Augmented reality: Teens test technology aimed at helping anxiety
AR is an interactive experience where your real-world environment is augmented, added to or enhanced using computer generated content.Counsellor Angela Mcmillan, who developed the AR therapy app, said the idea came from support sessions with young people in the south Wales valleys who had been struggling to attend school due to anxiety and social isolation."I'm really curious as to how we can use technology for good," she said."Instead of thinking of it as something we do by ourselves, how might we use technology where we are then able to share that with the person next to us?"The app uses gaming technology to allow a young person to design a flower and choose a structure to support its growth and the weather conditions.Users can then superimpose the digital images onto their physical surroundings using their device.
"What we found was young people were using the devices to move around their physical space but also interacting with each other in a playful way and we know that play is incredibly important for child development," said Ms Mcmillan.A group of young people who are supported by Cardiff Youth Service were the first to test the AR app.Lili, 16, said: "It's easy to use because you can separate it from yourself. It's easier to look at your emotions from an outside perspective."I think it could be helpful for a lot of people. If someone didn't really like talking then it can be like an ice breaker to open up conversations with their counsellor."I think it would be particularly useful for people with social anxiety."Jonas, 15, said: "The thoughts of the day's experiences are going through my mind as I'm choosing the different things."It's creative and I've never seen something like this before."
It is hoped the technology will help certain individuals, particularly those who are neurodivergent, to feel more comfortable using images to express how they are feeling."We're just about to start some pilots in schools in Swansea and Cardiff. What we have seen so far in our initial pilots is an increase in social connection," said Ms Mcmillan."I think a key element of this is that if we feel a sense of belonging, that improves our wellbeing and the way we want to interact with the world. "A by-product of that might be that young people want to go back into education or attend that in different ways."
The Children's Commissioner for Wales, Rocio Cifuentes, said school attendance remained "a big problem" as the number of children missing more than 10% of their schooling had doubled since the pandemic."There are multiple complex reasons for this, but we know emotional mental health and wellbeing does play a part and school anxiety is common," Ms Cifuentes said."I think it's really important to be considering any intervention which is evidence based and is showing to be effective but I also think it's important to listen to children and young people and what they need. "The world is evolving, technology is evolving and I think where schools can use that technology effectively to support children and young people's attendance, that's to be welcomed."Cardiff council said young people had "been given a voice and had valuable input in developing this tool which provides a way for them to communicate using an approach that they feel comfortable with".
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The Guardian
29-07-2025
- The Guardian
Brain injuries and legal battles: the NFL's persistent problem with CTE
On Monday evening, a man brandishing an AR-15-style rifle walked into the east midtown Manhattan office tower where the NFL is headquartered and killed four people before turning the gun on himself. Authorities say the man, 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura of Las Vegas, traveled to New York days before the incident, and surveillance footage from the Park Avenue address showed him arriving in a suit and tie that concealed body armor. Though the motive for the shooting remains unclear, police found a three-page note in Tamura's pocket in which he railed against the NFL and blamed football for giving him CTE, an incurable brain disease. The shooting – which seriously injured an NFL employee, according to a staff email sent by commissioner Roger Goodell – marks a new chapter in the league's decades-long history of denying concerns about long-term effects of head injuries in the sport. 'Study my brain, please,' reads Tamura's note. 'I'm sorry.' Whatever the truth that eventually emerges from Tamura's medical problems, his note is sure to reopen the existential debate that nearly stalled football's surging popularity during the 2010s. Short for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE is a progressive disease associated with physical contact that causes the brain to bang against the inside of the skull. In CTE cases, a protein called tau overdevelops in the brain, choking off blood vessels and the neural pathways that abet memory and impulse control. Some direct effects of CTE include mood disorders, cognitive impairments and behavioral changes; often, it results in dementia. Crucially, CTE can only be diagnosed posthumously. CTE was identified almost a century ago in boxers who exhibited memory loss, impaired gait and other symptoms of neurological decline. (They called CTE 'punch-drunk' syndrome back then.) And while the disease has since emerged in hockey, soccer and other full-contact team sports, it's football that holds the greatest potential for CTE. Many associate the game with its big hits, but the repeated collisions in between (often characterized as mini-car crashes) have just as much chance to lead to CTE over time, if not more so. Helmets, despite what manufacturers and the league itself may claim, offer scant protection. The longer one plays, the greater potential there is to become afflicted with CTE – which makes the risks especially acute for competitors who start young like Tamura, who played in high school. Starting in 2018, a number of state lawmakers