Mirror-like display creates rich color pixels by harnessing ambient light

 

Tue, 06/23/2015 - 10:03am The Optical Society SMI Mirasol Displays (1.6-in diagonal, 343 ppi) illuminated only by average office (fluorescent) ambient light. Content shown is refreshed at 60Hz. Frame rate is variable between 1-120 Hz.Using a simple structure comprising a mirror and an absorbing layer to take advantage of the wave properties of light, researchers at Qualcomm MEMS Technologies Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, have developed a display technology that harnesses natural ambient light to produce an unprecedented range of colors and superior viewing experience. An article describing their innovative approach appears in Optica. This display technology, which could greatly reduce the amount of power used in multiple consumer electronics products, is the latest version of an established commercial product known as Qualcomm Mirasol. Based on a new color rendering format that the researchers call Continuous Color, the new design helps solve many key problems affecting mobile displays such as how to provide an always-on display function without requiring more frequent battery charging and a high quality viewing experience anywhere, especially in bright outdoor environments. The innovation was made possible by using a combination of a mirror with a thin absorbing layer separated by a precise and controllable gap. While the mirror by itself would simply reflect all of the incident light energy, the absorbing layer selectively filters out a narrow slice of the spectrum, thus coloring the reflected light. The gap is controlled to produce nearly every conceivable color, not just the red, green, and blue (RGB) of earlier display technologies. "We have developed an entirely new way of creating a color display," said John Hong, a researcher with Qualcomm MEMS Technologies, Inc. and lead author on the Optica paper. "The incredibly efficient display is able to create a rich palette of colors using only ambient light for viewing, much like the way we would read and view printed material." Harnessing ambient light Typical color displays are essential yet power-hungry components of virtually every digital product with a human-machine interface, from cell phones and computers to home televisions and massive displays at sporting events. Since even the most energy-efficient models require some form of backlighting, they can quickly draw-down a power supply. To save on power and extend the life of these devices, engineers have been exploring ways to replace emissive technologies with displays that can reflect ambient light. Earlier attempts to create reflective light color displays, however, presented a number of vexing problems. The designs required using three separate pixels to produce the red, green and blue of a traditional display. Though adequate for certain applications, the fact that only one-third of the incoming light can be reflected back toward the viewer in a typical reflective RGB format limits the gamut of colors and brightness of the display. The new display reported in Optica is able to overcome these hurdles by reflecting more of the incoming light and enabling the full spectrum of visible light to be displayed, including bright white and deep black. Hong and his colleagues were able achieve these results by using a property of light they call interferometric absorption to create a broad spectrum of colors. To produce this effect, the researchers designed, in essence, a two-layer device. The first layer consists of a thin absorbing material that lets most of the light pass through to the second mirror layer where it is reflected back upon itself. With this design, the incoming light and the reflected light interfere with one another, producing a variety of standing waves with each component periodicity producing a unique color in the spectrum. By adjusting the distance between the reflective and absorbing layers with tiny actuators known as Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), the absorbing layer is moved to match a node in the standing wave that corresponds to a desired color. The spectral components not associated with that node are efficiently absorbed, allowing only the desired color to leak through the structure and back toward the viewer. Each pixel therefore behaves as a colored mirror, with the color tunable across the entire visible spectrum. Extending power and saving energy Depending on how the display is used, the power savings can exceed current backlit technologies tenfold. The greatest benefit is when a particular image is retained on the display, which then operates like a form of analog memory in a virtually power-free display mode. The design presented in the paper consists of a panel that is about 1.5 in across and contains approximately 149,000 pixels. Both the resolution and area of the display, however, can be scaled to match those of various mobile devices such as Internet-of-Things (IoT) enabled wearables and smartphones. Fabrication can be achieved in one piece, with the MEMS, upper layer, and lower layer created using the same deposition, lithography and etching processes that are used to create liquid crystal displays. "Our goal is to improve the technology and design so it can be easily integrated into manufacturing processes at existing factories." said Hong. The researchers believe that this technology has the potential to change the smartphone experience and that of other personal devices. "No more squinting at a hard to read display outdoors where we spend much of our time," noted Hong. "We ultimately hope to create a paper-like viewing experience, which is probably the best display experience that one can expect, with only the light behind you shining on the page." Source: The Optical Society

