With brown curly hair and a pair of glasses, 19-year-oldNicholas Allegra from New York state, US, looks like a real-life Harry Potter.However, rather than waving a wand, Nicholas is a "wizard " at"jailbreaking ". This is probably why he ended up with an intern­shipat Apple, a job many of his fellow Brown University students dream of.

Jailbreaking is the process of removing the limitations set byApple on devices with the iOS oper­ating system. These devices include theiPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It allows users to gain full access to theoperating system and download additional materials that are unavailable through the official Apple App Store.However, it is estimated that Apple loses $100 million (640million yuan) fromjailbreaking each year.

Nicholas, with a famous nickname "Comex", is theteenage hacker behind the jail-breaking site JailbreakMe. com. The site tellsusers how to unlock their iPhones using software that is not approved by Apple.The jailbreaking software he made has been downloaded millions of times byusers around the world.

Then Forbes magazine suggested in an article that Apple's securityteam might need him as a new intern. It seems that they do. Little more than aday after Steve jobs stepped down as CEO, Apple welcomed Nicholas Allegra.Nicholas wrote on his Twitter on August 26 that " It's been really, reallyfun, but it's also been a while and I've been getting bored. So, the week afternext I will be starting an internship with Apple.

Apple is not the only company embracing the skills ofhackers. Facebook recently hired iPhone jailbreaker George "Geohot"Hotz as a full-time employee.

However, there are still hot debates about whether employinghackers is a wise solution. The word "hacker" has always had a doublemeaning. In the press, "hacker" means someone who breaks intocomputers. They steal from people's bank ac­counts, download sensitiveinformation and attack legal websites. Among computer lovers, it means a coolpro­grammer who can make a computer do whatever he wants.

Hiring a hacker does have its advantages. A talented hacker isprobably quite capable of finding problems and suggesting corrections. On theother hand, because of a hacker's former behavior, many people doubt theirmorals .Can the company trust them with its valuable assets ? And can someonewho is so used to working alone in the dark fit into a new role within acompany?

One thing is for sure- Comex isn't the first member of thehacker community to land the job of his dreams. It's likely that he won't bethe last.

    I loved my aunt Suzy. She was such a kind old lady. I loved going to her house on holiday. She had been sick for the last few years and, though my job had taken me away across the town, I tried to visit her as much as possible. I helped with the shopping, the cooking and the cleaning and taking her pet cat Mazy to the vet.

    Sad as her passing away was, what happened to Mazy was even more worrying. Because aunt Suzy had no children, there wasn't anyone who seemed to care for her beloved cat friend. I would have taken her in a short time, but my apartment doesn't allow pets. First, we talked with her neighbors. Mr. Jenkins, who was alone and lived across the street, wasn't interested. Joe and Sally who lived next door had a small child with serious skin allergies(过敏症). My aunt's best friend Molly who had lived just down the road was unable to take care of herself as she had serious health problems.

    Second, we thought about our family members. My brother Bobby and his wife Jill were eliminated at once as they aren't cat people. My cousin in California was a bit interested, but we weren't sure about the trip as Mazy was nearly as old as my aunt (in cat years!). Finally, we came to the local humane society to see whether they would be able to help her find a new home. The problem was that most people and families only welcomed a smart little cat into their home, not a dull old one.

    In the end, we had to put Mazy to sleep. I had spoken with the vet and realized it was possible for the best. It was so hard to lose aunt Suzy and then have nowhere for Mazy to live. A few months went by and I had gone to my aunt's house to clear out some of her belongings. I happened to see her mailman. Jerry and we started to talk about my aunt when he asked about Mazy. I told him that we had to put Mazy to sleep because we couldn't find a home for her. Jerry got really quiet. “I promised Suzy that if anything ever happened to her, I'd take care of Mazy”, he said sadly. “Suzy always said she'd told her lawyer the arrangement.”

    Hearing this, my heart sank to my feet and I almost cried. The saddest part, I realized, was this all could have been avoided. I guess we were just so busy in those final months that we didn't think about it. We could have called my aunt's lawyer to take care of it in less than 10 minutes. I'll never forgive myself for not thinking of it sooner. And I'll never forgive myself for losing Mazy.

    When I spent the summer with my grandmother, she always set me down to the general store with a list. Behind the counter was a lady like no one I'd ever seen.

    “Excuse me,” I said. She looked up and said, “I'm Miss Bee.”

    “I need to get these.” I said, holding up my list. “So? Go get them. ” Miss Bee pointed to a sign. “There's no one here except you and me and I'm not your servant, so get yourself a basket from that pile.”

    I visited Miss Bee twice a week that summer. Sometimes she shortcharged me. Other times she overcharged. Going to the store was like going into battle. All summer long she found ways to trick me. No sooner had I learned how to pronounce “bicarbonate of soda” and memorized its location on the shelves than she made me hunt for it all over again. But by summer's end the shopping trip that had once taken me an hour was done in 15 minutes.

