Facebook testing 'downvote' button.

Facebook is testing a new "downvote" button that will let people hide comments and provide feedback about them.

However, the social network denied that the new feature was a "dislike" button, which many Facebook users have requested.

The downvote button is being tried out by a small number of US users.

The company also announced a number of other measures aimed at improving the Facebook community.

The social network confirmed the test to news site Tech Crunch.

"We are exploring a feature for people to give us feedback about comments on public page posts. This is running for a small set of people in the US only," the company said in a statement.

Other social sites such as Reddit have a "downvote" option that reduces the visibility of unpopular posts.

When Facebook's downvote button is clicked, the selected comment is hidden. People can then decide whether to flag a post as "offensive", "misleading" or "off-topic".

However, it does not affect the visibility of the post for other people and does not affect its ranking in the news feed.

Responsibility

Martin Garner, tech analyst at CCS Insight, said the button appeared to be part of Facebook's continued resistance to labelling itself a publisher.

"It has become very clear that Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want Facebook to have the responsibility of identifying what is offensive or misleading - and what is not - because that would put him into the position of being a publisher rather than a platform," he said.

"He doesn't want to do that as it takes the business in a different direction - so he is leaning on the community to do it.

"It is an open question as to whether that's the right answer or not but that's where this fits in."

On Friday, the company also announced it would double the number of engineers it employs in London to develop solutions to the problems Facebook faces.

It declined to share how many additional engineers it was hiring, but said the move was an investment to "remove bad content from the platform".

"Whether it's scamming, bullying, harassment or false news, they will work with experts to understand the issue, identify the pattern and build a solution," said Facebook's Chris Cox.

Cash for causes

It also announced a $10million (£7m) fund that it will give away to community groups in a bid to tackle political "polarisation".

"Non-political communities such as churches, sports groups, parenting groups, dog walkers - these are the natural antidote to polarisation," said Mr Cox.

"One of the best things we can do is help people meet others who aren't like them. Groups are most effective when they bring people together offline. They're a chance for people to bond over something they do share."

Facebook Groups will be able to apply for a slice of the fund. Five community leaders will be given $1m (or about £715,000 in the UK) to further their causes.

Up to 100 additional groups will receive up to $50,000 (or £35,000 in the UK).

"We're looking for big impact ideas that bring people together," said Mr Cox.

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Telegram kicked out from Apple's app store.

Apple removed messaging app Telegram from its app store because some users were sharing images of child abuse.

The explanation was revealed in an email from Phil Schiller, manager of the App Store, which was published by Apple news site 9to5Mac.

READ MORE...

Bitcoin falls below $6,000

The value of Bitcoin has fallen to below $6,000 - its lowest price since November 2017.

The price fell to $5,947.40 (£4,256.44) on Tuesday, according to a price index run by news website Coindesk.

READ MORE...

FAKE PORN DELETED FROM THE INTERNET

Fake porn videos deleted from internet.

By Leo KelionTechnology desk editorPornographic videos that used new software to replace the original face of an actress with that of a celebrity are being deleted by a service that hosted much of the content.San Francisco-based Gfycat has said it thinks the clips are "objectionable".read more ...

APPLE, AMAZON AND ALPHABET JOINING THE RACE OF TRILLION DOLLARS

Apple, Amazon, Alphabet: The race to a trillion dollars.

Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter

When it comes to predictions for 2018, most financial analysts agree on one thing: one tech firm is likely to become America’s first ever trillion dollar company.

The question is: which one will it be?

READ MORE...

Facebook bans all crypto-currency ads

Facebook has said it will block any advertising promoting crypto-currency products and services.

The company said it was open to...read more...

Nintendo Switch overtakes the Wii U

The Nintendo Switch games console has outsold its predecessor, just 10 months after its launch.

Nintendo sold 7.23 million Swit...read more...

Global register lists alien species

The first global register of alien species shows that a fifth of 6,400 plants and animals catalogued are causing harm.

Read more...

Apple's iPhone battery 'slowdown' to be optional

A software update will let iPhone owners switch off the "battery saver" feature that slows down some models, Apple has confirmed.

Read more...

NETFLIX from bottom to top

Netflix's history: From DVD rentals to streaming success.

Netflix has reported a surge of subscribers to 117m in 2017, which it's put down to interest in its original content.

The company has come a long way since its start as an online DVD rental company in 1998.

read more...

Big SpaceX rocket lights 27 engines

Falcon Heavy: Big SpaceX rocket lights 27 engines

By Jonathan AmosBBC Science Correspondent

America's SpaceX company has conducted a key test ahead of the maiden flight of its new rocket - the Falcon Heavy.

In what...read more...

Can staying awake defeat depression.

Making people stay awake for hours in a hospital may seem an odd way to battle depression – but for some people it is proving a promising therapy. Linda Geddes reports.

• By Linda Geddes
 
• From Mosaic

• The first sign that something is happening is Angelina’s hands. As she chats to the nurse in Italian, she begins to gesticulate, jabbing, moulding and circling the...read more...

LG DISPLAYS LARGE ROLL-ABLE TV

CES 2018: LG Display shows off large rollable TV screen.