would introduce legislation that would prohibit children under the age of 12 from playing tackle football – but few of those proposals would make it out of committee. The NFL has long been aware of the head injury threats to its players, forming a committee specifically to address mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) as early as 1994. Eight years later, fans were blindsided by the death of Mike Webster, a cornerstone of the Pittsburgh Steelers 1970s-era dynasty. In retirement, Webster was diagnosed with amnesia, dementia and depression. He lived out of his pickup truck and electroshocked himself to sleep. Following Webster's death at age 50, he became the NFL's first CTE case after the forensic neuropathologist Bennet Omalu examined his brain tissue. Omalu and his peer neurospecialists published research linking football to CTE, highlighting Webster and Terry Long – a Steelers teammate who also suffered from depression and died by suicide at age 45. But when Omalu's findings were presented to Goodell at a league-wide concussion summit in 2007, Ira Casson, the Long Island neurologist who co-chaired the NFL's MTBI committee, flagrantly dismissed them. The NFL's CTE casualties would only mount from there. In particular, four players had their brains posthumously donated to Boston University's CTE Center, the foremost database of its kind, and the findings ratcheted up concerns about the disease's impact in professional football to an unprecedented level. Dave Duerson, a Chicago Bears hero who found more post-retirement success in the business world, sent texts instructing family members to donate his brain to science before shooting himself in the chest in 2011. Junior Seau, a hall of fame linebacker for the San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots who was renowned as the NFL's happy warrior, killed himself in much the same fashion in 2012. Aaron Hernandez – a preternaturally talented receiver who was tied to the murder of three people, one of them a friend – killed himself in prison in 2017 at age 27 and was later diagnosed with the worst case of CTE ever found in a young person. (He took up the game at five years old.) In 2021 Phillip Adams, a veteran of five NFL teams who shot and killed five people in his South Carolina home town before shooting himself, was found to have had CTE all over his frontal lobe – the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, impulse control and other executive functions. OJ Simpson also nearly donated his brain to Boston University, but he eventually backed away from comments he made in 2018 expressing curiosity over whether he had CTE and was ultimately cremated. Of the 376 former NFL player brains that the center has examined since 2008, it has found CTE in 345 cases. By contrast, BU researchers found only one instance of CTE in a 2018 survey of the general public, and even that sample came from a former college football player. BU researchers would further sound the alarm on the head injury dangers that tackle football poses to kids whose developing brains, necks and bodies are not yet ready to absorb such impacts. In 2019, a high school football player named Wyatt Bramwell, who killed himself months after graduating high school, became the youngest player to be diagnosed with advanced CTE. While many past CTE cases have been associated with violent behavior, there's no conclusive proof of any direct links. The combination of Seau's death in 2012, the 2015 release of the Will Smith film Concussion (which focuses on Omalu's quest to hold the NFL accountable for head injuries) and more than 4,500 players filing suit against the league for concealing head injury dangers would throw the NFL – the world's biggest and most profitable sports league and an American cultural institution – into full-blown crisis mode. To stanch the drop in viewership and combat a rising disinclination among parents to sign their kids up for football (a move many prominent former players endorsed), the NFL legislated some collisions out of the game and beefed up safety protocols while ramping up its promotion of flag football – to the point of successfully lobbying a place for the non-contact version of the sport on the Olympic program for the 2028 LA Games. In 2013, the league agreed to a landmark $765m settlement with former players that included payouts but, crucially, no admission of liability and limited compensation for CTE-claims. It wasn't until 2016 that the league finally acknowledged the link between football-related head injuries and CTE – and, still, the legal battles continued as the league outright denies claims while punting the responsibility for medical care to individual teams. Meanwhile, retired players, who were left to manage their health problems in the background, could only call out the league for prioritizing profits and scold the game's incumbent generation of stars for not doing enough to consider their forebears in collective bargaining. The deeper the NFL digs, the more it gives college and high school leagues permission to do the same and risk tragedies like the one that unfolded inside the very building where the league is headquartered. Tamura never played in the NFL, but he did carve out a respectable high school career at Los Angeles county's Granda Hills Charter, distinguishing himself as a running back and kick returner. Those two positions, high-impact in both their potential for scoring and for brain injury, would have certainly increased his vulnerability to CTE – especially if Tamura took up the game before high school. He seemed to realize something about himself was off, too. In the note he left behind, Tamura suggests he may have even taken up Long's habit of drinking antifreeze to cope with potential CTE symptoms, and resigns himself to feeling powerless to take on the NFL. Since covering the initial news of the attack at headquarters on its website on Monday, the league's official media channels have moved back to tracking the latest developments from team training camps.
