Simple Ways to Safeguard Your Computer from Hackers and Malware

credit: online tech tips

There are hackers out there lurking around searching for unsecured computers and smartphones to hack into. If you’re not careful, you could become their next victim. Nowhere is safe, not at restaurants, hotels or even your home. However, if you take the proper precautions, you can decrease the chances of a hacker breaking into your computer. The way hackers are able to access your devices is through the internet, so this is where you need to begin setting up walls. Here’s what you can do today to improve the security of your home devices.

Install a Firewall

Most computers come with trial versions that offer firewall security, but once this expires, you’re on your own. There are two types of firewalls you can use to protect your computer – one that comes in the form of software and the other that comes in the form of hardware. Both act similarly, but are used for different reasons. When you install a firewall, you’re creating a first line of defense for your computer. This barrier stops unauthorized programs from the web, keeping them from opening up on your computer. Make sure your firewall is always on, whether you’re at home or staying at the Hilton.

Set Up Antivirus Software

Another way to boost the security of your computer is to install antivirus software. This also stops unauthorized software and codes from operating on your computer system. This includes viruses, trojans, keyloggers and other intrusive software that are designed to steal, delete and corrupt your files, or even spy on you. Antivirus software offers real-time protection from these threats.

Install Anti-Spyware Software

Spyware is everywhere and it’s used for both innocent and harmful purposes (depending on the user). The purpose of spyware is to collect data from you that is then redirected to a third party. This information can be used for advertising purposes by companies or for sinister purposes of a hacker. Like antivirus software, this can hep to protect your system from these intrusions in real time.

Always Use Complex Passwords

The passwords you create for your emails, social media, financial institutions and computer log-in should be secure and complex. No one should be able to guess it, so never use your name, birthday or those of your closest family members. This is the first thing hackers will try. As a rule of thumb, your passwords should be at least 8 letters long, contain a number, a special symbol and an uppercase letter. The more complex your password, the more difficult it will be for hackers to figure it out. Make sure you don’t share it with anyone or write it down on documents that can be stolen from your computer files.

Check Your Browser Security Settings

Make sure the browser you’re using while surfing the web is secure. Look at the security and privacy settings to see how it’s set up. Make the necessary changes to make it more secure. This is important since a lot of websites now track what you’re doing on the web (for advertising purposes).

9 Easy Things You Can Do to Stay Safe on Your Android Phone

Android mobile phone: If it falls down it goes broken, if it is stolen, all data are lost. It does not have to be. We provide you with valuable tips that make your smartphone safe. Smartphones now accompany us everywhere, know almost everything about us and organize our days. Reason enough to secure its smartphone comprehensively. We trust our smartphones that contains all our data, and often forget to take the Android Security measures if in case it gets into the wrong hands. For this reason, you should pay particular attention to good safety precautions for your smartphone.

There are cases where practically every hope is in vain. This includes a fall of the smartphone from heights or a theft by a professional. But in all other cases, you can do very much to make your smartphone safer. Just follow our tips!

Theft protection

If the smartphone is stolen or lost, then you will feel less like you have lost your wallet. Therefore, we advise all smartphone users to install and activate the anti-theft protection. Such a possibility is provided by most anti-malware solutions, which we also present in this Android user edition. If you only want to use the anti-theft protection, we recommend the application Cerberus anti-theft of the developer LSDROID. It brings a lot of possibilities and can be controlled via SMS or via a web front end.

Save important data

Connect the mobile phone to the PC, start the app and back up data. But which data is really valuable to you? Contacts, SMS messages and the photos… There are solutions for automatic backup. You secure the contacts via your GMail account. We recommend this even if you are not actively using GMail.

To save the photos, you create a Google+ account and activate the instant upload via WLAN. If you are photographing relatively little, then you must definitely activate the upload in original size. This gives you "only" 5 GB of storage space, but your photos are kept in the original (and you can later purchase additional storage, if desired). If Google+ is really only a backup, select the default size in the settings for the Instant Upload of Google+ under Store Size. This allows you to back up as many photos as you want in the Google Cloud, but with a maximum of 3 megapixels. All photos remain private and you do not need to actively use Google+ for this service.

PIN code or pattern

Even if it is cumbersome to unlock your own smartphone again and again with a PIN code, password or pattern: make the effort! This is the only way to avoid theft or loss of the data on your smartphone. To set the display lock, enter the settings and select Security -> Display lock. If you choose a pattern, avoid obvious such as Z or N and set a reciprocal motion. This prevents someone from recognizing the pattern due to streaks on the touchscreen. Also make sure that the Make visible checkbox is not set. So you see at most a wrong pattern, but never the right one.

Viewing angle protection film

The best password or the best unlocking pattern will not be useful if someone is watching you unlock the Android device. The fact that someone looks over your shoulder can prevent you in most cases, but what about side looks? Here is a viewing angle protection film, also called privacy filter. Once mounted on the display, you can practically no longer see what happens on the touchscreen from the side.