First installed electromagnetic aircraft launch system demonstrated

 

The recent test launched a dead-weight sled from the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) (Credit: US Navy) Image Gallery (7 images) The age of steam is over – at least, as far as US aircraft carriers are concerned. At Newport News, Virginia, theUSS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) successfully test fired a revolutionary Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which replaces the steam catapults that have been standard carrier equipment since the 1950s. The test made a literal splash because it involved an unmanned dead-weight sled rather than an aircraft, which landed about a hundred yards off the bow of the still under construction vessel. The first of her class, the Ford will be the first US navy ship to carry the electromagnetic launcher. Though it will be used on all future carriers, it will not be retrofitted to existing vessels. Under development for over 25 years and manufactured by General Atomics, EMALS is the first new carrier catapult technology in 60 years to advance to practical application. Instead of using a piston forced along by a head of steam, it uses computer-controlled, solid-state electrics to propel an armature down a track. The EMALS is designed to replace the steam-powered launch system that has been the standard on strike carriers since the 1950s. According to the Navy, EMALS is capable of being used by a wide variety of aircraft, is near-silent, and enjoys smoother acceleration and a more consistent launch speed. It also has higher launch energy, is more reliable, mechanically simpler, and is easier to maintain. EMALS has already been tested in the first phase of ACT testing that ended in 2011 and included 134 manned launches of aircraft, including the F/A-18E Super Hornet, T-45C Goshawk, C-2A Greyhound, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye and F-35C Lightning II. The second phase saw launches of the EA-18G Growler and F/A-18C Hornet. In all, 452 manned launches were conducted.   Source: Huntington Ingalls

Top doctors' prescription for feverish planet: Cut out coal

 

Mon, 06/22/2015 - 8:04pm Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer, Associated Press   FILE- In this April 3, 2014, file photo, giant machines dig for brown coal at the open-cast mining Garzweiler near the city of Grevenbroich, western Germany. A global health commission organized by the prestigious British medical journal Lancet recommended in a report published Monday, June 22, 2015, substituting cleaner energy worldwide for coal will reduce air pollution and give Earth a better chance at avoiding dangerous climate change. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — Some top international doctors and public health experts have issued an urgent prescription for a feverish planet Earth: Get off coal as soon as possible. Substituting cleaner energy worldwide for coal will reduce air pollution and give Earth a better chance at avoiding dangerous climate change, recommended a global health commission organized by the prestigious British medical journal Lancet. The panel said hundreds of thousands of lives each year are at stake and global warming "threatens to undermine the last half century of gains in development and global health." It's like a cigarette smoker with lung problems: Doctors can treat the disease, but the first thing that has to be done is to get the patient to stop smoking, or in this case get off coal in the next five years, commission officials said in interviews. "The prescription for patient Earth is that we've got a limited amount of time to fix things," said commission co-chairman Dr. Anthony Costello, a pediatrician and director of the Global Health Institute at the University College of London. "We've got a real challenge particularly with carbon pollution." He called it a "medical emergency" that could eventually dwarf the deadly toll of HIV in the 1980s. He and others said burning coal does more than warm the Earth, but causes even more deaths from other types of air pollution that hurt people's breathing and hearts. Unlike its earlier report in 2009, which laid out the health problems of climate change, this report was more about what can be done to improve the planet's health. It calls for cutting air pollution, more walking and cycling and less driving, better urban design, putting a price on the cost of each ton of carbon being used, improved health care planning for extreme weather and every two year check-ups on how the world is doing to get healthier. "Virtually everything that you want to do to tackle climate change has health benefits," Costello said. "We're going to cut heart attacks, strokes, diabetes." The Lancet commission report came out days after an impassioned plea to fight global warming by Pope Francis and hours after the President Barack Obama's administration issued a report emphasizing the costs of inaction on climate change and the benefits of doing something now. The Obama administration said if nothing is done, at the turn of the next century about 57,000 Americans will die each year from polluted air and at least another 12,000 yearly from extreme temperatures. "Obama is not a doctor; people trust doctors more," Costello said. In a companion posting in Lancet, World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan also compares fighting climate change to fighting smoking and saving lives. Both Chan and the Lancet commission quote WHO studies that say by 2030 climate change would "be likely to cause about 250,000 additional deaths per year" around the world. Poverty is the main problem and burning coal to produce electricity helps fight that, said National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich. He said, "it makes far more sense to support the technologies that make coal cleaner to use than to support policies that would deny its use to those who rightfully want the comforts of civilization." But Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist Joel Schwartz called the Lancet study's coal phase-out "a reasonable prescription for planet Earth. Burning coal has terrible health effects, is bad for global warming and it is destructive of the ecosystem."

