It's been a good week for ...
nice children
Scientists can reveal that performing deliberate acts of kindness makes children more popular with their peers. In the latest research for the think tank ObVios (only kidding - the findings by a team from the University of California, Riverside, are published in the journal Plos One), children were "assigned" three acts of kindness each week for four weeks. By the end of the experiment, children were happier and more liked by classmates.
The researchers say that encouraging such simple "positive acts" could help children to get along with fellow pupils and even prevent bullying.
The study involved 400 schoolchildren aged between nine and 11. The kind acts were not just directed towards classmates. Some examples of the things children reported were: "Gave my mom a hug when she was stressed by her job"; "Gave someone some of my lunch"; and "Vacuumed the floor".
When asked to nominate classmates they would like to play with, pupils picked those who were kind and compassionate.
It took four weeks to suss that one out? The bullies must have been laughing all the way to the bikesheds to steal someone's playpiece.
It's been a bad week for ... iPhone owners
The start of the year has been a sleepless one for thousands of iPhone users.
Just to prove they are much more clever than humans, the smartphones got all contrary and refused to recognise a new Do Not Disturb feature.
Apple confirmed it could not fix the bug that has woken users every night since January 1.
The Do Not Disturb feature, designed to silence the handset during set hours, stopped working on New Year's Day. The firm confirmed it will not work again until tomorrow. The glitch involves the way Apple's software deals with dates.
This feature was added to the latest version of Apple's iOS software so users could sleep without being woken or go to meetings without being interrupted. However, users discovered on January 1 that Do Not Disturb did not automatically reset as scheduled, so calls and alerts sounded as normal.
It prompted scores of iPhone users to flood blogs and internet chatrooms to vent their anger.
No-one likes a smartarse phone.
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