Every day, people share more than 2 billion photos on the Internet. While visual content provides a fun and expressive way for people to communicate online, consuming and creating it poses challenges for people who are blind or severely visually impaired (受损的). With more than 39 million people who are blind, and over 246 million who have a severe visual impairment, many people may feel excluded from the conversation around photos on the Internet. The researchers from Harvard University want to build technology that helps the blind community appreciate photos in the same way others enjoy them.

Automatic alternative text is a new development that generates a description of a photo using advancements in object recognition technology. People using screen readers on digital devices will hear a list of items a photo may contain as they click photos on the Internet. Before today, people using screen readers would only hear the name of the person who shared the photo, followed by the term “photo” when they came upon an image. Now they can offer a richer description of what’s in a photo thanks to automatic alternative text. For instance, someone could now hear “an image containing three people, smiling, outdoors”.

This is possible because of Harvard University’s object recognition technology, which is based on a network that has billions of parameters and is trained with millions of examples. Each advancement in object recognition technology means that the researchers will be able to make technology even more accessible to more people. When people are connected, they can achieve extraordinary things as individuals and as a community, and when everyone is connected, we all benefit from it.

They are launching automatic alternative text first on cellphone screen readers set to English, but they plan to add this functionality for other languages and platforms soon. While this technology is still nascent, using its current capabilities to describe photos is an important step toward providing our visually impaired community with the same benefits and enjoyment that everyone else gets from photos.

Television is a central part of many people’s lives. There are very few places in the world where one cannot find a television set. Some sporting events, such as the Olympic Games or the football World Cup, can attract audiences of many millions. But is television a good or bad influence on young people in the modern world?

Thomas Murray, president of the British Parents Against Television Society, believes that it has not improved young people’s lives. “Television damages family life,” he argues. “At mealtime, families no longer talk to each other. In the evenings, youngsters do not spend good quality time with family members. Instead, they watch television.” Murray says that this lack of communication leads to social problems.

Murray also believes that the content of television programmes provides young people with poor role models. “There is so much violence(暴力) on TV—guns, kung fu fighting, and so on. Young people think that all problems should be solved by aggression.”

It is not just young people’s mental health that worries Murray. “Teenagers don’t get enough exercise because they spend so many hours watching television. They also develop back problems from sitting down for so long, and eye strain from the effort of watching.”

Murray would like to see changes to television habits. “Programmes should be educational. Their contents should be nonviolent and healthy. There should be no programmes after ten o'clock in the evening. Parents should teach their children to enjoy their spare time by playing sports or games. And certainly, the television should be switched off during meal time.

Susan Taylor is a television producer. She believes that television is a good influence on young people. “Television brings the outside world to youngsters. It even brought us pictures from the moon! And look what happens after the Olympic Games or the World Cup matches have been shown on TV. People start to take more exercise. Also, there are a lot of programmes about healthy eating and keeping fit.”

However, Taylor agrees with Murray’s point of view concerning parents. “Of course parents have a role to play in educating their kids. They should turn the TV off during mealtime and they should talk with their children as often as possible.”

The Mattel toy company created a new Barbie doll with the famous British scientist Jane Goodall as its model. The company issued the new doll this week, the latest member of the Barbie toymaker’s “Inspiring Women”. Mattel said the doll, made from used plastic, honored Goodall’s deep research on chimpanzees (黑猩猩) in Tanzania and her efforts to protect the wild animals.

The doll was dressed in a light brown shirt and shorts, much like that seen in many images of Goodall at work in Africa. It also came with a notebook, telescopes and another doll modeled on the real chimp Goodall named David Greybeard. He was the first chimpanzee with which she built trust in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park. The relationship permitted her to study the animals extremely closely. “I wanted a doll to be me even before this idea came up,” the 88- year-old scientist said. She praised Mattel for developing new Barbies standing for a wider number of working women.

Lisa McKnight agreed. She is the Executive Vice President and Global Head of Barbie and Dolls for Mattel. She said, “We hope that this collection inspires kids to learn more about green careers and how they can protect the planet, and act out stories about environmental protection through doll play.”

Goodall started her research in what is now Tanzania in the 1960s. She produced much research on wild chimpanzees over the years. She recorded how they made and used tools, lived in communities, and showed a high level of emotional understanding.

Goodall wanted to teach children that if they wanted to have a good effect on the changing environment, they must act. Goodall said, “Hope is about action on climate change, loss of wildlife, unfriendly lifestyles and pollution. We reach out to others because there are people working on each one of these problems…”