Do you have bright ideas? Ideas for inventions that change society or, at least, make life easier for somebody? Perhaps we all do sometimes, but we don’t often make the idea a reality. Recently, in Britain, there was a competition called British Designers for Tomorrow. The competition encouraged young people to carry out their bright ideas. There were two groups in the contest: Group One was for schoolchildren under 16; Group Two was for schoolchildren over 16. And there were eleven prize-winners altogether.

Neil Hunt, one of the prize-winners, was called “Sunshine Superman” by one newspaper writing about his design. It’s important, when people study the weather, to be able to record sunshine accurately. We need to know how many hours of sunshine we have and how strong it is. Most sunshine recorders only record direct sunlight. Neil’s is more accurate and this is very important for research into ways of using solar power. With his prize of ￡100, Neil plans to carry on inventing.

You can do so much with animation. Look at Simon West’s idea for animated road signs. He uses pictures which appear to move as you go nearer to or farther from them. This isn’t a new idea. But it is new to use these pictures on road signs. “We found that people were more likely to see moving signs,” said Simon. So now, you can really see rocks falling, trains moving, horses galloping or a car falling over the edge of a cliff. Quite a warning!

The ideas in the competition were so inventive that we are surprised that British industry doesn’t ask more schoolchildren for suggestions. Perhaps this will be the start of “pupil power”!

A large part of Indian society still lives in a system dominated by castes. A caste is a social class which every Indian is born into. There are a few thousand castes in India and each one of them has their own traditions and customs. Once a person is born into a caste they cannot get out, or marry someone from a different caste. Castes have existed throughout Indian history and although they are based on Hindu beliefs, other religions live in castes too. The caste system tells people which jobs they can have and with which people they can have contact. The caste system is based on four major classes. At the top are the Brahmins or priests. Below them are rulers, kings, soldiers and other people who work in the government. Then come bankers, businessmen and traders. At the bottom of the caste system are normal workers and farmers. Each caste has certain rights and privileges. Everyone, for example, can get food from a Brahmin, but a priest himself is thought to be polluted if he receives food from a person of a lower caste. A large group of people, called untouchables, live outside the caste system. Untouchables are often homeless people who live on the streets and under bridges. They do work that nobody else does and are often excluded in Hindu ceremonies. They are not allowed to drink water from a public fountain for fear of polluting the water for others. Although the caste system is no longer officially allowed, it still exists, especially in the rural areas of India.

    “God Save the Queen” (or “God Save the King,” depending on the gender of the ruling monarch) was first publicly performed in London in 1745 to support King George II after he was defeated in a battle in the Jacobean uprising that started that year. The song was used to boost morale and the forces loyal to George II would go on to defeat the Jacobites the following year. The song came to be referred to as the national anthem from the beginning of the nineteenth century.

    The words and tune are anonymous, and may date back to the seventeenth century. There are various claimants to authorship of both the words and the tune. The words can be found as early as 1545, when the watchword at night was “God save the King,” the reply was “Long to reign over us.” The authorship of the melody has been claimed by many, including John Bull, Henry Carey, Henry Purcell, and Joseph Haydn.

    There is no authorised version of the National Anthem as the words are a matter of tradition. The anthem has also never been officially declared as the national anthem of the country. The royal anthem is used as the national anthem as a matter of tradition. The words used are those sung in 1745, substituting ‘Queen’ for ‘King’ (and female pronouns for male ones) where appropriate. On official occasions, the first verse only is sung; on a small number of occasions, the third verse is heard as well. The second verse is very rarely heard due to its militaristic nature. There exist many other verses, some dating as far back as the first three verses, but the first three are what can best be taken as the “standard” British national anthem.

    The British tune has since become one of the world’s most recognizable anthems, and has been used in other countries including Germany, Russia, Switzerland, the United States, and even today by Liechtenstein and as the royal anthem of Norway. The song also was an influence on early anthems used in the Kingdom of Hawaii. Some 140 composers, including Beethoven, Haydn and Brahms, have used the tune in their compositions.

       Facebook plans to hire more remote workers in areas where the company doesn’t have an office and let some current employees work from home permanently if they’d like to. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the company plans to open up remote hiring starting immediately with the U.S., particularly for engineering talent. Based on internal employee surveys, he believes remote workers could make up as much as 50% of Facebook’s workforce in the next 5 to 10 years. Facebook is the latest, and largest, technology company to announce a full or partial move to more permanent remote work amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., both run by CEO Jack Dorsey, have announced that their employees can work from home permanently if they’d like to. Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc. also said it will allow its 5,000 staff to work from home indefinitely.

        It’s a trend that could significantly change Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area, which for decades has been the center for high-paying technology jobs. Many of the world’s most valuable companies, including Facebook, Apple and Google are headquartered just south of San Francisco, which has made the surrounding area one of the wealthiest and most expensive in the world.

        Facebook employees who wish to work remotely, and are approved to do so, will be paid based on their new location, Zuckerberg added. That means employees who move to areas with a lower cost of living than the Bay Area would likely take a pay cut.

       Clubhouse is unlike any other app on the market. It allows users to create a room where they can invite others to participate in discussions. The chats are not done through text, but through audio. This way, everyone in the room can literally have a voice and participate in conversations with strangers. Clubhouse differs from other platforms in that the chat rooms are created with certain topics. These can range from the stock market to cooking to politics to…well, there is no limit. One difference, and major benefit, of Clubhouse is that the audio isn’t saved after it’s heard. People can chat without much fear of their opinions being recorded, shared, and saved on the Internet.

        People in China and Taiwan took advantage of that feature early in the app’s emerging popularity. It provided an opportunity for people in both countries to talk honestly and peacefully with each other. Some Chinese citizens seemed to express support for Taiwan, mentioning that their schools had forced them to learn only the Chinese side of Taiwan’s history. Many users wanted to know more about Taiwan, and people on both sides had a civil dialogue about their cultures and governments. The heartwarming chats ended soon after, though, when the Chinese authorities blocked the app.

        Elsewhere, politicians, such as South Korea’s prime minister, are beginning to use Clubhouse, believing it might one day become essential for keeping in touch with voters. If you’re interested in joining, be aware that you must be invited into the service by an existing user. The same was true for Facebook in its early days, so there is a chance that the invitation-only feature could be dropped in the future.