ITV News
16-07-2025
- ITV News
Young carer on the pressures of looking after a family and how to get support
ITV Channel's Lewis Andrews meets 14-year-old Leon and gets a rare insight into life as a young carer A boy from Jersey is raising awareness of the pressures involved in being a young carer and what support is available to others in a similar situation. Leon Surcouf, 14, started looking after his step-mum following her cancer diagnosis, and says that it was taking a toll on his mental health until he joined the Jersey Youth Service. Leon explains: "When everything happened, I went through a bit of a dark time because obviously it was not a great thing to be told, and so I wasn't feeling the best. "At school, I just felt a bit tired and I didn't want to put any effort in because I felt there was no point. But after going to the Youth Service and having one-to-ones, you realise a lot of it can be taken off your shoulders by talking to somebody." What is a young carer? A young carer is someone under the age of 18 who provides support for a family member who has a disability, illness, mental health condition, or drug or alcohol problem. This can involve practical tasks, emotional help, and personal care. In Jersey, 16% of young people care for a family member or friend, according to the 2021 Children and Young People's Survey. To support those young carers, Jersey's Youth Service offer free clubs, activities, advice and counselling support to those aged between 12 and 25. Youth worker Jo Dove says: "It's a safe space for young carers to get some time for themselves, to be in a supportive environment, talk to a youth worker if they want to and be with young carers who really know what they are going through. "It can be really difficult and they might be worried about that. Having a space like this is important to just have a break from those responsibilities. Everything is free and we do free transport as well to remove any barriers." Young carers in Jersey talk about the importance of the Youth Service Explaining how his day-to-day support helps his step-mum, Leon says: "Helping around the house can sometimes help her have a bit of time to rest. "It means she gets a bit of stress off her back, so when there are things to do, she doesn't feel like she has to do it. She needs time to rest, so sometimes it's nice to give her some time to." However, he adds it can be challenging: "There is quite a lot of emotional sides to it, with your mental health. It is quite a big role sometimes. "For some people, it is a lot more emotional, but obviously, everyone deals with it differently." Since meeting others like him at the Youth Service, Leon says his life has significantly improved. He explains: "The people there are going through similar struggles. When you're at school, no one knows what you're dealing with and you don't always want to talk about it. "But there you have people who know what it's like, so they know that everyone deals with it differently. "Having people around you who are going through the same thing is quite comforting. You know you aren't sticking out, you aren't the only person there who is going through something. "It is a lot less about teaching you how to deal with things; it's a hangout spot where you can make lots of friends and have fun. It's a nice space to not have to think about what is going on at home, it's just time for you and yourself." Leon's father, Mark, adds: "He has come a long way since joining the service. He was going down the wrong road at one point, and we were quite concerned about him. "We think it was the pressure with everything going on but since becoming involved, he has really upped his game; he has gone to the top of his sets [at school] and is just doing really well." In a message to other young carers, Leon says: "There are a lot of people, I think, who could do with the support, but have missed the opportunity because they don't know about it or don't want to go because they feel it would be awkward. "But I want people to know it is a good thing, and they aren't going to go there and be constantly asked what is going on at home or talking about it."
