[ti:Are Smartphone Apps Encouraging Young Smokers?] [ar:] [al:Technology Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:01.95]this is the Technology Report in Special English. [00:07.31]Public health officials say tobacco companies [00:11.26]are avoiding a worldwide ban on advertising tobacco products [00:17.32]to young people by using smartphone applications, or "apps." [00:23.22]The officials say some of the apps are designed [00:27.17]to persuade young people to start smoking. [00:30.67]Armando Peruga works for the World Health Organization's Tobacco-Free Initiative. [00:38.07]He recently discovered one such pro-smoking app online. [00:43.31]"I was taken aback by a game that is calledˇ®Puff, Puff, Pass,' [00:47.02]which is (an) application that's a cartoon game where [00:50.31]the user must click on game characters to order them to smoke [00:55.43]and pass the cigarette to the other characters. [00:57.97]And the user collects points if he or she [01:01.28]continues passing the cigarette in the same sequence at a fast pace. [01:05.27]Obviously, that can only be directed at very young kids." [01:09.17]Millions of people around the world now have smartphones, [01:14.03]and many of them are children. [01:16.38]Researchers in Australia searched the Apple and Android app stores [01:22.97]using words like "smoke," "smoking," "cigar," "cigarette," and "tobacco." [01:28.67]They found more than one hundred apps linked to those words. [01:33.47]The apps included not only games and social utilities, [01:39.12]but advertisements for tobacco products, [01:42.46]and information about where the products could be purchased. [01:47.32]Forty-two of the apps were from the Android store. [01:51.87]Together, they had been downloaded six million times. [01:56.22]The most popular Android apps were those that simulate smoking. [02:01.71]The apps let users smoke a virtual cigarette [02:05.17]and produce visual effects of the cigarette being burned and smoked. [02:09.97]Some of the simulation apps claim to aid in quiting smoking. [02:14.92]Armando Peruga said the names of some of the apps are very misleading. [02:21.12]"These apps -- which are, the study identified about a hundred seven [02:27.03]of these pro-smoking apps -- are classified [02:32.89]under names such as health and fitness [02:37.34]and just...games which are very misleading, [02:40.39]and anyone can access, especially young kids." [02:44.00]The Australian researchers believe these pro-smoking smartphone applications [02:50.26]violate the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. [02:57.25]The convention bans all advertising and promotion of tobacco products in the media, [03:04.45]in countries that have signed the treaty. [03:07.80]The researchers say the app stores have a moral -- and possibly legal -- responsibility [03:15.20]to honor the convention and other laws [03:18.65]that ban the advertising of tobacco products to young people. [03:23.56]The report on pro-tobacco smartphone applications [03:27.76]was published in the journal Tobacco Control.