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Friday, April 17, 2026
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Facebook’s Suicide Prevention Tools Become Available Worldwide

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With yet another update to its platform, Facebook has now made its suicide prevention available worldwide. Previously, the tools that allow users to report posts from friends who could be at risk for self-harm or suicide were available only for a limited number of English-language users.

Other users could also flag suicide-related posts by only through a form; thanks to the update, the new resources that make the process less complicated and much quicker is available to all.

Facebook announced that its suicide prevention tools will be available to all users, in all languages supported by the social network.

According to Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, and researcher Jennifer Guadagno, the tools were “developed in collaboration with mental health organizations and with input from people who have personal experience with self-injury and suicide.”

Last year, Facebook made the tools available to a limited number of users in the United States with the help of Lifeline, Forefront, and Save.org. The tech giant said it plans to partner with more mental health organizations and suicide prevention in various countries.

As the update rolls out, users everywhere will be able to express their concern for a friend who might deal with self-harm or suicidal thoughts by flagging their posts from a drop-down menu.

Facebook offers several options, starting with a list of resources featuring numbers for suicide prevention organizations that can be shared anonymously. You can also choose to send a message of support (Facebook suggests wording).

According to the Help Center, you can also ask for Facebook’s global community operations team to review the post in question. If they find reason for concern, they may then “reach out to this person with information that might be helpful to them.”

However, if users believe their friends are at immediate risk of hurting themselves, Facebooks urges them to contact the police. While this can be a useful method of raising awareness of an important issue, Facebook’s suicide prevention tools could help users who want to take their own lives.

Several reports show the rates of suicide around the world are increasing, which means it has become a public health crisis in many countries. In the U.S. alone, suicide rates have reached a three-decade record, particularly among women aged 45 to 64.
Image Source: Paste Magazine

Samsung Pay Comes to Australian Users

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In the not so faraway future, wallets will become useless. In fact, if Samsung’s plan succeeds, you won’t need anything else when you leave the house but its Galaxy smartphone.

The famous Korean company has just launched Samsung Pay in Australia, bringing the contactless mobile payment platform Down Under by partnering with American Express and Citibank.

It means that starting today, Australians who own an Amex- or Citibank-issued card will be able to tap and pay at contactless terminals with their Samsung smartphone. However, the company mentioned the mobile payment method does not apply to Amex/Citibank branded cards from other banks.

After the US, Korea, China, and Spain, Australia has become the fifth major market where Samsung Pay has been launched. Any smartphone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow and above is compatible with the payment technology.

A simple swipe to pay interface makes Samsung Pay as easy as using a card, if not easier. But more than being simple to use, the tech is also very secure.

First, swipe up from the home screen to open payments; choose your card; hold your finger on the home button to verify fingerprint; and tap smartphone to a contactless terminal. The company assured its users that card details aren’t shared with retailers and other merchants.

Samsung is not the first to offer contactless payments in Australia; Apple Pay stole the show by launching alongside American Express in October 2015. By April, ANZ was brought into the fold in April, as well as several Australian banks, such as Commonwealth Bank.

But even though it might be a little late to the game, Samsung is more than eager to offer better deals. For example, it promised merchants and financial institutions that the company won’t take a “clip” of interchange fees (like Apple does).

The long-term goal of bringing Samsung Pay to more countries is that of getting more Samsung devices in the hands of more shoppers and smartphone users. As Elle Kim said, the global Vice President of Samsung Pay, “Everyone is so used to tapping and paying with their cards, we have to do more with their phones.”

Therefore, Samsung wants its payment platform to work anywhere. And while the Korean company is keen to work with banks, there might be some financial partners involved in the future.
Image Source: Let’s Talk Payments

You Must Install Facebook’s Moments App to Keep Backed-up Photos

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alt= Facebook moments app

Facebook is forcing yet another app down its users’ throats. Remember when Messenger became a standalone app? Soon, you won’t be able to check your Facebook messages outside the dedicated platform.

Such is the case of the company’s photo-sharing app, Moments; according to a recent report, all images synced from the main Facebook app will be automatically deleted by July 7, unless people save them or install the Moments app.

The photo-sharing app was launched in June 2015, but before that, the syncing feature was integrated into the world’s largest social network. Many smartphone owners use the back-up option, as Facebook promised mobile users they would get unlimited automatic image uploads to a private Facebook photo album.

It was a simple way for people to be assured their photos were backed up – much like other services, including Apple’s iCloud Photos, Google’s Photos, or Yahoo’s Flickr.

