Our weekly news round-up: New Facebook patent describes how a TV ad could contain a hidden audio trigger for your smart phone's mic; Raya - the world's most exclusive social network; NASA's NExSS aims to refine how biosignatures are used to assess the chance of life beyond Earth; Saturn's moon Enceladus is releasing plumes of far more complex organic molecules than we thought; Drones using AI to spot violent outbreaks in crowds; China builds the world's first laser assault rifle to vapourise targets within a 1 km range; Amazon Prime is well priced downunder; Much anticipated NVIDIA Shield gaming terminal on sale in Oz.

Unnecessary bill complexity is a real (and quite deliberate) issue for Australian retail energy consumers. We offer suggestions on how to read your bill and secure a discount from your gas or electricity provider. And it's worth looking at the plethora of price comparison websites including: energywatch.com.au and compare.energy.vic.gov.au

The co-inventor of the Flow Hive and founder of Beeinventive describes the journey to get 'honey on tap', plus his super effective use of social media and the new deluxe model, the Flow Hive 2. Cedar explains how the original Flow Hive developed over a 10 year period, culminating in a record-setting Indigogo crowd-funding campaign in 2015. Now with a string of awards to his company's name and over a billion views of its web content, he says "the reason we keep going is because we want to have a positive impact in the world. So business for a positive purpose is cred to our company".

Simon Mulvany of Save The Bees Australia has single-handedly run a successful media campaign centered around Facebook and Instagram. Here he offers his insights into how to take full advantage of the power of social media to build a community and raise awareness of a business or social issue.

Our weekly news round-up: Mars VR on Kickstarter to fund new open source VR platform for the public and eventual settlers to visualise Mars landing site; How binge drinking leads to insomnia; New Firefox desktop browser is strong response to crisis of confidence with internet's privacy and security; Tesla ramps up Model 3 production, but still struggling to hit 5000 a week goal; NZ will introduce a universal non-cash payment method for all public transport.

Simon and Ben discuss different approaches to bee keeping in different parts of the world. Despite strong apiarist traditions in Europe, efforts are being made to breed bees that are better at cleaning each other, using genetics. They outline the hot issues facing their industry and explain some of the less well known uses for bee products, including beard conditioner and women's skin treatments.

As bitcoin steadily loses value from its stratospheric heights of late 2017, other cryptos have gained in value and market prominance. John offers an introduction to the differences between bitcoin and ethereum.

Last heard from on June 10th, NASA's venerable Opportunity rover has entered low power mode as the sky darkens dramatically, reducing solar power at Meridiani Planum to dangerous and unprecedented low levels. Meanwhile, an international flotilla of orbiters takes full advantage to harvest precious information about how dust storms form and behave.

Our weekly news round-up: Trump directs Pentagon to set up "Space Force" to ensure America's continued dominance beyond Earth; Microsoft's Project Natick places environmentally friendly data centres underwater; Google's DeepMind AI learns how to see via a generative query network; Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation is cleaning up the world's email spam problem; Vivo X21 is world's first smart phone with in-display fingerprint sensor; Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission abandons deal with NEC to expand national fingerprint database with other biometric info, such as facial and footprint recognition.

At WWDC 2018, the company foreshadowed changes coming soon in iOS 12, including a new feature called Screen Time which aims to make it easier to curb smart phone addiction. Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, another big theme was improved privacy. Apple also touted significant improvements to Siri, MacOS, Watch OS 5 and AppleTV. And Facetime will soon allow up to 30 people to share the same video conference call.