The Tidiest Toilet

 

Posted: 23 Jun 2015 12:00 AM PDT

Who doesn’t detest cleaning the toilet? Yuck. Imagine if it could clean itself. Heaven! The Gap Rimless is a self-cleaning toilet that features an innovative rimless pan designed as a continuous surface free of edges and angles, meaning dirt is quickly removed rather than accumulating in grooves or gaps. Flushing from a single point, The Gap Rimless literally cleans itself, with water circulating along the inner perimeter and moving in a circular motion toward the lower outlet. All this means less time cleaning the loo!

Designer: TROUT Creative Thinking

New manufacturing approach slices lithium-ion battery cost in half

 

Tue, 06/23/2015 - 11:10am David L. Chandler, MIT News Office A pilot manufacturing plant at 24M's headquarters in Cambridge has produced thousands of test batteries to demonstrate the efficiency of the new design. Image: 24MAn advanced manufacturing approach for lithium-ion batteries, developed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at a spinoff company called 24M, promises to significantly slash the cost of the most widely used type of rechargeable batteries while also improving their performance and making them easier to recycle. “We’ve reinvented the process,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, the Kyocera Professor of Ceramics at MIT and a co-founder of 24M (and previously a co-founder of battery company A123). The existing process for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, he says, has hardly changed in the two decades since the technology was invented, and is inefficient, with more steps and components than are really needed. The new process is based on a concept developed five years ago by Chiang and colleagues including W. Craig Carter, the POSCO Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. In this so-called “flow battery,” the electrodes are suspensions of tiny particles carried by a liquid and pumped through various compartments of the battery. The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles. Chiang and Carter refer to this as a “semisolid battery.” Simpler manufacturing process This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing, and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang, who is senior author of a paper in the Journal of Power Sources analyzing the tradeoffs involved in choosing between solid and flow-type batteries, depending on their particular applications and chemical components. This analysis demonstrates that while a flow-battery system is appropriate for battery chemistries with a low energy density (those that can only store a limited amount of energy for a given weight), for high-energy-density devices such as lithium-ion batteries, the extra complexity and components of a flow system would add unnecessary extra cost. Almost immediately after publishing the earlier research on the flow battery, Chiang says, “We realized that a better way to make use of this flowable electrode technology was to reinvent the [lithium ion] manufacturing process.” Instead of the standard method of applying liquid coatings to a roll of backing material, and then having to wait for that material to dry before it can move to the next manufacturing step, the new process keeps the electrode material in a liquid state and requires no drying stage at all. Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture’s number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80%. Having the electrode in the form of tiny suspended particles instead of consolidated slabs greatly reduces the path length for charged particles as they move through the material—a property known as “tortuosity.” A less tortuous path makes it possible to use thicker electrodes, which, in turn, simplifies production and lowers cost. Bendable and foldable In addition to streamlining manufacturing enough to cut battery costs by half, Chiang says, the new system produces a battery that is more flexible and resilient. While conventional lithium-ion batteries are composed of brittle electrodes that can crack under stress, the new formulation produces battery cells that can be bent, folded or even penetrated by bullets without failing. This should improve both safety and durability, he says. The company has so far made about 10,000 batteries on its prototype assembly lines, most of which are undergoing testing by three industrial partners, including an oil company in Thailand and Japanese heavy-equipment manufacturer IHI Corp. The process has received eight patents and has 75 additional patents under review; 24M has raised $50 million in financing from venture capital firms and a U.S. Dept. of Energy grant. The company is initially focusing on grid-scale installations, used to help smooth out power loads and provide backup for renewable energy sources that produce intermittent output, such as wind and solar power. But Chiang says the technology is also well suited to applications where weight and volume are limited, such as in electric vehicles. Another advantage of this approach, Chiang says, is that factories using the method can be scaled up by simply adding identical units. With traditional lithium-ion production, plants must be built at large scale from the beginning in order to keep down unit costs, so they require much larger initial capital expenditures. By 2020, Chiang estimates that 24M will be able to produce batteries for less than $100 per kilowatt-hour of capacity. Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Wärtsilä's new 31 becomes the most efficient 4-stroke diesel engine in the world

