Category: Websites
Good news: Data suggests that the Ice Bucket Challenge has peaked
Okay, so we're all pleased that the Ice Bucket Challenge is raising a lot of money for a good cause – but let's be honest... isn't it so last Thursday? Luckily, for those who have tired of it, Ice Bucket Fever appears to have peaked – with Google Trends showing downwards momentum from a peak on August…
Now Twitter can make you paranoid about flooding
A new website has launched that lets you browse through over 2000 river gauges that are connected to the internet - so you know how much to worry about flooding. Isn't the Internet of Things great? Now we can get near real time river data on loads of places - and GaugeMap will put it…
The internet is a better teacher than a school – here’s some reasons why.
Today is GCSE exam results day here in the UK, when teenagers across the country will be nervously open envelopes to learn how they did - after spending the past couple of years putting in all that effort. Here's the thing though: School's a bit of a boring way to learn. So here's some hi-tech…
Greggs has a little Google problem
Poor Greggs. All the Newcastle embassy wants to do is have a presence online yet somehow Google's algorithm picked the following image to represent the companies: Someone at Google doesn't like sausage rolls. This is what you get when you search "Greggs": pic.twitter.com/B090HlUGuw— Rosie (@RosieLondoner) August 19, 2014 Yes, that reads "Providing shit to scum…
Twitter is showing your favourites in your followers’ timelines
Potentially horrifying news depending on how you use Twitter. The company is testing a new "feature" whereby tweets that you have favourited will act like retweets, and will be shown in the timelines of the people who follow you. That's right - just like a retweet. The feature has only rolled out to a handful…
Facebook testing a “Satire” tag on shared links – no, this isn’t a joke
Facebook doesn't think its users are too bright. At least, that'd be a reasonable conclusion to draw following the news that the company is testing a "[Satire]" tag that would be automatically displayed on articles from the likes of The Onion. Screenshot from Ars As Ars Technica reports, at the moment…
Watch how much electricity the UK is generating in near real time
As environmental concerns are ever more important, how can we make informed decisions about what we should do? Check out this website where you can monitor the real time energy situation in the UK. Gridwatch was created a couple of years ago by an electrical engineer looking to get past what they viewed as a…
Dating site OkCupid also experiments on its users
To paraphrase the Smashing Pumpkins, despite all our rage we are still just rats in a cage... In June, Facebook disclosed that it had tested to see if emotions were contagious, deliberately manipulating the emotional content of the news feeds for 700,000 people. Now it seems that Facebook is not the only website that conducts…
Cyclists hound a poor woman for a tweet: Twitter users need to learn the value of a proportional response
Since I took up cycling a couple of years ago, I've become something of a militant cyclist. Having to take to London's roads is not a pleasant experience for much of the time, because the city is so poorly equipped to deal with people on two wheels. It's insane that Transport for London hasn't done…
Was the BBC hit by a DDoS attack?
It appears that the disruptions caused to the BBC's iPlayer and website last weekend were possibly due to a DDoS attack. The iPlayer service was out of action over most of the weekend because of problems with the database behind the catch-up service. The faults also meant that only a simplified version of the BBC's…
