More than three-quarters of elderly people have never used the internet, figures released today show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said over-75s were the most likely age group to have never been online - with some 76.3% having never accessed the internet.

Helena Herklots, service director at Age UK, said: "Twenty years on from its invention, the internet is increasingly important to our everyday lives and there are more ways of accessing it than ever, including via a laptop or a mobile phone.

The head of internet giant Google attacked the British education system today, warning the country risks falling behind in the digital age unless it makes drastic changes.

Dr Eric Schmidt called for a return to a "Victorian" approach bringing "art and science back together".

Addressing the Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, he is expected to say something has to be done to "reignite" children's passion for science and technology.

He praised British television as a success story but warned "everything" could still go wrong.
He said: "If I may be so impolite, your track record isn't great.

Jim Carrey is launching his new website with a bang.

The 49-year-old actor posted a video love letter to "The Help" star Emma Stone on www.jimcarreytrulife.com that many online deemed "creepy."

The one-minute, 53-second video shows Carrey speaking into a handheld camera and sincerely professing his love for the 22-year-old actress.

Carrey says Stone is "all the way beautiful. Not just pretty, but smart, and kind-hearted and that "if I were a lot younger, I would marry you."

He goes on to say they would have "chubby little freckle-faced kids."

The popular video crashed Carrey's new site. Carrey said on Twitter that the video "was a comedy routine".

Stone has not responded publicly to the video.

Farmers are turning to social media as a way to promote their business and boost profits, a survey has revealed.

Increasing numbers of media-savvy farmers across the UK are using the likes of Twitter and Facebook to get advice, share ideas and keep up-to-date with developments, according to the online survey of 1,000 people carried out this month.

Just over half of farmers, 53%, said they used social media, the main reasons being to communicate with customers and to flag-up farming-related issues.

A lack of resources and "higher priorities" at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) prevented a full-scale study of the thousands of UFO reports that have been made since the Second World War, according to official documents.

The observation is contained in a 1995 internal memo from a wing commander in DI55, the branch of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) which was responsible for assessing UFO reports.

The author concludes that there was no longer any reason to continue denying intelligence interest in UFOs, although the public perception of the unit as a "defender of the Earth from the alien menace" was "light years from the truth".

But he thought few people would believe the truth and that lack of funds and higher priorities had prevented a full study of UFO sightings.

Following the memo, a limited investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) was commissioned by the MoD.

The secret four-volume report concluded in 2000 that UFOs did not pose a threat, eventually leading to the closure of the UFO desk in 2009.

Watching TV for an average of six hours a day can cut life expectancy by five years, according to new research.

A sedentary lifestyle - as opposed to just not taking enough exercise - increases the risk of dying, particularly from heart attack and stroke.

Watching TV accounts for a large part of people's sedentary living, but time sitting down and in cars also counts, said researchers writing in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

They warned that watching TV is a "public health problem" comparable to issues such as smoking and obesity.

Anyone wanting to sign the petition to remove the benefits of rioters will struggle a bit today as the government's new e-petitions site keeps crashing.

The level of demand means that it will take many attempts to get through, and even if you do, the next click will probably lead to the site being 'unavailable' again.

The e-petition in the headlines is at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions?order=desc&sort=count&state=open and currently is on about 94,000 signatures.

This hasn't moved on a great deal from this morning, and so you have to wonder if the government's new site has the servers to cope with even moderately heavy traffic.

I always thought the old site was very good and of course it led to the abandonment of the road pricing initiative (whatever the politicians say) after 1.6 million signed up against it.

So the new site might be weighted against popular rushes of opinion....by having inadequate servers. And so it will prevent the true feelings of the electorate being fully expressed.

On a slightly different note - the pro death penalty campaigners might want to pool their resources - on page one of the petitions there are three different ones alone - while the anti death penalty is higher up the rankings with 20,000 votes - by dint of being there alone.