Protective covers

Admittedly, many protective covers do not look great, but most of them protect your smartphone from glass breakage when the smartphone falls from the breast to the ground. Make sure that the bumper is made of a soft material and provides an additional edge around the display so that it will get ground contact on impact, not the touch screen.

Two-way authentication

Do you use simple passwords or do you often log on to other computers on Google? Then you should use two-step verification from Google. To do so, log in to your Google Account and then set up the confirmation. In the simplest case, you will get an SMS on your mobile phone, but there is also an offline application for Android Security, which generates the necessary codes for the login. This does not make your mobile phone safer, but it will protect your Google account. The details explain our free article on the website

Protection in WLAN hotspots

Do you like surfing at McDonald's, Starbucks, or other hotspots with many unknown users? Then you should be aware that it is easy with every rooted Android smartphone and the appropriate apps to "hijack" even HTTPS encrypted connections and thus intercept login data and passwords. The App DroidSheep Guard by Andreas Koch protects you against this danger. The app notices, if someone tries to divert the network traffic over its own device and switches in such a case automatically the WLAN from. As the only app on Google Play, it performs this task reliably, free of charge and without ads.

Safe mode

You have the feeling that something is wrong with your smartphone, you may have installed a malicious app, or someone fiddled with your smartphone? Then restart it in safe mode. To do this, hold down the power button on the touch screen until a dialog box appears to select Safe Mode. Your Android device then only offers the apps to the start, which were packaged by the manufacturer on the mobile phone. So you have time to check the installed apps and delete malicious software. The mode is also an excellent way to find a good deal. If the running time is much better in safe mode, then one of the additionally installed apps must be responsible for the high battery consumption. Safe mode will automatically stop when you restart the smartphone.

Install anti-malware software

Even if there are currently no really bad apps on Google Play, there are enough dangerous apps in Google Store that you will not be able to install. To be protected against such and other malware, you should install anti-malware software. For a basic protection the free version is sufficient for most providers. For Android users, AVG AntiVirus Mobile Security PRO is available free of charge in this edition for one year.

Encrypt the storage

Since Android 4.0, there is the possibility to encrypt the complete smartphone. The file system is fragmented in such a way that it can only be re-assembled with a password or PIN code. This feature provides high data protection when the phone is switched off. In operation, the encryption is nothing to remember, all files are normally available. Since the process takes about an hour, you must first fully charge the mobile phone and leave it on the charger until the encryption is finished. You can find the setting under Security -> Phone Encrypt. Here you also define whether the mobile phone is to query the PIN code of the SIM card at startup.

Flying cars: A 1950s dream takes to the skies without the rules to stay airborne

A sports car with swivel wings that can get in the air: What acted like a year ago is now reality. The Slovakian flight car has a wonderful Technology can now be pre-ordered and is scheduled to take off in three years.

In Monaco, Aeromobil – the Flying cars company from Slovakia presented the final design of its flight car, which will cost between 1.2 and 1.5 million euros and will be delivered from 2020 onwards.

Aeromobil, the Flying car has the technology should be transformed into a plane in less than three minutes. The wings can be folded away for travel on the road. This company has an idea to build upto 500 copies of its first model. Like other competitors, the aircraft may only be launched and landed on conventional airfields or other areas explicitly released as an aircraft.

In order to drive and fly with the vehicle, the pilots must have both a driving license and a pilot license. Aeromobil deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2020, commented Stefan Vadocz- Chief communication officer. The company is already accepting pre-orders now. Until such aircrafts become the mass transport means, sometime should pass! Government is working around the world on to regulate the operation of unmanned drones and driverless cars in the future.

However, small airplanes for passenger transport are currently considered an exciting topic in the aviation and IT industry. Aeromobil is not the only company that relies on flying cars for super-richs. In addition to the Dutch company PAL-V, which has recently offered its model "Liberty" for sale, Terrafugia - the Flying cars company is also working on a similar hermetic car and plane.

The US Company was founded by five MIT graduates. For a $ 10,000 deposit, Terrafugia – the Flying cars company is already making reservations for its two-seater flight "Transition". Terrafugia is targeting first deliveries for the year 2019.

Aeromobil with 750 km range

According to this Flying cars company, the vehicle operates in a wonderful technology with standard gasoline already fulfills all necessary regulations for road and air traffic. With wings folded backwards - similar to an insect - it should also find sufficient space on every normal parking lot and thus be suitable for everyday use.

Able to take off, the wings must first be extended, which is to be done within three minutes, according to AeroMobil. Then the driver or plane needs only a meadow, on which now 8.8 meters wide flight car is accelerated to 130 hours kilometer, then ascend to the sky. There, speeds of up to 360 kilometres per hour are to be reached, on the road the maximum is about 160 kilometres per hour. The AeroMobil, driven by a hybrid engine and a propeller in the rear, could fly a distance of 750 kilometers fully, says the Flying cars company.

