FB could become ‘World’s largest graveyard’
London: Facebook continues to expand at current rates, the number of deceased users could reach as high as 4.9 billion before the end of the century, making it the world’s biggest graveyard, predict researchers from the University of Oxford.
The dead may outnumber the living on Facebook within 50 years, a trend that will have grave implications for how we treat our digital heritage in the future, said researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), a part of the university.
The analysis predicts that based on 2018 user levels, at least 1.4 billion members will die before 2100. In this scenario, the dead could outnumber the living by 2070.
The analysis sets up two potential extreme scenarios, arguing that the future trend will fall somewhere in between. The first scenario assumes that no new users join as of 2018.
Under these conditions, Asia’s share of dead users increases rapidly to account for nearly 44 per cent of the total by the end of the century.
“Nearly half of those profiles come from India and Indonesia, which together account for just under 279 million Facebook mortalities by 2100,” the researchers said.
The second scenario assumes that Facebook continues to grow by its current rate of 13 per cent globally, every year, until each market reaches saturation. Under these conditions, Africa will make up a growing share of dead users.
The predictions are based on data from the United Nations, which provide the expected number of mortalities and total populations for every country in the world distributed by age, and Facebook data scraped from the company’s Audience Insights feature. (IANS)
Birth certificate issued for child born to Hindu-Muslim parent
Dubai: In probably the first, the UAE government has issued birth certificate to a nine-month old girl who was born to an Indian Hindu father and a Muslim mother, setting aside the country’s marriage rules for expatriates during the Year of Tolerance, according to a media report.
As per the marriage rules for expatriates in UAE, a Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim woman but a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim man.
“I have an Abu Dhabi visa. I get my insurance coverage there and got my wife admitted to Medeor 24X7 Hospital in the emirate. But after the baby’s delivery, the birth certificate was rejected as I am a Hindu,” Babu said. “I, then applied for a no-objection certificate through the court. The trial went on for four months but my case was rejected,” he added.
“Those days were stressful and the amnesty was a window of hope. The Indian Embassy helped with the provision of an outpass. But the baby was denied immigration clearance as there was no data or registration number to prove her birth,” he said.
Babu said that Indian Embassy counsellor M Rajamurugan supported them throughout the process. “The judicial department made my case an exception. I was told that from now on, in such cases, we have to put together a request letter, get it approved by the chief justice, and take it to the health authority for the issuance of a birth certificate,” he said.
Babu again went to court and, this time, his case was approved. The couple was given the birth certificate of their daughter Anamta Aceline Kiran on April 14, a day before the Hindu festival of Vishu. (PTI)
Fan hospitalised for crying during ‘Avengers’
Beijing: ‘Avengers: Endgame’, the final part of the superhero series, has so many emotional moments that people are becoming teary-eyed while watching it. But a strange incident happened in China a few days ago when a 21-year-old girl Xiaoli got hospitalised as she could not stop crying during the film.
According to Fox 8, Xiaoli cried uncontrollably in the cinema and began hyperventilating and trouble in breathing. She was taken to a hospital where she was administered oxygen to normalise breathing.
‘‘I saw that the patient had been breathing heavily and according to the description from her peers, her crying caused hyperventilation. We immediately gave her oxygen and relaxed her emotions by appeasement, reducing her hyperventilation symptoms,’’ a doctor said. (IANS)