Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

News Mood Filter Web Extension

A News Mood Filter Web Extension is under construction by some concerned hackers; the idea is to mute unpleasant stories from the news.


(Prototype News Mood Filter Web Extension)

News Mood Filter Web Extension is a project close to Alicia's heart. She's been working on it in her 10% time after she and others collaborated to make a static version of it in a hackday about technology and mental health last year. In a team with two opinionated producers, we wanted to make sure her voice was clearly heard in the sprint, so she became the project lead, to be consulted on all decisions.

Alicia Grandjean: "Digital wellbeing, and more precisely the relation between news and anxiety, is something I am very interested in. I really think that we can create simple tools to give control back to users to allow them to engage with news in the way that is most appropriate for them."

16-24 year-olds are very aware of their mental health and take steps to improve it, including digital detoxing and removing notifications from apps; but news avoidance is also a more general problem. From a recent survey by Reuters of all age-groups, 32% of respondents worldwide say they actively avoid the news.

Science fiction writers have been hard at work thinking about this problem for decades. I was thinking in particular of the adjustable television from Philip K Dick's 1964 novel The Simulacra:

He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better in the dire droning-on of the speech... however, no change took place. Too many other viewers had their own ideas as to what the old man ought to be saying...

Frederik Pohl directly anticipated the idea of a filtered news feed in his 1966 novel The Age of the Pussyfoot; see this article on the interests profile. Also, Robert Heinlein used the idea of a news filter on a television in his 1941 novel Methuselah's Children; see the article on the newsbox.

Via bbc.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/29/2020)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Culture ")

Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.' - Jack Vance, 1952.

How Old Are Tesla Designs?
You be the judge.

California Fireman Arrested For Starting Fires
'Fire is bright and fire is clean.' - Ray Brandbury, 1953.

Tether Cryptocurrency Flow Rate US$190Bn Per Day
'Alex did not find it surprising that people... were electronically minting their own cash.' - Bruce Sterling, 1994.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'

Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'

Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.

Drones In Vast Airborne Grids
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'

Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.

Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'

Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'

AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'

Marslink Proposed By SpaceX
'It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line...'

Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'

Wood-Panelled LignoSat Launched
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'

Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.'

'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...'

Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'

A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'

Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.