Highlights from Richard Watson’s latest Brainmail:

• In the UK, 5.5 million homes (around 20% of all homes) now possess a voice activated assistant.
• 20 per cent of 3-5-year-olds now own their own iPad.
• Google and Facebook have more than a fifth of the world’s advertising spending (they have 50-60 per cent of digital advertising spend).
• The terms and conditions for Amazon’s Kindle are 73,198 words long and would take around 9 hours to read. I checked this out (link) and the terms are made up from 20 documents, plus the privacy notice.
• Compared to the 400 deaths per year from terrorism, more Europeans drown in their own bathtubs, and ten times more die from falling down the stairs.

The most upsetting:

• Around 650,000,000 adults and 124,000,000 children around the world are obese.
• 500,000 individuals in the UK aged over 60 usually spend each and every day in complete solitude and 500,000 more do not see or speak to anyone for at least five days each week.

It’s time to give your elderly relative and neighbour a call.