From Stephen Fry’s co-founded new startup which claims to be the “Pinterest
for education”, to Facebook’s anti-terrorism plan, here’s the latest news in the
world of technology. This is what’s hot in tech 15/2/2016:

How to REALLY break an iPhone

Smashed screens can be replaced, a frozen phone can be rebooted and most other issues can be resolved. Not this one. It’s recently come to light that if you have an iPhone 5 or newer, changing the date to 1st January 1970 and shutting the phone off completely will render the phone completely useless, leaving it unable to boot up and getting stuck on the Apple icon screen. People who have unfortunately had this happen to
their iPhones claim that attempting to reboot the phone by connecting
it to iTunes and plugging it into their computer does not work. It’s even
had Apple Genius’ confused.
Read more on this story and watch the video here.

New platform will be “Pinterest for education”

A new startup called Pindex which was co-founded by Stephen Fry will be an educational platform for sharing engaging educational material. The platform
which bills itself as the “Pinterest for education” launched this month creates
and curates educational videos and infographics for teachers and students.
Co-founder John Leaver said: “I started Pindex out of frustration with the dull,
dry material my 10-year-old daughter would bring home from school. Making
every topic engaging is a huge task – too much for any one person. Pindex
enables teachers and professors to share their best material. Working together
like this is the only way to solve the problem.”
For more on this story, click here.

Computer and phone hacking by GCHQ ruled legal

A campaign form Privacy International, which claimed GCHQ’s hacking operations are too intrusive and break European law, has been lost in a legal battle. The ruling that the hacking is within the law was made by a security tribunal, and during the hearings GCHQ admitted for the first time that its agents hack devices in the UK and abroad.
For more on this story, click here.

Facebook now tackling terrorists

Facebook has announced that it is offering free advertising for users who speak out against terrorist propaganda, which they have called “Counter Speech”. These users however can’t just be anyone, and it appears Facebook are headhunting those it deems to be a worthy candidate. Those who are selected by the social network and use their Facebook account to discredit terrorists and extremist views are rewarded with advertising credits worth up to $1,000 (£691) to help boost their post reach.
Click here to read more on this story.

Adobe angers Mac users after deleting files

Adobe sent its Mac customers into a rage after users who updated their
Creative Cloud found it had left them missing files. Adobe has now
patched the Creative Cloud apps after it became aware that the first
folder on users hard drives were being deleted.
Read more on this story here.

And Finally…

Learn an instrument faster thanks to brain scanner

A new system developed at Tufts University called Brain Automated Chorales (BACh) teaches piano novices by scanning their brains while they play and adjusting the lesson difficulty based on their performance. The findings showed that the subjects were able to play pieces significantly better than via traditional teaching methods, and researchers said subjects could play with faster speed with BACh compared to a controlled
environment where they were learning the way they normally would.
For more on this story, click here.

[Stephen Fry photo credit: Twocoms / Shutterstock.com, Marck Zuckerberg: catwalker / Shutterstock.com, iPhone: NuOilSuwannar / Shutterstock.com, instrument brain scanner: Tufts University]

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