Technology

New Delhi, June 17 (IANS) Meta has lowered the minimum age for its Quest VR headsets from age 13 to 10, as scrutiny over how tech platforms handle underage and teen users heats up.

According to the company, starting later this year, parents will be able to set up parent-managed Meta accounts for Meta Quest 2 and 3 for their children ages 10-12.

"We'll require preteens to get their parent's approval to set up an account, which will give parents control over the apps their preteens download from our app store," said the company.

When parents share their preteen's age with Meta, the company said it will use this information to provide age-appropriate experiences across app store.

"For example, we'll only recommend age-appropriate apps," it added.

Meta said it is working with the developer community over the coming months to bring even more age-appropriate apps and games onto the Meta Quest Platform for this age group to learn from and engage with.

Parent-managed Meta accounts will require parents to set up an account for their 10, 11, or 12-year-old.

Preteens won't be able to set up an account without their parent's approval, the company said.

"All apps will have a product description page that provides information on what data is collected and how it might be used, whether the app has social features, as well as an age rating provided by the IARC, an independent global agency," the company informed.

Meta Horizon Worlds remains for ages 13 and above in the US and Canada (18 and above in Europe) and will not be available to preteens when parent-managed Meta accounts become available later this year.

Parent-managed Meta Horizon profiles will be automatically set to private, meaning people won't be able to follow preteens without their or their parent's approval, the company added.

"We do not serve ads to this age group. Parents will also be able to choose whether their child's data is used to improve the experience, and they will be able to delete their child's account, including all of the data associated with it," Meta explained.

--IANS
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San Francisco, June 16 (IANS) Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly working on a multi-account feature on Android which will allow users to access multiple accounts from the same device.

According to WABetaInfo, the company is working on the feature by implementing a menu that will let users select which account they want to log into.

When users create an additional account for the first time, it will be saved on their device until they decide to log out, allowing them to switch to it whenever they want.

With the integration, users will be able to manage their personal conversations, work-related discussions, and other social interactions within a single app, as well as maintain privacy, efficiently manage notifications, and switch between different accounts without the need for parallel apps.

The multi-account feature is under development and it will be released to beta testers in a future update of the app, the report said.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp is rolling out a new video messages feature to some beta testers on iOS and Android.

This new feature provides beta users with the ability to record and send video messages.

When users hold the microphone button within the chat bar in any conversation, it will turn into a video camera button.

--IANS
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New Delhi, June 16 (IANS) Google on Friday launched the 'Indian Languages Programme' under its News Initiative to support local news publishers in India.

According to the company, the Indian Languages Programme is a comprehensive initiative designed to empower publishers through various components, including access to training, technical support, and funding, to help them improve their digital operations and reach more readers.

With support for a total of nine languages, including English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati, and Marathi, this programme stands as Google's most diverse technology programme for news publishers.

Applications for the programme are open for submission till June 30.

The GNI (Google News Initiative) Indian Languages Programme follows a structured format that includes various components to support and empower publishers, which includes a range of activities, including scaled inspiration series and virtual workshops.

Selected publishers will also undergo a diagnosis process to assess their page speed, core web vitals performance, and other relevant parameters.

This evaluation will provide unified guidance on quality signals that are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web, the company said.

In addition, publishers will receive personalised guidance and support in addressing the identified areas for improvement, including remediation of issues related to Core Web Vitals, schema, site manifests, mobile usability, content formats, and additional revenue enhancement solutions.

Applications for the programme will be examined by both the Google Project team and external advisors.

--IANS
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San Francisco, June 16 (IANS) Microsoft has stated that some of the old settings under Folder Options in File Explorer will be removed as part of an effort to reduce the number of File Explorer settings on Windows 11.

In its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build, the company said, "We are removing a handful of old settings under Folder Options in File Explorer as part of an effort to clean up the number of settings for File Explorer. Many of these are legacy settings that have been around for ages and are not being regularly used by people on Windows 11".

The settings which will no longer appear under Folder Options in File Explorer are -- Hide Folder Merge conflict, always show icons, never thumbnails, display file icon on thumbnails, display file type information on Folder tips, hide protected OS files, show drive letters, show popup description for Folder and Desktop items, show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in colour, and use sharing wizard.

Moreover, the tech giant mentioned that it will roll out a new Focus Session widget as part of a Clock app update via the Microsoft Store to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels.

With this new widget, users will be able to quickly start and stop focus sessions on their devices.

--IANS
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San Francisco, June 16 (IANS) Apple will reportedly bring scratch resistance feature to future iPhones.

A patent for "Spatial Composites", which refers to integrating metal or ceramic with a chassis for scratch resistance, has recently been issued to the company, reports AppleInsider.

"(Mobile) phones, watches, and tablet computers, can experience contact with various surfaces that leads to marring, or abrasion, of the surface of the device," the iPhone maker said.

"(Regular housing) materials for such devices may have different combinations of properties relating to strength, appearance, abrasion resistance, electromagnetic shielding, and the like."

So, as the tech giant pointed out, the various materials used in an iPhone chassis have a variety of advantages as well as drawbacks.

"(For instance), metal housings may be particularly resistant to dents, scratches or breakage," it added, "but may interfere with radio signals entering or emanating from the device."

