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WhatsApp

WhatsApp Lock Feature to Protect ‘Extra Special’ Chats?

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The makers of WhatsApp have released a new option to prevent nosy close friends or even close relatives from reading your private conversations. The business announced a new Chat Lock feature on Monday to protect your private logs from prying eyes.

Users can now choose to lock any chat by simply touching on any single or group chat twice and using the lock option, according to a statement from Meta. This places the chat’s who, what, and when information in a separate folder. Although locked chats now conceal the message and the sender, notifications still appear.

Whatsapp
Image Source: livemint.com

On the main WhatsApp interface, locked chats don’t automatically show up; instead, users must scroll down to the inbox to see the dedicated folder. Users can access password-protected chats using their passwords or a biometric ID, such as their fingerprint.

Also Read: How to use Amazon Prime’s new ‘Dialogue Boost’ feature?

The business explained in a blog post that Chat Blocks are for situations where a family member or close friend is holding your phone in case someone on an “extra special chat” sends you a message. The piece also included a video that showed a man’s agonizing attempts to prevent his family from discovering that he has been texting someone special.

Although it’s simple to assume that someone would want to lock down specific chats for sinister reasons, it does seem like a helpful option for anyone who doesn’t want to frequently explain to whom they were speaking and why.

Meta stated in a blog post, “Over the next few months, we’re going to be adding more options for Chat Lock, including locking for companion devices, creating a custom password for your chats so that you can use a unique password from your phone’s.” In the upcoming months, Meta plans to expand Chat Lock’s features, notably the ability to assign a unique password to each closed chat.

This is not the first time the business has developed a way to lock off private chats, More users in nations where the app is blocked can now access the chat functions thanks to the app’s creation of a proxy server earlier this year.

Also Read: What is Google Help Me Write?

This new capability does little to address the issue that users who also have access to a phone number can still more easily hijack a user identity. WhatsApp has suggested it would have to leave the UK if the country passed its internet safety measure because it already has end-to-end encryption features.

The parent firm Meta, which recently strengthened the verification mechanism to thwart potential scammers and introduced more alternatives to deal with missing messages, has been working really hard to maintain WhatsApp trustworthy and safe.

Vietnam

Apple to open the first online shop in Vietnam

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In response to slow-moving iPhone sales in China, Apple announced on Friday that it would launch its first online shop in Vietnam the following week.

Only a few weeks have passed since the first Apple stores in India, in Mumbai and Delhi, were launched by the Cupertino, California-based business.

Vietnam
Image Source: siliconangle.com

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, is placing his bet on developing regions, where there are fewer iPhones and a younger age group, which will present more growth potential.

Also Read: UK restricts Microsoft, Activision from buying interest in each other

Apple did not specify when it will be opening actual retail outlets in Vietnam, which comprises a “100 million-person” population.

“We’re proud to be expanding in Vietnam,” said Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of retail.

Source: finance.yahoo.com

Retail stores frequently open before they go online. Licensed retailers currently sell Apple gadgets in Vietnam, and the company has several suppliers who assemble its devices there for exportation.

During India’s holiday shopping season in 2020, Apple opened its first online shop there.

“We’re proud to be expanding in India and want to do all we can to support our customers and their communities,” said Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail + People. “We know our users are relying on technology to stay connected, engage in learning, and tap into their creativity, and by bringing the Apple Store online to India, we are offering our customers the very best of Apple at this important time.”

Source: apple.com

Discounts according to a federal plan to increase domestic mobile manufacturing in India were granted in October for 16 companies, including prominent Apple suppliers.

After staging a protest over unpaid salaries in December of that same year, contract employees at Apple partner Wistron’s Bengaluru facility trashed the building. Apple placed the plant on probation before allowing it to resume manufacturing two months later.

In December 2021, after over 250 female employees who live in one of the business dorms received medical treatment for food poisoning, riots broke out at the Foxconn facility in Tamil Nadu.

The facility was shut down for more than three weeks when Apple discovered that the facilities did not satisfy the necessary standards.

The same year, the competition regulators in India request a probe into Apple’s in-app pricing scheme because it initially believed the iPhone manufacturer had broken several antitrust regulations.

Pegatron, a supplier of Apple, opened its first iPhone assembly facility in the Tamil Nadu province in September 2022.

Foxlink, an Apple vendor that makes iPhone chargers, temporarily ceased operations at its manufacturing factory in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh for several weeks in February 2023 after a significant fire caused a portion of the structure to collapse.

