Monthly Archives: August 2018

A recent study commissioned by Yale University found that many adults are unaware of the risk they potentially put their home property under when they share their location while on holiday or not at home. A tenth of the people surveyed admitted they have in the past shared a post regarding a holiday countdown revealing exactly how long until their home would be unattended. A fifth said they felt they had at some point put themselves at risk and 10 per cent saying they had become victim of robbery or a crime due to what they posted online.

The traditional way of thinking about home security is now expanding since our social media profiles are somewhat a reflection of our real physical life, with many people posting regular updates, especially big events such as a much anticipated trip abroad. Our privacy settings online and how and what we share should be taken into consideration, with opportunist thieves easily browsing public profiles to work out when, and for how long, people will likely be away.

Sharing travels and big events with friends and family online is a good thing but it can come at a risk if someone takes advantage of you. It is important to check and regularly manage your privacy settings to be aware who can view your profile and posts, especially on Facebook — being that it is the largest social media platform and generally where people share the most detail.

With more crime beginning from online resources, it’s important to check your privacy settings on all public platforms and to be diligent about protecting your security online. Becoming more careful with your online security can only help secure yourself better in the physical world as well.

If you are interested in learning more about online security or would like to discuss our security software service, please be in touch with us at, [email protected].

EURid, the registry manager of the .eu TLD (top-level domain) revealed a communication they received from the European Commission stating:

“The revocation of existing holders’ rights and the prohibition for registrars from processing any more requests for registrations or renewals for .eu domain names whose holders are no longer eligible must be prepared so that the necessary measures are effective as from 1 January 2021 or, in case that there were no withdrawal agreement in force before 30 March 2019, as from 30 March 2019.”

While the UK and EC continue their ongoing negotiations, this information is subject to any transitional arrangement that may be contained in a possible withdrawal agreement.

Please note that we will be offering a proxy service so that you will still be able to register your .eu domain — please be in touch to discuss and learn more at, [email protected].

If you have been a customer of PC World, Currys, Dixons, Carphone Warehous, please be advised they have found that some of their security systems had been accessed in the past using sophisticated malware.

Following the findings, the company promptly launched an investigation, alerted customers, and are taking steps to update their security systems. It was reported that 10 million records containing customers personal data were accessed in 2017 but thankfully there is not no confirmed case of fraud to date. The customer information that was accessed did not contain bank details or account information.

Please read the companies full message and steps they suggest to minimise potential risk — dixonscarphone.com/message.

In the second quarter of 2018, the Chinese global information and communications technology solutions provider, Huawei, overtook Apple and moved into second place in market share of worldwide smartphone shipments.

The data, recorded by IDC, Canalys, and Strategy Analytics, reports the company shipped over 54 million handsets in the second quarter compared to the 41.3 million iPhones that Apple sold and Samsung’s 73 million units.

Below is a detailed list of the top five worldwide smartphone vendors and their year-over-year growth:

Huawei has granted their success this past quarter to their strong position in China, where they lead the market with a 27 per cent share, and good sales of their flagship P20 model (above), as well as their mid-range models such as the Nova series that are very popular in both Asia and Europe. Due to Huawei being practically banned in the United States, the numbers are even more impressive while they have had to make up the numbers in other markets.

Apple is still doing well but this is the first time the company has lost their second place position that they have held since the second quarter of 2010. Samsung sales have fallen significantly this past second quarter, although they still firmly hold first place, for now, so it will be interesting to see how the list changes in the future seeing that the bottom two companies, Xiaomi and Oppo, are also Chinese brands like Huawei and their numbers have both increased compared to last year.

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Earlier this summer, Apple made the announcement, at their annual WWDC, the new iOS 12 update would introduce tools to help manage and monitor time spent on their devices and individual apps. Around the same time, Google made the same announcement for its new Android P operating system that tracks all of users’ usage time.

Over this past week, social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram are now also taking similar steps by implementing these same features into their apps to help users monitor the time they spend per day. The new time managing dashboard will allow users see the amount of time they’ve spent scrolling, set a reminder for when they reach their alloted time, and mute notications for a max. of 8 hours.

The move by Apple, Google, Facebook, and Instagram follows the increasing concerns of excessive screen time and social media use and how it can have a negative impact on mental health, especially in young people.

There is also criticism over this move by Facebook and their ultimate intentions and whether the new feature is more of a way to balance their corporate interest of keeping people spending as much time as possible on Facebook, while being still being responsive to a serious issue.

Our ‘digital well being’ will be an ongoing topic of discussion as we become ever more reliant on our devices day-to-day, and how to balance our usage time. The newly introduced time management dashboards on Apple and Google devices and within apps such as Facebook and Instagram may not entirely work for everyone but the awareness and visual representation could push some to make positive changes, if needed.

If you are interested in learning more about topics like these, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter, directionforward.com/news or if you are interested in our Social Media or Content Management Service, please in touch at, [email protected].