Latest news with #Word
Business Wire
3 hours ago
- Business
- Business Wire
YuJa Launches Interactive Accessibility Comparison and Demo Tools to Support Institutions Following Supreme Court Disability Rights Ruling
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Tharpe v. Osseo Area Schools, which affirms the right of individuals with disabilities to sue educational institutions for failing to accommodate their needs, higher education leaders are facing more pressure than ever to ensure accessibility across all aspects of the learning experience, including digital content. YuJa, Inc., a leader in ed-tech solutions for accessibility, supports institutions in taking proactive, meaningful steps to meet students' needs. Through the YuJa Panorama LMS Accessibility Platform, the company provides educational institutions with tools to identify, remediate, and improve the accessibility of digital course content. 'The Supreme Court's decision reinforces that accessibility isn't optional,' said Nathan Arora, Chief Executive Officer at YuJa, Inc. 'Institutions have a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure students with disabilities are supported in the learning environment. YuJa Panorama was designed to help them do that in a sustainable and scalable way.' YuJa Panorama integrates directly into learning management systems to scan course materials for accessibility issues, generate alternative accessible formats like audio, ePub, and high-contrast PDFs, and more, and provide dashboards and analytics that help instructors and administrators to make data-informed decisions. Recent comparative analysis shows YuJa Panorama's accessibility checker outperforms other leading solutions, detecting critical issues that competitors miss across PDF documents, PowerPoint presentations, Word files, Excel spreadsheets, and HTML content. A newly launched Compare Page outlines YuJa Panorama's advanced remediation capabilities compared to other platforms. YuJa has also released an interactive tool that allows institutional leaders to try out alternative formats firsthand, demonstrating how accessible versions of content can benefit all learners. 'We're here to help institutions move beyond compliance and toward a culture of inclusion,' Arora said. 'That means giving educators the insights and tools they need to meet learners where they are.' To learn more about how YuJa Panorama can help your institution foster equity through digital accessibility, visit To schedule a demo, contact us. ABOUT YUJA, INC. YuJa is a leader in cloud platforms and applications for regulated sector clients, including higher-ed, K12, healthcare, and government. We enable enterprises to create engaging digital media experiences. We have legal headquarters in Delaware with primary U.S. offices in Silicon Valley, California, and Canadian offices in Toronto.
Indian Express
11 hours ago
- Indian Express
8 game-changing WhatsApp tips everyone should try today
With over 800 million monthly users in India, WhatsApp is the most widely used app in the country, utilised on a daily basis for its wide variety of features including instant messaging, voice and video calling, and UPI payments. While most of its basic features are well-known, there are many unfamiliar components that can help protect your privacy, make sending messages easier, and overall improve your experience with the app. Here are eight WhatsApp hacks you may not have known about: Bold, italicise, or cross-out text Just like on Word, WhatsApp messages can also be formatted to be made bold, italicised, or crossed-out. To make text bold, add the asterisk (*) symbol before and after the word or phrase – for example, when adding an asterisk before and after the word *Hey*, the message will have the word Hey in bold. Similarly, to send text in italics, add an underscore (_) before and after the word or phrase – for example, when adding an underscore before and after the word _Hey_, the message will have the word Hey in italics. To cross-out a message, add the tilde (~) symbol before and after the word or phrase – for example, when adding a tilde before and after the word ~Hey~, the message will have the word Hey crossed-out. These elements can also be combined; for instance, it is also possible to send a message in both bold and italics by using both symbols *_before and after_* the message. Find messages within a chat In times when you need to find a specific message that someone sent, you can easily find it in the specific chat or group instead of endlessly scrolling. To do so, Android users should open the desired chat, and click the three vertical dots in the top right corner. Later, in the drop-down menu click on Search, and type the desired word(s) and click on Search or OK on the keyboard. Apple users can do so by opening the desired chat. They would need to press Contact to open Contact Info and click on 'Chat search'. Later, input the related keyword or phrase and click on Search on the keyboard. This feature also allows you to search for a message that was sent on a particular day or time. Use the 'view once' feature When sending sensitive or private photos or videos, the 'View Once' feature can come in handy. This allows a photo or video that is sent to only be seen once, and does not allow the receiver to save or screenshot them. Click on the icon with the encircled number 1 before sending a photo or video to utilise this feature. Set a custom WhatsApp wallpaper WhatsApp allows you to set different wallpapers for different chats and groups, as well as change the colour or even upload an image as background from your