College students come up with plug-in to combat fake news

NEW HAVEN - A team of college students is getting attention from internet companies and Congress after developing a browser extension that alerts users to fake and biased news stories and helps guide them to more balanced coverage.

The plug-in, "Open Mind" was developed earlier this month during a 36-hour problem-solving competition known as a "hackathon" at Yale University.

The winning team was comprised of four students: Michael Lopez-Brau and Stefan Uddenberg from doctoral students in Yale's psychology department; Alex Cui, an undergraduate who studies machine learning at the California Institute of Technology; and Jeff An, who studies computer science at the University of Waterloo and business at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario.