YouTube is rolling out some additional parental controls, including a way to set time limits for viewing Shorts on teen accounts. In the near future, parents and guardians will be able to set the Shorts timer to zero on supervised accounts. "This is an industry-first feature that puts parents firmly in control of the amount of short-form content their kids watch," Jennifer Flannery O'Connor, YouTube's vice president of product management, wrote in a blog post.
I tried the usual tricks: switching off notifications, deleting addictive apps, moving icons around, greyscale mode. None of it worked. Without notifications, I just checked more to see if something had happened. When I deleted apps, I used the browser instead. And when I deleted that I would eventually reinstall everything in a weak moment. (Which usually meant spending even more time on my phone as I had to log in everywhere again.)
Open the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad, tap your name at the top and select Family. Tap Add Member, then Create Child Account, and follow the onscreen prompts. You'll need to provide your child's name and birth date, along with parental consent using your own Apple ID password. Once created, the account is automatically added to your Family Sharing group.
In the past few years, governments across the world have rolled out different digital identification options, and now there are efforts encouraging online companies to implement identity and age verification requirements with digital ID in mind. This blog is the third in a short series that explains digital ID and the pending use case of age verification. Here, we cover alternative frameworks on age controls, updates on parental controls, and the importance of digital privacy in an increasingly hostile climate politically.
OpenAI brings ChatGPT Go plan to 16 more Asian countries OpenAI is expanding its affordable ChatGPT Go plan, priced under $5, to 16 new countries across Asia, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan. In some of these countries, users can pay in local currencies, while in others, payments are required in USD, with final costs varying due to local taxes.
Starting in the coming months, parents will be able to turn off chats with AI characters entirely for teens. This action won't block access to the Meta AI chatbot - the company's general-purpose AI chatbot - which will only discuss age-appropriate content. Parents will also be able to turn off chats with individual characters if they prefer more selective control.
The startup was founded by Nino Dvalidze (pictured), an entrepreneur and a mother of two from the United Kingdom. Dvalidze told TechCrunch that the idea for Young Minds came from conversations with fellow parents, who are also worried about how to keep their children safe, while also allowing them to have access to the internet, which, she admitted, is "enormously helpful in terms of education and exploration and connection with so many people outside of your immediate zone of contacts."
OpenAI unveiled Pulse, a new ChatGPT feature that delivers personalized morning briefings overnight, encouraging users to start their day with the app. The tool reflects a shift toward making ChatGPT more proactive and asynchronous, positioning it as a true assistant rather than just a chatbot. OpenAI's new Applications CEO, Fidji Simo, called Pulse the first step toward bringing high-level personal support to everyone, starting with Pro users.
Other incidents this year, including a 56-year-old man who killed his mother and a 29-year-old who took her own life, have been linked to the ChatGPT, which wasn't bound by the same mandatory reporting rules that apply to human therapists. How it works: Parents can now regulate how minors from 13 to 17 years old use the chatbot. Parents can invite teens to connect accounts, and they can modify their children's settings.
Nick Pompa, founder of Lootlock - an app that prevents kids from running up unauthorized gaming bills on their parents' credit cards - is an avid gamer and software developer working in fintech. As a dad of two under two, he's looking forward to sharing his passion for gaming with his kids when they grow old enough to play. He started gaming at age 6, he told TechCrunch.
Sam Altman raised fears that as many as 1,500 people a week could be discussing taking their own lives with the chatbot before doing so. The chief executive of San Francisco-based OpenAI, which operates the chatbot with an estimated 700 million global users, said the decision to train the system so the authorities were alerted in such emergencies was not yet final.
PlayStation is launching a new PlayStation Family app for iOS and Android to help parents manage their child's playtime on PS5 and PS4. Parents can already set parental control features directly on a console, but this app gives parents another way to set limits and keep track of what their kid is playing. "The app includes a number of new customizable features for parents to manage their children's playtime, including an activity report, more visibility into what their children are playing, and approving extra playtime requests,"