photo gallery. To set a custom wallpaper, click on the three vertical dots and open Settings via the dropdown menu. Click on 'Chats', then 'Default chat theme', then 'Wallpaper'. You can now choose your desired wallpaper from WhatsApp's collection or from your photo gallery. Pin important messages WhatsApp now lets you pin up to three messages within a chat; useful for saving key messages like addresses, to-do lists, or important information. To pin a message in a chat or group, Android users can long-press the desired message, press the three vertical dots on the top-right and click on Pin. iPhone users can swipe right on their chosen message and press the Pin option. Swipe to reply instantly On both Android and Apple, simply swipe right on a message to quote and reply instantly. It is much quicker than long-pressing the message and pressing 'Reply'. Turn on disappearing messages For chats that are private or confidential, WhatsApp's disappearing messages feature allows for messages sent in a particular chat or group to be deleted automatically. You can choose between a set time of 24 hours, 7 days, or 90 days. Android users can activate disappearing messages by pressing the three vertical dots on the top right. Later, select Settings and then Privacy and opt for Default Message Timer. You can now choose your desired time and chat/group, then press Apply. On the other hand, Apple users can go to Settings then Privacy and later click on Default message timer. They can choose the desired time and chat/group and then press the green check mark icon. Stop media auto-saving to your phone WhatsApp automatically saves every photo and video received to the phone's gallery, which may take up unnecessary space. To turn it off, Android users should click the three vertical dots on the top-right, then Settings, then move on to Chats. Here, you should turn off the 'Media visibility' option. Similarly, Apple users should press Settings then Chats and turn off the 'Save to Photos' option. (This article has been curated by Arfan Jeelany, who is an intern with The Indian Express)
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
The neuroscientist working on ‘zapping' away unwanted memories
Think of your happiest memory. A wedding, your child's birth, or maybe just a perfect night out with friends. Sit with it for a moment. Remember the details. What were you wearing? What did it smell like? How did it make you feel? Now do the opposite. Think of a sad memory—the loss of a loved one, getting laid off, or a painful breakup. Sit with this one too. Which would you rather keep? Of course, you want the happy memory, the one that made you feel good and joyful about life. Yet, the painful ones linger for years and sometimes decades, like bruises beneath the surface. If you could choose, would you keep them—or delete them entirely? If this is all starting to sound like something out of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Inception, you wouldn't be too far off—and Steve Ramirez would agree with you. Ramirez is a neuroscientist at Boston University and National Geographic Explorer whose research occurs on the bleeding edge of memory science. He's perhaps best known for studies he helped conduct that showed that it was possible to implant a false memory in mice. The findings were published in the journal Science in 2013 and the Royal Society in 2014. His research is built on a central truth: Memory is fickle. It changes and morphs every time we recall it. Ramirez compares it to hitting 'Save As' on a Word document. Everytime we retrieve a memory, we change it slightly. Ramirez is exploring whether we can harness that 'Save As' process—intentionally rewriting our memories instead of letting them change by accident. So far, he's figured out how to do something even more surprising: not destroy a bad memory, but create a new one. 'We know memories are malleable, and susceptible to modification,' says Ramirez. 'Every time they're recalled, they're being saved and edited with bits and pieces. We wanted to see if we could do that in the lab. Because if we could do that directly in the lab and brain, then we can really get a higher resolution snapshot of how memories work when they're being warped or when they're being modified.' The team's foundational study came in a 2012 paper published in Nature where they identified and activated a cluster of neurons in mice brains that encoded a fear memory—specifically, a mild foot shock. To do so, the researchers genetically engineered the mice so that memory-related neurons become light sensitive. The creatures were then placed into a box and received a foot shock—resulting in the memory of that shock becoming encoded in the light-sensitive brain cells. The team then surgically implanted a tiny fiber-optic cable into the skull of each mouse that they could use to shine a laser into its brain. When they turned it on, it activated the bad memory on command like flipping a switch. Next they wanted to see if they could create a false memory. For this, they put a mouse in a safe box and let it explore. The next day, they placed the mouse in a different box, triggered the memory of the safe box by shooting a laser over its brain, and simultaneously gave it a foot shock. When they later returned the mouse in the first box, it froze in fear—even though it never received a shock in that box. The team had, in effect, implanted a false memory in the mice. 'The key thing with that experiment was that we showed that we could artificially activate a memory while the animal was experiencing something. Later, that new, updated version was the animal's last recorded version of that memory,' he explains. 