KATHMANDU: German Embassy in Kathmandu is organizing a 16-day exhibition on “The German Energiewende: Transforming Germany’s energy system” in Lalitpur from 12-26 April.
The exhibition illustrates the German economy’s transformation towards reusable energy sources, it was shared at a press conference organized by the German Embassy in Kathmandu.
Ambassador Ronald Schafer informed that since Germany is leading the movement with an objective of achieving carbon neutrality in 2050, Nepal too has huge potential in generation of renewable energy through tapping in to various sources such as hydro-power and solar energy, but also working towards energy efficiency, among others.
The exhibition, according to Ambassador Schafer, will be an occasion to discuss challenges, and show appreciation for the efforts of the Government of Nepal to create a conducive environment towards climate-friendly energy in the country.
A statement issued on the occasion said the interactive exhibition has already toured more than 80 locations in more than 30 countries and has been seen overwhelmingly across the world.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a photo story about 60 years of friendship between Nepali and German citizens.
Germany, through GIZ, is supporting Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC) in promotion and development of renewable energy technologies in various municipalities and rural municipalities, the statement said.
SEOUL: South Korea is commercially launching the fifth-generation (5G) services on Friday to become the first country to roll out the latest wireless technology with Samsung Electronics’ new 5G-enabled smartphone Galaxy S10.
Ryu Young-sang, executive vice president at SK Telecom, said the country’s telecom companies have been providing services meeting the South Korean customers’ high standard in speed and picture quality.
According to him, 5G will change the landscape of the gaming industry since it will allow games streamed with minimal delay to be played on smartphones.
The 5G technology can offer 20-times faster data speeds than 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks. It will also better support for artificial intelligence. (Agencies)
MUMBAI: Indian film production house and music label T-Series has become the most subscribed YouTube channel. The channel won the close battle with Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie’s channel.
At the time by the news was prepared, T-Series is leading by more than 96,000 subscribers now as currently it has garnered over 91,888,171 subscribers while PewDiePie has subscribers with a count of 91,788,329.
The battle between the two channels was going on for long.
NEW YORK: Facebook has announced to ban all “praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism” on Facebook and Instagram. The decision came less than two weeks after the suspect in the terror attack at two New Zealand mosques streamed the massacre live on the platform.
Facebook said while it had long prohibited hateful treatment of people based on race, it hadn’t applied the same rationale to white nationalism, “because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity.”
It said it had reconsidered that after “conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world” who said, according to Facebook, “that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups.”
Over the past three months, Facebook said, it had more than 20 conversations with civil rights groups and experts in race relations across the US, Europe, and Africa.
Among the groups Facebook consulted was the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
It will show users who search for terms it says are associated with white supremacy, a Facebook message reads.
Similarly, it will show users who search for terms it says are associated with white supremacy.
NEW DELHI: Facebook Inc. has claimed that it is taking steps to reduce the spread of false information on its platform ahead of India’s general election.
Samidh Chakrabarti, director of Facebook’s Product Management for Civic Integrity division, said that Facebook has put the Indian elections a “top priority,” and put in a “tremendous amount of efforts over the last two years” to prepare for the polls.
He informed that Facebook listed a variety of measures it is taking, from blocking fake accounts to employing third-party fact-checking organizations, through the campaign and voting, with polling scheduled to take place in stages from April 11 to May 19.
He said Facebook has partnered with Indian media organizations to check and flag false stories in English, Hindi and some other regional Indian languages.
India has the highest number of Facebook users in the world, with more than 300 million. That is about a third of the 900 million people eligible to vote in 2019.
The elections will be held in seven phases to ensure proper security and manageable logistics across the country of 1.3 billion people. (Agencies)
NEW YORK: Tony Fernades, chief executive officer (CEO) of AirAsia , quit Facebook in protest over the video posts of New Zealand mosque attacks.
Fernandes, who had 670,000 followers, said in a series of tweets on Sunday morning that Facebook needs to “clean up” after videos of the New Zealand mosque attacks were uploaded onto the platform.
“The amount of hatred that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good,” he said in a tweet Sunday. “Facebook could have done more to stop some of this.”
As may as 49 people were killed and dozens injured in shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch after a gunman opened fire on worshipers.
Closed down my Facebook account with 670 k followers. Just thinking about Twitter now. Weather to close or carry on. The amount of hate that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good. But on Twitter I think the battle for me goes on.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes) March 17, 2019
Fernandes said he had been “a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories” and decided to close down his account.
Facebook could have done more to stop some of this. I myself have been a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories. 17 mins of a live stream of killing and hate!!!! Its need to clean up and not just think of financials.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes) March 17, 2019
Facebook needs to “clean up and not just think of financials,” he said. On Saturday, Facebook said that it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack. “We continue to work around the clock to remove violating content using a combination of technology and people…,” Mia Garlnick, spokesperson for Facebook New Zealand, said on Twitter.
Fernandes said he was also mulling to quit Twitter. “On Twitter, I think the battle for me goes on,” he tweeted.
Fernandes has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers and has posted more than 20,000 tweets.
SAN FRANCISCO: Google found that some male software engineers received less pay than women last year, resulting in pay adjustments for thousands of men, according to a company blog post.
