Catch up on this week\u2019s round-up of the latest hosting and tech news. Here\u2019s what we\u2019ve uncovered since our last edition.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Ofcom\u2019s Online Nation report has revealed the impact of the lockdown on internet usage in the UK. The research has discovered that since February, the average time spent online has increased from 3.5 to 4 hours a day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
That extra half hour appears to have been used to watch videos and to keep in touch with family and friends. Over 90% of people visited sites like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, with videos on these sites being watched multiple times a day by three-quarters of children and half of all adults. While music videos and funny challenges were the most viewed, the good news for businesses is that content offering tips, tutorials, and online reviews were also watched by significant numbers. Surprisingly, internet influencers only reached 9% of viewers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Another discovery was the increase in the numbers of people creating videos to upload to these sites. While sharing online videos is not unusual for teens, 40% of adults also got in on the act.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Unsurprisingly, when it came to keeping in contact, video calls gained centre stage, with Zoom, WhatsApp, Messenger and FaceTime being the most used.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
A survey undertaken for IBM has revealed how remote working can pose security problems for businesses. The majority of these employees are used to working in offices where the company takes responsibility for system security; at home, however, the situation is very different.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The survey revealed that over half of respondents were using their own laptops, most of which lacked the security tools used at work. 40% had not received any new security training since lockdown began nor had they been aware of updated security policies. Over 60% hadn\u2019t had security tools installed on their devices, including many laptops belonging to companies, and 66% had not seen password guidelines updated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
IBM is using the survey to help develop security solutions for employees working remotely.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Twitter has reported that the personal data of business clients may have been compromised. The cause is down to a technical issue involving how the platform caches data on browsers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
If a Twitter analytics or advertising customer accessed their billing information, the error meant that the billing page and the data it contained would have been stored in their browser\u2019s cache. This could have led to local third-parties accessing the details, especially if the customer used a shared or public device.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
The data exposed included the user\u2019s home address, phone number, email address and the last four digits of their payment card. However, CVC codes, expiry dates and full card numbers were not displayed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Safe Documents, a new security feature of Microsoft 365, is being released to help verify untrusted files. The feature will automatically scan downloaded documents after they have been opened in Protected View. It does this by uploading the file and scanning it using Microsoft Defender ATP which can access billions of live data points to search for threats.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
One of the key features of Safe Documents is that it will disable \u2018enable editing\u2019 until the scan has been completed and the file is verified as safe. Until that point, the user will only be able to access it in Protected View.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
No supercomputer manages to stay top of the pack for long. Today, the prestigious place goes to a machine called Fugaku, which is installed at the Riken Centre for Computational Science in Japan.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Fugaku is the most powerful supercomputer of its kind and the first ARM-powered system to be given that accolade. Fitted with Fujitsu\u2019s 48-core A64FX SoC, it reached a peak performance of a staggering 1,000 petaflops \u2013 a quintillion operations per second. The HPL Benchmark that is used to rank supercomputers for the Top500 list records its performance as 415.5 petaflops, which is two and a half times faster than the previous record holder, IBM\u2019s Summit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
It is, however, nowhere near as powerful as the Folding@Home supercomputer which uses the processing power of millions of ordinary PCs worldwide. The nature of that supercomputer means it cannot be included in the Top500; however, the still expanding system has peaked at 2,400 petaflops or 2.4 exaflops.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n