'The mouse was scared in an environment where, technically, nothing bad happened.' Between the lasers, false memories, and shocking experiments, you'd be forgiven if you thought this was getting pretty sci-fi. Ramirez embraces the comparison as his work often brushes up against science fiction in big ways. 'I think science fiction and science reality are in lockstep, often influencing each other in surprising and unpredictable ways,' Ramirez says. 'What sci-fi can get 'wrong' sometimes is inevitable, but the work it inspires and the dreams and visions sci-fi can conjure up in people is practically limitless, and I love it for that very reason.' Still, it can seem scary, especially when you consider the potential applications to humans. But Ramirez says that memory manipulation would take a decidedly less invasive approach for people—no brain lasers required. Instead, if you want to activate a happy memory in another person, all you have to do is ask them about it. (Remember the beginning of the story—or did you forget?) 'We can update a seemingly safe memory into something negative,' he says, referring to the foot shock test. 'But what about the opposite: Can we turn a negative memory into a positive memory?' Despite the pop-culture comparisons to Inception or Eternal Sunshine, Ramirez's real-world applications are far less cinematic—and arguably more profound. Instead, his work is laying the groundwork for helping people with PTSD process harmful memories, or those with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and dementia live longer, better lives. In a forthcoming paper currently under peer review, his team claims they were able to identify where exactly a memory will form in the brain days before it even happens. It's like being able to predict where lightning is about to strike before the storm even gathers. This might allow future clinicians to anticipate the effects of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and dementia before they occur. 'Imagine being able to make a Google Maps for memory, but with the level of individual brain cells,' he says. 'You could say, 'This is a positive memory in the brain. It's located here in this 3D web of activity. We can zoom into it here and it looks like something is misfiring, and that might be the remnants of some kind of cognitive decline or memory loss, or amnesia, or Alzheimer's.'' We're still a long way away from a Google Maps for memory. However, Ramirez is quick to point out that his field of research is still in its infancy. He puts it this way: the study of neuroscience is roughly 100 years old—whereas physics is more than 2,000 years old. 'Relative to physics, neuroscience is still in its Pythagorean Theorem stage,' he jokes. There's still a lot we don't know about the brain and, as a result, how memory works. But Ramirez and neuroscientists like him are turning science fiction into science reality, which may allow us to one day edit and manipulate our own experiences. More importantly, their research helps us understand the profound ways that memory shapes us—and how we might begin to shape it right back. This article is part of Your Memory, Rewired, a National Geographic exploration into the fuzzy, fascinating frontiers of memory science—including advice on how to make your own memory more powerful. Learn more. The nonprofit National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funded National Geographic Explorer Steve Ramirez's work. Learn more about the Society's support of Explorers.
India.com
3 days ago
- Business
- India.com
Satya Nadella's Microsoft Office banned in…, 30,000 workers, police officers, judges will switch to…
Microsoft Office is used in offices at the same time in schools and also for personal use worldwide. But now, some countries in Europe are trying to ban it from their government systems for several reasons. One of the important reasons is that they want to control their own data. In Germany, the state of Schleswig-Holstein has decided to stop using Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft software for government work, according to an AFP report. Around 30,000 workers including police officers and judges will switch to open-source software like LibreOffice (instead of Word) and Open-Xchange (instead of Outlook) in the next few months. The German government wants to keep its data safe and stored inside the country. 'We're done with Teams,' Dirk Schroedter, the state's digital minister, told AFP. He added that after the war in Ukraine countries realized they need to be more independent not just with energy, but also with technology. Denmark is also taking similar steps. The government has started replacing Microsoft Office with LibreOffice. Some big cities like Copenhagen have also initiated the switch. They have concerns like political issues with the United States can stop them from accessing important tools and data and stop their daily working within a fraction of seconds. There were media reports that Microsoft once blocked a top international prosecutor from using his email after political pressure from the U.S. But Microsoft had denied doing it on purpose, but this led to a move against Microsoft in some European countries. Another factor behind this move in money. In Copenhagen, the cost of Microsoft software went up by 72% in just five years. So switching to free, open-source can help these governments to save more money. But switching away from Microsoft is not very easy and experts say that it's not possible to fully replace Microsoft software.
