Apps

In partnership with the CDC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the White House's Coronavirus Task Force, Apple recently launched a new website and app for COVID-19 symptom screenings. The screening tools ask users questions about recent exposure, symptoms and risk factors and recommends next steps, including testing if warranted. Although developed through Apple, you do not need an Apple account to access the tools.

Staying in with perhaps with more free time, many people are sharing tips for organizing your home and your life, but something different you may not have thought of is your organizing digital device. Consider rearranging the apps on your phone to create a F-pattern. Experts say that creating an F-pattern can help you be more productive with your phone and keep you away from the apps that may suck up your time, and give you more access to those that can make you more productive. It actually comes down to the way our brains scan print and pictorial pages.

While we are all required to stay physically apart during the COVID-19 pandemic, our physical and mental health and the success of our organizations will rely on seeking out emotional and relational connections during this time, write Michael Lee Stallard and Katharine P. Stallard. They offer 12 steps to avoid loneliness while social distancing, such as engaging in creative group activities, using online resources to learn something new, and seeking to serve others – things that apply to both adults and children.

Toy makers have started striking licensing deals with YouTube channel creators as children are increasingly seeking out toys based on their favorite YouTube programming. For example, toy manufacturer Jazwares will start selling merchandise based on three popular children's YouTube channels this year - Blippi, a preschool education-and-entertainment character with more than 21 million subscribers; toy-unboxing and reviews channel CKN Toys, which has 14.7 million subscribers; and Cocomelon, a channel known for nursery rhymes, which has 74 million subscribers. Jazware's Laura Zebersky says, "The world has changed and you will see properties ranging from 'Fortnite' to influencers on YouTube who are leading and competing against movies and TV shows on a day-to-day basis."

TikTok's Alex Zhu is trying to broaden the app's appeal from its predominantly 13 and younger fans to expand its audience and risk becoming "a passing fad," write Georgia Wells and Yoree Koh in The Wall Street Journal. Recent moves include rejecting content that might appear "too juvenile," preventing the use of childish animated graphics and using artificial intelligence to detect a user's age, which appears to be working as #over30, #over40 and #MomsOfTikTok started trending in early 2019.

The old joke of “yes, there is an app for that” is proving to be even more true with the development of an app that monitors other apps to alert you when they are functioning/collecting data. The Internet of Things (IoT) Assistant app, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, lets you know when IoT devices (Amazon Alexas, Internet connected refrigerators, baby monitors, etc.) are operating around you and what data they are collecting. And the app doesn't just let you know about voice assistants, it also alerts users about devices like public cameras with facial recognition technology, doorbells and Bluetooth beacons. The app is free and available for both iOS and Android phones.

Bowing to criticism, TikTok has unveiled parental controls in a new feature called Family Safety Mode that allows parents to link their accounts to their teens'. This allows parents to set time limits as well as manage direct messages and content. The safety mode is currently only available in the UK but will be expanded to other geographic areas in the near future.

The "Outlet Challenge," a new trending challengs circulating on social media video platforms including YouTube and TikTok, is being blamed for kids damaging electrical outlets, causing fires in classrooms, and developing skin burns across the country. Officials are warning parents about the challenge, which involves inserting the plug part of a phone-charger only part way into a wall outlet and then trying to produce a spark by touching a penny to the exposed prongs. Firefighters are issuing serious warnings about possible fires and electrocutions.

TikTok, a popular app with teens, has revised its community guidelines and provides more specifics outlining 10 unacceptable content categories, including violence, hate speech, bullying, dangerous acts and threats to minor safety. As of yet, however, the platform did not detail how it will determine which content providers are breaking the rules.

Facebook is trying a new approach to fact checking by using “community reviewers”, a diverse group of contractors hired through partners like YouGov, to check potentially false reports. Facebook will use its machine learning process to identify misinformation in posts, as it does already. When content is tagged as potentially false, Facebook's system will then send the post on to the new team of community reviewers. The community reviewers will be prompted to check the post by conducting their own additional research, and if they find the post to be incorrect, they'll be able to send their findings and resources to Facebook's fact-checkers for their official assessment.

By enabling more people to provide input into the fact-checking process, Facebook's aim is to improve both the relative accuracy of its findings, and to lessen accusations that it is favoring one side of politics over another. Critics, however, say this new ‘diverse’ review system is just cover for their policy on not fact-checking political ads and should be brought up when discussing misinformation with your children.