Google Gives Parents Greater Powers

Google’s New Family Link Software

Wilson Rothman, WSJ personal technology editor explained on Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero that Alphabet Inc’s Google had revealed an unparalleled set of parental controls, with the beta launch of Family Link, while enabling children below the age of 13 to sign for content-restricted accounts.

Parents seems to be losing control with their children and tablets, phone as well as iPods have been pushing our kids in a digital black hole enabling less visibility in their social activities and their pastimes. Google’s new Family Link software is a relief for parents in keeping their kids under control in this digital world.

The arrival of Family Link corresponds with a change to the policy of Google on child accounts. Children below 13 years can now have them provided they are set up through the Family Link which has been authorized by a parent.

It is said to be the most inclusive set of parent tools for the internet, the greatest features which Amazon as well as Apple have provided with services of Google which is that we get this remarkable functionality by providing a little more personal information and this time it is data about the online activities of our children.

Experience Use of Android Based Device

With the Family Link account a child is capable of experiencing the use of an Android based device and the test case, a Nexus 5X in a manner which tends to look adequately like the phone of Mom or Dad’s though tends to keep the child protected from some trouble of adulthood in Google search, Chrome browser, Google Play store together with YouTube app.

Harmless search that seems to yield filtered, child-sanitized web as well as image search consequences could be through default. Google has also mentioned that search effects could, for the first time, cater to children but that would be difficult to tell. The amazing thing is for parents in the form of remote access.

Moreover, Family Link also tends to provide parents with an administrative app which they could utilise in locating the device of their child onmany ring it in case of losing in couch cushions, remotely adjust account and device settings or also do a factory-reset if the phone is lost.

Set Up Time Restrictions/Off-limits Hours

Moreover parents could also set up time restrictions and off-limits hours and see the time spent on several app by their children. As the beta version of the Family Link tends to go public individuals could request to try it though their devices need to be running Nougat which is the updated version of Android.

Google has informed that by the end of the year, it would be working with earlier versions. The company also believes in releasing a parental control app for iPhones. It is essential to know how many parental control systems are available before one decides to purchase it. They are not just built into popular devices led by Apple and Amazon but are also sold as services by third party.

Apple is said to have control both local and remote dispersed around the operating system of its iOS. The restriction unit in the setting of iOS enables the user to set a passcode in locking down from Siri and FaceTime to iTunes albums together with the feared in-app procurements

Twitter Finally Ditches Handles from Its 140 Character Limit

When one thinks of Twitter the character limit comes into the mind first because users have to express their thought within the set limits. Over the years the use of images, gifs, quotes and links has started to lower the limit of characters left to express one’s thoughts. Twitter is finally taking a stand to bring more opportunity for the users to make the best use of the character limit.

Twitter has launched a limited testing on the iOS platform to see how the new change in the character limit will perform with the audience. But from today onwards Twitter will allow users to mentions other people handle in their replies but it won’t be counted. Users will get a greyed-out line appearing right at the top of the tweet indicating “Replying to [username]’.

The current change made in the character limit is a part of plan announced by Twitter in May 2016 wherein it will slowly allow users to get more of their tweet in varied interesting ways. Twitter is struggling against other major social media platform and it is earnestly looking forward to attract more users to its network.

The Introduction of the Chronological timeline

In the February of this year Twitter brought the entirely chronological timelines for Twitter in a bid help users in catching up with the latest tweets from their favourite users. But as of today only two per cent of the total users have made the shift to this new feature. Twitter is aggressively making changes to the age-old features of its platform to bring something new and exciting for its users. Given the fact that Twitter is going through a stagnant growth period and falling stock prices the sudden changes in the character limit can be seen as a welcome addition.

List of Changes Brought in the Tweeting activity

When a person is using attachment in the tweets which may include either images, photos, videos, GIFs, polls or even quote tweets then it won’t be counted towards the 140 character limit. Secondly a new retweet button will be enabled on the user’s profile to ensure they can tweet their own tweets or people tweet as well share or unlove any older tweet with ease and simplicity. Replying has always been a tedious task in the Twitter but form now on users will get some respite the Twitter handles will not be counted as the character limit.

A number of times we have different Twitter handles mentioned right in the replies and it counts. But rpm now on that wouldn’t be the case rather Twitter handles will appear in greyed-out right at the top of the tweets which label stating ‘Replying to [username]’.

Twitter gives a solemn goodbye to the ‘@’ tweeting culture which has emerged in the recent past. Users were most likely to tag a username right at the beginning of their tweet to get the attention of the concerned person using ‘@’. But from now onwards replies to such tweet will only be seen by the sender or by the followers and simply by the person who is specifically replying to that tweet.

How to Secure Your Facebook Account

Facebook has become an important and integral part of our lives and it is necessary to safeguard online especially on the social media platform. A hack into the Facebook account will result in revealing wide range of sensitive and extremely personal information about a user to the hackers which can ultimately lead to financial, identity or emotional loss of varied kinds. Here are few smart ways to secure the Facebook account without any hassle.