 

The name Wärtsilä 31 refers to its 31 cm piston bore (Credit: Wärtsilä) Finnish engine manufacturer Wärtsilä must be a fascinating place to visit. The company manufactures some of the most mind-bendingly enormous marine diesel engines in the world, like the record-breaking, 89-foot high, 44-foot long, 110,000 horsepower RTA96-C we wrote about more than 10 years ago. Now, Wärtsilä has another entry in the Guinness Book of Records ... for the world's most efficient 4-stroke diesel engine. Designed for medium-sized ferries and cruise ships, or small to medium tankers and container ships, the new Wärtsilä 31 engine isn't nearly as huge as the mammoth RTA96-C. It stands a more modest 15.4 ft (4.7 m) tall in its highest configurations, and 28.8 ft (8.7 m) long in its longest. The cylinder bore is 12.2 inches (31 cm), and the stroke is 16.9 in (43 cm). In its largest V16 format, it makes up to 13,142 horsepower. It comes in three versions – diesel, spark-ignited gas and dual fuel – and the diesel version takes advantage of advanced fuel and air injection systems, as well as variable valve timing, to deliver a world record efficiency of just 0.271 pounds per horsepower hour. To put that in context, the gigantic RTA96-C was the most efficient engine in the world upon its debut, and it uses 0.278 lb/horsepower hour. That's a saving of about 2.6 percent, and while that might not sound like a lot, these things can burn an enormous amount of fuel in a day. If you were to run the most powerful version of the 31 flat out at maximum power for a whole day, and assume it made the same efficiency figure (it wouldn't, but go with me here), the engine would burn some 85,557 pounds of diesel in 24 hours. So a 2.6 percent saving is going to add up to a heck of a lot of diesel over the service life of the engine. It's also worth noting that there's no efficiency penalty if you fit Wärtsilä's Nitrous Oxide reduction system to the engine to keep emissions down, which is a requirement for operating in certain areas. And the 31 also saves operators money in maintenance, running some 8,000 hours before it needs its first service. Next time we're in Finland, we'll have to drop by. The team at Wärtsilä must deal with some incredible engineering challenges to build these impressive machines. Source: Wärtsilä

Watercolor Portraits of Hollywood Actresses

 

Posted: 22 Jun 2015 09:00 AM PDT

Davide Morettini est un illustrateur italien qui s’est passionné, dans le cadre d’une série de portraits, pour les actrices d’Hollywood. On peut voir des dessins en aquarelle des profils de Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Sandra Bullock, Keira Knightley, Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman ou encore Cate Blanchett.

 

 

Wes Anderson Vintage Bar in Milano

 

Posted: 22 Jun 2015 11:00 PM PDT

Designé par le célèbre réalisateur Wes Anderson pour Prada, Luce est un bar situé à Milan dont l’atmosphère mélange authenticité Milanaise et l’esthétique retro de ses films. Ce bar ne propose pas seulement des boissons et des patisseries gourmandes, c’est un lieu de vie, où le visiteur peut lire, jouer au flipper et utiliser un jukebox.

