Technology

Apple is facing the antitrust investigation in Europe over two of its services, Apple Music and Apple News respectively. The antitrust inquiry is initiated after receiving complaints that the company is preferring its apps and services instead of neutrally promoting the apps and services from other developers. The trust complaint currently included only two services from Apple, but might also include other services in coming days. Also, the complaint may be filed in the European courts for Google Play Store discrimination for other Google’s services and apps.

The Spotify has filed the antitrust complaint against Apple for preferring Apple Music over Spotify in the Apple App Store. After this complaint, The Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM) will investigate Apple and will examine if the company is favouring its services on the App Store platform over the apps from other developers. It’s not just about the Apple Music, but a Dutch News app has filed the complaint which claimed the similar treatment for their app over Apple News. So, the Apple News and Apple Music are under scrutiny from the Netherlands’ Authority of Consumers and Markets.

According to the report published by ACM, the iOS ecosystem is so close, that there is no alternative for the App Store and that is bottlenecking the potential of the operating system and helping Apple to retain the Monopoly over its eco-system. Also, the 30% (first year) or 15% (renewal) commissions structure for Apple App Store developers might disrupt the competitive environment, ultimately favouring Apple’s Apps in the long run. According to the ACM, the number of complaints about the monopolistic practices of Apple is enough for launching a formal investigation since the company is doing it for a long time. This is not the first time Apple has been framed for following monopolistic practices, as many of the critics started objecting about Apple iTunes dominance from 2007.

Amazon will allow third-parties to create specialised apps to its employees to give a personalised touch. With this decision, the company will allow the use of voice skills of Alexa to the businesses for internal use, which will not be revealed to the world. This is the initiative taken under Alexa for Business to help multinational companies or big companies to create personalised commands and apps to automate the office environment. The participant members of the Alexa for Business program will receive the blueprints, which will allow the companies to personalise the commands and use them at the offices without needing to code a single line.

The business blueprints do have some very commonly asked questions related to the business. Most of them are very common like “What’s the Wifi password?”, “Turn on Conference Room Air Conditioning” and many others. The companies can use these blueprints as it is or even slightly modify them according to their needs. But the only catch here is that the company should be a part of Alexa for Business program. With these commands, the companies can program Alexa to broadcast pre-recorded messages to the customers or employees regularly.

This is another effort taken by Amazon to connect to the customer more efficiently and provide customizability. Last year, Amazon started providing blueprints to the individual customers to customise the user experience and create personalised commands for Alexa. As the customisation according to the usage pattern could take anywhere between two to three months, using the Blueprints to add new controls became more comfortable for the users. Thousands of users are using the templates as of now, and they are serving some real usage to the customers of Alexa, who use the voice assistant frequently.

Chances of getting toxic players while playing online multiplayer games is very high when you are queuing up as a solo player. This was the biggest problem in Overwatch game, but the developer Activision Blizzard has introduced the Endorsement system and Team queuing, which allowed them to reduce toxic matchmaking by up to 40%. Activision Blizzard’s Natasha Miller said that the toxic matchmaking reports are down by 40% after introduction of Endorsement systems. This is a positive sign, as the toxicity was one of the most significant problems for Overwatch players.

Most of the toxic players used slangs while playing, opposed the teammates and prematurely quit the game leaving others alone in the game. But, now with the endorsement system, all of these actions will affect the ratings of the player. The player with low scores would get other low rating players playing with them. Also, the high rating player will receive top rating player with or against him. Similar to the Matchmaking feature in Valve games like Counter Strike Global Offensive and DotA 2, the endorsement system works in similar ways. It’s been nine months since the introduction of the Endorsement system and other features, which operated positively for the game.

The overwatch is encouraging the players to team up with other friends and play together. This way, the rate of abandoning the match mid-game, toxic behaviour has been reduced, and the teamwork is getting perfect between the team of friends. Although not all of the toxic players are out of the game, the 40% decrease in toxicity is a great thing for the game. But, with this reduction, most of the players can now notice the differences in gameplay. Not just this, but the improvement in legit and calm players shows us how other game developers should implement the system to reduce toxicity and make the multiplayer gaming experience better.

The companies participated in GDC 2019 are showing us some incredible addition to its arsenal and the improvements to the current products. We‘ve seen Google and Intel sharing new products and also the upgrades. Now, Valve has come up with the updates with the Steam game library. Valve revealed a design overhaul to the Steam marketplace application for the computers. The game library and the friend’s section is completely changed and looks fantastic in the latest UI change. Valve’s Alden Kroll presented the demonstration of the Design Redesign.

