Every year for the past decade, YouTube has been releasing a sort-of "best of" video that looks back at the platform's highlights over the past 12 months.

The "Rewind 2011" video saw viral singer Rebecca Black count down the biggest videos of the year all the way to her hit "Friday."

Years later, what was once one of the most anticipated annual videos on YouTube has now become the platform's most hated piece of content.

Less than a week after it was published by YouTube on December 6, "Rewind 2018" has become the most disliked video on YouTube. It surpassed 9.8 million dislikes to overtake Justin Bieber's "Baby" (2010) - a controversial hit for the Canadian singer - and enter the hall of shame.

The failure of the video comes despite - or perhaps because of - the appearances of countless major YouTube stars like the US comedy duo Dolan Twins and the crew from Australia's How Ridiculous YouTube channel, as well as numerous non-YouTubers like actor Will Smith and satire news show host Trevor Noah.

The video rapidly jumps from place to place, and celebrity to celebrity, trying to fit as many YouTube stars as possible into eight minutes of chaotic content that is almost hard to watch.

Famed tech blogger Marques Brownlee, who stars alongside actor Will Smith at the start of the video, said the problem was the video was clearly made for advertisers, not viewers.

"YouTube wants Rewind to be a couple minutes they can show to advertisers and say 'look at all the great stuff over here that you want to spend your dollars on!'"

Despite its poor reception, the video has clocked close to 120 million views in the space of a week.

Google has no current plans to launch a search product in China, chief executive Sundar Pichai told US lawmakers on Tuesday as he faced a grilling over privacy concerns and allegations of political bias.

"Right now we have no plans to launch search in China," he said.

There had been reports that Google was set to launch Project Dragonfly as a search engine and re-enter the Chinese market, which the company was largely forced to exit several years back.

The hearing in the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives lasted more than three hours and comes amid growing signs lawmakers may seek to impose privacy regulations on big tech companies such as Google and Facebook.

Some of the lawmakers who questioned Pichai tried - and at times failed - to understand how search algorithms work.

Representative Steve Chabot, for example, was upset there were no positive articles on Republican tax cuts on the first page of Google search results - something that could result from the popularity of the tax cut programme or the available online content on the subject, rather than bias.

Some Republicans insisted that individual engineers could influence search results, but Pichai repeatedly rejected the charge, explaining the programming teams are too large and complex.

"I think it is fair to say that most Americans have no idea the sheer volume of information that is collected," committee chairman Bob Goodlatte said. It is nearly impossible to avoid Google, he added.

Pichai said the collection of data was something that users opted into and called it "transparent," while urging customers to review their privacy setting.

Lawmakers were concerned about location data given off by phones, which can be used to track individuals, and how Google stores and handles personal data.

They also noted that Google has changed its privacy policy eight times in the last 24 months, meaning it can be difficult for users to keep up with the current terms and conditions, which are often long texts written in dense legal terminology.

Pichai confirmed that Google cooperates with US government agencies on personal data only when presented with "valid law enforcement requests."

Kevin McCarthy, the Republican majority leader in the House, said the committee must check whether US companies are serving as "instruments of freedom" or of control. The United States needs to know if Google "is on the side of the free internet," he said.

Russia’s telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor will require Twitter and Facebook to report on the implementation of the law on localizing personal data of users in the Russian Federation before the end of 2018, Head of the service Alexander Zharov told reporters on Tuesday.

"Yes. This is a fairly simple process, we will request information (on the localization of personal data - TASS). We are monitoring this situation," he said.

At the same time, Zharov noted that at the moment the service has no reason to believe that the companies have already localized the database of Russian users. "Thus, it is highly probable that we will draw up a protocol, in which we will set the deadlines, where we will prescribe the companies to localize the database, and then we will somehow agree to make it happen," he explained.

The law on personal data entered into force in Russia on September 1, 2015. Under it, both domestic and foreign companies have to store personal data of Russian citizens in Russia.

Drinking water possessing new functional properties will protect space crews from radiation during long space flights, including a mission to Mars, as follows from a report to the 17th Conference on Space Biology and Medicine, underway in Moscow on Monday.