But a new official announcement revealed that in early July, Facebook will remove all photos that are not from the synced album. The period between now and the deadline was offered for users to be able to download the photos they want to keep.

The social network had already stopped supporting automatic photo syncing from its main app back in January, which then required users to download the Moments app if they wanted to continue uploading their snapped photos. Now, the Moments app is required to sync photos.

Facebook explained that the privately-synced images were moved to Moments in January and if people do not want to install Moments, they should download the images from their Facebook profile before the deadline.

As we explained previously, this move is not completely foreign to Facebook’s practices. The private messaging option that used to be included in the main app was recently split and turned into a standalone platform.

Users were required to install it if they wanted to keep on chatting, which led to the Messenger app boasting more than 900 million users. The broader purpose of these new apps is to create a gargantuan platform and attract new Facebook users.

Since the announcement, Moments has started skyrocketing on app charts, becoming the third most popular free iOS app in the United States.
Image Source: Phandroid

Electronic Arts Wants to Support Indie Game Developers

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Electronic Arts revealed its new EA Originals initiative at this year’s E3, which seeks to offer support to independent game developers for their various projects.

It is noteworthy that in last year’s E3 event, one of the main attractions at the EA press conference was Unravel, a game showcasing spectacular visuals by Coldwood Interactive, which was assisted by EA in bringing it to consoles.

After the E3 in 2015, Unravel got released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, showing that the partnership is able to follow through with the promise of getting the game out to the gaming community.

EA Originals is a follow-up on the partnership with Coldwood over Unravel, and it wants to support even more indie game developers. On the stage at E3, VP Patrick Söderlund, one of the EA Studios executives, talked about the three pillars that support the EA Originals initiative.

The first is the goal of bringing and unique gaming experiences to the masses while the second is offering small developers the necessary support to develop their projects, market and eventually publish them.

Furthermore, the third pillar is all about providing indie game developers with financial security by allowing them to keep all the profits generated by the game they created. Needless to say, this is an incredibly valuable thing for small studios that are just launching their brand in the industry.

Following Söderlund on the E3 stage was Klaus Lyngeled of Sweden-based Zoink! Games. His presentation revolved around Fe, the first game created and published under the EA Originals initiative.

Fe allows players to explore a dark forest while they control a small creature that looks like a fox. The game begins by showing the creature waking up alone in the forest, and it is up to the player to help it survive in the unknown universe.

The presentation of the Zoink! developer revealed that Fe shares a narrative about the relationship with nature. The players will encounter other creatures and animals, each with a unique song; learning the songs will enable the access to more parts of the world.

In advance of E3, Electronic Arts revealed the list of all the games that will become available in small events in Los Angeles and London dubbed as EA Play.
Image Source: Quarter Disorder

Business Users of Uber Will Be Able to Schedule Rides

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Uber is maintaining its status among the ride-hailing companies by constantly bringing new features passengers and drivers can use to make their relationship more comfortable.

So, Uber will now allow riders to schedule their rides – provided they’re not more than 30 days in advance.

The first people to get access to the new service are business travelers located in the Seattle area; the scheduling option became available at 11 a.m. on Thursday. Quick expansion to more cities is something Uber has already promised.

Tom Fallows, Uber’s head of global experiences, said the new option hopes to attract meticulous planners with busy calendars to their side, as well as riders who “want an extra degree of assurance Uber will be there when they head out.”

No-one wants to miss an early morning flight because there’s no ride to take them to the airport.  “They sleep better knowing their Uber ride is arranged,” Fallows said.

App users with a business profile will be able to schedule a trip by simply choosing a route, and set a date and time. According to the announcement, scheduled rides will not be pricier than the normal Uber ride; however, they are similarly subject to surge pricing.

“If you’re requesting the ride at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning and it’s super high demand, surge may apply just like it normally would,” Fallows explained. “We send riders a push notification on the way, notifying them if there’s any surge.”

The scheduled rides can be modified up until the driver has been dispatched; when users receive the push notification about the driver already being en route, they will still be able to cancel without penalty within 5 minutes.

Fallows added that the option to schedule rides will initially be available only on UberX, but the taxi-on-demand company wants to expand it to other Uber lines soon, such as black cars.

Seattle was chosen for the first launch because the city has a lot of business travelers. Even though scheduling is a simple concept, Fallows explained it needed heavy planning so the dispatching system would work efficiently.

Uber’s engineers are expecting to receive feedback for the Seattle rollout of the new feature.
Image Source: Forbes

Norway Is the First Country To Commit to Zero Deforestation

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Sometimes it seems that only the bad news makes headlines, so here’s a piece of good news: On May 26, the Norwegian government pledged to zero deforestation on its territory.

