Tech & Programming News of the Week #6

Thapa Tech & Programming News of the Week

Here are the top 11 news of the week

5G in India

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched the 5G internet services.
• The three major telecom operators -- Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodaphone-Idea -- demonstrated one use case of the next generation of the internet to PM Modi
• In the first phase of the 5G internet roll-out, 13 cities will get a new service. These are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune.
• Today, four cities will get the internet. These are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. In Delhi, some areas will receive 5G speeds.
• The overall rollout of the internet will take several months.
• It is expected that the prices of 5G internet tariffs would be comparable to the 4G network.
• Reliance Jio claims India would be the fastest country to adopt the 5G internet. They claim to extend 5G coverage across the country by 2023. Airtel intends to provide full coverage by 2024.
• Airtel intends to provide full coverage by 2024.

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An AI system that generates videos from text

• Recently, Meta announced it's new AI system named as Make-A-Video
• Make-A-Video is a new AI system that lets people turn text prompts into brief, high-quality video clips. Make-A-Video builds on Meta AI’s recent progress in generative technology research and has the potential to open new opportunities for creators and artists. The system learns what the world looks like from paired text-image data and how the world moves from video footage with no associated text.
• With just a few words or lines of text, Make-A-Video can bring imagination to life and create one-of-a-kind videos full of vivid colors, characters, and landscapes.
• The system can also create videos from images or take existing videos and create new ones that are similar.

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NodeConf EU

• NodeConf EU has rightly earned its reputation as the leading key Node.js event in Europe.
• NodeConf EU 2022 was held on October 3-5, 2022 at The Lyrath Estate, Kilkenny, Ireland
• This was the 10th anniversary of NodeConf EU and it was the first event which was hosted in-person after 2019 because of Covid-19
• You can watch all the videos of event from their official YouTube channel
• Different talks were done by multiple experienced developers. You might not wanna miss the talks done in the conference.

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Axios finally becomes stable

• Axios, Promise based HTTP client for the browser and node.js, extremely popular among developers with above 30M+ weekly downloads in NPM finally released it's stable v1.0.0 on 4th October, 2022.
• According to Semantic Versioning System, any versions before v1.0.0 is considered not stable for production and is for initial development only whose API can change any time.
• ReactNative is also in it's 0.x versions, it is yet to see when they will release v1.0.0

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YouTube locks 4K playback behind Premium subscriptions

• YouTube is running a test that places its 4K videos behind a YouTube Premium subscription. In recent weeks, some users have reported seeing playback of 2160p resolution video restricted with text labeling it as a premium feature.
• YouTube has since confirmed via Twitter (now deleted) that those seeing the new restrictions were part of an experiment to better understand the feature preferences of Premium and non-Premium viewers.
• It isn’t clear if YouTube will actually restrict all non-Premium users to 1440p video quality, and the company is directing users to leave feedback on the restrictions in order for the Google subsidiary to “make improvements.”
• YouTube has been known for some fairly aggressive advertising, with 9to5Google reporting that a previous test saw the company place as many as ten unskippable ads onto a single video.
• Even if they restrict 4k behind premium subscribption, for countries like Nepal, where YouTube premium isn't available, it will remain unchanged.

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Telegram Premium subscription price slashed in India

• Messaging app Telegram has cut the monthly subscription fee for its Premium users in India. The company has reduced the price from ₹469 to ₹179.
• India is one of the largest markets for Telegram. According to analytics firm data.ai., the platform has amassed over 120 million monthly active users in the country.
• Telegram is reportedly sending a message to users in India where it says that the subscription now costs customers ₹179 Indian, down from ₹469 earlier. For comparison, the app’s monthly subscription costs between $4.99 to $6 in every other market. The new prices are visible in the settings section of the app.
• Telegram premium users have access to different extra features like animated emoji status, premium badge, files upload upto 4 gb and so on.

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EU Passes Law to Switch iPhone to USB-C by End of 2024

• The proposal, known as a directive, forces all consumer electronics manufacturers who sell their products in Europe to ensure that a wide range of devices feature a USB-C port. This "common port" will be a world-first statute and impact Apple in particular since it widely uses the Lightning connector instead of USB-C on many of its devices. MEPs claim that the move will reduce electronic waste, address product sustainability, and make use of different devices more convenient.
• Exemptions will apply for devices that are too small to offer a USB-C port, such as smart watches, health trackers, and some sports equipment, but the legislation is expected to be expanded to other devices over time. Companies will also have to ensure that dedicated labels clearly inform consumers about the charging characteristics of devices they buy.
• In addition, the EU seeks to ensure that wireless charging solutions are interoperable as the technology evolves over time. The directive empowers the European Commission to develop delegated acts by the end of 2024 that force companies to make their custom wireless charging solutions more open and meet interoperability standards, helping consumers to avoid getting locked into proprietary charging solutions while preventing fragmentation and reducing waste.
• Both Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman have said that Apple is testing a version of the ‌iPhone‌ that has a USB-C port instead of a Lightning port. Kuo believes that Apple could switch the ‌iPhone‌ to USB-C starting with 2023's iPhone 15, before transitioning AirPods and other accessories at a later date.

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Elon Musk Twitter deal back on in surprise U-turn

• Billionaire Elon Musk has apparently changed his mind about buying Twitter, again, and is now willing to proceed with his takeover of the social media platform.
• In a letter to the firm, Mr Musk agreed to pay the price he offered months ago before trying to quit the deal.
• The surprise reversal comes just weeks before the two sides were due in court.
• Twitter, which had sued Mr Musk to force the takeover to move forward, was seen as having the stronger case.
• A spokesperson for Twitter acknowledged the firm had received the proposal, adding "the intention of the company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share" - the price that Mr Musk promised in April.

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Twitter's edit button is finally here

• Subscribers to Twitter Blue in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are getting the ability to edit tweets now with users in the United States having to wait for the feature to come "soon."
• The feature can be turned on in Twitter Blue's Labs section. Users will be able to tap on a new pencil-shaped edit button on any tweet posted within the past 30 minutes and make edits to them up to five times in that window.
• Viewers will be able to see that a tweet has been edited with a timestamp disclosure. Tapping on that timestamp will bring up a version history.
• The feature looks to be a big draw in attracting users to Twitter Blue, which currently costs $5 per month in the United States and provides for features such as a reader mode for threads, ad-free reading for articles from a number of publications, 10-minute long video uploads, and a number of experimental functions in the Twitter Blue Labs such as this one.
• A spokesperson for Twitter acknowledged the firm had received the proposal, adding "the intention of the company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share" - the price that Mr Musk promised in April.

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Google is shutting down stadia

• Google is shutting down Stadia, its cloud gaming service. The service will remain live for players until January 18th, 2023. Google will be refunding 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.
• “A few years ago, we also launched a consumer gaming service, Stadia,” Stadia vice president and GM Phil Harrison said in a blog post. “And 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 so we’ve made the difficult decision to begin winding down our Stadia streaming service.” Employees on the Stadia team will be distributed to other parts of the company.
• Harrison says Google sees opportunities to apply Stadia’s technology to other parts of Google, like YouTube, Google Play, and its AR efforts, and the company also plans to “make it available to our industry partners, which aligns with where we see the future of gaming headed,” he wrote.

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