Industry Round-Up for W/E 16th Dec 2011
Each week we check our favourites and look through our RSS feeds to find the best and most interesting bits of technology news, some serious and some not so.
Here is a round up of our favourite picks from technology news for the weekend ending December 16th:
Top Tips for Safe Shopping Online
It is too easy to get carried away when shopping online, especially when you have a list of Christmas presents to get as long as your arm. As more and more people are buying online it is important to make sure that where you buy from is safe.
Dr Robert Rowlingson, BCS author of The Essential Guide to Home Computer Security says:
If everyone takes a few basic measures, some technical and some non-technical, then the risks associated with shopping online can be greatly reduced.
The UK Leads the Way in Spending Time Online
The Guardian has this week reported that we here in the UK are spending more time online than any of our European friends. Maybe it says something about the television schedule, or perhaps we just love to embrace new technology this side of the Channel.
The British spend an average of 746 minutes (more than 12 hours) a week online, longer than any of the world’s major economies except the USA…
Taking Hands-Free to the next level
BBC technology reporter Katia Moskvitch has been looking at gesture control, it is set to revolutionise how we interact with our gadgets and remove the need to get hands on.
No More Hiding Behind Your Gmail Account
Reported by Pinsent Masons, new guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office suggests private emails can be required to be disclosed under the freedom of information laws if they relate to public business.
Users of private systems in public authorities will also have to be aware of the rules surrounding the deletion of messages, the ICO said. Deleting messages so that they cannot be released under FOI laws is a criminal offence, it said.
Credit Scoring with Facebook
The invasion of our personal boundaries is taken to a new level with this blog piece from anti-virus vendor ESET. It seems that what you post on Facebook may soon start to affect your credit score.
To determine a prospective applicant’s suitability for a loan, the applicant must submit the logins to three services, starting with Facebook. Users will then be asked for logins to other services like Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo and Windows Live. Three logins are required.