1)

Twitter to soon allow calls and have Encrypted Messages, Musk announces  

Elon Musk has been on an overdrive in an attempt to overhaul Twitter ever since his takeover. Continuing with this pursuit, Musk has now made announcement about new features through a tweet. On Tuesday Musk tweeted that Twitter will soon allow users to make a call and also send encrypted messages. Musk further said that the encrypted DM feature will be rolled out as early as tomorrow. The tech billionaire actually talked about introducing these feature while revealing about his plans for “Twitter 2.0 The Everything App” The call feature on Twitter will put the microblogging platform in line with Facebook and Instagram, which also have calling features. However, Musk did not clarify whether calls will be encrypted.

2)

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau has slammed Facebook (here’ why)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday targeted Meta after news emerged that the social media giant may block news feed on Canadian Facebook and Instagram. Apparently, Meta’s move is in response to a proposed Canadian law that requires digital companies to pay local news agencies for publishing their news. Few months back even Google had made tweaked few features to cope with this proposed law. Trudeau argued that social media giant’s response to the proposed law is ”not just flawed, it’s dangerous to our democracy, to our economy.” The Canadian government claims that the new law, which is currently being discussed in the senate, will help in financially strengthening the Canadian news publishing agencies.

3)

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is now eyeing Book Publishing market   

While the TikTok app is facing risk of getting banned in the U.S, its parents company ByteDance is still harboring ambitious plan for the U.S. market. Turns out ByteDance’s subsidiary company Lemon Inc has submitted a trademark application for wide range of e-book publishing products and services. According to the filing with United States Patent and Trademark Office, ByteDance is interested in following products and services: app to read; download and discuss fiction e-books; retail bookstore services; ordering books in audio, printed & digital formats; publishing e-books, audiobooks, physical books so and so forth. However, registering trademark does not mean that ByteDance’s entry in the book publishing and distribution is certain. But such a move could be a logical especially considering the huge popularity of TikTok app among book lovers.

4)

China witnesses First ChatGPT arrest over fake news        

In a first of its kind event, Chinese police has arrested a man who allegedly used ChatGPT to create a fake article about the train accident. This fake article was then in-turn published on the Baidu owned social media platforms, eventually leading to the arrest of the man.  The man belongs to the Gansu province and his surname is ‘Hong’ while his first name is still unknown. This arrest has taken place under the new artificial intelligence law that was passed only last year in China. Meanwhile, this entire incident has attracted huge attention from the Chinese media probably due the involvement of ChatGPT. While ChatGPT continues to enjoy huge popularity, many countries have expressed concerned about misinformation and fake news emanating from this platform. Recently Italy became the first country in the world to ban ChatGPT before withdrawing the ban.

5)

WhatsApp starts Beta Testing Wear OS support app

Probably very soon you can send and receive WhatsApp messages on your Android smartwatches. According to 9 to 5 Google, WhatsApp has just launched its first official Wear OS app under the beta testing phase. Users of Wear OS or Android smartwatches will probably get to enjoy all the standard WhatsApp features while they might also get to enjoy some unique features. One of the unique features that they might enjoy is the ability to edit sent messages, allowing them to undo any typo or sent messages. However, it is still not exactly clear when the Wear OS app will be ready for the public launch.

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1)

Twitter to remove Inactive Accounts, Archive them

Microblogging platform Twitter is overwhelmed with accounts that have remained idle and inactive for several years. But such accounts will be now removed from the platform, CEO Elon Musk announced in a Tweet on Monday, claiming that this move is important to “free up abandoned handles.” In a separate tweet, Musk added that the inactive accounts will be moved to archives but did not specify how Twitter users will be able to access the archived accounts. The tech billionaire also specified that some users may see a drastic fall in their follower counts due to removal of the inactive accounts.

2)

LinkedIn announces Job Cuts, shuts down China app

LinkedIn, the professional social media network owned by Microsoft, announced on Monday that it is cutting over 700 jobs. LinkedIn’s CEO Ryan Roslansky said in a letter that job cuts will happen in sales, operations and support teams that will help in streamlining the company and making faster decisions. The Microsoft owned social media network has nearly 20,000 employees world over.  Separately, LinkedIn announced that it will be shutting down its China focused app, citing a ‘challenging environment in the country.’ Its another China focused app called ‘inCareers’ will also be phased out by August 9^th, the company further added.

3)

Qualcomm is buying Israeli auto-chip maker AutoTalks

American chip making giant Qualcomm announced that it is all set to acquire Israeli chip manufacturing company called ‘AutoTalks’ that specializes in producing fabless semiconductors. According to TechCrunch, the entire deal has costed Qualcomm nearly $350-400 Mn. AutoTalks creates chips and vehicle-to-everything communication technology that is dedicated towards increasing road safety for both normal and driverless vehicles. With this acquisition, Qualcomm is hopping that it will be in a better position to leverage the automotive industry, which it believes will be one of the major source of revenues in the coming year.

4)    

Apple’s co-founder warns AI will make it harder to spot Scams

While speaking to BBC Apple’s legendry co-founder Steve Wozniak has reiterated what has already been said countless times. Wozniak said that he fears that AI could be harnessed by bad actors, making it difficult for us in detecting scams and misinformation. The 72-year-old veteran, who founded Apple along with Steve Jobs, stressed that the AI sector certainly needs to be regulated. Wozniak was among the many tech leaders who signed a open letter in March that called on all leading companies to temporarily shut down all the R&D work in AI projects.

