Abstaining From Social Media Doesn’t Improve Well-Being, Experimental Study Finds – This Week in Tech – 12/01/2019
Abstaining From Social Media Doesn’t Improve Well-Being, Experimental Study Finds
From digital detoxes to the recent Silicon Valley fad of “dopamine fasting”, it seems more fashionable than ever to attempt to abstain from consuming digital media. Underlying all of these trends is the assumption that using digital devices — and being on social media in particular — is somehow unhealthy, and that if we abstain, we might become happier, more fulfilled people…
TikTok Says It Doesn’t Censor Content, but a User Was Just Locked Out After a Viral Post Criticizing China
TikTok’s director of creator community brushed aside allegations of Chinese influence on the social media app Tuesday, as the app faces a U.S. national security investigation…
Solid State Battery Breakthrough Could Double the Density of Lithium-Ion Cells
Researchers at Australia’s Deakin University say they’ve managed to use common industrial polymers to create solid electrolytes, opening the door to double-density solid state lithium batteries that won’t explode or catch fire if they overheat…
China Due to Introduce Face Scans for Mobile Users
People in China are now required to have their faces scanned when registering new mobile phone services, as the authorities seek to verify the identities of the country’s hundreds of millions of internet users…
Samsung Says Its New Method for Making Self-Emissive QLED Diodes Extended Their Lifetime to a Million Hours, Opening the Way for Commercialisation
Samsung Electronics has developed a new method to extend the lifetime and efficiency of quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QLEDs) that may lead to their commercialisation, which has been published in the science journal Nature…
China Makes It a Criminal Offense to Publish Deepfakes or Fake News Without Disclosure
China has released a new government policy designed to prevent the spread of fake news and misleading videos created using artificial intelligence, otherwise known as deepfakes. The new rule, reported earlier today by Reuters, bans the publishing of false information or deepfakes online without proper disclosure that the post in question was created with AI or VR technology. Failure to disclose this is now a criminal offense, the Chinese government says…
Google Fires 4 Workers Active in Labor Organizing
SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Monday fired four employees who had been active in labor organizing at the company, according to a memo that was seen by The New York Times…