The Scandinavian nation committed to no longer using and acquiring products that encourage the loss of forestry. The laudable decision was included in the recommendation of Action Plan on Nature Diversity by Norway’s Standing Committee on Energy and Environment.

According to the committee, the government should consider supporting biodiversity protection with the funds offered by the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG). They also asked for the creation of a separate biodiversity policy.

As a global sovereign wealth fund, GPFG is mainly focused on climate change policies with deforestation. However, the fund has yet to establish a specific policy for biodiversity protection.

The country’s pledge is a win for Rainforest Foundation Norway, which has been lobbying for this kind of commitment for several years.

Nils Hermann Ranum, the leader of the Rainforest Foundation Norway policy and campaign, said that “Over the last few years, a number of companies have committed to cease the procurement of goods that can be linked to the destruction of the rainforest.”

Thus, it is encouraging that the Norwegian state has also decided to follow suit and set up new demands regarding public procurements. After this victory, Ranum hopes that other countries, such as Germany and the UK, will decide to commit to zero deforestation.

It would be the next logical step, seeing that all of them have already entered in September 2014 into a joint declaration at the UN Climate Summit in New York. Zero deforestation is something the European countries had promised to support on a national level.

Similarly, they also committed to coming up with solid policies in terms of sustainable procurement of beef, soy, timber, and palm oil.

According to a previous study, about 40 percent of total tropical deforestation from 2000 to 2011 was due to palm oil, wood, soy and beef products from only seven countries.

In these countries — Argentina, Malaysia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and Indonesia — the deforestation rates are the worst globally; they also rank at 44 percent as sources of carbon emissions.

Norway’s pledge has made history: It’s the first country to make it, hoping that other countries will see the benefits to our planet and do the same.
Image Source: Flickr

Ephemeral Tweet-like Posts are Coming to Facebook News Feed

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alt= Facebook vs Twitter

Facebook and Twitter are constantly locked in a fascinating dance, a competition of sorts that makes them push closer and then farther away from the each other with each move they make.

Today, Facebook’s new test is bringing the social network a tiny bit closer to Twitter as it announced a new posting option; it will allow users to create News Feed posts that are strikingly similar to tweets.

The test, first reported by CNET, introduces a new option: making Facebook posts that are visible only in the News Feed, instead of being permanently engraved into your Timeline.

It’s a dip into Snapchat’s ephemeral business because the update will be somewhat ephemeral, pushed down as other updates appear. They won’t be completely gone, as users can find them through search or with a link.

But the feeling of a mostly disappearing update is definitely new according to Facebook standards. It borrows something of a tweet’s nature and less of a typical Facebook post, which is usually recorded permanently on your Timeline to be viewed for years.

Given that their friends won’t view them for long, users are bound to be more comfortable to post more – even if just quick or lighthearted – things that aren’t necessarily important, but they’d nonetheless prefer to share in the online.

The News Feed-only posts aren’t enabled by default; a post-by-post basis will be necessary, which will appear in the form of the “Hide from your Timeline” option beside the posting button.

According to Engadget, Facebook has found out that people are interested in being able to post more ephemeral messages, so the new feature is designed to “make it even easier to control where your posts live.”

For now, the tweet-like Facebook posts are still in testing, so only a select number of users are seeing it. Even if does roll out universally, it’s hard to imagine this new feature making a massive change in how people use Facebook.

What the company hopes to happen is users feeling encouraged to post more, even though it’s in ways they aren’t typically comfortable with. This test is part of Facebook’s effort to combat a decline in sharing across its site, hoping to address the problem.
Image Source: Sprout Social

An AI Kill Switch Is Needed to Stop Robots from Taking Over

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What is today an old sci-fi fear of technology taking control over humanity, could very well become reality one day – or at least a real threat. That’s why scientists today have started thinking ahead and developing a kill switch for artificial intelligence (AI).

Two researchers, Stuart Armstrong, from the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, and Laurent Orseau, from Google DeepMind, have already published a paper on why and how future AI machines could be prohibited from learning to override human input.

With their solution, humans will forever remain in charge of machines. “It is sane to be concerned – but, currently, the state of our knowledge doesn’t require us to be worried,” said Dr. Orseau.

However, he also agrees that it’s smart to start working on AI safety before any kind of problem arises. AI safety is concerned with making sure the algorithms providing the machines with learning power work the way they are supposed to.

The research of Orseau and Armstrong focuses on how scientists can be sure AI machines can be interrupted by the humans in their charge – at any time, without the machines themselves learning the code for the kills switch. This way, they cannot overcome or prevent human intervention.

