X is shutting down Circles months after some users flagged glitches with the privacy-focused tool that lets users send posts to a select audience. The Elon Musk-owned company that was earlier called Twitter said on Thursday that Circles will be disabled by 31 October. “After this date, you will not be able to create new posts that are limited to your Circle, nor will you be able to add people to your Circle,” X wrote in a post. “You will, however, be able to remove people from your Circle, by unfollowing them,” the company said. Once unfollowed, users previously part of one’s Circle “can no longer see your past Circle Posts,” it said. The feature – similar to Instagram’s Close Friends stories – was officially launched in August 2022 when the platform was called Twitter, and before the Tesla billionaire took over the company. “Twitter Circle is a way to send Tweets to select people, and share your thoughts with a smaller crowd,” the company had said after the feature’s launch. “You choose who’s in your Twitter Circle, and only the individuals you’ve added can reply to and interact with the Tweets you share in the circle,” it had then said. Then in April, a software glitch exposed the private posts of some users to other followers and strangers not part of their Circle, sparking widespread privacy concern. Users began noticing their private Circle posts began appearing on the algorithmically generated “For You” timeline, meaning these posts were being noticed by people outside the intended audience. In some cases, users noticed their Circle posts were even reaching people who don’t even follow them. In emails sent to affected users, X said a “security incident” was behind the public display of their Circle tweets, adding that the issue was “immediately fixed” so these posts were no longer visible outside of the user’s Circle. “We’ve conducted a thorough investigation to understand how this occurred and have addressed this issue,” the company said. “We understand the risks that an incident like this can introduce and we deeply regret this happened,” it said at the time. The software bug added to the number of issues that plagued Twitter following Mr Musk’s takeover of the company and the multibillionaire laying off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. The glitch was likely due to the platform’s recommendation algorithm likely failing to filter out Circle posts before sharing them with others on the site, former Twitter engineer Theo Browne told TechCrunch at the time. Now, in a new update, X said in a post that it is “deprecating Circles as of Oct 31st, 2023”, without delving into why the company is shutting down the feature. Read More Two dead and dozens injured after bus carrying high school band crashes on I-84 in New York Tourist calls police after being charged £500 for chilli crab in Singapore Scientists discover world’s oldest human-built structure, built by an extinct species ChatGPT can now generate images and create illustrated books Man drives off bridge ‘following Google Maps’ Solar panel breakthrough could supercharge ‘miracle material’ production

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Scientists have built a breakthrough device that can clean dirty water and turn it into clean hydrogen fuel. The “simple” device could be used in areas without resources or places where people live off the grid. And it is just one example of the many solutions that will be required to respond to pollution and give people access to both clean fuel and water, the researchers behind it say. The system is inspired by photosynthesis, the process where plants turn light into food. But previous versions of those “artificial leaves” have required clean water sources – whereas the new device can be used with polluted water and even produce clean drinking water at the same time. As such, scientists believe that it could help solve two problems at once: making green fuel and cleaning water so that it is ready to drink. “Bringing together solar fuels production and water purification in a single device is tricky,” said Chanon Pornrungroj from the University of Cambridge, the paper’s co-lead author. “Solar-driven water splitting, where water molecules are broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, need to start with totally pure water because any contaminants can poison the catalyst or cause unwanted chemical side-reactions.” The system uses a carbon mesh to absorb light and heat, creating water favour that is then turned into hydrogen for fuel by a photocatalyst. That carbon mesh also repels water, so that the system can float and its important parts can be kept from being damaged by water. The device is also able to harness more of the Sun’s energy than previous examples, which have used only a small portion of the spectrum of light. The new system has a white layer on top to absorb UV rays, with the rest being used lower down to vaporise the water. “This way, we’re making better use of the light – we get the vapour for hydrogen production, and the rest is water vapour,” said Dr Pornrungroj. “This way, we’re truly mimicking a real leaf, since we’ve now been able to incorporate the process of transpiration.” The researchers behind the breakthrough noted that the system was simple to make, and was especially able to deal with very polluted water. As such, it could be a key way of working towards a sustainable future, they said – even though it is just a proof of concept for now. “The climate crisis and issues around pollution and health are closely related, and developing an approach that could help address both would be a game-changer for so many people,” said Cambridge’s Erwin Reisner, who led the work. The device is described in a new paper, ‘Hybrid photothermal-photocatalyst sheets for solar-driven overall water splitting coupled to water purification’, published in Nature Water today. Read More First carbon capture plant opens in the US to help avoid climate catastrophe Breakthrough solar system outperforms military-grade diesel generator Solar panel world record smashed with ‘miracle material’

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