"Drinking water with new functional properties will hold special place in the system of increasing cosmonauts’ resistibility to radiation. Of great interest is light isotope water and water with controlled and optimized mineral composition," the conference’s report says.

Special attention must be paid to preventing water preservatives, including silver ions, from getting into the cosmonaut’s body. Silver is a heavy metal, and heavy metals increase the harmful effects of ionizing radiation.

Also, scientists suggest cosmonauts should sleep in special water-filled bags.

"For instance, one might consider the feasibility of using sleeping bags filled with water mixed with gel or polyethylene granules. Water and polyethylene contain light elements, including hydrogen. Both provide effective protection from neutrons, both primary and secondary ones," the report says.

The Astra-06 apparatus developed by specialists of Russian Space Systems (RSS) was used for the first time as additional telemetric equipment aboard the manned Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on December 3, the company’s press office reported on Monday.

"During the spacecraft’s flight, the Astra was undergoing flight tests, measuring quickly changing parameters. After the tests are over and its performance characteristics are confirmed, the new system is expected to be used aboard promising spaceships," the press office said in a statement.

The Astra system is maximally adapted for the telemetric image (telemetric data package) requirements while its modular configuration gives the system extra flexibility for mounting it on existing and future launch vehicles. The system’s universal nature stems from the technology of its assembly from modules, the statement says.

"The Astra’s design allows installing it aboard carrier rockets and other space vehicles. This unification will help the Russian space industry switch over to the serial production of telemetry systems, which will raise their reliability and reduce their cost price," Chief Designer for Measurements at the Research and Production Association of Measuring Equipment Yevgeny Borodin was quoted by the press office of Russian Space Systems as saying.

Compared to previous-generation telemetric systems, the Astra integrates the specially devised mathematical segment and the computing apparatus that process part of the data even before that are transmitted to Earth. The data are compressed and the spectral analysis is conducted aboard a spacecraft, which considerably reduces the load on communications lines.

The Astra earlier passed tests during its operation aboard a carrier rocket. The system successfully performed during the launch of the Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from the Vostochny spaceport on November 28, 2017 and aboard the Progress MS-10 resupply ship on November 16, 2018.

The new telemetric system was also expected to operate during the launch of the manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft on October 11 but it was not activated due to the incident with the faulty Soyuz-FG carrier rocket.

“Valar Morghulis." For those whose High Valyrian language skills are a bit rusty, this nugget of gnomic wisdom roughly translates as “All men must die.”

The foreboding motto, first imparted by sly Jaqen H’ghar in Game of Thrones’ (GoT) second season, turns out to be a pretty spot on prophecy.

Over the course of the show’s seven seasons, a whopping 174,373 characters have met their maker. And with the show’s eighth and final season airing in 2019, this number is only set to increase.

The Game of Thrones universe - first created as a book series by George R. R. Martin in the late nineties - is a treacherous place to dwell. Its inhabitants are at constant threat of death by fire, water, poison, arrow, sword, or even wild animal attacks, with high status, intelligence, and good looks providing little protection.

The show has become so synonymous with death that an illustrated encyclopaedia of all the show’s grisly deaths was published by The Washington Post to provide a reference point for those who simply couldn’t keep up with who stabbed who in the heart at whose wedding.

Though mortality rates in all seven kingdoms are eye-watering, there does seem to be one trick to staying alive - and it’s not what you might expect. Forget mastering weaponry, avoiding goblets poured by strangers, and keeping your enemies close: according to a new study by researchers from Macquarie University in Australia, the most fatal thing you can do in Westeros is be loyal.

This might sound counter-intuitive, but after evaluating the deaths of all important GoT characters, researchers found that characters were far more likely to survive if they switched allegiances: wily Tyrion Lannister, who switches between the houses Lannister and Targaryen, has the right idea.

The study also unearthed some morbid statistics: the most common causes of death in GoT are wounds of the head and neck, including 13 decapitations. Only two characters have been lucky enough to die of natural causes so far: Maester Aemon and Old Nan.

The next biggest killers were burns (11.8 per cent) and poisonings (4.8 per cent), with the most common circumstances of deaths being assault (63.0 per cent), operations of war (24.4 per cent) and legal executions (5.4 per cent).