The information-dense dashboard and the Library page will display all of the games that users can purchase, wishlist, downloaded and downloading games and also the games that the user has played recently. All of the games that a user owns are correctly categorized in the Library section. All of the action games, racing games, RPG games, and many others are sorted under the appropriate category. The new addition is the homepage for each steam user. The library section will be served as a homepage for each steam user. List of the games on left side panel, list of online friends on the right side and the top, the users will see the most recently played game.

The individual game page has also got the overhaul. With the page getting more information than ever, the users will be able to read the news and check out important rolled out updates from the same. For example, the homage for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive will show the information about the game and also load up the list of your friends playing the same, news from Counter-Strike blog, Play option, settings, and many other things. As of now, the design overhaul is in the alpha mode and will debut in Beta mode sometime later this year. We are very excited to try out the beta design overhaul as it looks completely refreshing.

Microsoft has officially launched the Windows Defender Anti-virus and Anti-malware software program for Macintosh computers. The company has renamed the Windows Defender to Microsoft Defender after porting the Windows software to Macintosh. Not all people get malware infections on MacOS computers, but its not rare thing. To help the MacOS users with virus and malware infections, the Microsoft Defender is going to help them to remove the infection. This is the new initiative from Microsoft to improve the presence of Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), which is the platform for identifying and protecting the computers from threats. With the introduction of Microsoft Defender for Mac, the software program has now become cross-platform.

Just like any other Windows computer with Windows Defender pre-installed, the MacOS comes with inbuilt Antivirus and Antimalware. But, the security software is not capable of identifying most of the threats. That is why most of the Apple users opt for third-party antivirus and antimalware software program. Microsoft is targeting such people, and that’s why released the Microsoft defender with Defender Advanced Threat Protection (DATP) technology. With this software, corporate as well as Individual users will get full protection from virus and malware, notifications on quarantine and latest updates with antivirus definitions.

As the first preview of the Microsoft Defender is launched, it will only support the signature-based threat identification. But, Microsoft has promised to integrate ATP Cloud service, which will fetch the data from the cloud to identify the threats lying in the MacOS environment. The ATP cloud service automatically analyses if the ransomware or malware is modifying the system file without scanning the computer, and notify the system administrator to take appropriate action. Microsoft is quite serious about the Defender platform but didn’t share any information about the next platform to receive the defender. Most likely, it’s the Linux OS as it is the only remaining operating system environment with a good number of users.

Tensions between the United States Government and the Huawei are not going to ease as the government is tightening the screws. To avoid any potential ban on using the Android operating system in its smartphones, Huawei has developed a proprietary operating system for its smartphones. If the tensions between the US and China worsen, Huawei will use a proprietary operating system for its smartphones, ditching Android. The operating system could be used on the computers as Microsoft will likely ban Huawei from using its products if everything goes sour.

Huawei executive Richard Yu said that the company developed its own operating system to avoid inconvenience in case of the potential ban from American companies. It is the plan B of Huawei to avoid immediate trouble to its users and also to the staff members as the Huawei is suing the United States Government for ditching the telecommunication equipment for the military purpose. On that lawsuit, the United States of America government claimed security reasons for not using the Huawei products. But, Huawei also contended that the United States government failed to provide any evidence of security issues with the telecommunication equipment and has ditched the company just out of grudge.

Reportedly, Huawei is working on a proprietary operating system from 2012 to compete with the Android and Microsoft’s Windows OS for smartphones. But as the times changed and they filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government, the need of its operating system became paramount. According to Huawei Executive Richard Yu, the company is not going to adapt the operating system anytime soon, unless they are barred from using Android and Microsoft ecosystems in its smartphones and other devices. If they are prohibited from using the same, we can take a first glance of the operating system developed by Chinese Tech Giant.

Facebook is suing Two Ukrainian Men for illegally scraping the data from 63K Facebook users, through Quiz apps and malicious extensions. Facebook sued these men for stealing the private data of the users and selling it for advertising purpose. Two Ukrainian men Gleb Sluchevsky and Andrey Gorbachov are in deep troubles as the company has filed the lawsuit for malicious practices. Gleb and Andrey made a quiz site that used the “Login with Facebook” feature and the users who used that feature to play the quiz were asked to install the malicious browser extension. The extension then scraped the private data from the users and sent it to the Gleb and Andrey.

The accused developers used the fake credentials to create a developer account on Facebook to access the feature “Login with Facebook.” Using fake credentials to create a developer account in a violation of Facebook’s TOS [terms of service], Community Standards and related policies, says the lawsuit. The apps and extensions used by these Ukrainian men would scrape the personal data from the users and also inject the advertisements on the websites that infected users would visit. Even the ads were showing on Facebook.