Dialogue Boost

How to use Amazon Prime’s new ‘Dialogue Boost’ feature?

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One of the most annoying situations when watching TV is when you are able to hear the explosions and background music of a particular scene but not the speech. Dialogue Boost, please.

In order to prevent consumers from being compelled to enable subtitles even when they don’t want to, Amazon Prime Video is introducing a new accessibility tool that enables users to boost the volume of dialogue without adding background music or effects.

Dialogue Boost
Image Source: guidingtech.com

Raf Soltanovich, the vice president of technology at Prime Video and Amazon Studios, stated in a statement, “At Prime Video, we are committed to delivering an inclusive, egalitarian, and pleasant streaming experience for all our consumers.

Also Read: What is Google Help Me Write?

“Our library of captioned and audio-described content keeps expanding, and by utilizing our technological capabilities to develop industry-first innovations like Dialogue Boost, we are taking another step towards creating a more accessible streaming experience,” the company said.

In order to use the feature choose a movie/series that offers this feature. You may check the title’s detail page if this feature is available. Start the movie and click the drop-down menus for the audio and subtitles on your screen. From the available options, select the Dialogue Boost level that you desire.

Based on how much you want to strengthen the dialogue, you can choose between “English Dialogue Boost: Medium” and “English Dialogue Boost: High”. You can choose between the Low, Medium, or High Dialogue Boost tracks.

Try them all out to determine the one that works most effectively for you since each level gives different levels of amplification, as their names suggest. Take pleasure in the title’s louder and more understandable dialogue.

Also Read: How is the new Google AI search different from the Bard chatbot?

In order to distinguish the conversation from the background noise in a movie or television show, it looks for instances where it is being overpowered by other sounds. Later, it uses AI to raise the dialogue’s quality.

In this manner, Dialogue Boost does not amplify the entire sound of the dialogue, simply the portions that require it before it is made available more broadly, the feature will first be made available globally for a select group of Amazon Original programs, including “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” “The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel,” and others.

It is accessible on all platforms that Prime Video supports. Even though Amazon is the very first global streaming platform to offer this capability, other platforms, including Roku, also offer a feature called “speech clarity.”

Microsoft

UK restricts Microsoft, Activision from buying interest in each other

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An interim order prohibiting Microsoft and Activision acquisition has been issued by the UK’s antitrust watchdog. This comes weeks after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the regulatory body, decided to prohibit the $68.7 billion merger of the two companies.

Microsoft and “Call of Duty” creator Activision were required to obtain the CMA’s “prior written consent” prior to completing any acquisitions related to their respective businesses, according to an order released by the CMA on Thursday.

Microsoft
Image Source: cultureslate.com

It is the latest action taken by the UK’s watchdog to increase supervision of the two businesses amid concerns that the competition will suffer as a result of the landmark agreement reached in January 2022.

Also Read: Twitter to soon allow calls and encrypted messaging

The primary worries of the regulator center on Microsoft’s potential for undue influence over a growing cloud gaming business in what would eventually become the largest takeover deal in gaming history.

The CMA barred Microsoft from buying Activision due to worries that the transaction will change the direction of the rapidly expanding cloud gaming business, resulting in less innovation and fewer options for UK gamers in the future, the regulator stated last month.

The CMA initially launched its investigation into the transaction in September 2022, with its initial notice regarding its worries coming in February.

Microsoft President Brad Smith disagreed with the CMA’s ruling from last month, saying the tech giant will appeal. He claimed that the CMA’s judgment revealed “a flawed understanding” of the market for cloud technology and that it demonstrated its choice to disapprove of a “pragmatic path” toward resolving any competition concerns.

Microsoft’s representative issued the following statement: “We remain firmly committed to this deal and look forward to presenting our case to the Competition Appeal Tribunal.”

On January 19th, 2022, Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. However, the UK government’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) expressed concerns that the acquisition could significantly reduce competition in the UK gaming market and ultimately lead to higher prices for consumers.

As a result, the CMA issued an interim order on April 5th, 2022, which temporarily prohibited Microsoft and Activision from integrating their businesses in the UK.

The proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is one of the largest in the history of the video game industry. Activision Blizzard is a leading publisher of video games, with popular titles such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush.