Turn your account secure

Account protection begins with optimizing the passwords. Make use of numbers, letters & special characters while creating a password and for security question ensure it is known only to you. You can also set the two factor authentication system for logging into your Facebook account by going to the Settings.

Check for suspicious activity

Going to the Facebook Settings page will allow you to keep a tab on ‘from where’ your account has been accessed at any given point of time. If you has gained access to your account without your knowledge then you will be able to gain knowledge about it from here and even take steps to thwart such attempts in future.

Get a grip on your privacy

Privacy is an integral part of the cyber security of the internet users in the modern world. Facebook offers wide range of features and security measures built right into its platform which helps in safeguarding the members from the hackers, marketers as well as stalkers to a great extent.

It is extremely important for the Facebook users to think twice before sharing anything on the Facebook without choosing the setting which states who can see the posts. The setting is pretty simple opting for ‘Public Posts’ will allow your posts to be seen by everyone on the web. Clicking on the Limit Past Posts will help in hiding the older posts from the public view.

Be sensible with using the Facebook

Simply restricting who views your posts, personal information and profile on the Facebook is not enough. In order to turn your Facebook account highly secure it is vital that you apply some common sense while interacting with strangers, suspicious links, offers and other things on this social media platform. Secondly stay away from sharing critical personal information in the public domain like on Facebook pages and profiles needlessly. If you don’t want to proclaim your whereabouts then turn of location search on Facebook.

Thirdly giving every little details of your daily routine or lifestyle like where your work, when is your birthday, favourite movie, pets name, family address unknowingly through posts, location tags will only help in losing your identity.

Anyone closely following your social media activity will be able to pretend to be you with all the information you have shared online. Don’t forget to pay attention to the computers or different browsers you use in order to access the Facebook. Make sure the system or browser is up-to-date and has a robust antivirus at work.

How to Protecting Bulk Power Systems from Hackers

Consistency Measure of Electricity Grid – Escalating

Consistency measures of electricity grid have been escalating to new norm since it tends to include physical security together with cyber-security. Fears to any of them could trigger instability resulting to blackouts as well as economic losses.

Several tend to take it for granted of turning on the light. Though in reality, the energy drawn from the electrical grid in brightening homes, freeze food as well as watch TV is said to be a part of a complex together with a widespread system. Comprehending the susceptibilities of the system and the dependability is a vital step in improving its security.

Fresh research headed by scientists from Michigan Technological University explored in the so-called scenarios wherein the hackers tend to exploit the security flaws implementing a disturbing plan of cyber-attacks. Recently the Journal IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid had published their work. Chee-Wooi Ten, lead author, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Michigan Tech stated that the fundamental problem was an opening between physical equipment and intangible software.

 Improvements in smart grid technology like smart meters in homes, management systems for the purpose of distributed energy resources such as wind together with solar production with instrumentation system in power plants, control centres or substations, creates improvements in monitoring as well as access for hackers.

Convenience/Cost Reduction Streamlines Process

Ten had commented that `ten years back, cyber security did not exist and the same was not spoken about and was not an issue. He jokes that people presumed that he was crazy for suggesting the possibility of power grid hacking. He further added that now with events such as in Ukraine last year together with malware like Stuxnet, hackers could plan a cyber attack which could result in larger power outages, people would begin clutching the severity of the issue.

 He further pointed that the hackers focus on specific areas of the control network of power infrastructure and targeted on the devices which tends to control it. Mechanized systems are inclined to control most of the grid from generation in the transmission for usage.

According to Ten, the convenience as well as the cost reduction of automation streamlines the process though without solid security means, it could also make the system susceptible. The interconnectivity off the grid could also result in cascading impacts leading to blackouts, equipment failure and is landing with the areas isolated and cut off from the maid power grid.

Connections/Asses Flaws Utilising Framework

Ten together with his colleagues arrived at connections and assess flaws utilising framework which would regularly assess the block of a power grid as well as its interconnection with their adjoining grids. With the use of quantitative systems in arranging cyber security protection would ensure power grids are operated in a much more secured and safe manner.

Ten also mentioned that it is like measuring blood pressure. He added that one tends to know that their health is at risk since it monitors systolic and diastolic numbers and hence one would work out more or eat healthier. The grid requires established metrics for health also; a number to gauge if one is ready for this security challenge. After gaining an understanding of the weaknesses of the system, it tends to get a lot easier to be strategic and shoreline security risks.

Tens says that in the future, improving regulations with particulars to match actual infrastructure requirements, providing cybersecurity insurance could be beneficial.

From the Butterfly's Wing to the Tornado: Predicting Turbulence

Flap of Butterfly's Wing could Generate a Tornado

An old saying states that in Brazil, the flap of a butterfly’s wing could generate a tornado in Texas, weeks thereafter. However, chaos theory state that is essentially impossible in computing precisely how it could take place and Georgia Tech scientists are making headway in getting math around the swirly occurrence behind it and called it turbulence.