National Geographic
4 days ago
- Health
- National Geographic
The neuroscientist working on ‘zapping' away unwanted memories
Think of your happiest memory. A wedding, your child's birth, or maybe just a perfect night out with friends. Sit with it for a moment. Remember the details. What were you wearing? What did it smell like? How did it make you feel? Now do the opposite. Think of a sad memory—the loss of a loved one, getting laid off, or a painful breakup. Sit with this one too. Which would you rather keep? Of course, you want the happy memory, the one that made you feel good and joyful about life. Yet, the painful ones linger for years and sometimes decades, like bruises beneath the surface. If you could choose, would you keep them—or delete them entirely? If this is all starting to sound like something out of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Inception, you wouldn't be too far off—and Steve Ramirez would agree with you. Ramirez is a neuroscientist at Boston University and National Geographic Explorer whose research occurs on the bleeding edge of memory science. He's perhaps best known for studies he helped conduct that showed that it was possible to implant a false memory in mice. The findings were published in the journal Science in 2013 and the Royal Society in 2014. His research is built on a central truth: Memory is fickle. It changes and morphs every time we recall it. Ramirez compares it to hitting 'Save As' on a Word document. Everytime we retrieve a memory, we change it slightly. Ramirez is exploring whether we can harness that 'Save As' process—intentionally rewriting our memories instead of letting them change by accident. So far, he's figured out how to do something even more surprising: not destroy a bad memory, but create a new one. The science of remembering what never happened 'We know memories are malleable, and susceptible to modification,' says Ramirez. 'Every time they're recalled, they're being saved and edited with bits and pieces. We wanted to see if we could do that in the lab. Because if we could do that directly in the lab and brain, then we can really get a higher resolution snapshot of how memories work when they're being warped or when they're being modified.' The team's foundational study came in a 2012 paper published in Nature where they identified and activated a cluster of neurons in mice brains that encoded a fear memory—specifically, a mild foot shock. To do so, the researchers genetically engineered the mice so that memory-related neurons become light sensitive. The creatures were then placed into a box and received a foot shock—resulting in the memory of that shock becoming encoded in the light-sensitive brain cells. The team then surgically implanted a tiny fiber-optic cable into the skull of each mouse that they could use to shine a laser into its brain. When they turned it on, it activated the bad memory on command like flipping a switch. Next they wanted to see if they could create a false memory. For this, they put a mouse in a safe box and let it explore. The next day, they placed the mouse in a different box, triggered the memory of the safe box by shooting a laser over its brain, and simultaneously gave it a foot shock. When they later returned the mouse in the first box, it froze in fear—even though it never received a shock in that box. The team had, in effect, implanted a false memory in the mice. 'The key thing with that experiment was that we showed that we could artificially activate a memory while the animal was experiencing something. Later, that new, updated version was the animal's last recorded version of that memory,' he explains. 'The mouse was scared in an environment where, technically, nothing bad happened.' Inside the brain's editing room Between the lasers, false memories, and shocking experiments, you'd be forgiven if you thought this was getting pretty sci-fi. Ramirez embraces the comparison as his work often brushes up against science fiction in big ways. 'I think science fiction and science reality are in lockstep, often influencing each other in surprising and unpredictable ways,' Ramirez says. 'What sci-fi can get 'wrong' sometimes is inevitable, but the work it inspires and the dreams and visions sci-fi can conjure up in people is practically limitless, and I love it for that very reason.' Still, it can seem scary, especially when you consider the potential applications to humans. But Ramirez says that memory manipulation would take a decidedly less invasive approach for people—no brain lasers required. Instead, if you want to activate a happy memory in another person, all you have to do is ask them about it. (Remember the beginning of the story—or did you forget?) 'We can update a seemingly safe memory into something negative,' he says, referring to the foot shock test. 'But what about the opposite: Can we turn a negative memory into a positive memory?' Despite the pop-culture comparisons to Inception or Eternal Sunshine, Ramirez's real-world applications are far less cinematic—and arguably more profound. Instead, his work is laying the groundwork for helping people with PTSD process harmful memories, or those with neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and dementia live longer, better lives. In a forthcoming paper currently under peer review, his team claims they were able to identify where exactly a memory will form in the brain days before it even happens. It's like being able to predict where lightning is about to strike before the storm even gathers. This might allow future clinicians to anticipate the effects of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and dementia before they occur. 'Imagine being able to make a Google Maps for memory, but with the level of individual brain cells,' he says. 'You could say, 'This is a positive memory in the brain. It's located here in this 3D web of activity. We can zoom into it here and it looks like something is misfiring, and that might be the remnants of some kind of cognitive decline or memory loss, or amnesia, or Alzheimer's.'' We're still a long way away from a Google Maps for memory. However, Ramirez is quick to point out that his field of research is still in its infancy. He puts it this way: the study of neuroscience is roughly 100 years old—whereas physics is more than 2,000 years old. 'Relative to physics, neuroscience is still in its Pythagorean Theorem stage,' he jokes. There's still a lot we don't know about the brain and, as a result, how memory works. But Ramirez and neuroscientists like him are turning science fiction into science reality, which may allow us to one day edit and manipulate our own experiences. More importantly, their research helps us understand the profound ways that memory shapes us—and how we might begin to shape it right back. This article is part of Your Memory, Rewired, a National Geographic exploration into the fuzzy, fascinating frontiers of memory science—including advice on how to make your own memory more powerful. Learn more. The nonprofit National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, funded National Geographic Explorer Steve Ramirez's work. Learn more about the Society's support of Explorers.