LG Display has created the world's first large, rollable, ultra-high definition screen. Read more...

ELON MUSK PRESENTS LA TUNNEL PLAN

Elon Musk's Boring Company has presented plans to build a Hyperloop tunnel under Culver City, California.

The plans were presented at a council meeting on Monday by Jehn Balajadia, operations co-ordinator of the firm. Read more...

NEW UNIT OF TIME (a flick)

A new unit of time has been invented by Facebook.(called as a flick)

The flick has been designed to help developers keep video effects in sync,according to a description on the code-sharing site GitHub. Read more...

MONSTER ATOMIC BOMB (Too big to use)

• By Stephen Dowling

• This story is featured in BBC Future’s collection. Discover more of our picks. 

On the morning of 30 October 1961, a Soviet Tu-95 bomber took off from Olenya airfield in the Kola Peninsula in the far north of Russia.

Read more...

Are you a social media ADDICT

How much is ‘too much time’ on social media?

Researchers are investigating whether social media addiction constitutes a mental disorder. Is this a moral panic or food for thought? Watch the video above.read more...

US shutdown: Trump and Democrats blame each other

Recriminations have begun over the failure of the US Senate to pass a new budget and prevent the shutdown of many federal services.

A bill to fund the federal government for the coming weeks did not receive the required 60 votes by the deadline of midnight on Friday.

President Trump accused the Democrats of putting politics above the interests of the American people.

The Democrats blame him for rejecting bipartisan compromise proposals.

Negotiations in both houses of Congress continued on Saturday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the chamber would be back in session on Sunday to try to end the impasse.

The White House budget chief has expressed optimism that a resolution will be found before Monday.

But if not, hundreds of thousands of federal workers face the prospect of no work and shuttered offices at the start of the working week.

The last government shutdown was in 2013, and lasted for 16 days.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!

4:47 PM - Jan 20, 2018

•  33,41633,416 Replies
 
•  37,84637,846 Retweets
 
•  122,841122,841 likes

Why can the two sides not agree?

This is the first time a government shutdown has happened while one party, the Republicans, controls both Congress and the White House.

The vote on Friday was 50-49, falling far short of the 60 needed to advance the bill. With a 51-seat majority in the Senate, the Republicans did not have enough seats to pass the bill without some support from the Democrats.

They want funding for border security - including the border wall - and immigration reforms, as well as increased military spending.

The Democrats have demanded protection from deportation of more than 700,000 undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children.

This could be a protracted, ugly fight

Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington

The game of chicken ended with a head-on crash.

Republicans are anxious to label this the "Schumer shutdown" and, essentially, they're right. Chuck Schumer and his fellow Democrats (with the help of a few Republicans) blocked a bill that would have kept the government open - at least temporarily.

Determining responsibility and apportioning blame, however, are two decidedly different endeavours.

Democrats will argue that they had a deal with the president on their bipartisan compromise that included immigration reform - only to have him back away during that fateful obscenity-laden Oval Office meeting last week. Republicans will frame this as liberals putting undocumented immigrant protections over military readiness and health insurance for poor kids.

The winner of the blame game has yet to be decided. Generally, the loser in these types of showdowns is the party entering the fight with the lowest popularity - bad news for Mr Trump and the Republicans.

The good news, for both sides, is that their political bases will be thrilled they are playing hardball. Midterm election years, like 2018, tend to encourage this kind of rally-the-base manoeuvres.

Now that the line has been crossed, this could become a protracted, ugly fight.

---

What is a government shutdown?

The US budget must be approved by 1 October - the start of the federal financial year.....read more

Trump - A BUSINESS GENIUS

YOU MAY HATE HIM BUT TRUMP IS A BUSINESS GENIUS: APPLE’S US$350 BILLION INVESTMENT PLAN PROVES IT

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook doesn’t like Donald Trump. It’s not hard to understand why Mr. Cook (a liberalist) and Mr. Trump (a nationalist)don’t see eye to eye – until now. The Apple chief had previously blamed the U.S. president as a white supremacist and a racist who promotes “hate and bigotry” in the United States. He even slammed Trump’s decision to withdraw from Paris Agreement.

While both individuals have the opposite political views, they have finally found a common interest – business. Apple’s blockbuster announcement that it will repatriate almost all of its US$250 billion in overseas cash, create 20,000 new U.S. jobs, open a new U.S. campus, and invest US$350 billion to the U.S. economy ends any serious debate about the new tax reform law.

Washington: President Donald Trump said in a tweet Wednesday that Apple Inc.’s decision to bring hundreds of billions of overseas dollars back to the US is a “huge win for American workers and the USA!”

“I promised that my policies would allow companies like Apple to bring massive amounts of money back to the United States,” Trump said in the tweet. Great to see Apple follow through as a result of TAX CUTS.”

The iPhone makers announced on Wednesday that it would make the move, paying about $38 billion in taxes on the money and spending tens of billions on domestic jobs, manufacturing and data centers in the coming years. Apple also told employees that it’s issuing stock-based bonuses worth $2,500 each following the new US tax law, according to people familiar with the matter.

