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According to Ofcom, the time spent online by adults in the UK increased by almost an hour in 2024

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According to data from an annual Ofcom survey, adults spend an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes online every single day on smartphones, tablets and computers Internet nation report a dive into consumers’ digital habits. This number is a giant jump compared to 2023when adults over 18 spent an average of three hours and 41 minutes online, especially considering the difference compared to 2022 was only 8 minutes.

As you possibly can see from the table above, the average is basically influenced by usage amongst younger adults. People aged 18-24 addicted to TikTok and Instagram spend six hours and 1 minute online. This is 1.5 hours more compared to 2023, after they were online for 4 hours and 36 minutes. Perhaps predictably, people over 65 would spend the smallest amount of time at 3 hours and 10 minutes. One of the most important questions is whether or not today’s younger users can be as energetic on the Internet (or much more) as they develop into seniors.

If so, because of this society could also be slowly moving into a very digital existence.

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In total, the report includes 116 pages of information and graphics. Here are some notable numbers that jump out:

Two horses racing. Overall, there’s a protracted tail of services that attract audiences, but two names dominate the top of the list: Alphabet and Meta. Combined, properties owned by these two people take up almost half of the time British adults spend online. YouTube is the most visited channel, with 94% of all adults spending time on it in some unspecified time in the future during the 12 months. Visitors spend an average of 49 minutes watching YouTube videos every single day.

70% visited the three largest Meta platforms – Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – with Facebook/Messenger (91%) being the highest in terms of penetration. This is despite Facebook continuing to be a dud amongst 18-24-year-olds who spent just quarter-hour on Meta’s flagship site. Interestingly, Ofcom doesn’t cover the use of Google during online visits.

Women are online more often than men. In particular, Ofcom highlighted certain gender-based consumption patterns. Overall, women spend 33 minutes more online than men (4:36 compared to 4:03), and amongst Generation Z (18-24), time spent online is much more pronounced – 1 hour more, he said Ofcom. Part of this may increasingly have to do with the kind of content they view: the sites women prefer tend to gravitate toward social media sites which were optimized and designed to encourage people to scroll and click on. For example, TikTok ranks as the tenth hottest site for ladies, while it ranks sixteenth for men.

Social media. The top of the social media hierarchy stays very entrenched, with YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok occupying the top 4 spots. Fifth, things start to get interesting.

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Reddit is the fastest-growing social media platform, making the most of the decline of X-née-Twitter. Ofcom said that by May 2024, around half of the UK’s adult web population, or 22.9 million, used Reddit, an increase of 47% on the previous 12 months when 33%, or 15 .6 million said they use it. These numbers helped Reddit catapult each X and LinkedIn to fifth place amongst the hottest social media sites. We can have to see whether that is latest or a trend and whether the latest arrivals maintain a few of their momentum.

The most significant of them currently are Bluesky and Threads. Ofcom notes that in May this 12 months Bluesky had just 80,000 users, by August this had risen to 127,000 after which there was a pointy 263% increase to 461,000 users in September, the last month covered in this report ( which can be updated in the following months). From what we have seen over the past two months in other markets, Bluesky is probably going to proceed on this trajectory because it suddenly begins to emerge as the leading alternative to X. X remains to be far ahead of us, with 21.2 million users and 6.6 million for Meta threads. Interestingly, while Snapchat has a robust following amongst younger users, it is basically ignored by other age groups, which puts it at number 10 on the list with 9.8 million users.

Generative artificial intelligence it is basically a fledgling service, but for now the whole lot indicates that men are increasingly willing to use it as the first users. About 50% of men surveyed used GenAI compared to 33% of girls. Ofcom found that girls are also less aware of those services, and those that do are more skeptical about the advantages they convey to society and themselves.

Ofcom’s findings in this report are also necessary because, in part, they develop into the basis for the investigations and other work that he undertakes. For example, it expects to publish codes of conduct on protecting children online in the first half of 2025. To this end, it also identifies numerous areas where online content and engagement fall short in terms of security:

While two-thirds (67%) of adults who use the Internet said that “the benefits of being online outweigh the risks,” this is definitely down from a 12 months ago when the figure was 71%.

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Young adults could also be using the web more, but they do not seem to prefer it: Ofcom found that they were “less likely than older people to think they’d an excellent balance between their online and offline lives, and older children were more anxious than younger spent on the Internet.”

Misinformation appears to be harmful, with 39% of users aged 13 and over saying they were exposed to it in June 2024. 30% of users aged 13 and over said additionally they saw content that “made them feel uncomfortable, upset or negative.” Both percentages increased compared to 2023.

Hateful, offensive or discriminatory content can also be on the rise, with 26% of adults saying they’ve encountered it online (up from 23% in 2023).

Younger users lie to connect to the Internet. Ofcom found that 20 per cent of individuals aged 8-15 say they’re aged 18 or over when using a social media platform, highlighting the challenges of controlling this issue. “There are signs that services are checking date of birth more often,” Ofcom notes, with users indicating that they’re checking age more often on social media. (Whether they’re followed is one other matter.)

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Ofcom found that 35% of 13-17-year-olds said they’d encountered offensive or “vulgar” language online, down from 40% a 12 months ago. Ofcom said harmful content related to body image continues to be an issue, especially amongst teenagers. This is a trend that social media sites like TikTok try to actively curb before being forced to accomplish that by regulators.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com

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This is the shipping of products from China to the USA

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Shein and Temu icons are seen displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo

The Chinese retailer has modified the strategy in the face of American tariffs.