The pay equity analysis comes amid allegations of gender discrimination against parent company Alphabet, the world’s second-biggest technology company. In January 2018, a class action lawsuit by a group of women accused the company of systematically paying women less than men. The suit could affect more than 8,000 current and former female employees. Google has denied the claims.
The 2018 pay study included 91 per cent of company employees, the highest percentage since the company introduced the annual study in 2012. Google paid out $9.7 million in adjustments to a total of 10,677 employees following the internal compensation audit. In comparison, the company paid out $270,000 to 228 employees in the 2017 study.
About half of the total dollars spent on adjustments was for new employees because a new hire analysis was conducted for the first time this year. Another reason for the steep increase in payouts was attributed to one job at Google in particular: Level 4 software engineer.
“Within this job code, men were flagged for adjustments because they received less discretionary funds than women,” the company said, without disclosing what percentage of the payouts went to men.
Employee compensation at Google is generated by a basic calculation of the market rate for the job, the location, level and performance rating. From there, managers are provided discretionary funds to increase an employees’ salary, bonus or equity. The study found that among Level 4 software engineers, more women were given additional funds than men in the same job, so Google adjusted for men in this category.
The purpose of the study is to “make sure that the modeled amounts, and any changes made by managers, are equitable across gender and racial lines,” wrote Lauren Barbato, Google’s people analytics research manager, in the post published on Monday.
While the analysis is meant to ensure compensation is fair, Ms Barbato said in the post “that’s only part of the story” because it did not take starting salaries for each employee into account – called leveling – or an employee’s subsequent trajectory through the company.
“Because leveling, performance ratings, and promotion impact pay, this year, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of these processes to make sure the outcomes are fair and equitable for all employees,” Ms Barbato wrote.
(Agencies)
KATHMANDU: Nepal ranks 45th in the mobile data pricing among 230 countries across the globe. According to a survey recently carried out by price comparison site cable.co.uk, Nepal has cheaper mobile data pricing compared to US, UK including other European nations.
The cheapest mobile data is available in India with US $0.26 per GB followed by Nepal with US $2.25 per GB. The cheapest price of mobile data in Nepal is US $0.32 (Rs 37.03) per GB while the dearest price is US $6.43 (Rs 734.50).
The survey of average mobile data price in Nepal was based on 27 different data package schemes provided by telecom companies. The sample data had been collected on November 15, 2018.
Similarly, south Asian countries Sri Lanka and Bhutan have cheaper data price than Nepal. Sri Lanka stands in 7th position with US $0.78 per GB while the cost of average mobile data is US $1.25 per GB in Bhutan (18th).
Likewise, the UK ranks 136th in the list with an average data price per GB $8.53. The USA ranks 182nd with an average data price $12.37 per GB.
Asian nations make up a half of the top 20 cheapest countries, with only Taiwan, China and South Korea charging more than the global average. The research looked at SIM-only deals and included a range of packages from all the providers in each country.
Top five nations (average global price per GB):
Last five nations ( average global price per GB):
LONDON: Instagram has agreed to ban graphic images of self-harm after objections were raised in Britain following the suicide of a teen whose father said the photo-sharing platform had contributed to her decision to take her own life.
The call for changes was backed by the British government after the family of 14-year-old Molly Russell found material related to depression and suicide on her Instagram account after her death in 2017.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said Thursday evening the platform is making a series of changes to its content rules.
He said: “We are not where we need to be on self-harm and suicide, and we need to do more to protect the most vulnerable in our community.” Mosseri said further changes will be made.
“I have a responsibility to get this right,” he said. “We will get better and we are committed to finding and removing this content at scale, and working with experts and the wider industry to find ways to support people when they’re most in need.”
The call for changes was backed by the British government after the family of 14-year-old Molly Russell found material related to depression and suicide on her Instagram account after her death in 2017.
Her father, Ian Russell, said he believes the content Molly viewed on Instagram played a contributing role in her death, a charge that received wide attention in the British press.
The changes were announced after Instagram and other tech firms, including Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, met with British Health Secretary Matt Hancock and representatives from the Samaritans, a mental health charity that works to prevent suicide. Instagram is also removing non-graphic images of self-harm from searches.
Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement that independent experts advise that Facebook should “allow people to share admissions of self-harm and suicidal thoughts but should not allow people to share content promoting it.” (Associated Press)
MOSCOW: Russian news reports say that Google has agreed with national authorities to delete links to websites banned in Russia.
Last December, Roskomnadzor fined Google 500,000 rubles ($7,600) for failing to delete links to the banned sites. It threatened to cut access to Google if it fails to comply with the demand.
The daily Vedomosti reported Thursday that Google has reached an agreement with the Russian state media oversight agency, Roskomnadzor, to regularly receive updated lists of banned sites and delete links to them upon review. The newspaper says Google has already removed about 70 percent of the banned websites from its search results.
The RIA Novosti news agency quoted Roskomnadzor as saying it has established a “constructive dialogue” with Google.
Last December, Roskomnadzor fined Google 500,000 rubles ($7,600) for failing to delete links to the banned sites. It threatened to cut access to Google if it fails to comply with the demand.
“We’re committed to enabling access to information for the benefit of our users in Russia and around the world,” Google spokesman Nu Wexler said. The company offered no further official comment. (Associated Press)