Electron Native

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organistaion (UNESCO) on Thursday said knowing how to read and write without knowledge of  computer was synonymous with illiteracy. The Regional Director of UNESCO, Ydo Yao, made this known on the sidelines of the National Launch of the 2017/2018 Global Education Monitoring Report in Abuja. The theme of the report: “Accountability in Education: Meeting our Commitments’’ is targeted at informing policymakers of approaches to accountability and share evidence based recommendations. The report is also aimed at facilitating connections and encourages collaborations among education actors to improve the effectiveness of accountability and education. “Today if you know how to read and write and you don’t master computer, you are illiterate. We are advocating so that governments will take measures to promote the use of  Information Communication Technology (ICT) in education. “We also know that the development ...

The rescued Dapchi schoolgirls are now in the General Hospital in Dapchi and are awaiting profiling by the military. A parent of one of the girls, Ali Abdullahi, said that all the girls were in their various homes now. ‘’Immediately the insurgents dropped them from the truck that they were brought in around 8 a.m., the girls all ran home. “Now, the Army told us to bring them to the hospital for checking. “As you can see some of the parents are not willing to let their daughters out of their sight. But the Army are insisting,’’ he said. Vehicles have been stationed at the hospital to convey the girls to Damaturu. Most of the girls at the hospital looked malnourished and wore Hijab (Islamic head and body cover).

The Federal Government on Wednesday confirmed the release of 76 of the 110 abducted girls from the Government Girls Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe. A statement by the Minister of Information and Culture,  Lai Mohammed in Abuja, said the 76 girls were released from captivity in the early hours of Wednesday. Mohammed confirmed that the 76 girls were those who had been documented so far, adding that the process for the release of others was ongoing. ‘‘The girls were released around 3 a.m. through back-channel efforts and with the help of some friends of the country, and that it was unconditional. ‘‘For the release to work, the government had a clear understanding that violence and confrontation would not be the way out as it could endanger the lives of the girls, hence a non-violent approach was the preferred option. ‘‘Within the period when the girls were being brought back, operational pause was observed in certain areas to ensure free passa...

An academic from Cambridge University who harvested data on millions of Facebook users said he has been made a scapegoat by the social network and a UK-based political consultancy that have been accused of trying to sway public opinion for Donald Trump. Courtesy, Betanews Facebook has been rocked this week by a whistleblower who said that Cambridge Analytica, a UK-based political firm hired by Trump for the 2016 campaign, had improperly accessed information on 50 million Facebook users. The company has lost 60 billion dollars of its stock market value over the last two days over fears that its dealings with Cambridge Analytica might damage its reputation, deter advertisers and invite tougher regulation. Facebook has said the data was harvested by Aleksandr Kogan, a psychology academic, who created an app on the platform that was downloaded by 270,000 people. It says he then violated its policies by passing the data to Cambridge Analytica. “The events of the past week ...

The Nigerian Government has confirmed the release of the abducted 105 students of Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe. Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, gave the confirmation in Abuja on Wednesday. Shehu said that the girls were on their way home from the kidnappers’ den. The girls were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram terrorists after an invasion of the school on Feb. 19. (NAN)

A new research study has shown that fake news spread more quickly and widely than truthful ones on Twitter. These are even distributed more by people than at automated 'bots' according to the  researchers report in Thursday. A study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, researchers examining about 126,000 stories shared by some 3 million people on Twitter from 2006 to 2017 found that false news was about 70 per cent more likely to be retweeted by people than true news. The study, published in the journal Science, was one of the most comprehensive efforts to date to assess the dynamics behind how false news circulates on social media. Twitter and other social media companies such as Facebook have been under scrutiny by U.S. lawmakers and international regulators for doing too little to prevent the spread of false content. U.S. officials have accused Russia of using social media to try to sow discord in the U.S. and interfere in the 2016 U.S. president...

Snapchat owner Snap Inc will cut over 120 engineers and reorganise its engineering team, according to a company memo report on Thursday. The maker of the Smartphone app known for popularising disappearing messages has been under pressure from investors to reduce costs after revenue fell short of analyst expectations during Snap’s first year as a publicly traded company. According to the memo from Jerry Hunter, senior vice president for engineering, the Southern California Company will offer a package of benefits to those being laid off. The layoffs were earlier reported by news website Cheddar. According to the memo, Snap has scheduled a staff meeting for March 14 to explain the reorganisation and answer employees’ questions. “The shakeup will unify the entire engineering organisation as a single team,’’ Hunter wrote.