According to Istanbul University’s study, social media use increases loneliness. In today’s technological world, we think that social media is a means to be more social. However, what if it makes us more lonely and leads to depression? In 1938, Harvard University examined the factors that distinguish happy and unhappy individuals. A total of 721 family members joined the study, which has been ongoing for 80 years. The tens of thousands of pages of analysis in the report detected that the main difference that distinguishes happy people from unhappy ones is strong relationships, revealing that happy individuals have better bonds…
Author: Loknath Das
Microsoft invited free software legend Richard Stallman to speak at its Microsoft Research headquarters this week. Stallman, known for launching the Free Software Movement to develop the GNU operating system, was and still is a staunch Microsoft critic. Microsoft’s ongoing embrace of open source has resulted in some fairly surprising moves for the company. A Microsoft-built Linux kernel in Windows 10? Check. Bringing SQL Server to Linux? Done. Open-sourcing big chunks of .NET? It happened. Nothing should be surprising to us Microsoft watchers on this front anymore. When I saw tweets showing what looked to be a photo of Stallman at Microsoft, my…
Camila Cabello doesn’t use social media to “protect her energy”. The ‘Never Be The Same’ hitmaker has revealed she stays off social media apps, only letting her mother screenshot and send the positive ones to her. Speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio show, she said: “I want it to be things I can relate to, things from the heart. I do it to protect my energy … I can’t do that if I care about what people think. I can’t do that if I’m trying to please.” Camila had previously confessed to fans that she doesn’t…
The woman was a student of BA (final-year) while the man was a Class 12 passout. (Representative image) Ayoung man and a woman shot themselves dead here, streaming their suicide live on social media, police said Thursday. The alleged suicide took place at Gujjran village, about four kilometres away from Dirba town of Sangrur district, on Wednesday night, police said. Their bodies were found in the fields, police said. The cause is not clear. Both were unmarried and their families denied of having information about any possible relationship between them, police said. The woman was a student of BA (final-year)…
Nearly one year after releasing the Forma e-reader, Kobo returns today with a new slab dubbed the Kobo Libra H2O. The $169 e-reader retains the skeleton of the Forma, but is actually a smaller device. It has a 7-inch, 1680×1264, 300ppi E Ink display, down from the Forma’s 8-inch display, but it has the same side-chin with page-turn buttons. Notably, Kobo moved the power button from the edge of the e-reader to the back of the device, and it’s now a slightly indented circle that’s easy to discern from the device’s slightly textured back. At 6.7oz, the Libra H2O is also a hair…
Social network users risk becoming more and more addicted to social media platforms even as they experience stress from their use. Social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram are known to cause stress in users, known as technostress from social media. However, when faced with such stress, instead of switching off or using them less, people are moving from one aspect of the social media platforms to another – escaping the causes of their stress without leaving the medium on which it originated. Research into the habits of 444 Facebook users revealed they would switch between activities such…
Close to 96 per cent of Nokia smartphones sold since since Q3 2018 are running on Android Pie. HMD Global has upgraded its entire portfolio of Nokia smartphones to Android Pie already and recently announced its roadmap for Android 10 update as well. The company’s efforts in delivering software and security updates quickly is why it is currently leading the global rankings in smartphone software update, according to the latest findings by Counterpoint Research. “Among the top 10 smartphone makers, nearly 96 per cent of Nokia smartphones, sold cumulatively since Q3 2018, are already running on Android Pie or have had…
To what extent are democratic elections vulnerable to social media manipulation? The fractured state of research and evidence on this most important question facing democracy is reflected in the range of disagreement among experts. Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly called on the U.S. government to regulate election manipulation through social media. But we cannot manage what we do not measure. Without an organized research agenda that informs policy, democracies will remain vulnerable to foreign and domestic attacks. Thankfully, social media’s effects are, in our view, eminently measurable. Here, we advocate a research agenda for measuring social media…
Cupertino-based tech giant Apple has released a new software update for its iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, MacBook and Apple TV users. The key highlight among all these updates is the iOS 12.4.1 for the iPhones, iPad and iPod touch. This operating system update fixes a vulnerability using which “a malicious application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges.” Apple says that “after free issue was addressed through improved memory management.” The WatchOS 5.3.1 includes “important security updates.” Apple has not published CVE entries for this update. For MacBook users, macOS Mojave 10.14.6 supplemental update has been rolled…
The hit video game World of Warcraft (WoW) is going back to basics with the launch of WoW Classic this evening. First released in 2004, the online multi-player game has evolved and changed dramatically over the years. Many players had asked developer Blizzard Entertainment to revive the original version of the game, known as “classic” or “vanilla” WoW. While not identical to the original, WoW Classic will replicate a majority of the features from the first game. World of Warcraft is a fantasy game in which players roam the virtual world, fighting monsters and completing quests. Blizzard said some players…