“Now and then it may be necessary for a human operator to press the big red button to prevent the agent from continuing a harmful sequence of actions,” they wrote in their paper, called “Safely Interruptible Agents.”

The challenge is to find a way to disable the AI machine without the learning agent learning how to disable the red button, for example.

It’s important to be prepared, the authors explained, since it’s unlike for AIs to behave “optimally” at all times. Thus, the machines we create should not “be able to disregard human attempts to stop or interrupt its functioning.”

For example, an AI created in 2013 was taught to play Tetris, but in order to avoid losing a game, the machine had learned to pause the game indefinitely.

Other scientists also agree to the importance of a kill switch, such as University of Sheffield AI expert Noel Sharkey. He also told the BBC that the ideal situation would be if the AI program could stop itself when it detects that something is wrong.
Image Source: Flickr

Snapchat Redesigns Discover and Live Stories Sections

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alt=Snapchat Discover channels

Old design (on the left) vs new design (on the right)

Snapchat has the best of all worlds – including social networks, magazines, and television – all in one need and redesigned package.

The omni-entertainment app wants to highlight the Discover channels and the Live stories included on the Stories page, so it released an update. Many users ignore this section of Snapchat, but thanks to the new features, more eyes will check out the content and help increase publisher’s traffic.

If you have the latest version of Snapchat, you will see headline and image previews of the content where the Discover and Live sections were, instead of just the publishers’ logos or the events they capture.

Swiping right to the Discover page now shows a Pinterest-style grid of tiles, while the Stories page has turned into one scrollable row of content from non-friends.

Also, you no longer have to search for your favorite Discover channels through the whole list; if you tap-and-hold, you can subscribe to them so they move over to Recent Stories. You will always see their new stories next to other accounts you’ve added unless you want to unsubscribe later.

The update represents a new call to action to publishers to invest in their Discover channels and marketing. Snapchat’s goal is to make community-curated and professionally-made content just as appealing to users as what their friends share on the app.

Compared to the Stories you see from friends – who are fascinating because of their flaws and imperfectness – Discover channels seemed rather locked in and overly polished. Before the dynamic previews, the buttons for different publishers looked the same each day and weren’t very attractive.

The changes to the Discover page were previously reported by VentureBeat and Recode. Now, publishers should be more interested in building their Snapchat channels, because the business has just turned more lucrative.

Even though fixed channel buttons might have reduced production costs and rent space in Snapchat, eye-catching peeks are worth the while. They nudge users to look at what’s inside, making them more willing to watch the combination of text articles, videos, images, and ads.

Since the ad revenue is split between Snapchat and publishers inside the Discover section, the company stands to earn money from driving them more viewership.
Image Source: Design Trend

Data About Objects Falling into Black Holes Could Be Preserved

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alt= black hole evaporates

We live in an orderly universe, governed by laws such as causal determinism; the cause always precedes the effect and not the other way around.

If all the forces acting on an agglomeration of atoms are known, we should be able – in theory – to not only predict how the entity would behave in the future but also all its past states.

According to the laws of quantum physics, everything in the universe is encoded with data about the state of its constituent particles’ quantum. And if this information never disappears, then causal determinism can remain inviolable.

But trust black holes to muck things up a bit. Dubbed the “vacuum cleaners” of the universe, these space objects are bodies that have such strong space-time warping capabilities that nothing – not even light – can escape once it goes over the “event horizon,” or the edge of the black hole.

When they “evaporate,” black holes cause the complete loss of the data it chewed. This unnatural puzzle – also known as the information paradox – has become one of the many mysteries of the universe.

Five months ago, Stephen Hawking, the famous British cosmologist, offered a solution to the paradox, and his paper on the matter has now been published in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters.

Titled “Soft Hair on Black Holes,” Hawking’s paper challenges previous theories that black holes have no “hair.” His colleagues, Malcolm Perry of Cambridge University in the U.K. and Andrew Strominger of Harvard University, co-authored the study.

In this case, the ‘hairs’ refers to “low-energy quantum excitations” that stores information about everything that has been gobbled up. Hawking believes that charged particles passing the event horizon could, in fact, leave traces in space-time in the form of “soft gravitons” and “soft photons,” which have no energy.

As they change the vacuum of space-time, these peculiar particles allow it to preserve data about the state of the original particles. This data is then released in the form of “Hawking radiation,” which was initially believed to be a random jumble with no useful information about the objects that fell into the black hole.

Event though the new research piece does not entirely explain the black hole information paradox, it is definitely a significant step in the right direction.
Image Source: Phys.org

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