Aeromobil also works on a flight and vehicle for urban transport. Together with the Audi subsidiary Italdesign, Aeromobil is developing a passenger cell, which is to be flown through the city by autonomously controlled and electrically operated drones.

The Uber service has recently brought on board an expert on flying cars, which has been able to take off and land precipitously for decades on smaller vehicles. However, it does not want to produce its own flight cars, but sees itself as an "acceleration catalyst" for the newly-formed flight car industry.

In other words, its customers should first take conventional over-vehicles to a flight taxi stop in a residential area. From this "Vertiport" customer could then fly to the next stop near their workplace.

Graphene Based sieve Turns Seawater into Drinking Water

Graphene Based Sieves Makes Seawater Fit For Drinking

It is an unaltered fact that Sea Water is not fit for drinking because of the excess Sodium content in it, but science is developing at a very fast pace and in this 21st century the stalwarts of science and technology have innovated a new technique through which they can separate salt from the sea water and will make them fit for drinking. We cannot drink sea water because of the taste, simultaneously it leadsto several other health problems like high blood pressure and many more.

Our planet Earth is known as the blue planet because it has approximately 71% of water out of which only 3 % of the water is non-saline and hence fit for consuming. Due to this situation, there are people in this world who do not get optimum amount of water to drink and there are many who even die due to the scarcity of drinking water. If the researchers can reduce the percentage of unfit water by making it fit to drink, then that would be a very big gift to mankind.

A team of researchers based in UK have developed a sieve based on Graphene that can remove salt from the sea water and will make it fit for drinking. A team from the University of Manchester had confirmed a fact in 2004 that graphene consists of carbon atoms which are layered singly and are organized in a lattice in the form of a hexagone, due to which this tool is sure to provide promising results with the help of extraordinary properties, which includes unusual strength in the tensile and a high conductor of electricity that ensures this as one of the most potent material to grant assured measures in the past.

The scientists have also declared that it is quite difficult to manufacture such single layered Graphene with the existing technologies. The production cost is also very high and that needs to be supported. The deposition of chemical vapor method won’t be much feasible to support the innovation from all ends. Rather, a very onymous scientist has confirmed that oxides that are to be used in the Graphene can be produced only via a simple method of oxidation in the lab.

Though, he orated it to be simple, but the process is lengthy. This is undoubtedly a very big step to abolish the problems cropping up due to scarcity of drinking water, but the underlying measures are such that cannot be averted and for this, the technique of Graphene is still at stake. Manufacturing of single layered Graphene is not much feasible, instead we can replace it that with oxide Graphene, which will give the same result with less cost of production.

Some problematic zones have been discovered when it comes to Graphene of single layer and these uncomfort zones can be avoided if Graphene of oxide are used in its place. So, in this era using of oxides of Graphene will be much suitable to avoid unnecessary expansions.

Google Uses Neural Networks to Translate Without Transcribing

Google Makes Use of the Neural Networks for Translating without Even Transcribing

Google is actively working towards enhancing its translation abilities to a whole new level where it can be helpful and promptest in every manner. Google eagerly wants to help the mankind in communicating with people in different language by translating the speech rather than the text language. Almost all the translation tools focuses on translating the text rather than text and Google understand the amount of good work it can bring with it.

The machine translation will actually work by translating the speech into the text then that text is translated in another language. In case the machine gets any kind of error while recording the speech then it will result in error prone language translation which will fail to serve the purpose which it is intended to do. This is where Google is working at.

The Google Brain

Google has deployed a large number of researchers at the Google Brain where they are making use of the deep learning research facility for better results. Researchers have started making use of the neural networks which can help in skipping transcription while translating any given speech at a faster pace with higher level of accuracy.

Researchers has spent huge amount of time which counts into hundreds of hours in training the system with Spanish to improve its translation skills into the English language. The system present at the Google at first went to analyze the waveform of the Spanish audio in order to learn who he different parts of the language tend to correspond with the words in the written English language. Later on this system was entrusted with the task of translating the speech and its was do so with great accuracy and precision through making use of the neural layers.

The capability of this system

A researcher from the University of Montreal who wasn’t a part of this research has stated that the capability of the Google Brain is mind-blowing. It has the ability to find the patterns of the correspondence between the various waveforms. These waveforms happen to be present in the source language as well as the written text. Over the time where learning phase is initiated The Google Brain has the ability to bring one of the best English translations of the Spanish speech.

The quality of translated of the speech is evaluated using the BLEU which helps in understanding how good machine based translations are when compared to the professional human.

The future application of this system

Google developed system will be of great use for translating the speeches in such languages which is usually done by very few people. It can play a vital role during international disaster relief wherein teams can make use of a robust translation system in order to communicate with people who speak different language. An incident can help in imploring its advantages this system as in 2010’s Haiti earthquake the relief team had a hard time in conversing with the people speaking Haitian Creole.