All products featured on WIRED are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.
Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum is leaving Facebook's board after reported internal clashes over user privacy, Iran has banned the Telegram messaging app, growing up without animals could adversely affect mental health and more.
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum has announced that he's leaving Facebook and his position on its board. Although his departure post is suitably bland, Washington Post sources say that Koum is leaving following clashes over WhatsApp users' personal details being used for advertising and proposed changes that would weaken the app's strong end-to-end encryption. Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014. Koum's fellow co-founder, Brian Acton, left in 2017 and has since been a harsh critic of Facebook's approach to user privacy.
Iran has issued a national ban of the Telegram instant messaging app, which provides optional end-to-end encryption and was reportedly used to organise anti-government demonstrations earlier this year (TechCrunch). Telegram previously received a temporary ban and was told to move its servers into Iran, rather than storing data overseas. Iranian State TV has reportedly confirmed a permanent ban, "based on the demand of security organisations for confronting the illegal activities of Telegram", although the app is still working there for now. Meanwhile, Russian citizens have been protesting their government's ongoing attempts to block the service.
New research indicates that children who grow up in rural environments, surrounded by animals and their associated bacteria, could be at lower risk of mental illness in adulthood (MedicalXpress). It's known that exposure to animals helps to build a healthy immune system. Now, a small study comparing the stress responses of young German men from rural and pet-free urban environments has found that those who grew up in cities had elevated levels of inflammatory compounds after stressful experiences, compared to their rural peers. This exaggerated inflammatory response, which sufferers are entirely unaware of, is associated with an increased likelihood of developing depression and PTSD.
Banking systems are almost as low-tech as they are complex (WIRED). They can be bodge jobs: antiquated systems creaking under the weight of an ever-churning, ever-expanding customer base. According to a TSB insider who spoke to The Guardian, TSB’s system, inherited from Lloyds Banking Group, is particularly sclerotic, not least because it had the scar tissue of multiple prior mergers and was unsuitably large for a bank with a relatively small customer base.
Titonic Fisherman is a hand-drawn browser game that turns your computer into a gloriously daft cartoon music-making machine (Rock, Paper, Shotgun). Released last month for Now Play This at the London Games Festival, the music maker gives you a cast of sea monsters, surfing birds, comic robbers and even a volcano that will all tunefully squawk, grunt, titter and boom along with the beat as you trigger them using the top two letter rows of your keyboard. It's free to play, and a downloadable version for Windows is also available as donorware.
The dream of robots bringing lunch to the office just moved a step closer to reality. More than two years ago, the co-founders of Skype revealed a six-wheeled robot they hoped would drive on pavements and make deliveries. After more than 100,000 miles of experimental testing, Starship Technologies is ready to set its robots free.
WIRED 05.18 is out now. As Apple closes in on becoming the first $1 trillion company we look at its next move, step into the battle to recreate dead celebrities as holograms and go onboard the world's biggest cruise ship. Subscribe now and save.
Listen now, subscribe via RSS or add to iTunes.
Get WIRED Awake sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning by 8am. Click here to sign up to the WIRED Awake newsletter.
Follow WIRED on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
