Trillions of Facebook posts added to search results

Facebook has indexed almost two trillion posts put on the site by its members to make it easier to find them.

The change means that many older posts will now be added to results when people search for news or information.

The move is being seen as part of Facebook's attempts to keep people on the site rather than go elsewhere to keep up to date with events. 

It said options were available for people that did not want their older posts to be more widely accessible.

Bigger audience

Tom Stocky, Facebook's head of search, said in a blogpost that many people already turned to Facebook when trying to find out how friends and family were reacting to world events. About 1.5 billion searches are carried out on Facebook every day, he said.

The changes that Facebook has introduced will mean members of the social network will now also see posts by strangers alongside those from news organisations and people closest to them.

"Search results are organised to help you cut through the noise and quickly understand what the world is saying about a topic in the moment," said Mr Stocky.

The post also detailed what Facebook users can do to limit who sees the older posts they shared. 

Currently the expanded search results are only available to Facebook members in the US. 

The move puts Facebook into direct competition with Twitter which recently introduced a similar system called Moments, said Caitlin McGarry on PC World. 

"Facebook has a much wider audience than Twitter," said Ms McGarry. "so Facebook's potential reach for its search tools is exponentially larger.

Us undercover agent jail for 6 year for silk road bitcoin theft

A former undercover policeman has been sentenced to six and half years in prison for stealing $700,000 of the virtual currency bitcoin:

Agent, Carl Force was part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation into the black market website Silk Road. 

Silk Road allowed its users to buy and sell illicit good including drugs and weapons anonymously using Bitcoin. 

Force pled guilty to extortion, money laundering and obstruction of justice. 

Force was posing as a drug dealer with connections to hit men to establish contact with Silk Road's founder, Ross Ulbricht. His code name for the assignment was "Nob". 

Once he reached Ulbricht, Force sold him information about the investigation. 

'Betrayal'

Ulbricht is a serving life sentence for conspiracy to traffic narcotics, money laundering and computer hacking, all associated with his creation of Silk Road. 

The judge in the case said Force's "betrayal of public trust is quite simply breathtaking". 

A former Secret Service agent who was also charged pleaded guilty and will be sentenced separately in December. 

Bitcoin is digital currency not controlled by any government. Users can buy and sell goods using a unique code that allows users to remain anonymous, something that has made Bitcoin a popular choice for funding criminal activity. 

World Solar Challenge

A team from Delft University in the Netherlands has won a solar car race in the Australian outback.

The university's Nuon Solar Team was the first to arrive at the finish line in Adelaide. The 3,000km (1,800 mile) race took four days to complete.

The race, which happens once every two years, started on Sunday in Darwin.

Nearly 50 teams from universities and schools around the world took part. Delft University had also won the last challenge in 2013.

The World Solar Challenge is aimed at promoting research on solar-powered cars which could become a consumer product one day.

The cars chasing the Sun

The winning team celebrated by jumping into the fountain in Adelaide's city centre.

Image copyrightEPA

Image copyrightGetty Images

Image captionThe futuristic-looking winning car features a large solar panel on top

In second place was a team from the University of Twente, also from the Netherlands; while Japan's Tokai University came in third.

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionThe cars, including Twente's car Red One, passed through the town of Coober Pedy in the outback

Image copyrightAP

Image captionThe 1,800 mile (3,000km) race took four days to complete
it all about new generation

IPHONE WATCH WITH NEW FEATURES

DEVELOPING FOR WATCH OS 2:

With the new features and capabilities that watchOS 2 brings to WatchKit, your apps can integrate even more closely with Apple Watch. Take advantage of the Digital Crown, microphone, Taptic engine, and health sensors to take your Apple Watch app to the next level. And with ClockKit, you can extend your app to the clock face with Complications.

WatchKit for watchOS 2

Take advantage of all new features, such as programmatic access to theDigital Crown for simpler item selection and animation APIs for fluid and more dynamic user interfaces. Employ new ways to play audio and video, and use the microphone to record audio directly from Apple Watch. With access to the Taptic engine, you can add haptic feedback in yourApple Watch apps. watchOS 2 also includes many enhancements to other existing frameworks such as HealthKit, enabling access to the health sensors that access heart rate and health information in real-time. CoreMotion enhancements include the ability to use the accelerometer to create engaging experiences on Apple Watch.

• Introducing WatchKit for watchOS 2
• Designing for Apple Watch
• watchOS 2 Transition Guide
• Apple Watch Programming Guide
• Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines

ClockKit

This new framework enables apps to provide up-to-date and meaningful information that updates throughout the day directly on the clock face with Complications. And with the new Time Travel feature in watchOS 2, users can turn the Digital Crown to go backward and forward in time to display information in Complications from that time. Users can even enable multiple versions of your app's Complications on the same clock face to display a variety of information.

