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Meta and YouTube found liable in landmark social media addiction trial A Los Angeles jury has handed down an unprecedented win for a young woman who sued Meta and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media. Jurors found that Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, owner of YouTube, intentionally built addictive social media platforms that harmed the 20-year old's mental health. The woman, known as Kaley, was awarded $6m (£4.5m) in damages , a result likely to have implications for hundreds of similar cases now winding their way through US courts. Meta and Google said separately that they disagreed with the verdict and would both appeal . Meta said: "Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online." A spokesperson for Google said: "This case misunde...

Image created by Chat GPT Australia plans social media ban for under-16s Australia's government says it will introduce " world-leading " legislation to ban children under 16 from social media. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the proposed laws, to be tabled in parliament next week, were aimed at mitigating the " harm " social media was inflicting on Australian children. "This one is for the mums and dads... They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online. I want Australian families to know that the government has your back ," he said. While many of the details are yet to be debated, the government said the ban would apply to young people already on social media. There will be no exemptions on the age limit for children who have consent from their parents. The government says that the onus would be on social media platforms to show they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access. Albanese said there would be no p...

Source: Pexels ( Liliana Drew) Spain hopes domestic tasks app will ensure men * pull their weight Free app designed to shed light on ‘mental load ’ overwhelmingly carried by women * when it comes to chores The Spanish government is hoping to encourage men to do more at home by developing a free app that will log how much time each household or family member spends on domestic chores. Announcing the measure in Geneva earlier this week, Spain’s secretary of state for equality, Ángela Rodríguez, said the aim was to shed light on the invisible “mental load” overwhelmingly carried by women when it comes to domestic tasks. Rodríguez told the UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women: “We’ll soon be unveiling an app that will allow people to log the household chores that different members of the family perform so we can see how many hours of work we each spend on housework and thus reorder the time we spend doing that housework.” She said the new app, whos...

Source:  Ivan Bandura on Unsplash Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri fuel stereotype that women are "subservient" - UN report  The report notes that the inability for female-voiced assistants to respond to insults can highlight female "powerlessness". Artificial intelligence voice assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, are perpetuating and spreading gender stereotypes, says a new UN report. Titled "I'd blush if I could", the report from UNESCO says the almost exclusive market of female voice assistants fuels stereotypes that women are "obliging, docile and eager-to-please helpers". And with assistants responding to requests no matter the manner in which they are asked, this also reinforces the idea in some communities that women are "subservient and tolerant of poor treatment". Canalys, a technology research company, has estimated that 100 million "smart speakers", which are use...

Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge . Spamming is widely reviled , and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions. The people that create electronic spam are called spammers. E-mail spam E-mail spam, also known as unsolicited bulk email (UBE) or unsolicited commercial email (UCE), is the practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, frequently with commercial content, in large quantities to an indiscrimina...

Source: Wikipedia (AngryJulieMonday)   Gangnam Style is no longer the most-played video on YouTube  Psy's Gangnam Style is no longer the most-watched video on YouTube. The South Korean megahit had been the site's most-played clip for the last five years . The surreal video became so popular that it "broke" YouTube's play counter, exceeding the maximum possible number of views (2,147,483,647), and forcing the company to rewrite its code. But the song has now been overtaken by another music video - Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's See You Again . The heart-wrenching ballad has now been streamed 2,895,373,709 times; beating   Psy's current count of 2,894,426,475 views. Adding it up , that means See You Again has been streamed for a total of 21,759 years. If one person was to listen to each of those streams consecutively, they'd have to have started during the glacial peak of the last Ice Age. The song was written for the action mo...

Source: Wikipedia (Alex Butterfield )  Dubai announces passenger drone plans A drone that can carry people will begin "regular operations" in Dubai from July, the head of the city's Roads and Transportation Agency has announced at the World Government Summit. The Chinese model eHang 184 has already had test flights, said Matt al-Tayer. The drone can carry one passenger weighing up to 100 kg (220 pounds) and has a 30 minute flight time. The passenger uses a touch screen to select a destination. There are no other controls inside the craft. It is "auto-piloted" by a command centre, according to a video released by the government agency. It has reported speeds of up to 100 miles per hour (160 kilometres per hour) and can fly 31 miles (50km) on a single battery charge . "This is not only a model," Mr al-Tayer, according to a report by the Associated Press. "We have actually experimented with this vehicle flying in Dubai's skies....

Source:  Floren Camañag on Unsplash   Gangnam Style becomes YouTube's most-viewed video Gangnam Style, the dance track by South Korean pop phenomenon Psy, has become You Tube's most-watched video of all time . It has notched up more than 808m views since it was posted in July. The video pokes fun at the consumerism of Gangnam, an affluent suburb of the South Korean capital Seoul. In it, the portly Psy dances as though he is trotting on a horse, holding the reins and spinning a lasso in a manner that has sparked a global dance craze.  The video also features the 34-year-old singer reclining on a sun lounger in tight pink shorts, gazing longingly at a girl dancing on an underground train in tight shorts and gesticulating at a woman working out on a beach - in tight shorts.  The dance has sparked numerous copycat versions, being performed by a diverse fan-base including Filipino prison inmates , prominent Chinese artist Ai Weiwei , UN Secretary-General Ba...

Stamp collectors beware - postage is about to be a thing of the past! That is if Sweden and Denmark get their way . “It'll work by sending you a code to write on your letter .. stick the letter, card or parcel -- up to 50g -- in an envelope, as normal, then text-message the word 'porto' to the number 1900, and in return receive a unique code that you write where you would previously have stuck a stamp. Then pop it in a postbox as normal.” CNET UK The charges then appear on your regular cell phone bill. Denmark’s system will launch on April 1 and Sweden’s later in the year. The two countries tell Sweden’s The Local they’re confident ... “...people will continue to send letters, despite the rise in other forms of communication, and paying postage by mobile phone is seen as a way of making the process easier.” Ars Technica reports it’s easier and just as safe, and quotes Sweden’s postmaster defending the idea, even in the age of digital deception. “... ...