 

Wooden Engraved Acoustical iPhone Case

 

Posted: 23 Jun 2015 12:00 AM PDT

La marque japonaise Simplism a créé une coque destinée à l’iPhone 6, entièrement confectionnée en bois et gravée, baptisée « Hibiki iPhone Case ». Cette dernière améliore de manière conséquente l’acoustique du téléphone, en réduisant les nuisances sonores occasionnées par les ondes provenant de la 3G/4G ou de la connexion Bluetooth, lorsque le son est transféré dans un casque.

 

What a Table !

 

How many legs does your table have? Four? Pshh! Mine can balance on just three! And it does all that while looking like something out of Asimov’s imagination. Designed by Barcelona based Benjamin Migliore, the W’Table is an auxiliary counter that is out to redefine the way you look at tables. Minimalist geometry and furniture never looked this good together!

 

 

Cracked Log Lamps

 

 

Posted: 17 Jun 2015 09:00 AM PDT

Le designer Duncan Meerding, basé en Tasmanie, a choisi d’utiliser des rondins de bois craquelé pour créer de superbes lampes et ainsi souligner la beauté de la Nature. Chaque fente de la pièce de bois est illuminée à l’action de la lumière jaune. Une création qui redonne une seconde vie à ces éléments naturels.

 

45 Ultimate Tips For Men

 

Buy high quality tools, so you only have to buy them once. Keep a change of clothes at work. Never hit anyone unless they are an immediate threat. Every hat should serve a purpose. Never take her to the movies on the first date. Learn to wet shave. Nothing looks more bad ass than a well-tailored suit. Shave with the grain on the first go-around. Always look a person in the eye when you talk to them. Buy a plunger before you need a plunger. Exercise makes you happy. Run, lift, and play sports. Brush your teeth before you put on your tie. A small amount of your paycheck should go directly to your savings account every month. Call Mom and Dad every week. Never wear a clip-on tie. Give a firm handshake. Compliment her shoes. Never leave a beer unfinished. If you aren’t confident, fake it. It will come around. You can tell the size of a man by the size of things that bother him. Be conscious of your body language. The only reason to ever point a gun at someone is if you intend to shoot them. Period. Always stand to shake someone’s hand. Never lend anything you can’t afford to lose. Ask more than you answer. Everybody likes to talk about themselves. Never have sex with anyone that doesn’t want it as much as you. Go for women out of your league. You may end up surprised. Manliness is not only being able to take care of yourself, but others as well. Go with the decision that will make for a good story. When you walk, look straight ahead, not at your feet. Nice guys don’t finish last, boring guys do. Find your passion and figure out how to get paid for it. Don’t let the little head do the thinking for the big head. No matter their job or status, everyone deserves your respect. The most important thing you can learn is personal responsibility. Bad things happen, it’s your job to overcome them. The first one to get angry loses. A man does what needs to be done without complaining. Never stop learning. Always go out into public dressed like you’re about to meet the love of your life. Don’t change yourself just to make someone happy. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Luck favors the prepared. Women find confidence sexy as hell. Do whatever you want to do, but be the best at it. No one is on their deathbed wishing they spent more time at work.

2FA Is the New Normal of Passwords

 