Dr Reidar Lystad, injury epidemiologist at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation and author of the study, commented: "While these findings may not be surprising for regular viewers, we have identified several factors that may be associated with better or worse survival, which may help us to speculate about who will prevail in the final season."

Over 83% of Russians used the Internet in 2017, which is 1.7 times higher than in 2010 (49.3%); 60.6% of adult population use the Internet every day, research published by the Higher School of Economics’ Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge on Thursday informs.

"In 2017, 83.7% of Russians used the Internet, which is 1.7 times higher than in 2010 (49.3%). 60.6% of total adult population go online practically every day. Annual growth of the Russian Internet audience (both general and daily) constitutes about 2.9-3.6 per cent in recent years," the institute’s press service informed.

Over half of Russian Internet users (51.7%) are 40 and younger, the research states. However, in the last three years, the number of Russians over 50 that go online has almost tripled (29.7%).

"Mainly, in 2017, the population used the Internet for socializing, accessing content, information search, leisure activities, and commercial operations. Recognition of the World Wide Web as an integral part of human life leads to an expanded spectrum of its daily use goals," the message says.

According to the research, one in two Russians (51.7%) was looking up information on goods and services on the Internet, which is 14.7% higher than in the years 2014-2017. Over 42% of Russians used online municipal and government services.

More Russians started to use online financial services: in 2017, one in three Russians (30.9%) carried out financial operations online in 2017, and one in five (18.9%) concluded sales transactions. The number of Russian citizens who search for information on health and education services online is also rising, the research added.

China is set to attempt an ambitious mission to land on the far side of the moon, with the launch scheduled for early Saturday, informed sources told dpa.

If successful, the mission would mark the first time humans reach the far side of the moon, which is more rugged than the near side. 

A Chang'e-4 probe is to launch from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in south-west China early Saturday. Some experts are estimating the probe will take 14 days to reach its destination. Others say it could take as long as 27 days.

The biggest challenge will be establishing communication with the far side of the moon, which is unreachable by direct signal and invisible from Earth, said professor Ouyang Ziyuan of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the chief scientist of the China Lunar Exploration Plan.

"We will be like deaf and blind," he said.

China in May launched a satellite named Queqiao meant to relay information between Earth and the future probe.

Chang'e 4 is set to land near the moon's South Pole, from where it can begin its exploration. The probe is carrying seeds for an experiment in cultivating vegetables in a closed environment on the lunar surface.

China is running an ambitious space programme, which includes landing a rover on Mars by 2020, building its own space station by 2022 and sending an exploration mission to Jupiter by 2029.

After a disappointingly iterative upgrade from Samsung's Galaxy S8 to the S9 in 2018, all eyes have been on the world's top smartphone manufacturer to unveil a radical improvement with the 10th-anniversary update to the Galaxy series.

Judging by leaks and rumours, Samsung is ready to deliver. According to various leaks and smartphone renders swirling online, Samsung is on track to make its Galaxy flagship smartphone the first to feature a new "hole punch" style of selfie camera.

The last hurdle in the way of a bezel-less phone, the selfie camera has increasingly been integrated into a so-called notch at the top of the screen, a design adopted by Apple for its iPhone and by Google for the latest Pixel to a lukewarm response.

But the next wave of smartphones is set to be shaped by a new display technology that allows manufacturers to embed a small hole for the selfie camera inside the screen, making for a small black dot in the display.

While the hole punch approach for the selfie camera may take some getting used to, the fact that it allows for a smartphone without bezels on the top and bottom will likely ease any pain.

A photo tweeted on Tuesday from the notorious smartphone leaker Ice Universe shows two Samsung phones with stunningly large screens with black dots in the top-right corners.

As shown in the photo, Samsung's larger S10+ phone is largely expected to feature a dual selfie camera, which will likely also mean a slightly largely black hole in an otherwise pristine AMOLED screen, according to a report from SamMobile.

This dual-lens feature, familiar from phones like the Google Pixel 3, brings the benefit of better selfie shots with a strong feeling of depth, as well as the option to fit more people into a group selfie with a wide-angle lens.

Expected in early 2019, the next Galaxy generation looks set to be ready in time for the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, where last year's S9 flagships where unveiled.