In its December approval of the most extensive tax-code revisions since 1986, Congress scrapped the previous international tax system for corporations— an unusual arrangement that allowed companies to defer US income taxes on foreign earnings until they returned the income to the US. That “deferral” provision led companies to stockpile an estimated $3.1 trillion offshore and many were criticized for the moves, including Apple.

Trump deserves every single credit for creating a business-friendly environment and reforming the tax code which even Tim Cook finds hard to resist. In fact, Trump had no idea the explosive effect of his tax reform until Apple’s juicy announcement. The U.S. President was practically on cloud nine after Apple unveiled its ambitious investment plan that he personally called and thanked Mr. Cook.

Trump said – “In the news, I heard US$350 billion, I thought, ‘You mean US$350 million? That’s going to be a beautiful plant.’ They said, ‘No, it’s three-hundred and fifty billion dollars.’ And I just called Tim Cook and I thanked him.” He got so excited that he sang songs of praise for the Apple CEO – “Tim Cook is a great guy – the head of Apple.”

Although the plan is quite vague, Apple said it would directly contribute US$350 billion to the U.S. economy over the next 5 years, with the bulk – about US$55 billion this year – to be splashed on a new campus to house technical support for customers and US$10 billion toward data centres across the country. Initial fund for domestic manufacturing will be increased to US$5 billion from US$1 billion.

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Most new cars must be electric by 2030, ministers told

Three-fifths of new cars must be electric by 2030 to meet greenhouse gas targets, ministers have been warned.

Homes also need to be built to a higher standard, the Committee on Climate Change - the official watchdog - says.

The government says the UK is cutting emissions faster than any other G7 nation - and the committee agrees there has been a big shift under Theresa May.

However, it says the UK will fall short of its ambitions unless ministers do more to turn pledges into reality.

The warning comes less than a week after the prime minister launched a 25-year plan to protect the environment, including eradicating all avoidable plastic waste by 2042.

The committee agrees the government's recently-published Clean Growth Plan is a big improvement, and says the UK has been a world leader in cutting emissions so far.

But it argues that the plan still doesn't offer detailed policies to meet legal carbon targets.

• Petrol and diesel car ban: How will it work?
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• Have the Tories blown hot and cold on the environment?

Carbon capture from industry must be made to happen, it says, and wood and plastics should be banned from landfill in order to re-use them.

More trees should be planted to soak up carbon dioxide, with a view to creating 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of new woodland by 2025, and farming must do more to cut emissions.

'Major change'

Industry, too, is urged to take greater responsibility.

The committee's chairman Lord Deben, told BBC News: "If you're going to sell an electric car your dealers have got to understand these things, so training dealers is essential.

"If you're running a big fossil fuel company, you have to start thinking about the realities of when, not if, because it is not if any longer, we use a lot less fossil fuels."

He also criticised construction firms for only doing the "absolute minimum" required on building energy efficient homes.

The committee points out that better insulated homes would cut people's bills as well as tackle climate change, and calls for more incentives to encourage "able to pay" households to install efficiency measures.

Lord Deben said the Clean Growth Strategy had "changed the tone" of the government on the issue.

"These issues have been put into the centre of government policy - that's a major change."

• Why switching to fully electric cars will take time
• Electric cars and cups of tea: Can we have both?

But, he said, ambitions alone are not enough.

"The strategy doesn't deliver enough action to meet emissions targets in the 2020s and 2030s," he said.

"The government's policies will need to be firmed up as a matter of urgency and supplemented with additional measures if the UK is to deliver on legal commitments and secure its position as an international climate change leader."

He added: "All departments now need to look at their contribution towards cutting emissions - including the Department for Transport."

The committee wants 30% to 70% of new cars to be ultra-low emission by 2030, as well as up to 40% of new vans, as part of efforts to phase out sales of conventional petrol and diesel versions by 2040.

Currently, fewer than 5% of new car sales are "alternatively fuelled", which also includes hybrid models.

Prof Michael Grubb, from University College London, said: "There are plenty of good ideas out there on low-carbon energy, cutting emissions from buildings, clean transport and more, but as the committee rightly points out, concrete plans need to be put in place, and soon.

"The government is making all the right noises on support for the low-carbon economy, but these must be turned into action: we need a year of decision-making."

Richard Black, from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, agreed: "We're not on track to meet emissions goals that kick in in just five years' time.

"That leaves ministers little time for enquiries and consultations - they're going to have to put new policies in place fast."

Mr Black suggested quick-win policies including: cutting company car tax for electric vehicles; repealing the ban on onshore wind power (the cheapest form of electricity generation), and re-starting the programme for Zero Carbon Homes.

'Ambitious'

A business department spokesperson said: "The scrutiny of the independent Committee on Climate Change plays an important role.

"The UK has reduced emissions on a per-person basis faster than any other G7 nation, and our clean growth strategy is the next ambitious milestone in our work to de-carbonise the UK.

"We have always said it is only the start of a process.

"Our proposals will continue to evolve - whether in response to costs of renewable energy coming down, improved evidence about climate change, wider trends in technology or the economic opportunities delivered through our industrial strategy."

By Roger HarrabinBBC environment analystsee more..