mattjeacock/Digital Vision Vectors/Getty Images Will Two-Factor Passwords Be the New Normal for Web Life? Introduction: About.com: Robert: thank you for your time.  Being a network security specialist must be both very technical and very frustrating:  you see exciting technologies evolve, and you also see how people's lives are negatively impacted when the bad guys win.  Can you tell us more about your work, and why you find it so interesting to be in networking security? Robert Siciliano: For the past 30 years I've been embedded in the world of personal security as it relates to violence and theft prevention. These issues used to be primarily physical world proiblems and now they've significantly moved into the realm of the virtual world too. My daily routine consists of consuming all that is wrong and bad in the world and breaking it down so people understand how to proactively prevent it from happening to them.  About.com Question 1: The Public Is Being Hurt by Password Theft? Large-scale hacking and credential theft is so commonplace now.  Mt.Gox had $460 million bitcoins hacked in spring of this year. the Target chain of stores had its customers' credit card information credentials stolen this last Thanksgiving.  Sony Playstation Network and Gawker were hacked several months ago to the tune of 77+ million users' credentials.   And now a Russian crime ring has been uncovered as having pilfered 1.2 billion user names and passwords.  Is this a worrisome trend?  How does this hurt and impact us as private individuals using the Web? Robert Siciliano: It has been said that in the year 2000 that bad guys were about one year behind the good guys in technology. By 2004 they were neck and neck with the good guys. Today, the bad guys seem to be winning in many facets of technology that may one day cause such havoc that the lights may go off and bank accounts end up entirely empty, and that scares me. Every little breach is like a stone in a pond. The ripple effects may not have immediate impact, but they eventually trickle down and affect you and me in multiple ways. A compromised account can cause time and financial headaches that result in martial disputes and so on. That's what is so wrong about all this data insecurity.   About.com Question 2: How Hackers Do These Large-Scale Thefts. I know this can be a very technical topic, but you can explain to us how these criminals access private databases and steal our password credentials?  Perhaps give us a semi-technical overview of the holes in our websites and how the hackers get in there? Robert Siciliano: There are a number of ways data gets hacked. the most common include criminal hackers looking for vulnerabilities in a company's networks such as flaws in hardware, software or outdated systems that can be compromised. But even the most secure system can be overtaken by a savvy criminal who simply sends an email or makes a phone call and tricks a company employee into giving up his credentials to log into a network. Once in, the criminal can do significant damage.  About.com Question 3: Is Two-Factor Authentication the new normal?:  Robert, please tell us about 2FA, and how you think it can help.  How does 2FA work?  Will it stop these large-scale password thefts? How much does 2FA cost? Robert Siciliano: Many of the recent data breaches have exposed passwords as a common denominator.And as you know, if someone gets hold of your password, then your account—and all the data in it—is vulnerable. But there's an easy way to protect your critical accounts from hackers and other infiltrators: Set up a two-factor-verified authentication system. With a two-factor-verified system, knowing your password is only the first step. To get any further, hackers will need to know the second factor, which is a special code (another password, also known as a "one time password" or OTP) that only you know and that changes every time you log in. Accessing your account will be a virtual impossibility. Best of all, it's free. If you're interested in setting up a two-factor-verified system on your accounts, follow the directions below for the major platforms: Google. Go to google.com/2step. Click the blue button, upper right corner, that says “Get Started.” Follow the prompts that then lead to the process; choose text message or a phone call to receive your code. Your setup now applies to all Google services including YouTube. Yahoo. After signing in to your Yahoo account, you can begin Yahoo’s “Second Sign-In Verification” setup by hovering over your photo to trigger a drop-down menu. Click “Account Settings,” then click “Account Info.” Scroll to “Sign-In and Security,” and click the link “Set up your second sign-in verification.” Submit your phone number to receive a code via text. No phone? Yahoo will send you security questions. Apple. Visit applied.apple.com. A blue box to the right says “Manage Your Apple ID.” Click it, then log in using your Apple ID. Click the link to the left, “Passwords and Security.” Answer the two security questions to execute a new section, “Manage Your Security Settings.” Below is a link called “Get Started.” Click it, and enter your phone number to receive a code via text. You can also set up a unique password called a recovery key that you can use if your phone is not available. Microsoft. Log in at login.live.com using your Microsoft account. Once you’ve logged in, look to the left where you'll see a link that goes to “Security Info.” Click it. Look to the right, where you'll see the link “Set Up Two-Step Verification.” Click it, then click “Next.” Then follow the simple process. Facebook. To set up “Login Approvals,” go to Facebook’s website. To the right at the top is a blue menu bar; click the arrow that faces down to bring up a menu. Click “Settings.” To the