For all its efforts, however, Samsung may just be beaten to the hole punch approach by Chinese rivals Huawei, whose Nova 4 handset is reported to launch in December with this same new piece of display bling.

It's not all fun and games in a post-apocalyptic world: 25 years after a nuclear war shakes the world, the reinforced doors of Vault 76 - a bunker in which a group of US civilians have been hiding - open again to let out the Earth's new population. 

This is the plot of Fallout 76, the new role playing game in the Fallout universe, which functions as a prequel to previous Fallout games. 

Up to 24 players can join the game on the same server at once. The game's map layout offers players a lot of freedom; for instance, players can band together in groups of up to four people to complete tasks together. Individual players can also choose to stray through post-apocalyptic West Virginia alone - where they're unlikely to encounter other players. 

The first few tasks in the game are fairly straightforward, and should be seen as a type of tutorial for getting into the role-playing game. Your character has to eat and drink at regular intervals, so these first tasks are there to teach you how to sterilize water and how to make rump steak. 

You also learn how to dismantle objects you've collected so that you can reassemble them to be used as weapons. 

The overarching goal is to find one of the bunker's overseers, who is looking for the launch codes of some remaining nuclear weapons. 

However, you will never meet her, as the developers have set an interesting premise for the game: any human character in the game must be played by and actual human player - so there are no NPCs. 

This has some downsides. If you enjoy going about games alone, then this premise will make the game pretty boring for you, because the only way to drive the story without NPCs is by having robots and computers tell the story for you.

Of course, there are still enemies to beat, as well as animals and zombies to encounter, but they just aren't the same as having a West Virginia landscape populated with NPCs to meet, talk to and who will send you off on a quest. There are no dialogues, at all. 

Another downside of only having audio recordings to tell the story is that players can - and will - constantly interrupt the recording with their own chatter. There are few things more annoying than wanting to listen to the interesting storyline, but instead having to endure some other players' pointless drivel. This also takes away a lot of the otherwise fairly dense atmosphere of Fallout.

The test version also has a fair number of bugs, such as animals floating unnaturally, robots getting stuck and tasks being incomplete. 

A huge failure of the game is the PC control system: developers simply translated console buttons to keyboard buttons, and seemed to forget that computers can, and should be able to, use a mouse - a mistake that Bethesda has said it plans to correct. 

Coming to the actual in-game mechanisms, Fallout 76 has some interesting concepts. 

The role-playing elements work in a progression system. Characters have seven different attributes, which can improve over time as you level up. The different attributes all have perks if you work to improve them; for instance, a character with a high level of charisma is better at negotiating and can buy cheaper robots.

This system also works well in a group, as you can have different players with different attributes take on roles that suit them best. So one player can be in charge of craftsmanship, while another is responsible for close combat. 

If you have a fixed group of people to play with, you will probably enjoy Fallout 76, because this is the best way to actually benefit from the role-playing elements.

A lot depends on who else is playing on the server - they can be hostile, friendly, helpful and anything in between. YouTube streaming star Many A True Nerd has created a welcome booth on his server, where new players can go to get a starter pack, including a weapon.

Another interesting concept is that players can attack each other without warning - but if the opponent doesn't respond, then the fight can't take place. So both players must consent to any battle. 

Fallout 76 has lost some of the previous versions' mechanisms that many multi-players are likely to miss. If you're playing alone, the world seems pretty empty, and at times the graphics just aren't that great. But, if you make your way to West Virginia with some friends, then you'll probably end up having a great time.

Fallout 76 is available for PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One and costs around 60 dollars.  

Apple's newest iPad Pro is definitely the most powerful tablet on the market - it's actually even faster than 92 per cent of available notebooks. With its A12X octa-core processor and a massive storage capacity of up to one terabyte, this device can only be described as the superhero of tablets. 

So, should we all be leaving laptops behind and getting ready for a futuristic, tablet-only lifestyle? 

Well, maybe not so fast. The iPad Pros are impressive, but for one, they're not cheap. For an 11-inch, 64 GB device, you'll be paying 799 dollars, which is the cheapest it gets. For the biggest version, 12.9 inches with 1 TB of storage, the price skyrockets to 1,749 dollars. 