Thanks to the executive ordinance, President Donald Trump ended the so -called de minimis principle, which allowed goods value 800 USD or less entering the country without tariffs. It also increases tariffs to Chinese goods by over 100%, forcing each Chinese firms and Shein, in addition to American giants, similar to Amazon to adapt plans and price increases.

CNBC reports that this was also affected, and American buyers see “import fees” from 130% to 150% added to their accounts. Now, nevertheless, the company is not sending the goods directly from China to the United States. Instead, it only displays the offers of products available in American warehouses, while goods sent from China are listed as outside the warehouse.

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“He actively recruits American sellers to join the platform,” said the spokesman ago. “The transfer is to help local sellers reach more customers and develop their companies.”

(tagstotransate) tariffs

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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One of the last AI Google models is worse in terms of safety

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The Google Gemini generative AI logo on a smartphone.

The recently released Google AI model is worse in some security tests than its predecessor, in line with the company’s internal comparative test.

IN Technical report Google, published this week, reveals that his Flash Gemini 2.5 model is more likely that he generates a text that violates its security guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. In two indicators “text security for text” and “image security to the text”, Flash Gemini 2.5 will withdraw 4.1% and 9.6% respectively.

Text safety for the text measures how often the model violates Google guidelines, making an allowance for the prompt, while image security to the text assesses how close the model adheres to those boundaries after displaying the monitors using the image. Both tests are automated, not supervised by man.

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In an e-mail, Google spokesman confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Flash “performs worse in terms of text safety for text and image.”

These surprising comparative results appear when AI is passing in order that their models are more acceptable – in other words, less often refuse to answer controversial or sensitive. In the case of the latest Llam Meta models, he said that he fought models in order to not support “some views on others” and answers to more “debated” political hints. Opeli said at the starting of this yr that he would improve future models, in order to not adopt an editorial attitude and offers many prospects on controversial topics.

Sometimes these efforts were refundable. TechCrunch announced on Monday that the default CHATGPT OPENAI power supply model allowed juvenile to generate erotic conversations. Opeli blamed his behavior for a “mistake”.

According to Google Technical Report, Gemini 2.5 Flash, which is still in view, follows instructions more faithfully than Gemini 2.0 Flash, including instructions exceeding problematic lines. The company claims that regression might be partially attributed to false positives, but in addition admits that Gemini 2.5 Flash sometimes generates “content of violation” when it is clearly asked.

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“Of course, there is a tension between (after instructions) on sensitive topics and violations of security policy, which is reflected in our assessment,” we read in the report.

The results from Meepmap, reference, which can examine how models react to sensitive and controversial hints, also suggest that Flash Gemini 2.5 is much less willing to refuse to reply controversial questions than Flash Gemini 2.0. Testing the TechCrunch model through the AI ​​OpenRoutter platform has shown that he unsuccessfully writes essays to support human artificial intelligence judges, weakening the protection of due protection in the US and the implementation of universal government supervisory programs.

Thomas Woodside, co -founder of the Secure AI Project, said that the limited details given by Google in their technical report show the need for greater transparency in testing models.

“There is a compromise between the instruction support and the observation of politics, because some users may ask for content that would violate the rules,” said Woodside Techcrunch. “In this case, the latest Flash model Google warns the instructions more, while breaking more. Google does not present many details about specific cases in which the rules have been violated, although they claim that they are not serious. Not knowing more, independent analysts are difficult to know if there is a problem.”

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Google was already under fire for his models of security reporting practices.

The company took weeks to publish a technical report for the most talented model, Gemini 2.5 Pro. When the report was finally published, it initially omitted the key details of the security tests.

On Monday, Google published a more detailed report with additional security information.

(Tagstotransate) Gemini

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Aurora launches a commercial self -propelled truck service in Texas

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The autonomous startup of the Aurora Innovation vehicle technology claims that it has successfully launched a self -propelled truck service in Texas, which makes it the primary company that she implemented without drivers, heavy trucks for commercial use on public roads in the USA

The premiere appears when Aurora gets the term: In October, the corporate delayed the planned debut 2024 to April 2025. The debut also appears five months after the rival Kodiak Robotics provided its first autonomous trucks to clients commercial for operations without a driver in field environments.

Aurora claims that this week she began to freight between Dallas and Houston with Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight starters, and that she has finished 1200 miles without a driver to this point. The company plans to expand to El Paso and Phoenix until the top of 2025.

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TechCrunch contacted for more detailed information concerning the premiere, for instance, the variety of vehicles implemented Aurora and whether the system needed to implement the Pullover maneuver or the required distant human assistance.

The commercial premiere of Aurora takes place in a difficult time. Self -propelled trucks have long been related to the necessity for his or her technology attributable to labor deficiencies in the chairman’s transport and the expected increase in freigh shipping. Trump’s tariffs modified this attitude, not less than in a short period. According to the April analytical company report from the commercial vehicle industry ACT researchThe freight is predicted to fall this yr in the USA with a decrease in volume and consumer expenditure.

Aurora will report its results in the primary quarter next week, i.e. when he shares how he expects the present trade war will affect his future activity. TechCrunch contacted to learn more about how tariffs affect Auror’s activities.

For now, Aurora will probably concentrate on further proving his safety case without a driver and cooperation with state and federal legislators to just accept favorable politicians to assist her develop.

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At the start of 2025, Aurora filed a lawsuit against federal regulatory bodies after the court refused to release the appliance for release from the protection requirement, which consists in placing warning triangles on the road, when the truck must stop on the highway – something that’s difficult to do when there isn’t a driver in the vehicle. To maintain compliance with this principle and proceed to totally implement without service drivers, Aurora probably has a man -driven automotive trail after they are working.

(Tagstranslate) Aurora Innovation

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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