left, you’ll see a gold badge that says “security” beside it; click it. Look to the right where you'll see “Login Approvals.” There will be a box that says “Require a security code.” Check that, then follow the instructions. Facebook will sometimes text you the security code, or it may require you to use the Facebook mobile app on Android or iOS to get your code, which will be in the “Code Generator.” Twitter. Set up the “Login Verification” by going to twitter.com, then clicking the gear icon in the upper right corner. Look left, where you'll see the “Security and Privacy” link. Click it. Then you’ll see “Login Verification” appear under “Security.” You’ll be given a choice of how to receive your code. Make the choice, then Twitter will guide you through the rest. LinkedIn. Go to linkedin.com, then hover over your photo to bring up the drop-down menu. Click “Privacy and Settings.” Toward the bottom is “Account.” Click that to bring up “Security Settings” on the right. Click that to be taken to “Two-Step Verification for Sign-In.” Click “Turn On,” then enter your phone number to receive the code. PayPal. Log in to PayPal, and click on “Security and Protection” which is in the upper right corner. At the bottom of the page you’re taken to, hit “PayPal Security Key” on the left. When you get to that page, go to the bottom of it and click “Go to register your mobile phone.” On the next page, enter your phone number and wait for the code via text. You'll have to keep a few things in mind to make this two-step verification process work. First, make sure you have unlimited text messaging if you're using your mobile and text as the second factor. Next, if an account doesn't offer the two-step-verification, see if it has alternatives that use phone calls, smartphone apps, email or “dongles.” These types of services provide codes that allow you to enter a site you’re already logging on to. Finally, if you receive a text requesting your account information, consider it a fraud. No reputable company would request that information from you. About.com Question 4: What Can a User Do?  People don't need to be reminded that good computer hygiene and rotating passwords is good sense.  But can you offer us suggestion on what people can practically do to avoid being a hacker victim?  Are there some tools or techniques that can help without adding too much burden on us users? Robert Siciliano: Laptop or PC A two-way firewall: monitors the activity on your devices making sure nothing bad is coming in (like unauthorized access) and nothing good is leaving (like your data). Anti-virus software: protects your devices from malicious keyloggers and other badware. Anti-phishing software: watches your browser and email for suspicious inbox activity. Anti-spyware software: keep your PC spyware free. Safe search capacities: McAfee SiteAdvisor plugs into your browser and tells you what websites are good and which are suspicious. Kick-butt passwords. Do away with the “Fitguy1982” password and use an extremely uncrackable one like 9&4yiw2pyqx#. Phrases are good too. Regularly change passwords and don’t use the same passwords for critical accounts. For more tips on how to create strong passwords, go to www.passwordday.org Protect wireless data: whether on a laptop, smartphone or tablet, avoid public Wi-Fi such as at airports, hotels and coffee houses unless you are using an encryption tool called Hotspot Shield. Smartphone or tablet Be leery of third-party apps you install on your mobile phone, since malicious apps are the main threat. Download apps only from reputable app stores. Read reviews and make sure you know what information the app requests prior to download. Use mobile security software that includes: Anti-virus and malware protection Turn off automatic connections to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi unless you’re using them. Apply app and operating system updates. Never store account numbers, passwords, etc., on your phone or tablet About.com Question 5: Where Do We Go for More Password Details? Robert, please tell us where you personally go online for your news and information? Are there favorite resources and blogs that you frequent?  Are there some online resources that would be helpful for the everyperson to become more security-savvy? Robert Siciliano: RSS feeds and Google news alerts keep me informed. Google News key words such as "scam" "identity theft" "hacker" "data breach" and more keep me current on new security issues. With my RSS feeds, certainly About.com, WSJ Tech, ABCNews.com, Wired and a slew of tech trade publications keep me up to the minute. My philosophy is to always be on top of what is new and ahead of what is next at all times. This is how to be proactive, and neither me or my readers/audiences can be caught off guard.  About.com Question 6: Final Thoughts for Our Readers. Robert, do you have any final thoughts to share with our readers?  Any advice for them? Robert Siciliano: We wear our seat belt because we know its just a matter of time before something bad happens. Information security is no different. This is why being proactive and vigilant is essential. Putting systems in place and maintaining those systems will keep most people safe and secure.  About Robert Siciliano: Robert is an expert in personal security and identity theft and a consultant to Hotspot Shield. He is fiercely committed to informing, educating, and empowering Americans so they can be protected from violence and crime in the physical and virtual worlds. His “tell it like it is” style is sought after by major media outlets, executives in the C-Suite of leading corporations, meeting planners, and community leaders to get the straight talk they need to stay safe in a world in which physical and virtual crime is commonplace.