Nevertheless, no matter what size you pick, when using the Pro, you never feel like your even getting close to reaching the tablet's limits in terms of performance - whether your playing Fortnite or editing 4K videos.

The Pro's display takes up almost all the screen, and, unlike the latest iPhones, has no notch. The very thin edges around the screen have space for one thing only: the camera and sensors for FaceID, which is the only way to unlock the Pro, as there is no fingerprint sensor at all.

The display quality is brilliant, which is mostly due to the use of DCI P3 colours, which allows for a much larger colour spectrum than ever before. 

The display resolution for the 11-inch tablet reaches 2388 x 1668 pixels, the 12.9-inch Pro has 2732 x 2048 pixels. This really makes all the difference when watching anything on Netflix, Amazon or iTunes - however YouTube videos are not shown in the highest possible resolution, because Apple does not support Google's Video Codec VP9. 

The new iPads can sense how much power you currently need, and adapt accordingly to provide you with adequate performance whilst protecting the battery life. 

The Pro tablets also have a new design, which is reminiscent of the iPhone 5 with its curved edges. The curved designs allows the iPad to fit more comfortably in your hands, especially during prolonged use.

The iPad Pro has an improved 12 megapixel camera, but still has no image stabilization technology. 

The new devices have a USB-C port, which means you can connect the tablet to your computer, and external display or any other accessory. However, Apple has got rid of the headphone jack, so you might need an adapter for your headphones, if you haven't gone wireless already. 

In terms of accessories, Apple has also made some significant improvements on this front.

The new keyboards are more stable on the go, and if you're outside of the US, they also come with European layouts - no more QWERTY if that's not what you're used to. The external keyboards cost 179 dollars for the 11-inch tablet, and 199 for 12.9 inches. 

The Apple Pencil has gone through a complete redesign. The new pencil can be charged wirelessly simply by attaching it to the outside of the screen, where it sticks magnetically. If you're a creative professional, the pencil can definitely become an invaluable tool. For other users, it may not be as useful, as switching between applications and tabs with the pencil is not perfectly smooth. The Apple Pencil can be bought for 129 dollars.

So, will we all be moving to tablets like the iPad Pro as laptop computers become obsolete? 

Well, no. If you work in the creative industry, then maybe a tablet really is all you need - and this is most certainly the best one out there. But for most people, the iPad cannot replace the efficacy of doing some things with a mouse. So don't go throwing out that laptop just yet. 

Microblogging website Tumblr will no longer allow adult content, chief executive Jeff D'Onofrio said in a statement Monday.

The change is policy is a major reversal for the ex-Yahoo company, which since being founded in 2007 has been known for tolerating explicit material.

"We've realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture... we must change," D'Onofrio said. "Today, we're taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity."

The ban, which begins on December 17, will cover "images, videos, or GIFs" depicting sex acts or showing "real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples," according to the new guidelines.

"There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community," D'Onofrio added in his statement.

The announcement comes just three weeks after the company's app was removed from Apple's app store when child sexual abuse content was discovered on the platform and "immediately removed," according to a statement Tumblr released at the time.

While D'Onofrio did not say whether the shift in policy was related to the episode, he noted Monday that "posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community."

"We've always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content," he added.

The manned Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft with three crewmembers of the new expedition to the International Space Station (ISS) has entered the near-Earth orbit and started its autonomous flight to the orbital outpost, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos told TASS on Monday.

"The spacecraft separated from the third stage of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket in a normal mode and at the designated time," Roscosmos said.

The Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the manned Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft blasted off from the first launch site of the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14:31 Moscow time.

The new expedition comprises Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Anne McClain and astronaut of the Canadian Space Agency David Saint-Jacques. The spacecraft is due to dock with the International Space Station at 20:36 Moscow time on Monday. The new crew will stay in orbit for 194 days.

This is the first launch of a manned spacecraft after the abortive blastoff of the Soyuz carrier rocket on October 11.

Over two-years after launch, the NASA probe OSIRIS-REx will land on a skyscraper-sized asteroid on Monday for the first US mission to carry asteroid samples back to Earth. 

The over 800-million-dollar undertaking will provide pristine asteroid samples necessary for studying the early solar system, NASA says, and it will allow scientists to better understand the flight paths of potentially hazardous asteroids.