According to the lawsuit, more than 63,000 Facebook users affected with the malicious apps and extensions installed by these two developers. Also, the company suffered $75,000 in damages due to showing the advertisements on the platform. The company is still facing privacy issues with its platform, as it’s another issue that arose after the infamous Cambridge Analytica Scandal. Even though the privacy policy of Facebook requires the developers not to don’t “confuse, deceive, defraud, mislead, spam or surprise anyone, the Ukrainian developers violated the same and are facing the lawsuit in Ukrainian courts. The company has not shared its official views on this lawsuit to the media personnel.

Apple has confirmed its March 25 event and sent invites to the guests and members of the press as well. The invitation of this special event says, ‘It’s show time.’ it seems that the long-rumored streaming TV service of Apple will take the center stage in this event. The tagline, ‘It’s show time.’ was used by the company in 2006 as well for an event. In that event, the then-future Apple TV product was revealed. Matthew Panzarino, the editor of TechCrunch tweeted out an animated GIF which showed a countdown throwback to old films and film production. It suggested that video content should be the event’s focus.

Apple has recently courted writers and other talents from Hollywood from the offices in Los Angeles and Culver City, Calif. The company has acquired content from established entertainers and also seeking family-friendly content in enormous amounts. Not only TV, but reports say that Apple may be working with magazines and news subscription services as well. In the March 25 event, even this service could be displayed by Apple.

This special event will be held in the new campus of Apple at Steve Jobs Theater in the Silicon Valley. This theatre was used publicly for the first time in September 2017 by Apple itself for the announcement of iPhone X and their other products. After that event, Apple conducted such events in other locations like an arts center on Brooklyn or a school in Chicago.

Such an event was held almost exactly in the last year on March 27, 2018. In that event, the company had announced the base iPad model of current-generation. This model starts at $329 and has an A10 processor, similar to the iPhone 7. There are reports that Apple may update the iPad using a faster processor. They could probably introduce the latest version of iPad mini (which wasn’t updates after 2015) and also an updated iPod touch. The March 25 event would probably include the announcements of all these products and their updated versions.

Google Developer Conference is near, and we got to know what Google is going to launch in this event. The company is working on the game streaming service, that will allow the gamers to play games from the browser or a standalone application without actually installing the game on the computer. Google might reveal the game controller for the same service if we believe at the Patent filings by Google. The patent filings published on January 31st, 2019 allows us to get an idea of how the controller looks and works.

The PDF file that is posted on the Patent authorities website shows us the technical drawing of the game streaming service controller. The controller has a classic design with D-pad, twin thumbsticks, four primary buttons, and a four triggers buttons. Not just these, but the controller comes with the Home button, Google Button, Microphone toggle button and a menu button. The Patent filings mention that this device supports the seamless activation of the game through the controller. When the user presses the activation button, the receiver device sends the activation signal to the system, which activates the controller and the game.

Google is right most of the times in developing the new technology or the device. The game controllers are going to be the same as we’ve seen the patent filings with the United States patents department. The game controllers are quite advanced in communicating with the host device with a bunch of network chips to send and receive signals faster than anyone else. If Google launches this game streaming service and the controller hardware for the same, then it might be the best one in the industry. Many of the companies like Microsoft and NVIDIA are planning and still struggling to introduce the game streaming service, the introduction of Google’s game streaming service will step up the standards in the industry.

Corning, the manufacturer of the Gorilla glass displays who provide the display to tons of smartphone companies is reportedly working on the foldable screen. A prominent Apple iPhone Display manufacturer is working on the project to manufacture folding screens, which could be used in the upcoming iPhones. According to the Corning general manager John Bayne, making a glass that would bend with resilience is a challenging task, and the company would accomplish it in the coming two years. Apple has already invested nearly $200 million in COrning, to support the Research and Development to make its devices stronger.

Apple invested money in Corning for their benefits like Research and Development, to support capital requirements and also to build a state-of-the-art glass processing hub. According to the patents filed with the authorities by Apple, it is clear that the company is looking to spend more money on developing a smartphone with foldable displays. It is rumored that Apple could bring new iPhone devices with foldable display next year. With the statement from Corning on developing foldable display, we are sure that Apple is getting foldable displays in early 2020 if Corning gets success in the project.