5)

TrueCaller and WhatsApp announce a global partnership

Sweden based TrueCaller and instant messaging giant WhatsApp have announced a global partnership. Thanks to this global partnership, TrueCaller’s caller identification feature will now be available on WhatsApp, which will help WhatsApp users to spot spam calls both on audio and video calls. Spam and scam calls has been one of the biggest problems facing WhatsApp users and the instant messaging giant is hopping to address this problem through this partnership. However, it is still not clear exactly when will the caller identification feature come to WhatsApp.

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1)

Binance restores Bitcoin Withdrawal after Temporary Closure

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has announced that it has fully resumed Bitcoin withdrawals after shutting it down for almost an hour or so. The exchange blamed congestion issue on the network for the temporary closure. This is second time in less than two months that Binance had to temporarily shut-down the withdrawal of cryptos. In March, Binance had temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals due to technical issues. Off late, it has not been all that smooth sailing for the world’s largest crypto exchange as it has been regulatory probes on multiple fronts. The latest news is that Binance is facing probe in the U.S. over violation of Russian sanction.

2)

Google may add host of AI features in coming months

With the annual Google I/O event barely 48 hours away, the search engine giant is likely to announce host of big AI features for Google search. According to reports, Google is all set to take a big stride in moving away from the traditional text-link based search, paving for search results that offers more visual, is more personalized and conversational. While Google is pinning hopes on its AI chatbot Bard, it is hopeful that its other upcoming AI features will also help in protecting its search engine market share. According to reports, the search engine giant has been working on these AI features under the project name ‘Magi.’ Google has been compelled to pull up its socks recently after the sensational success of ChatGPT and its subsequent integration with Bing.

3)   

Twitter blames bugs for exposing private Circle Tweets to Public

Twitter has confirmed that a bug in its platform’s software caused a major security incident exposing the private tweets of Twitter Circle to public. However, the microblogging platform has confirmed that the security bug has been fixed now. The company had launched Twitter Circle in August 2022 that allowed users to send private tweets to select individuals. This feature was publicly launched barely months before Elon Musk took over the ownership of the microblogging company. Twitter has been going through a major overhaul ever since Musk’s takeover including decision to stop the free access to its API and increase the price of its blue check mark.

4)

Elon Musk claims his childhood life was painful  

Elon Musk, who is currently the world’s second richest man, recently tweeted a tweet that sought to debunk the myth about his privilege background and living a pretty comfortable life in his childhood days. This tweet was in response to a user who was critical about many of the claims that Musk has repeatedly made about his past life. Musk tweeted that he actually came from a upper middle-class family and the claim about his father owning a emerald mine in South Africa is untrue. Musk also wrote in the tweet that his childhood life wasn’t all that happy and he had to often fend for himself including for his education expenses. It is a public knowledge that Musk shares a rather tense and not so amicable relation with his father.

5)

Scammers hacking verified Facebook pages, impersonating as Google and Meta

Fake Facebook pages impersonating as popular companies is nothing really new. However, recently Facebook has seen barrage of such pages in what appears to be a full-blown scam. Not only these pages are caring blue check mark but also carry ads on them. Most of these ads have been found to be caring links to malicious websites with many even impersonating as big tech companies like Meta and Google. A Twitter user recently shared the screenshot of one such ad on its Twitter handle.  The exact scale and magnitude of this scam is still not known.

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1)

All -New Microsoft Bing is now Officially Open for Public, no waitlist is required  

Nearly three months after debuting the all-new Bing with ChatGPT, Microsoft made a massive announcement on Thursday that it is getting rid of the waitlist. This means that the all-new Microsoft Bing powered by OpenAI’s chatbot is now officially open to all public. Yusuf Mehdi, Corporate Vice President Microsoft, made the announcement in company’s official blogpost. in the same blogpost, Mehdi said that during last three months Bing users have been engaged in over half-a-billion chats. He further added that Bing users have also developed 200 Mn images by using Bing Image Creator, which is another AI tool. However, it is not clear whether Microsoft will remove the wait list from all the countries/markets in one go or do so in phases.

2)

U.K’s Competition Watchdog will Review the AI Market  

UK’s anti-competition body Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has possibly fired its first salvo in determining the impact of ongoing AI revolution on the domestic AI market. Sarah Cardell, CMA’s Chief Executive, said that “AI has burst into the public consciousness over the past few months and has been on our radar for quite some time.” She further added that rapid changes in AI could have massive impact on the way businesses compete but the end consumer should be protected. U.K is not the only one that is closely scrutinizing the AI sector, other countries including the U.S. are also keeping close eyes. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday had a close door meeting with the CEOs of Google, Microsoft and other tech companies to have discussion about AI.

3)

Apple reports stronger than expected quarterly results  

Apple on Thursday announced better than expected first quarter results for FY24 and this is partially thanks to good sale numbers of iPhone. The tech giant reported a net profit of $24 Bn and revenue of $94 Bn on account of surging iPhone sale with total sale standing at approximately $51.33 Bn. However, the iPhone maker witnessed a sharp drop in Mac sales, reporting a fall of 30% in first quarter. Apple’s better than expected quarterly results will certainly cheer up the investors amid shaky and gloomy economic scenario. Apple was recently in news for opening its first ever retail store in India, a country on which the iPhone maker has pinned its hope in propelling its future growth.

4)

OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman claims the era of Remote Working is Over  

Over the months many industry leaders have expressed their reservations about remote working and now OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has also got added into this list. Speaking at a tech session organized by fintech company Stripe, Altman claimed that the era of remote working is now officially over. He added that believing that employees could work remotely forever was one of the worst mistakes by the tech industry, arguing that we still don’t have the technology that is needed for people to go fully remote. Remote working became almost mandatory due to outbreak of COVID in 2020. However, with the threat of COVID abating, many tech companies have started following the hybrid model.

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