UK Residents Under 16 Brace for a Social Media Ban
The UK might be looking at 2027 with a lot less scrolling and far fewer TikTok dances, as Prime Minister (at the time) Kier Starmer announced plans to ban people under 16 from using social media, planned for spring.
Many of the ban's strongest supporters are parents who lost children in cases linked to online harms and have been campaigning for this for years. Though they’re happy about the announcement, there’s still some skepticism about how the ban will actually work, the logistics of how it will be enforced, and what sort of pushback there will be.
Even before taking effect, the proposal has sparked debate. Some people argue the ban is too strict and that better guidance, education, and parental controls would be more effective. Others point out that many teenagers use social media to stay in touch with friends and family. Some also worry the ban could give parents a false sense of security if they rely on it instead of staying involved in their children's online lives.
Tech companies argue the ban may not keep children as safe as supporters hope, as a ban on widely-used platforms might push some young people toward less-regulated online spaces that aren’t included in the ban or entice them to find a work-around for the age verification.
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Some high school students recently swapped their smartphones for basic "brick" phones — the kind with no social media or apps, just texting, calling, and the classic game Snake.
The three-week experiment offered a preview of what life might look like once the UK's proposed ban on social media for under-16s takes effect next year. Calls to limit young people's social media use have been building for years, as critics argue some app features are designed to keep users scrolling. Some young people spend up to 20 hours a day on screens, which can affect sleep and time for schoolwork. Many students — along with their parents or carers — say they're struggling to manage screen time.
Feedback from the students was mixed. Some missed chatting with friends online and keeping up with trends. Others found they spent more time outdoors or with family and friends in person. Many said they didn't end up missing screen time as much as they expected.
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Investigators believe money is behind some of the attacks. Raptors sometimes hunt game birds, which people also hunt for sport or profit. By illegally removing birds of prey, some people may be trying to leave more game birds available for shooting. Officials are struggling to find ways to reduce these attacks — fines and prosecution haven't been very effective so far. Some campaigners want stronger licensing rules for trap use, while others argue that would be hard to enforce and might not stop illegal attacks either.
Shhh! We're going inside Amazon's super-secret chip design lab! But not the kind where they invent new potato chips. Amazon gave the BBC a rare look inside Annapurna Labs, where engineers design custom computer chips that power artificial intelligence.
Their teams oversee the entire process, from testing newly built silicon chips to making sure they're ready to be installed in massive data centers. These chips are the brains behind AI tools that millions of people use every day — from chatbots and translation apps to online shopping recommendations and voice assistants. Each chip can perform more than 1,000 trillion calculations every second. If you solved just one calculation every second without ever stopping, it would take about 80 million years to do the same amount of work!
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The robot is a box with four mechanical "hands" that reach in from the sides to grip the cube. Two cameras scan the cube so the Revenger knows where every colored square is. Then a program Matt wrote figures out the fastest way to solve it, and the robot twists each side until the cube is solved.
The Revenger solved the cube in 55 seconds, breaking the old robot record of 1 minute and 18 seconds, set back in 2015. That's impressive — but it's still way behind the human world record of 15.71 seconds. So no need to worry about robots taking over the world just yet.
Some high school students recently swapped their smartphones for basic "brick" phones — the kind with no social media or apps, just texting, calling, and the classic game Snake.
The three-week experiment offered a preview of what life might look like once the UK's proposed ban on social media for under-16s takes effect next year. Calls to limit young people's social media use have been building for years, as critics argue some app features are designed to keep users scrolling. Some young people spend up to 20 hours a day on screens, which can affect sleep and time for schoolwork. Many students — along with their parents or carers — say they're struggling to manage screen time.
Feedback from the students was mixed. Some missed chatting with friends online and keeping up with trends. Others found they spent more time outdoors or with family and friends in person. Many said they didn't end up missing screen time as much as they expected.
The RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) is investigating attacks on birds of prey, also called raptors. Raptors hunt and feed on other animals, but even though they're near the top of the food chain, one of their biggest threats is humans.
There have been reports of raptors found dead in suspicious circumstances or caught in illegal traps. Investigators are reviewing footage from cameras near some traps to help identify who's responsible. The traps themselves are legal when used correctly, and any animal that isn't the intended target must be released unharmed. But footage has shown some people mistreating or killing these protected birds instead.
Investigators believe money is behind some of the attacks. Raptors sometimes hunt game birds, which people also hunt for sport or profit. By illegally removing birds of prey, some people may be trying to leave more game birds available for shooting. Officials are struggling to find ways to reduce these attacks — fines and prosecution haven't been very effective so far. Some campaigners want stronger licensing rules for trap use, while others argue that would be hard to enforce and might not stop illegal attacks either.