OSIRIS-REx is scheduled to land on the Bennu asteroid around noon EST (1700 GMT). The landing will be live-streamed on the NASA website.

The spacecraft was launched from Florida in September 2016 and has since hurled through space at speeds of over 100,000 kilometres per hour.

Once landing on Bennu the 3.5-meter-long probe will spend two years scudding around the surface. OSIRIS-REx has the capacity to return 46 kilograms of asteroid samples - the largest sample returned from space since the Apollo missions in the 1960s and early 1970s.

One of the key goals of the OSIRIS-REx mission is to study the impact of the sun's heat on the orbits of asteroids with the potential to hit Earth and cause substantial damage.

Bennu - named after a mythological Egyptian deity by a third-grade contest winner - is one of the most hazardous asteroids known to NASA because of its large size and orbit. The chances of Bennu striking Earth are still a fraction of a per cent.

The Executive Office of Arab Ministers of Communications and Information started its 44th session at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Arab League in Cairo today.

The delegation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the meeting was headed by International Affairs Advisor at the Communication and Information Technology Commission Khaled Khalil.

Russia came in fourth globally for the number of citizens employed in the scientific field, after China, the United States and Japan, Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education Mikhail Kotyukov told a forum in Moscow on Tuesday.

"Today Russia is rated fourth in the world for the overall number of people employed in this sector, after China, the US and Japan," Kotyukov pointed out. Russia focuses on scientific performance, in particular publications, patents and researches, he noted.

According to the minister, though Russia is among the world’s leaders for the number of science workers, it has "modest figures" when it comes to expenditures on research and development. "However, science is a rather complicated sphere. It may have long-term effects, if we talk about fundamental research, and rather immediate results, when scientific groundwork must provide answers and opportunities for creating new technological solutions," the minister stressed.

The Fifth International Financial University Forum "How to Break into the Top Five of the Leading World Economies?" is being hosted in Moscow from November 27-29. The forum is a venue for discussions on recent changes in the Russian and the global economy, structural transformations in international trade and the development of the social sector. Russian and foreign experts from 32 countries are taking part in the event.

The Russian telecom regulator, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media will try the case on the merits regarding the fine for Google Corporation on December 11 in the presence of a representative of the US company, deputy head of the watchdog Vadim Subbotin told TASS.

"A protocol on administrative violation has been drawn up today in presence of an authorized representative of Google. An authorized official of Roskomnadzor will decide whether to impose the fine or not on December 11," Subbotin said. A representative from Google will attend the meeting, he added.

Google can avoid administrative liability if the company becomes connected to the Federal State Information System with the list of websites blocked in Russia by December 11, Subbotin noted.

"Google has a chance not to be called to administrative liability in case of fulfilling obligations on connection to the Federal State Information System with the list of websites blocked in Russia," the official said.

The regulator said earlier that Google can get a fine of 500-700 thousand rubles ($7,400-10,300) for refusal to connect to the Federal State Information System of Russia with the list of websites blocked in Russia. Google was to be connected to the system for exclusion of blocked websites from search results.

The talks between the watchdog and Google on compliance with Russian laws were held on November 14. The meeting was attended by Doron Avni, Google's Director of Public Policy and Government Relations for Europe, Middle East and Africa Emerging Markets region. After the talks, deputy head of the Russian watchdog Vadim Subbotin told TASS that the Google representative had confirmed the willingness of the American company to comply with Russian legislation.

Terrorists who now use the internet to conduct their activities present a major challenge to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, said Malaysian Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu. 

Increasingly rapid technological advancements had created a borderless world, he said, and terrorists were using this medium to learn and create new terrorism tools.

"We have determined that terrorists are now using the internet as a medium to learn how to make explosives, and previously, a woman has been arrested in Kuala Lumpur for making bombs from the internet.”

"So, all the ASEAN security forces must give attention to steps to tackle this threat of terrorism,” he told reporters.

NASA is due to land a probe on Mars for the first time in more than six years on Monday and begin a mission to explore the planet deep into its core.

The InSight probe is scheduled to begin its final descent just before 3 pm (2000 GMT) on Monday, marking NASA's first Mars landing since the Curiosity rover in August 2012.