Latest development from the Georgia Institute of Technology by physicists could probably help improve weather forecasts extending their range by making improved use of masses of weather as well as climate data. Turbulence could bend like a puff of air, swirl past a river bend or even churn as a hurricane. Although its curlicues may seem accidental, turbulence leaves down signature patterns which the physicists have been investigating.

 It is said that they have established a simple mathematical model which has assisted them in showing how turbulent flows tend to evolve over internals. Moreover, in a novel experiment, they have verified their predictions substantially in a two dimensional turbulent flow produced in a lab. The new Georgia Tech research suits the origins of that proverb.MIT, meteorology professor Edward Lorenzhad invented more than 55 years back, while he had recognized that the tiny forces had influenced major weather adequate in throwing long-range forecasts for a loop.

Theory of Relativity

The name of his paper, `Predictability: Dose the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wing in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?’ got transformed into the well-known slogan. The professors in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics, Michael Schatz and Roman Grigoriev together with graduate researchers, Balachandra Sur and Jeffrey Tithof, had published their research result online in the journal Physical Review Letters on March 15, 2017 and the research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

While the scientists, for hundreds of years, had utilised math in order to get a hold on the falling apple of Newton, in verifying the Theory of Relativity and speculate the existence of the Higgs boson, turbulence was like wet soap in the understanding of math. However for all its elusiveness, turbulence tends to influence with visibly coherent, recognizable, recognizing shapes. Fluid swirl tend to rapidly form themselves and thereafter seem to shift or disappear though they tend to reappear obstinately at various areas, generating transient as well as varying and still repeat the patterns.

Exact coherent structures – ECS’s

According to Grigoriev, people have envisaged these patterns in turbulence flows for centuries though they are finding methods of relating the patterns to mathematical equations describing the flows of fluid. Some of the recurrent patterns had drawn the attention of Grigoriev and Schatz which are known as exact coherent structures – ECS’s.

The physicists were given convenient entry points in computing predictions regarding what turbulence would do afterward. Regarding exact coherent structures, visually in turbulence, they tend to show up as brief moments when patterns seem to stop changing and it could be like the flow is for the time being is slowing down.

An ECS to an unqualified eye does not seem much different from the rest of the swirls and curls though one could be trained to spot them. As per Schatz that is precisely how they go about locating them and they watch the turbulence, continually taking snapshots. The flow moves around, moving around and they look out for the moment when it tends to slow down the most and it is then that they pick out a snapshot.

Flow of turbulence reliable patterns reflect dynamics

He further informed that they feed that in the mathematical model which indicates that they are close showing what the math looks like at that point. The math solution defines a point in the turbulent flow which could be worked with to figure out a prediction of what the turbulence would be afterwards.

In order to comprehend what an exact coherent structure is dynamically we should step back from what turbulence seems like visually with bunches of curls and swirls and rather look at a turbulent flow as an individual physical entity by decoding it into a crude metaphor – a swinging pendulum with a few marked peculiarities.

Rather than picturing the bottom point of a normal swing of the pendulum, the equilibrium as a steady point in a firm swing now the equilibrium is at the top most point, with the upside-down pendulum and it is unstable. Moreover, it does not swing in just two directions but in all directions. The flow of the turbulence reliable patterns tends to reflect dynamics which are back-and-forth-to-and-fro though in all types of variations.

 As the symbolic pendulum seems to swing up towards its peak, it tends to come near but never a complete stop. Rather it seems to flop over some other side. This near-halt point is equivalent to an exact coherent structure though there are some more bends in the metaphor.

Harnessed to Define Dynamics

Grigoriev had informed that if initial dynamics were ever changed slightly, an inverted pendulum can swing past its unstable equilibrium at the peak or it could halt and then start moving in the opposite direction. Similarly, the turbulent flow can evolve in various different manners after passing by an ECS.Numerous exact coherent structures with various qualities tend to turn up in a turbulent flow. Schatz had mentioned that usually people prefer to lookat steady things which seem to be unchanging like the evensymmetric normal pendulum and turns out to be unstable patterns which form a rough core alphabet which is used in building a kind of predictive theory.Withthedynamics of loose inverted pendulum now image eachexact coherent structure as a town on a map. With paths it seems to guide the turbulent flow `traffic’ toward, from, as well as each town like roadways. Grigoriev had mentioned thatthe road around as well as between towns do not change with passage of time which allowsforecastthe evolution ofthe flow. ECSs seems to occur frequently just like clockwork withthe likelihood of opening of refining predictions at regular intervals. Exact coherent structures arealready known to be existent.Schatz has commented that no one has done demonstration before in a lab experiment on how they can be harnessed to define dynamics, the behaviour evolving in time is the same,is certainly what is needed for prediction.