    “All right, little girl,” she said. “What did you learn this summer?” “That you're a meanie!” I replied. Miss Bee just laughed and said, “I know what you think of me. Well, I don't care! My job is to teach every child I meet life lessons. When you get older you'll be glad!” Glad I met Miss Bee? Ha! The idea was absurd…

    Until one day my daughter came to me with homework troubles. “It's too hard,” she said. “Could you finish my math problems for me?”

    “If I do it for you, how will you ever learn to do it yourself?” I said. Suddenly, I was back at that general store where I had learned the hard way to add up my bill by myself. Had I ever been overcharged since?

    Giving generously and receiving gratefully make it easier to live happily with others. Yet, why do we have such difficulty accomplishing these things in our relationships? I think people refuse to be generous with others because they fear being used.

    For example, my husband and I have family members who only contact us when they need money. We usually accept their requests, but we rarely receive a “thank you”. Most people would say that my husband and I are being used. But when we give, we shouldn't be giving for the purpose of getting gratitude. Rather, we should be giving because it's a good thing to do.

    Everything that we have, from our ability to wake up each morning to the money in our bank account, is a gift from the world. In return, the world asks us to use these gifts to help others, either by giving them our time or our resources. The good news is that when we live our lives being nice to others, our lives run more smoothly.

    If you're generous, yes, some people will use you. But if you practice being generous, most of your relationships will improve. And at the same time, we should remember to receive gratefully. I truly believe that you cannot say “thank you” enough.

    So often we get lazy about expressing gratitude. Parents can feel unappreciated by their children, and teachers can feel unappreciated by their students. Just because a task is part of someone's job description doesn't mean that you shouldn't thank them for it.

    Words of appreciation make others feel good about themselves like nothing else. It's good for us to say “thank you” because we often need to tell ourselves how lucky we are.

    If you are looking for a way to improve your life, I can give you one: Give generously and receive gratefully.

    On average, primary school children in England have at least three sugary snacks a day, Public Health England (PHE) found. This means that the sugar they consume is three times more than the recommended maximum.

    Children between the ages of 4 and 10 consume 51.2% of sugar from unhealthy snacks. PHE has launched a campaign, Change4Life, to encourage parents to look for healthier snacks of no more than 100 calories, and to limit them to two a day. The campaign advises parents to give their children a maximum of two snacks a day, with each containing no more than 100 calories. The campaign will also offer parents special suggestions on a range of healthier snacks—ones with 100 calories or fewer—at selected supermarkets, PHE said.

    PHE said it had also improved its app so that it could mark the content of sugar, salt and fat in food and drinks. Dr Alison Tedstone told the BBC she hoped the campaign would help parents to choose healthier snacks for their children. “If you wander through a supermarket, you can see much more goods being sold as snacks than ever before,” she said, “It's a common phenomenon that kids' lunchboxes are full of snacks, leading to a lot of calories for lunch. Our research shows that parents usually appreciate a rule of thumb (经验法则). However, they are surprised to know how much sugar their children are consuming in snacks now.”

    Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, said, “The intake (摄入量) of sugar that kids are getting from snacks and sugary drinks alone is pretty astonishing, and it can often be difficult to distinguish which snacks are healthy and which are not. The rule of thumb from Change4Life can help parents make their decision correctly and wisely. ”

    Many automobile makers present their newest designs at car shows around the world. Many designers seek to create the car of the future. One device that is popular among car manufacturers(生产商) is an autopilot. Autopilot permits a car to drive itself without human control.

    A recent car show in Geneva, Switzerland also presented other possible designs, including cars manufactured in 3-D printers.

    Rinspeed is a Swiss design company. It showed a vehicle based on the US electric car Tesla Model S, but the Rinspeed car includes a large television and an espresso coffee maker.

    Frank Rinderknecht is the CEO of Rinspeed. He says he does not want to just sit and watch the steering wheel(方向盘) turn as he rides in a car with autopilot.

    "I want to ride; I want to sleep, relax, watch movies, news, anything else. So that's the vision which we have. One day on the boring motorway traffic, you just do anything which makes your life better," said Rinderknecht.

    One of the most interesting ideas presented at the show is a car built on a 3-D printer. The German engineering firm EDAG designed the car. The body of the vehicle called "Genesis" is printed in one piece from a material called thermoplastic(热塑性塑料).

    Christoph Horvath is spokesman for EDAG.

    "To create a car without the use of any tool. This would be a real revolution for the industry," said Horvath.

    EDAG says it based its design on a turtle shell. The company says the design provides the right amount of strength and firmness.

    Other automakers did not look so far into the future. Czech automaker Skoda presented its "Vision C" model vehicle. The car has an environmentally friendly natural gas engine.

    Jo Davidson is a company spokeswoman. She says the car releases very low levels of the pollutant gas CO₂. Ms Davidson says the "Vision C" plans to be launched in two years.