NASA scientists admitted Sunday to being "a little bit nervous" about the landing but also said they felt confident it would be a success.

"We recognize that you never take Mars for granted. Mars is hard," Thomas Zurbuchen, a lead administrator at NASA headquarters in Washington, said at a news conference.

Less than half of the Mars missions attempted have been successful, "so we are of course worried," Zurbuchen said.

Tom Hoffman, InSight project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said he'll let out a lot of pent up excitement when the probe lands.

"I am completely excited and completely nervous all at the same time," Hoffman said at the news conference, warning whoever is sitting near him that he is "totally going to unleash my inner 4-year-old" when the probe lands.

He said he and his team worked for years to think through all the things that could go wrong, but there's still an element of doubt.

"We've done everything we can to make sure we are going to be successful but you never know what's going to happen," he said. "Everything has to go perfectly, and Mars could always throw us a curveball."

InSight was launched in May and has travelled more than 484 million kilometres to reach Mars.

The goal of the mission is to study evidence buried far below the surface after other probes have looked at Mars' canyons, volcanoes, rocks and soil. This mission will be like taking the planet's vital signs in order to discover more about its mantle and core, NASA said at its website.

But first the probe, dubbed InSight, for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, has to land.

The process is expected to be "seven minutes of terror," Zurbuchen said, reeling off the steps beginning with the capsule shedding its propulsion device, a descend through the planet's atmosphere and deceleration with the help of a parachute and retrorockets.

If all goes well InSight will land in an area called Elysium Planitia, which InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt described as sandy, even "boring" location.

"If it were an ice cream, it would be vanilla," Banerdt said.

Location is important because InSight is a three-legged probe that remains wherever it touches down.

Among the instruments on the probe is a seismometer, which will monitor "marsquakes" - seismic waves travelling through the interior structure of the planet. The data collected will reveal information that scientists can use to draw conclusion.

"The signatures of the planet's formation processes can be found only by sensing and studying evidence buried far below the surface," Banerdt said.

Another instrument will burrow several metres into the planet to gauge how much heat is flowing out. The observations will shed light on whether Earth and Mars are made of the same stuff. InSight also is affixed with radios to assess the wobble of Mars' rotation axis, providing information about the planet's core.

The mission launched along with two tiny cubesats that will aim to beam data during the landing. The mini satellites are part of a technology demonstrators designed to show that cubesats can explore interplanetary space.

They are part of NASA's overall effort to publicize the event. Viewers will be able to watch coverage of the landing live on NASA Television, but also at the US space agency's website, social media platforms and at public viewing locations in major US cities.

Chinese smartphone marker OPPO plans to unveil a new smartphone into the Kenyan market before the end of 2018, officials said on Saturday.

Jesse Wu, brand manager of OPPO Kenya, told Xinhua in Nairobi that the OPPO A7 will pioneer the latest technologies and systems combined with the most advanced exquisite design in smartphone industry.

"Maintaining the trendsetting norm and in order to let more young users to enjoy the latest smartphone fashion, OPPO will introduce the OPPO A7 before the end of the year," Wu said.

He added that the Kenyan market is changing drastically and people are appreciating genuine quality of user-experience over just specs on paper.

"The OPPO A7 will target young people with a discerning heart for an outstanding design, convenient and smooth operation, and advanced multimedia practice," he said.

Wu said that OPPO entered the Kenyan market in March 2015 and has carved out a niche among consumers looking for the latest features in a smartphone.

He noted that apart from the selfie camera, VOOC flash charging system and artificial intelligence technology application, OPPO has always been the trendsetter of smartphone design, from rotating camera of OPPO N3, the revolutionary panoramic arc screen of OPPO Find X, to the most recent Waterdrop screen of OPPO F9 which is yet to be introduced by any other brand in Kenya.

Wu revealed that OPPO has always invested highly when it comes to research and development and especially in the area of exterior design, mobile photography and power management.

The OPPO executive said that the smartphone market in Kenyan and Africa at large has a great potential which is yet to be fully tapped.

"As OPPO, we use this opportunity to deliver high quality products to the ever-growing demand of quality and attractive designs," Wu said.