The companies like Samsung and Huawei has already achieved the foldable displays for their smartphone, but the displays used the plastic and not the glass. That’s why Corning wants to make a foldable glass display for smartphone devices. According to John Bayne, Corning team is targetting 3- to 5-millimeter bend radii” for its 0.1mm thick glass, and that would turn the smartphone to have the thickness of 6 to 10mm after folding it. Currently, Corning manufactures the bendable Willow glass. But the process behind the making of this glass makes it impossible for it to use a smartphone display. So, Corning has no other option than spending time and money for manufacturing the foldable display scratch.

Facebook is taking harsh steps against the fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram, as the company has sued four Chinese companies for selling fake accounts. The company announced the news today and said that they had announced four Chinese companies with trademark infringement, breach of contract, and related offenses. Facebook officials said that this is one step forward to protect the interest and privacy of Instagram and Facebook users. The sued Chinese companies are selling millions of fake accounts for Facebook and Instagram on their website, which is clearly against the policies of these two social media websites.

9 Xiu Network (Shenzhen) Science and Technology Company, 9 Xiu Feishu Science and Technology Company, 9 Xiufei Book Technology Co., and Home Network (Fujian) Technology Co. are the named of the four companies named in the lawsuit along with the three people related to these companies. These four companies provide the software and hardware services to increase likes, subscribe, comments and many other online activities. Not just the activities for Instagram and Facebook, these sites provide services for YouTube, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and Twitter. This site used the made-up tag of “Facebook China Regional Strategic Partner” and sold thousands of Premium accounts which couldn’t be suspended according to the companies.

Fake accounts are a big problem for the company as they disabled nearly 2.1 billion fake accounts last year. This is the big step for Facebook to get rid of millions of counterfeit accounts from Facebook and Instagram platforms. But the company still has a big problem of reaching to these companies. As these companies do operate from China and Facebook do not work in China, it’s tough for them to get results. The company may not get the expected results, but they have surely scared many of the fake accounts and services selling websites with the potential legal action.

Samsung’s Galaxy Tablets are known for being stunningly beautiful with Android but at the same time a little bit expensive. But this is not the case anymore because the company has unveiled its news Tablet named Galaxy Tab S5E. The Galaxy Tab S4 was priced at $699, and the latest Tab S5E comes with the price tag of $399, which is affordable for the millennials. The main attraction of this tablet is that it is super-thin and comes with multiple color options.

The Galaxy Tab S5E is not the same Tab S5 because of the additional “E” in the name. The same “E” stands for Essentials as per the Samsung representatives. This is the thinnest tablet with 4.4mm thick with a metal unibody design. If you compare it with 11-inch iPad Pro, which is the latest tablet from Apple, it is 5.49mm thick. The overall weight of the Tab S5E is 400 grams which are lightweight from the competitor brands. The screen to body ratio is very unusual with 81.8 percent is screen and remaining in the body from the front side. The device is packed with 10.5-inch Super AMOLED display with the aspect ratio of 16:10 and 2560 x 1600 maximum supported the resolution.

On the processor side, it comes with Snapdragon 670 Octa-core processor which is suitable for performance and power consumption on portable devices. The device supports Samsung’s Latest Bixby 2.0 voice assistant who is claimed to be smarter than the previous version. The best thing we’ve found with this tablet is the DEX, which is Desktop-Style Android environment to interact with the external input devices like Keyboard and Mouse. With 64GB of internal storage and 4Gigs of RAM, all your tasks will run without any issues. If you are power-hungry, then you can check out the 128 Gigs and 6GB RAM variant. The device will launch with two variants with color options like Black, Grey, and Limited Edition Gold color from the second quarter of 2019.

The Newton Mail app was one of the only apps that had cross-platform usability without any issues. There are not many cross-platform Email management apps. In September 2018, Newton Mail project was closed due to lack of funding and the stiff competition from the giants like Google and Microsoft. Now, Essential smartphones are resurrecting the project, and Newton Mail is back from the grave. The company has bought dead Newton app in December and announced that they are bringing it again with a lot of features.

Newton mail died in September due to the stiff competition from Heavily funded competitors. After the project was closed, Essential bought the app, and now they are launching it with refreshed look and features. Just like it was before the shutdown in September, Newton Mail is going to be live for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac operating systems. Essential has decided to keep the pricing to $4.99/- per month and a 14-days trial period. Even though the smartphone maker owns the Email app, there are no announced discounts for the Essential smartphone owners as the experts expected it.

Newton is a great email option, but the availability of the Gmail and Outlook for free of cost is luring the email users. Unlike Microsoft, Newton provides cross-platform availability on iOS, Mac, Windows, and Android devices. CloudMagic, who was the developer of Newton app discontinued the development citing unsuccessful attempts to assess profitability and long-term growth for the app. It’s time to check if Newton app does better than before or follow the path of CloudMagic to die once again.