• Creating Complications with ClockKit
• ClockKit Framework Reference

WatchConnectivity

Now you can take advantage of robust device-to-device communication between the WatchKit extension on Apple Watch and the containing app on iPhone. WatchConnectivity enables Apple Watchto communicate with iPhone in new and more efficient ways. WatchConnectivity saves battery life by allowing the WatchKit extension to transfer new information for the iPhone app to use when it’s next launched, allowing for seamless file transfers between the Apple Watch app and iPhone app. Using NSURLSession, Apple Watch can now communicate directly with known wifi hotspots using the new Tetherless Wi-Fi feature in watchOS 2.

What's New in IOS 9 New Features

iOS 9 is Apple's newest operating system for iOS devices like the iPhone and the iPad, released to the public on September 16, 2015. iOS 9 builds on the content introduced with iOS 7 and iOS 8, bringing subtle design changes, refined features, improved functionality, and performance enhancements.

iOS 9's biggest focus is on intelligence and proactivity, allowing iOS devices to learn user habits and act on that information, opening up apps before we need them, making recommendations on places we might like, and guiding us through our daily lives to make sure we're where we need to be at the right time.

Siri is at the heart of the changes, and the personal assistant is now able to create contextual reminders and search through photos and videos in new ways. Swiping left from the home screen also brings up a new screen that houses "Siri Suggestions," putting favorite contacts and apps right at your fingertips, along with nearby restaurant and location information and important news.

Deeper search capabilities can bring up results like sports scores, videos, and content from third-party apps, and you can even do simple conversions and calculations using the search tools on your iPhone or iPad.

Many of the built-in apps have been improved. Notes includesnew checklists and sketching features, Maps now offerstransit directions, Mail allows for file attachments, and there's anew "News" app that learns your interests and delivers relevant content you might like to read. Apple Pay is being improved with the addition of store credit cards and loyalty cards, leading "Passbook" to be renamed to "Wallet" in iOS 9.

The iPad's gotten some major feature additions in iOS 9, likesplit-screen multitasking that lets two apps be used at once and a picture-in-picture function that lets you watch a video while doing something else on the tablet. The keyboard on the iPad has deeper functionality with the addition of a new toolbar, and on both the iPhone and the iPad, there's a new two-finger swipe gesture that makes it easier to select content, cut, paste, and move the cursor on the screen.

Other changes include a new systemwide San Francisco font, wireless CarPlay support, an optional iCloud Drive app, built-in two factor authentication and optional longer passwords for better security.

Along with these features, iOS 9 features significant under-the-hood performance improvements. Battery optimizations provide an additional hour of battery use under typical conditions, and a new Low Power Mode further extends battery life up to three hours.

Apple tells iPhones are 'impossible' to unlock

Apple has said that encrypted data on newer iPhones can't be accessed, even by Apple, though the firm could in theory help police unlock older phones.

The comments came in a briefing filed on Monday to a US judge who asked for Apple's input in a case.

A US Department of Justice request has tried to force the company to help prosecutors access a seized iPhone.

According to Apple, 90% of its devices running iOS 8 or higher can't be unlocked.

The phone that is the subject of the justice department's request is an older device, but Apple has so far resisted unlocking it for authorities.

"Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand," the company said in its briefing.

US magistrate Judge James Orenstein, of Brooklyn in New York, has scheduled a hearing for Thursday though it is not clear whether an Apple representative will be present.

In order to decrypt the data on newer devices, the encryption key - known only to the user - would have to be entered.

'No back doors'

Meanwhile, Apple chief executive Tim Cook has told an audience in California that the company does not allow intelligence agencies to access data via "back doors" in its software.

"We think encryption is a must in today's world," said Mr Cook, speaking at the Wall Street Journal's WSJDLive conference.

"No-one should have to decide privacy or security. We should be smart enough to do both."

The data encrypting services that come with the latest smartphone and computer operating systems can only be unlocked when a specific key is used, according to Dr Joss Wright of the Oxford Internet Institute.

"Apple may supply the device and system but if they don't have that key they're not able to unlock it any more than the US state department," he told the BBC.

He added that law enforcement agencies often found themselves attempting to circumvent this problem.

'Unbreakable'

This can be done by getting the user to voluntarily give up the key or by installing malware on the user's phone that snoops on the key as it is typed in.

"The core encryption is as near to unbreakable as you can get," he said.

"The point is you don't try to break the encryption, you break the software - you try to get the password from the user's computer so you can unlock it."

In another privacy-conscious step, Apple also recently removed more than 250 apps from the app store which used Chinese advertising software to extract personally identifiable information about users.

According to the company, this information included email addresses and data that could identify individual devices.

Apple said it would work with developers to get updated versions of their apps back on the app store "quickly"