Geeky Gadgets
07-07-2025
- Geeky Gadgets
iOS 26 & Apple News: Your Weekly Update on What's New
Apple's iOS 26 introduces a variety of new features and updates, emphasizing the company's dedication to innovation and user-focused design. With enhancements spanning customization, artificial intelligence (AI), and augmented reality (AR), this update reflects Apple's vision for a more seamless and personalized digital experience. Below is an in-depth look at the key features of iOS 26 and Apple's broader plans for the future in a new video from Brandon Butch. Watch this video on YouTube. Key Features of iOS 26 iOS 26 brings a host of improvements aimed at enhancing functionality and personalization. These updates are designed to provide users with greater control and convenience in their daily interactions with Apple devices. Some of the most notable features include: Lock Screen Customization: Users now have the ability to adjust widget placement, offering a more tailored lock screen layout that aligns with individual preferences. Users now have the ability to adjust widget placement, offering a more tailored lock screen layout that aligns with individual preferences. Photos App Enhancements: Smarter event recognition and improved album suggestions make organizing photo libraries more intuitive and efficient, saving users time and effort. Smarter event recognition and improved album suggestions make organizing photo libraries more intuitive and efficient, saving users time and effort. FaceTime Safety Features: A new sensitive content detection system automatically pauses video or audio when inappropriate content is identified, fostering a safer communication environment. A new sensitive content detection system automatically pauses video or audio when inappropriate content is identified, fostering a safer communication environment. Smart Audio Playback: AirPods and Beats headphones now include functionality to pause playback automatically when they detect the user has fallen asleep, adding a layer of convenience and comfort. Despite these advancements, early beta versions of iOS 26 have faced challenges, including performance issues and reduced battery life. Apple is actively addressing these concerns, with Beta 3 expected to arrive in early July 2025, followed by a public beta release later in the month. Siri's AI Transformation Apple is making significant strides in transforming Siri into a more advanced and intuitive virtual assistant. By collaborating with AI leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, Apple aims to integrate innovative AI capabilities into Siri, enhancing its responsiveness and functionality. These updates will use Apple's private cloud servers, making sure that user privacy remains a top priority. While a fully AI-powered Siri is not anticipated until 2027, incremental improvements will begin rolling out with iOS 26 and continue with iOS 27. These enhancements represent a gradual evolution, positioning Siri as a more intelligent and capable tool for users in the coming years. AR/VR Innovations with Apple Vision Apple's Vision product line underscores its commitment to augmented and virtual reality technologies. The Vision Pro, scheduled for a refresh later in 2025, will be joined by new products such as Vision Air in 2027. Vision Air is expected to feature a lighter design and more affordable pricing, making AR/VR technology accessible to a broader audience. Looking further ahead, Apple plans to introduce smart glasses in 2027. These glasses will include features such as audio playback, photo and video capabilities, and gesture controls. By 2028, Apple aims to release XR glasses that integrate advanced display technology and AI, offering a more immersive experience that bridges the physical and digital worlds. However, the development of a display accessory for iPhones and Macs has been paused due to ongoing design challenges. Future Hardware Developments Apple's hardware roadmap includes several exciting innovations that reflect its commitment to balancing innovative technology with accessibility and design. Key developments include: Affordable MacBook: A new MacBook powered by the A18 chip, typically used in iPhones, is expected to launch in late 2024 or early 2025. This device aims to provide a cost-effective option without compromising performance. A new MacBook powered by the A18 chip, typically used in iPhones, is expected to launch in late 2024 or early 2025. This device aims to provide a cost-effective option without compromising performance. iPhone 17 Pro: Rumored to feature a full-width camera bar, this design will require repositioning the Apple logo, marking a bold aesthetic shift for the iPhone lineup. These advancements highlight Apple's efforts to cater to a diverse range of users while maintaining its reputation for innovation and quality. Apple Music's 10th Anniversary To commemorate a decade of Apple Music, the platform has introduced 'Replay All Time' playlists, allowing users to revisit their most-played songs since joining the service. Additionally, special broadcasts will showcase Apple Music's all-time top tracks, offering a nostalgic celebration of the platform's impact on the music streaming industry. AirTag's Role in Recovery Apple's AirTag continues to demonstrate its value in real-world applications. In a recent case, an AirTag was instrumental in recovering $41,000 worth of stolen equipment in Missouri. This success story highlights the device's effectiveness in locating lost or stolen items, making it a reliable tool for both personal and professional use. Performance and Release Timeline As Apple refines iOS 26, the current beta versions have encountered challenges related to performance and battery life. Beta 3 is anticipated in early July 2025, with a public beta release expected later in the month. These updates aim to resolve existing issues, ensuring a smoother and more reliable experience for users when the official release becomes available. iOS 26 represents a significant step forward in Apple's mission to enhance its software and hardware ecosystem. From AI-driven updates to AR/VR advancements and user-focused features, Apple continues to push the boundaries of technology. While challenges remain, the company's roadmap reflects a clear vision for a more connected, innovative, and personalized digital future. Expand your understanding of iOS 26 features with additional resources from our extensive library of articles. Source & Image Credit: Brandon Butch Filed Under: Apple, Apple iPhone, Technology News Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.
