Technology

New Delhi, Sep 30 (IANS) Twitter on Friday showcased its soon-to-arrive Edit Button on its own platform, by tweaking one of its tweets that showed 'Last Edited' at the bottom of the post.

Twitter edited a tweet and once clicked on "Last edited", people can see the original tweet and the previous edit history.

"Hello. this is a test to make sure the edit button works, we'll let you know how it goes," the micro-blogging platform posted.

Earlier this month, the company announced that the ability to edit tweets would be available to Twitter Blue subscribers "later this month".

Twitter Blue subscriptions are paid on a monthly basis, and priced regionally based on the current US price of $4.99.

Edit Tweet lets people make changes to their tweet after it's been published.

"Think of it as a short period of time to do things like fix typos, add missed tags, and more," according to Twitter.

During the test, tweets will be able to be edited a few times in the 30 minutes following their publication.

Edited tweets will appear with an icon, timestamp, and label so it's clear to readers that the original tweet has been modified.

Tapping the label will take viewers to the tweet's Edit History, which includes past versions.

"We'll also be paying close attention to how the feature impacts the way people read, write, and engage with tweets," said the company.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 29 (IANS) In a shocking news to gaming fans, Google on Thursday announced to shut down its cloud gaming service Stadia, admitting that it hasn't gained the traction the company expected.

Many of the employees on the Stadia team will be distributed to other parts of the company.

"We've made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service," said Phil Harrison, Vice President and General Manager, Stadia

The service will remain live for players until January 18, 2023.

Google said it will refund all Stadia hardware purchased through the Google Store as well as all the games and add-on content purchased from the Stadia store.

Google expects those refunds will be completed in mid-January.

"While Stadia's approach to streaming games for consumers was built on a strong technology foundation, it hasn't gained the traction with users that we expected," said Harrison.

Players will continue to have access to their games library and play through January 18, 2023 so they can complete final play sessions.

"We expect to have the majority of refunds completed by mid-January, 2023," said the company.

Google said it will continue to invest in new tools, technologies and platforms that power the success of developers, industry partners, cloud customers and creators.

"We're so grateful for the groundbreaking work of the team and we look forward to continuing to have an impact across gaming and other industries using the foundational Stadia streaming technology," said the company.

Google said that it sees clear opportunities to apply Stadia technology across other parts like YouTube, Google Play, and our Augmented Reality (AR) efforts — as well as make it available to its industry partners.

--IANS
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Bengaluru, Sep 29 (IANS) Global technology brand Lenovo on Wednesday launched a new Android tablet -- Tab M10 Plus (3rd Gen) -- for its consumers in India.

The tablet is priced at Rs 19,999 for the WiFi only model and Rs 21,999 for the LTE variant and is now available for purchase across Lenovo.com and Amazon.in. It sports a unique dual-tone theme and comes in storm grey and frost blue colours.

"Tablets have become an indispensable device for learning and entertainment. With consumers choosing one device for entertainment and learning from home, the 3rd-gen Tab M10 Plus strikes a perfect balance," Pankaj Harjai, Director - Tablets and Smart Devices, Lenovo India, said in a statement.

"It has the best-in-class display and performance that consumers come to expect from a Lenovo tablet along with smart features for a refined user experience," Harjai added.

The new Tab M10 Plus (3rd Gen) is designed and built for best-in-class multimedia experience with a powerful processor packed in a compact form factor. It boasts a 10.61-inch 2K IPS LCD display with 15:9 aspect ratio, 10-point multi-touch and 400 nits brightness.

With TUV Rheinland Low Blue Light certification, it helps reduce harmful blue light, so that users can better enjoy binge watching movies or take time studying for hours without straining their eyes, the company said.

The tablet is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage to deliver effortless multimedia experience and superior mobile gaming performance.

Users can enjoy intense gaming sessions on the go or simply transition to PC level productivity UI when attached to the ultra-thin keyboard for typing longer content.

--IANS
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Seoul, Sep 26 (IANS) South Korean tech giant Samsung may launch its next-generation flagship smartphone -- Galaxy S23 Ultra -- with 25W fast charging support.

The successor to the S22 Ultra is expected to launch around January or February of 2023. However, the device has already appeared on the 3C listing revealing its charging details, reports GizmoChina.

According to the listing, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has the model number SM-S9180. It has support for at least 25W fast charging.

The company used a charger with model number EP-TA800 for the tests. However, because the Galaxy S22 Ultra didn't include a charger in the box, it is highly unlikely that the S23 Ultra will offer a charger in the box.