Drawings in the patent showed a variety of "abrasion-resistant members" in various shapes, each with distinctive benefits but serving the same general purpose.

Moreover, there was a drawing in the patent showing these members "dotted over the back of an iPhone", the report said.

--IANS
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San Francisco, June 4 (IANS) Google has removed 32 malicious extensions from the Chrome Web Store, totalling 75 million downloads, that could alter search results and push spam or unwanted ads.

According to BleepingComputer, the extensions included legitimate functionality to keep users unaware of the malicious behaviour, which was delivered in obfuscated code.

In an analysis of the PDF Toolbox extension (2 million downloads) available from the Chrome Web Store, cybersecurity researcher Wladimir Palant found code that was disguised as a legitimate API wrapper.

The researcher explained that the code allowed the "serasearchtop[.]com" domain to inject arbitrary JavaScript code into any website the user visited.

Moreover, the report said that abuse possibilities range from inserting advertisements into webpages to stealing sensitive information.

However, the researcher did not observe any malicious activity, so the code's purpose remained unknown.

The researcher also discovered that the code was set to activate 24 hours after installing the extension, which is typical of malicious intent, the report mentioned.

Meanwhile, Google has blocked the notorious CryptBot malware, which the company claims have stolen data from hundreds of thousands of Chrome browser users in the past year.

According to the company, CryptBot is a type of malware often referred to as an 'infostealer' because it is designed to identify and steal sensitive information from victims' computers such as authentication credentials, social media account logins, cryptocurrency wallets, and more.

--IANS
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New York, June 4 (IANS) US engineers have developed a simple, low-cost clip that uses a smartphone's camera and flash to monitor blood pressure at the user's fingertip.

The clip, developed by a team at the University of California San Diego, works with a custom smartphone app and currently costs about 80 cents to make. The researchers estimate that the cost could be as low as 10 cents apiece when manufactured at scale.

The technology, published in the journal Scientific Reports, can help make regular blood pressure monitoring easy, affordable, and accessible to people in resource-poor communities. It could benefit older adults and pregnant women, for example, in managing conditions such as hypertension.

"Because of their low cost, these clips could be handed out to anyone who needs them but cannot go to a clinic regularly," said Edward Wang, Professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC San Diego.

"A blood pressure monitoring clip could be given to you at your checkup, much like how you get a pack of floss and toothbrush at your dental visit," he added

To measure blood pressure, the user simply presses on the clip with a fingertip. A custom smartphone app guides the user on how hard and long to press during the measurement.

The clip is a 3D-printed plastic attachment that fits over a smartphone's camera and flash. It features an optical design similar to that of a pinhole camera. When the user presses on the clip, the smartphone's flash lights up the fingertip. That light is then projected through a pinhole-sized channel to the camera as an image of a red circle.

A spring inside the clip allows the user to press with different levels of force. The harder the user presses, the bigger the red circle appears on the camera.

The smartphone app extracts two main pieces of information from the red circle. By looking at the size of the circle, the app can measure the amount of pressure that the user's fingertip applies.

And by looking at the brightness of the circle, the app can measure the volume of blood going in and out of the fingertip. An algorithm converts this information into systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings.

The researchers tested the clip on 24 volunteers from the UC San Diego Medical Center. Results were comparable to those taken by a blood pressure cuff.

--IANS
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San Francisco, June 4 (IANS) Microsoft has released a new Windows 11 dev build that allows Insiders to view their phone's camera roll in the File Explorer Gallery.

After installing the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build, users can add photos from their phone by clicking a new button added to the File Explorer's command bar.

"There is a new button in the Command Bar titled 'Add Phone Photos' that will help with setting up your PC to be ready to show these photos in Gallery," Microsoft said in a blogpost.

"Clicking this button today will open a URL with a QR code that you can scan with your phone to get started," it added.

Moreover, in the new preview build, the company has introduced new natural voices in Spanish (Spain and Mexico) that allow Narrator users to comfortably browse the web, read and write mail, and do more.

Natural Narrator voices use modern, on-device text-to-speech and once downloaded are supported without an internet connection, the company said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that it will no longer support its virtual assistant Cortana in Windows as a standalone app, starting in late 2023.

This change will only affect Cortana in Windows and will continue to be available in Outlook mobile, Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams display, and Microsoft Teams rooms, the tech giant stated on a support page.

--IANS
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San Francisco, June 4 (IANS) Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly working on adding compatibility with iPad as a new linked device, meaning users will be able to link WhatsApp for iPad to their existing account in the future.

According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp for iPad is still in development and not yet available to beta testers, however, once it is released, users will finally be able to link their existing WhatsApp account on Android with their iPad.

Recently, WhatsApp rolled out a 'companion mode' feature to iPhone users, allowing them to link an existing account to a second iOS device.

With this feature, users can link up to four devices simultaneously, meaning they can connect even more than two mobile phones to their WhatsApp accounts.

According to the report, users' personal messages and calls will remain end-to-end encrypted even when using WhatsApp from a linked device.

Users can link their existing WhatsApp account to a secondary device by scanning the QR Code.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature called 'screen-sharing', along with a new placement for tabs within the bottom navigation bar, to beta testers on Android.

This feature will allow users to easily share their screen during a video call.

--IANS
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