Also Read: EU antitrust regulators seeking more info on Apple Pay

Microsoft, on the other hand, is one of the world’s largest technology companies and has been expanding its gaming business in recent years through the Xbox brand.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is responsible for ensuring that mergers and acquisitions do not result in a reduction of competition in the market. The CMA has the power to investigate mergers and acquisitions and can prohibit them if it determines that they would harm competition.

Help Me Write

What is Google Help Me Write?

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This year’s Google I/O had a strong artificial intelligence theme, and prompt-based text generation—especially in Google’s Office suite—was a major component of that theme. Many new features were added to some of our top Google apps, like Help Me Write, at the most recent Google I/O event.

Help Me Write
Image Source: hindustantimes.com

Google said on Wednesday at its Google I/O event that Gmail will soon have a tool that will use artificial intelligence to compose complete emails for users.

Also Read: How is the new Google AI search different from the Bard chatbot?

The “help me write” function is essentially an extension of the auto-replies and generative text Google already employs in Gmail. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, cited the example of requesting a flight refund when introducing the feature.

A whole message requesting the refund is created by the AI feature using data from earlier communications with the airline. The message can then be edited as desired and sent.

After the text has been created, users can edit it to make it more effective for their purposes. The I’m Feeling Lucky option is available, as well as options to formalize, elaborate, and shorten. Since March, this function has been accessible to a small group of trusted testers, and Google says a wider audience will have access to it later in the year.

Help Me Write users will be able to offer suggestions a thumbs up or down, which should help the technology become more accurate and timely over time.

This is just one illustration of how Google is enhancing Google Workspaces with Generative artificial intelligence (AI) features to provide its users with more accessibility. Help Me Write can be used to overcome writer’s block and facilitate communication between people in both professional and everyday settings.

With the new Help Me Write feature coming to Gmail and Google Docs, users will be able to construct emails and writing sections based on fewer inputs. It is essentially an enormous enlargement of the Smart Prompts technology, which currently exists and can autocomplete sentences depending on what a user typically writes.

Also Read: What is the admin review feature on WhatsApp?

Email fundamentally changed how we communicate in the five decades since its creation, but it has also grown tedious. An email has become a chore for many of our routine tasks, such as scheduling a pet sitter, asking a doctor for medical information, or requesting refunds from merchants.

Help Me Write is poised to have a significant impact on how the world communicates via email given that Gmail has 1.8 billion active users.

Twitter

Twitter to soon allow calls and encrypted messaging

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Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter Inc., provided information on upcoming improvements arriving on the social network on Tuesday, which includes calls and encrypted chat.

Musk hinted at “Twitter 2.0 The Everything App” plans a year ago, saying it would include functions like payments, long-form posts on Twitter, as well as encrypted direct messaging (DMs).

Twitter
Image Source: telegraphindia.com

“Coming soon will be voice and video chat from your handle to anyone on this platform, so you can talk to people anywhere in the world without giving them your phone number,” Musk said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Source: finance.yahoo.com

Also Read: Crypto exchange Bittrex files for bankruptcy after SEC complaint

Twitter’s calling feature will put it on a level with other platforms for social networking such as Facebook and Instagram, which have similar characteristics. 

Musk stated that commencing on Wednesday, a form of encrypted direct messaging will be accessible on Twitter, but he did not specify whether calls will also be encrypted.

a few days ago, Twitter stated that it will begin a purging process by deleting and archiving user accounts that had not been used for a while.

As reported by Hootsuite, Twitter had about 400 people working there in 2011 but today has over two times as many daily active users. The social media tool predicts that the number of monetizable daily active users, roughly 238 million people, will rise by 16.6 percent in 2022.

In an interview recently, Elon Musk disclosed that Twitter now only has 1500 employees, compared to the 8000+ individuals who worked there when he first bought the social media network. Even so, insiders at Twitter have claimed that the social networking site only has roughly 1000 staff members as a result of a recent wave of layoffs.

When existing contract workers are removed, two company-acquainted individuals claim that the workforce is much smaller compared to the 1,500 workers, CEO Musk had previously said BBC News remained on work. The multibillionaire didn’t specify whether or not these employees were part of his total.

Also Read: Qualcomm to acquire Israeli auto-chip maker Autotalks

Although Musk took the position of CEO previously this year, Twitter’s workforce has decreased by roughly ninety percent, as reported by Business Insider. The article added that the firm currently only has 500 engineers left.

the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has acknowledged that Elon Musk is failing to improve the microblogging service. He has accused the Twitter board of pressing the “44 billion dollars” sale of the company to the chief executive officer of Tesla.