Source: You Tube (Mark Johnson)   Key Words: BBC hologram UK airports Vocabulary : to place them in the tray provided to work something out an audible gasp to unveil first of all to deal with a laptop a gimmick remarkable to enhance compellingly to wheel out no matter how successful After looking up the words above, listen to the report and answer the following questions: What all do you have to do before going through the security check? Why are the two newest members of staff called Holly and Graham? What was the reaction of the audience when they saw them for the first time? Why? Who does the reporter speak to? What are Holly and Graham doing at the airport? When are they going to start work? In what way will they make the passenger experience better? How will Holly and Graham be used in the future? How many people work in security at Luton airport? What won't they be doing in the future? Spotlight on vocabulary : A gimmick is something, which is...

Source: newsy.com   “Now, it’s two-one and then just a minute later, England ties it — oh, no they don’t — shades of Geoff Hurst, except its flipped on its end. Frank Lampard, that’s not a goal. This is what we’ll be talking about. That is a goal Bob. We can see it. Everybody in the stadium can see it. Everyone around the world could see it.” Instead of tying the game between England and Germany at two, that goal was called a non-goal: One of many blown calls in the World Cup. The multitude of mistakes has many now calling for FIFA to change its policy on instant replay. We’re analyzing coverage of the clamor for instant replay from ESPN, The New York Times, CBS Sports, and Football365. Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, has long said, the sport can live without instant replay. FIFA did dabble with the idea in 2008, but quickly scrapped it. CBC reported that, at the time , Blatter said this: "We have 260 million people directly involved in the game. Other sp...

Source: Tamas Tuzes-Katai on Unsplash They made me do it! Pedestrian sues Google after she's knocked over as she walks along a busy highway  A woman is suing Google, the search engine, claiming its maps function gave her walking directions that led her on to a major * highway , where she was hit by a car. The lawsuit seeks more than $100,000 (£70,000) in damages . Lauren Rosenberg used Google Maps on January 19, 2009, via her Blackberry, to get directions between 96 Daly Street, Park City, Utah, and 1710 Prospector Avenue, Park City, Utah. Google provided these, telling her as part of the route to walk for about half a mile along the calm- sounding Deer Valley Drive. But Deer Valley Drive is a section of Utah State Route 224, a busy rural highway without * pavements . One stretch is blocked by a noise barrier that pushes pedestrians closer to the roadside. And Rosenberg wasn’t warned about this, putting Google directly at fault in the accident, the case claims. ...

Source:  Luis Villasmil en Unsplash Don't bother to learn foreign languages: Google to launch smartphones that will translate for you in real time   It could be the end of learning a foreign language. Internet giant Google is developing software which it claims  will be able to translate conversations almost instantaneously.  Like a real-life Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the firm says it would enable people to communicate without understanding a word of one another's mother tongue .  Based on Google's existing software for automatically converting websites and documents into a different language, it would use a voice recognition system to translate real-time speech.  While it sounds like the stuff of science fiction, the multinational says the technology could be available on phones within a couple of years.  However sceptics are likely   to point out   that text automatically translated by Google is currently litt...

Hacker pokes fun at  Spanish PM Visitors to Spain's EU presidency website have been greeted by an image of hapless fictional character Mr Bean instead of Spain's Socialist leader. An unidentified hacker briefly hijacked the site on Monday, replacing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero with that of a bumbling comedy buffoon . In Spain, the similarity between Mr Zapatero and the Mr Bean actor Rowan Atkinson, is a long-standing joke. The government said the site itself, www.eu2010.es, had not been attacked. In a statement , it said that a hacker had taken a screenshot of the homepage to make a photo montage. "The alleged attack exploited a vulnerability called cross-site scripting," it said. For most visitors, this meant that a smiling Mr Bean replaced Mr Zapatero, complete with a benign smile and the words "Hi there". In a recent edition of El Pais, Mr Zapatero was depicted as Mr Bean in a cartoon above an article that was h...

Source: David Monniaux - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,  Spain's barefoot nuns put faith in YouTube to find new convent recruits For the 11 remaining "Barefoot Carmelite" nuns at the San Jose convent in Ecija, near the southern Spanish city of Seville, the future looked grim . No young novices had joined the convent for three years and, as is happening in convents all over Spain, their numbers were dwindling so fast as the elder ones died that it looked as though it may have to close after almost 400 years. Now the nuns have found salvation by breaking out of their cloistered world with the help of internet video site You Tube . The convent's mother superior, Mother Isabel, was persuaded by friends that the best way to recruit new nuns would be to put up a video on YouTube to show how life was lived inside Ecija's 14th-century Mudéjar palace-turned-convent. Thousands of YouTube visits later, not only has the phone been ringing almost continuously, but the first...

Two million e-mails are sent every minute in the UK. That is almost three billion each day. But what is the real cost of this information overload ? We can spend up to  half our working day going through our inbox, leaving us tired, frustrated and unproductive. A recent study found one-third of office workers suffer from e-mail stress. And it is expensive, too. One FTSE firm estimated that dealing with   pointless e-mails cost it £39m a year. Now firms are being forced to help staff deal with the daily avalanche in their inboxes. Some hire  e-mail consultants, while others are experimenting with e-mail free days. Ray Tomlinson is not a household name , but perhaps he should be. Ray was responsible for the e-mail revolution. In 1971, he developed the code that enabled him to send an e-mail between two computers for the first time. He says: "I do feel proud of this accomplishment. In some sense it was such a simple thing to do at the time, but it has had ra...