Social media has transformed the way we debate politics. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, often uses Twitter to announce new policies, attack an opponent or even re-tweet what many consider to be misleading information. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been criticised for allowing political hate speech and misinformation to flourish on their platforms. Now, with just a year to go before the US presidential election, Twitter is banning all political advertising around the world from next month. While some Democratic candidates welcomed the move, Trump’s campaign manager called it “a very dumb decision” intended to silence conservatives. So, will the…
Author: Loknath Das
Srinagar: Students studying in higher education institutions — all colleges and universities— in Valley will have their exams from November amidst the tense situation. Albeit, the students have not attended classes for more than two months. The official said the University of Kashmir, the largest seat of learning in the Valley, had already announced the dates for the postgraduate courses, semester I and IV, which is starting from November. “We held some classes before August 5 and after that students were provided with the study material to prepare for the exams”, Secretary of the Higher Education Department Talat Parvez said.…
As 2020 frontrunner Elizabeth Warren joins 32,500 Chicago teachers striking for better working conditions today, questions are arising about the details of her plan to raise teacher salaries. As a teacher who has spent my career fighting Washington’s corporate standardized testing and teacher evaluation agenda, I am over-the-moon to see Warren become the last Democratic presidential candidate to release a K-12 education plan. However, in this brief analysis of the education plans from all 19 Democratic presidential candidates, it is notable that Warren’s position on raising teacher salaries lacks the clarity offered by other top-tier candidates, Senators Bernie Sanders and…
Teenagers using social media for more than three hours a day are more likely to go to bed after 23:00 and wake during the night, UK research suggests. This affects one in three teens – with one in five spending five hours or more on apps like Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook every day, the study said. The University of Glasgow researchers said 13 to 15 year-olds may be delaying bedtime by being on their phones. Psychiatrists say screens should be avoided in the hour before bed. Body-clock changes But the study, of 12,000 teenagers, recognised that getting them off their…
Video game stocks, like Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI) and Take Two Interactive Software Inc. (TTWO), have risen spectacularly over the past five years, but have taken a big hit over the past year and have lagged the rest of the market. That underperformance is about to change, however. The release of enhanced new gaming consoles over the next few years will fuel increased demand for video games and help to revive the lagging stocks of their makers, according to Barron’s. What It Means for Investors Sony Corp. (SNE) recently announced the launch of its newest console, the…
WASHINGTON : As part of its goal to become a $5 trillion economy by 2024, India plans to spend $1.4 trillion on its infrastructure in the next five years, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. Addressing the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) here, Sitharaman said a task force has been constituted in the finance ministry that will draw up a national infrastructure pipeline for the next five years. “As we envisage becoming a five trillion-dollar economy by 2024-25, our focus on creating world-class infrastructure has become even more resolute. If we spent $1.1 trillion on infrastructure in the last 10…
Apple is officially warning users of really old iOS devices to update to the latest available software or upgrade devices totally; as on November 3, these devices may begin to malfunction in regards to GPS location, time, and date. Now luckily enough for most of us, this won’t be an issue, as this warning is for people who are still using devices like the iPhone 5 or earlier, and for users of the iPad 4th Gen or earlier. In order to avoid the forthcoming bug, those iPhone 5 and iPad 4th Gen users need to update to at least iOS…
Overwatch has finally made its way to the Nintendo Switch, fulfilling the endless requests from me that Blizzard port its popular team shooter to Nintendo’s portable console. It’s not the first mainstream shooter to make the jump to the Switch: Bethesda has ported Doom and a few Wolfenstein games, and of course there’s Nintendo’s own Splatoon series and the ubiquitous Fortnite. But as an exclusively online, multiplayer-based competitive team shooter, Overwatch might be the least likely fit for the Switch, at least on paper. I’ve spent the last day or two playing the Switch port, and at first glance, that impression is correct. As a way to play Overwatch seriously, the Switch…
“Digital Interrupts” – Just like in an operating system, the biggest cost to outcomes, the flow of work and creativity of software professional is the context switch time at every task switch. Software professionals spend most of the day either looking at a screen or in close proximity of one, be it mobile phones in our pockets or at our bedside. While tools and technology aid to speed up, outsource and enable our minds – they also distract and constantly break our flow. Additionally, each of these interruptions is sometimes sought by us unconsciously. This is because the desire to…
Google has removed a pro-Hong Kong protestor game called The Revolution of Our Times from the Play Store, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. It marks the latest Hong Kong-related app to be pulled after Apple removed a crowdsourced mapping app used by protestors and Quartz’s news app. While the game has been removed, a cached version of the Play Store page is still available on Google search (at least for now). As an actual game, there doesn’t seem to be too much here beyond a basic text-based Choose Your Own Adventure-style narrative that tells the story of a protestor. In a statement released to The Wall Street…