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Showing posts from 2018

WhatsApp finally rolls out group video calls

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Back in May, Facebook at its F8 developer conference had announced that it would be adding group calling support for video on WhatsApp later this year. Starting yesterday, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has officially rolled out the group video & audio calling feature and made it live for users across the world on iOS and Android. This feature allows you to make a group call with up to four participants at the same time. In other words, only four people can be on the group video call simultaneously. “You can make a group call with up to four people total – anytime and anywhere. Just start a one-on-one voice or video call and tap the new “add participant” button in the top right corner to add more contacts to the call,” WhatsApp said in a statement. Currently, users make over 2 billion minutes of video and audio calls through WhatsApp every day. “Group calls are always end-to-end encrypted, and we’ve designed calling to work reliably around the world in different network condit

YouTube is rolling out the ‘dark mode’ theme for Android devices.

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The Google-owned YouTube, the most popular video streaming website, is testing a new ‘dark mode’ feature that is expected to cause less strain to the user’s eyes while watching YouTube videos at night time or dimly-lit environments. While Google brought the dark theme for desktop users late last year and later on for iOS users earlier this year, Android users still had to wait to receive this update. Looks like the wait is finally over for at least some Android users, who reported that the dark theme was mysteriously applied when they opened the official YouTube app on Android. The app also served a pop-up at the bottom of the screen informing that this feature is available now. The dark mode comes with a toggle that allows the user to switch off the mode and revert to the light theme if they wish to. Although Google has not officially announced the feature, this mode is now available for Android. The dark theme basically reverses the color of the YouTube app UI (user interface

Microsoft releases first test build of Windows 10 19H1 for Insiders

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On 26 July, Microsoft released the first Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18204 codenamed ‘19H1’ (also known as Redstone 6) to Windows Insiders who are in the Skip Ahead ring. Looks like Microsoft is no longer going to use Redstone codenames for the next version of Windows and instead use the newly re-named codename ‘19H1’, where 19 represents the year 2019 and H1 refers to the first half of the year. “Going forward, RS5 builds will come from the RS5_RELEASE branch. For Insiders who chose to “skip ahead”, 19H1 builds will continue to come from the RS_PRERELEASE branch. Insiders can see the branch name in the watermark at the lower right of their desktop. Right now, the builds from these branches are largely the same which is why we’re only doing a single blog post for both of today’s new builds. However, in the future, we will be doing separate blog posts for each. To summarize all this, see the below graphic that explains what Skip Ahead is,” Microsoft’s Dona Sarkar writes in a

Fuchsia OS - OS from Future.

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We were expecting to see Google announce Google Fuchsia, or Google Andromeda – a fusion of its Chrome and Android operating systems – back in October 2017. That announcement never happened.  What will Google Fuchsia be, though? Well, while the Google Pixelbook and some of the other best Chromebooks can run Android apps through the Google Play Store, and even an early version of Fuchsia, we believe the finished product will be much more. It seems like there’s some kind of divide within Google regarding what Google Fuchsia will actually be. While the team that’s working on it wants Fuchsia to be the penultimate Google OS, running on all phones, tablets, laptops and smart home devices – Google’s leadership is still referring to it as an experiment. So, we’ll just have to wait and see if anything materializes out of it in the coming years. Regardless of whether it ever fully releases, or what kind of software it ultimately supports, the concept of Google Fuchsia revolves around

Energous Gets FCC Certification for WattUp Wireless Charging Technology

After three years of debut of Energous’ wireless “power at a distance” charging system, it has now approved by the Federal Communications commission (FCC). FCC has approved this new type of charger, Wattup Mid Field transmitter, for the first time. This technology is much more advance than the previous wireless charging technologies because this will charge up batteries from as far as three feet away. And with this, we enter a complete new era of wireless charging of devices. It is able to charge battery-operated devices like phone, tablets, smart speakers, smart watches, fitness trackers etc. using a technique that Energous compares to Wi-Fi, as long as the battery-operated device has the company’s receivers. Wattup has a transmitter which emits energy via a radio frequency signal. It is being delivered by custom chips and miniature antenna arrays. And after the transmission, device having the Wattup receiver converts the RF signal into battery power. Energous claims its product be