It is important to note that the Galaxy S22 Ultra supports 15W wireless charging as well as 45W fast charging.

Samsung may improve the S23 Ultra's charging specifications and introduce 45W fast charging, exactly like it did with its predecessor, the report said.

It is expected that the Galaxy S23 Ultra will receive some minor improvements over the S22 Ultra.

The screen will be curved, and the 40MP front camera will have a hole-punch cutout in the top centre. A new 200MP main camera could be on the back.

It is possible that the other three camera sensors won't change. This means that the 12MP ultrawide camera, 12MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, and 12MP telephoto camera with 10x optical zoom will all be included on the S23 Ultra.

Under the hood, the device will house the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. It won't be surprising if the device comes with an Exynos chipset in some regions.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Mozilla, the developer of Firefox Internet browser, has hit out at the trinity of Apple, Google and Microsoft, saying their operating systems make it very difficult for browsers like open source Firefox to be used on the platforms they control.

In a report, Mozilla said that these operating systems make it "difficult or impossible for a consumer to switch browsers," by setting the company's own browser as the default and in prime position on the home screen.

One of the ways Mozilla seeks to do this is through developing and investing in its own Gecko browser engine.

"This matters because there are only three main browser engine providers left: Google, Apple and Mozilla - but Apple's engine only runs on Apple devices. So, without Mozilla, the only cross-platform browser engine would be provided by Google," said the report.

"Putting the development of cross-platform web browsers in the hands of a single company creates not only a concentration of power, but also a single point of failure," it added.

The Mozilla Firefox browser had a 3.16 per cent market share worldwide in August.

Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge browsers have 18.78 per cent and 4.3 per cent market share, respectively.

The web browsing market is dominated by Google Chrome, at 65.52 per cent market share, according to web traffic analysis website StatCounter.

Mozilla said in its research report that even when an alternative browser is downloaded and selected as default, this decision is not applied in all circumstances.

"The operating system provider will in some scenarios bypass this decision and present their own browser rather than the selected default and in other cases it will seek to undermine or reverse this decision," it lamented.

Mozilla said that as Big Tech has so far failed to do better, "regulators, policymakers and lawmakers have spent considerable time and resources investigating digital markets".

"They should, therefore, be in a good position to recognise the importance of browser competition and to act to prevent further harm to consumers from continued inaction and competitive stagnation," the company said.

Mozilla called on them "to enforce the laws which already exist and the laws and regulations which will soon come into force".

--IANS
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Seoul, Sep 25 (IANS) The third-quarter earnings outlooks for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the world's top two leading chip manufacturers, remain largely grim due to a recent fall in global demand for memory chips, an industry data analysis showed on Sunday.

According to the analysis by Yonhap Infomax of earnings outlooks for the two companies by securities companies within the past month, Samsung and SK hynix were expected to record operating profits of 12.8 trillion won ($9.07 billion) and 2.59 trillion won on a consolidated basis during the June-September period, respectively.

The operating profit predictions of Samsung and SK hynix represent 18.6 per cent and 37.8 per cent drops from their respective third-quarter results from a year ago.

The expected declines in earnings were largely attributed to the effects of the growing global inflationary pressure weighing down global demand for memory chips.

Do Hyeon-woo, a chip industry analyst at NH Investment & Securities Co, estimated Samsung's DRAM shipment volume to decrease by 3 percent in the third quarter and expected its average selling price (ASP) of chips to plunge by 17 per cent.

Eo Gyu-jin, an analyst at DB Financial Investment Co., predicted the companies' earnings to rebound starting in the fourth quarter of 2023, following an expected revival of the global chip industry in the second quarter of next year.

Samsung expanded its market share of the global semiconductor industry in the second quarter, maintaining its top spot, a research report showed.

Samsung's chip revenue for the April-June period came in at a record quarterly high of $20.3 billion on the back of solid server demand, taking up 12.8 per cent of the global total of $158.1 billion, according to research firm Omdia.

--IANS
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By Animesh Singh
New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS) To ensure that motorists using electric vehicles get access to real-time data on nearest active charging stations while on the move, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) is developing a mobile app as well as a web portal to provide this information.


According to sources privy to developments, the app and web portal will provide real time information to motorists on the move, about the nearest active charging stations available on their route.

BEE is the central nodal agency for developing these softwares and work on this is expected to be completed soon, sources informed further.

Power Ministry had issued guidelines for developing these softwares in January this year.

Sources said that the mobile app and web portal providing live data on charging infrastructure will help in improving mobility services.

The government is also working at installing smart meters on electric poles at dedicated locations and make small charging stations across highways, cities and even villages.

