic. As of today, an upgrade will roll out forcing users to switch to the newest version. This in itself might not seem like earth-shattering news, but it is Yahoo's handling of the upgrade -- and the hidden payload -- that has users up in arms.

There are few forced upgrades that are welcomed unreservedly -- as changes to Gmail prove -- but this one is rather more sinister. Put simply, if you want to keep using Yahoo Mail you have to make the switch to the latest version or your inbox will become inaccessible. Sounds reasonable? Possibly not.

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Looking not unlike a prop taken from the set of Star Trek, the VivoMouse from Asus takes the humble mouse in something of a new direction. Bringing together the traditional wireless mouse and the trackpad more usually found nestling at the front of a laptop, the peripheral harnesses the best of both worlds and delivers them in a single, sexy-looking device.

The VivoMouse -- which Asus claims to be a "world first" -- can be used in exactly the same way as a regular mouse, but the integrated trackpad means that there is support for Windows 8's full range of multi-touch gestures. This is something that is sure to prove popular with users who have battled with Windows 8's interface; while touchscreen displays are increasing in popularity, they are still far from the norm.

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Synium Software has released MacFamilyTree 7.0 and MobileFamilyTree 7.0, brand new versions of its acclaimed family history software for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Both MacFamilyTree and MobileFamilyTree are built from the same architecture, sharing the majority of features as well as a practically identical user interface.

Both versions gain significant new features and improvements in version 7.0, including redesigned user interface, improved source management tools and iCloud integration for keeping research backed up and in sync between computers and mobiles. In addition, MacFamilyTree 7.0 gains high-definition maps for the first time with an improved Virtual Globe chart.

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After ten years with Yahoo as its mail and news provider, UK internet company BT is switching to a different service. Starting in June it will begin migrating its customers to a new service named BT Mail which will be run by California-based Critical Path.

Nick Wong, director of online for BT's consumer division says, "We will be switching customers' email over to BT Mail, which will include the features and functions they expect from a modern email service. We will be keeping our customers fully informed about what changes to expect and when they will be able to enjoy the new services."

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Facebook has announced that it's introducing verified pages to help users find the authentic accounts of celebrities, businesses and other high profile subjects. Verified pages will have a blue check mark next to the name both at the top of the page and in search results.

Given that Facebook has long been plagued by fake pages and that Twitter has had verified accounts -- marked by a blue tick, funnily enough -- since 2009, it's perhaps surprising that the social network has taken so long to make this step. On its official blog announcing the news the company says, "Facebook proactively verifies authentic Pages and profiles, but if you believe that you're being impersonated you can always report a fake account."

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A few years ago, if you wanted to join a website you had to create a brand new account, enter your email address and come up with yet another password to try and remember. That’s all changed of course and now you can log into a vast amount of sites using existing credentials for services like Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Today, Amazon adds itself to the list of services you can use to gain access to other sites with the introduction of Login with Amazon.

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Although Microsoft has yet to officially reveal the price of its next generation games console, Amazon has decided to set the figure at £599.99 on its pre-order page.

This is considerably higher than most people would have expected -- closer to £400 would have been a reasonable guess -- and dwarfs the launch price of the Xbox 360 which cost gamers £209.99 for the core system back in December 2005.

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