All posts tagged: opt

More Britons opt to holiday in UK this summer amid uncertainty over flights | Travel & leisure

More Britons opt to holiday in UK this summer amid uncertainty over flights | Travel & leisure

Published by Sam Flores

Holiday companies have predicted a surge in bookings for UK summer breaks after a jump in interest from Britons fearful of flight cancellations linked to the Iran war. Summer bookings are expected to rise in the coming weeks amid warnings of possible jet fuel shortages and resulting cancellations by airlines across Europe. Raoul Fraser, the chief executive of Lovat, a holiday park operator with sites across south-west England, said traffic to its website had increased after reports of jet fuel warnings last week. “It is definitely having a positive impact for us,” he said. “Our holidays bookings are up over 30% this year. It is a little bit like Covid, when people couldn’t get away and now they just want the certainty of a nice holiday in the UK.” The holiday resort company Butlin’s, which has sites at Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness, said it was seeing “strong growth for the summer school holidays”. However, its chief executive, Jon Hendry Pickup, said many families were still booking their holidays closer to the time, due to …

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen and paper

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen and paper

Published by Sam Flores

Stein, a math teacher, said he doesn’t think it makes sense to pull students off of computers entirely — state tests are all online now, and teaching statistics requires datasets stored on software — but many teachers agree there is too much screen time in class. “The default is always just do it on the screen,” he said, “instead of thinking about, ‘Do we need to do that on the screen?’ I think that that’s the issue.” The Montgomery County Council of Parent-Teacher Associations is pressing the district to provide a formal process to request “non-screen alternatives” for families that have “made the conscious effort to limit their children’s exposure to screens.” Lisa Cline, a Montgomery County mom who chaired a parent advisory committee focused on technology, said she opted her son out when he was in third grade and then requested each school year that his teachers keep him off screens as much as possible until he graduated high school last year. She said she hopes to work with the advocacy group Fairplay for …

Starlink Is Using Your Personal Data to Train AI. Here’s How to Opt Out

Starlink Is Using Your Personal Data to Train AI. Here’s How to Opt Out

Published by skeptic

Starlink customers are the latest grist for the AI mill. The company updated its privacy policy on Jan. 15 to allow harvesting of user data for AI training. Customers are opted in by default, but it’s relatively simple to opt out.  Starlink says that it may use your personal information “to train our machine learning or artificial intelligence models.” The policy adds that this data might also be shared with third parties “for training artificial intelligence models, including for their own independent purposes.” Sure enough, when I checked my own Starlink account, I was greeted with a message telling me, “You allow your data to be used to train AI models.” Starlink automatically opts you into allowing personal information to be used to train AI models. Starlink / CNET “It’s part of this whole rush to just throw everything into the data-driven machine-learning nexus, and then hoping something more good will come out of it, your private information be damned,” William Budington, a technologist for the digital rights nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, told CNET.  What …

CMA says UK publishers should be allowed to opt out of Google AI Overviews

CMA says UK publishers should be allowed to opt out of Google AI Overviews

Published by Sam Flores

Google AI Overviews shown in front of a Google webpage. Picture: Shutterstock/DIA TV The UK’s competition watchdog has said publishers should be able to opt out of their content being used in Google’s AI Overviews without it affecting how they appear in search engine results. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) also said the way Google decides how content is ranked in search results, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, should be made “fair and transparent”. The CMA’s proposals come after it designated Google as a tech platform with “strategic market status” for regulation in October. Google, on which more than 90% of online searches in the UK are carried out, is the first tech platform to face conduct requirements under new powers in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The proposals are now out for consultation until 25 February after which a final decision will be taken. Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said the proposals would “give UK businesses and consumers more choice and control over how they interact with Google’s …

80% of Americans may opt for cremation by 2045

80% of Americans may opt for cremation by 2045

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The casket industry may soon require life support in the United States. According to analysis from the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), cremation is by far the more popular option compared to the traditional burial method. The NFDA estimates around 63 percent of all funerary requests were for cremation in 2025, compared to about 31 percent for casket burials. There’s no indication that the shift will level off anytime soon, either. By 2045, as many as 80 percent of bodies in the United States will be cremated instead of interred in the ground. As Axios noted, no single reason explains the shifting preferences. Instead, the transition likely reflects a combination of factors, including evolving religious beliefs, environmental concerns, as well as the simple issue of economics. In 2023, the NFDA estimated the average cost of a casket burial, accompanying viewing, and memorial service to cost about $8,300. Meanwhile, the median cost that same year for cremation by itself was …