Electric vehicle owners would be given smart cards for charging batteries of their vehicles anywhere.

BEE would be developing these chargers, which would include chargers for charging light electric vehicles like two-wheelers and three-wheelers, sources said.

According to BEE, these chargers will have a built in provision to measure and register electric energy delivered and a provision for electric vehicles' charging upon user authentication through the mobile app.

Such chargers would be mounted on electric poles in public parking spaces, sources informed further.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS) Meta-owned Instagram has rolled out a new feature globally that will allow users to upload longer uninterrupted Stories.

Currently, if an Instagram user uploads a Story that's under 60 seconds, it is broken up into 15-second clips.

"Now, you'll be able to play and create Stories continuously for up to 60 seconds, instead of being automatically cut into 15 second clips," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.

"We are always working on ways to improve the Stories experience," the spokesperson added.

The viewers will also no longer have to continually tap to get through a long video that they may not actually want to see.

In addition, the ability to post longer uninterrupted Stories somewhat blurs the lines between Stories and Reels, as you now have two options when it comes to posting a 60-second video.

In June, Instagram added support for longer Reels of up to 90 seconds, up from the previous 60 second-limit.

Meta-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is also testing a new Stories layout that hides excessive posts.

Users can currently post 100 Stories at once. While this number should remain the same despite the change, users who have received the update must tap a "Show All" button to see the rest of the Stories.

Otherwise, Instagram jumps to the next person's Stories. This brings about a significant change in how Instagram Stories works.

--IANS
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San Francisco, Sep 24 (IANS) Chinese short-form video app TikTok has announced to roll out its comment dislike button to all users globally.

TikTok began testing the feature back in April to help people identify comments they believe to be irrelevant or inappropriate.

"After some testing, we're releasing it globally. The total number of dislikes a comment has will not be shown and people can take back their feedback by tapping again whenever they like," the company said in a statement.

TikTok says its main priority with this tool is to create a better experience for the users.

"This allows us to better identify irrelevant or inappropriate comments, which helps us foster a comment section for genuine and authentic interactions," it added.

The dislike button will appear in addition to the option to report a comment for community guideline violations.

The company said the dislike button isn't seen as a way to report comments, and that users should instead use the standard process for reporting comments for harassment.

Social media consultant Matt Navarra first spotted the TikTok dislike button earlier this year.

Twitter has also been testing a private downvote button for replies to tweets.

Google-owned YouTube already offers a thumbs down button for comments while Reddit offers a down vote button for comments.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS) Facebook's parent company Meta and Google are reducing staff to cut costs amid the economic downturn, apparently putting some of them on traditional 30 to 60 days "lists" to find a new role within the company or leave.

Meta plans to cut costs by at least 10 per cent in the coming months and has put out more and more workers whose jobs are being eliminated on its traditional "30-day list," reports Wall Street Journal.

On the other hand, Google's parent Alphabet has reportedly deployed a similar approach, typically giving workers 60 days in which to apply for a new role if their jobs are set to be cut.

"Facebook parent is looking to reduce costs by at least 10 per cent, people familiar with the plans said, while Google has required some employees to apply for new jobs," the report mentioned.

Meta has a "long practice" where employees whose roles are eliminated are subject to termination if they can't find a new job internally within a month.

The Mark Zuckerberg-run company had 83,553 employees at the end of the second quarter this year.

"Google typically gives employees 60 days to apply for other roles in the company if their jobs have been cut," the report mentioned.

Last month, Google fired more than 50 workers at its incubator Area 120 and gave them extra 30 days to find another job at the company.

A Google spokesman was quoted as saying that nearly 95 per cent of employees found new roles within the notice period.

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai aims to make the company 20 per cent more efficient hinting at job cuts, as the tech giant recently cancelled the projects at its in-house research and development (R&D) division called Area 120.

Addressing the gathering at the Code Conference in the US this month, Pichai said that the more the company tries to understand the macroeconomic conditions, it feels very uncertain about it.

"The macroeconomic performance is correlated to ad spend, consumer spend and so on," he told the audience.

Google has suspended hiring new employees and reportedly told some existing employees to "shape up or ship out" if expectations are not met.

In a company message viewed by Insider, Google Cloud sales leadership has threatened employees with an "overall examination of sales productivity and productivity in general" and that if next quarter results "don't look up, there will be blood on the streets".

As Big Tech companies lay off employees and freeze new hirings, Zuckerberg said in July that the company's plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year.

Admitting that the social network has entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business, Zuckerberg said that many "teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas inside the company".

--IANS
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