Getting a little help from Cabhrú

Can technology help people distinguish between biased and unbiased news? Liam Byrne from Mullingar and Kyle Faherty from Collinstown are the Coláiste Mhuire team behind the highly-impressive ‘Cabhrú’, and they say the programme they have written shows that it can.

Kyle explains that a survey of 200 people that the two conducted revealed that 95 per cent of respondents have been called upon from time to time to help older relatives with technology.

Cabhrú harnesses the powers of AI to help older people to get the most from technology, and to help people navigate their way through conflicting news accounts of events.

"Misinformation is a rampant problem that has real world effects. We aim to tackle this with Cabhrú. We show people all the sources and articles and show them with custom videos and tutorials how to decipher between the truth and lies for themselves," the two explain.

However, their other major focus on making it easier for older people to access what they want online, since research has found that 77% of older people in Ireland have said they need help using technology such as smartphones and tablets.

"We aim to put the help in people’s hands," they say, and Liam demonstrates how their programme also offers a range of tutorials on topics such as how to go about watching GAA online.