The European Union's controversial copyright reforms came to a stall this week after member states failed to agree to the changes.
A meeting had been scheduled for Monday between European Commission officials, member state representatives, and MEPs but was canceled after member states rebuffed the latest directive. That happened on Friday when eleven countries opposed the latest draft as had been written up by Romania.
At the core of the objections are the notorious Article 11 and Article 13. In summary, Article 11 could see search engines and social media platforms forced to pay publishers for snippets of content and links - a so-called "link tax." Article 13 mandates the use of content upload filters similar to YouTube's Content ID in order to prevent copyright infringement.
The changes have been strongly opposed by web giants like Google and Facebook, who argue that they are likely to harm creators. Digital rights' activists and web entrepreneurs argued that the filtering required by Article 13 is beyond the resources of smaller web firms and start-ups. There are also concerns that content that should not be filtered out for copyright purposes, such as memes, could be affected by content upload filters.
Microsoft is working on some voice assistant changes, as is evident from recently revealing that search bar and Cortana are going to be separated in Windows 10.
There's much more happening behind the scenes, though. Not long ago, Cortana boss Javier Soltero left Microsoft, and perhaps that was beginning of the end for Microsoft's Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant competitor.
Now Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella no longer wants to consider Cortana directly opposite to Alexa and Assistant. According to Nadella, it is more important that Cortana is a service that works on all platforms and supports all kinds of devices, and more importantly even support the other assistants.
Nadella's thought of not competing but complimenting other assistants might be beautiful, but why would Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa user ever want to, or have to, use Cortana on their own platforms?
It does sound a little like Microsoft just threw in the towel because they couldn't or don't want to compete in hardware like the smart speakers.
Perhaps Microsoft does have some tricks up its sleeve on how to differentiate Cortana from the rest. Microsoft does have strong partnership with Amazon, so maybe it can warm Google up to some kind of collaboration.
The world's leading music streaming service has managed to keep itself on a narrow path not expanding the scope of the operation beyond simple streaming service, and perhaps that is what's responsible for the company's continuing success in entertainment.
However, profits aren't exactly piling in, and there are signs that Spotify needs some innovation to reinvent itself.
One thing Spotify hasn't expanded to is hardware, but that is about to change, according to reports by the Financial Times.
FT reports that Spotify is preparing a hardware launch, the first for the company, later this year. The device is said to be a music player for your car.
Screenshots or screen captures are an essential tools of any proper operating system. Every now and then you'll have to copy something on your screen for later use, and screenshots are the easiest and most versatile way to save important information or pictures.
Windows 10 of course offers screenshots out of the box, but there's more to it nowadays than just the Print Screen (PrtScn, PrtSc, PrintScr, etc) button. Here are a handful different ways you can take advantage of Windows 10's screenshot functions.
1) Perhaps the most known screenshot function in Windows is pressing simply the Print Screen button (sometimes with the addition of Function (fn) button) on your keyboard. This saves the entire, current, desktop view to the clipboard. You can then paste the picture to programs like Paint, and edit it as you see fit.
2) By pressing both Windows button and Print Screen simultaneously you can save the view as is to your computer's hard drive without having to edit or name it. Pictures are automatically saved to your Screenshots folder under Pictures.
3) You can take a screenshot of a single window by selecting the windows and pressing Alt and Print Screen buttons simultaneously. The picture of the windows is saved on your clipboard where you can paste it to your preferred graphics editor.
Microsoft has finally said out loud what everyone else knew already: Windows 10 Mobile operating system is dead.
Company tells in its support pages that the support for last remaining Windows-based mobile phone operating system, Windows 10 Mobile, will cease on 10th of December, 2019. After that point, there wont be any security updates or patches to the operating system.
Microsoft also tells that those still using the Windows phones should switch to either Android or iPhone before the said date.
Company itself has already moved on, having ceased the active development of the Windows Mobile back in October, 2017. Since then, Microsoft has released tons of apps for both, Android and iOS, with great success. Both, Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel, both have been downloaded more than 500 million times on Google Play.
According to Microsoft, existing customers can continue to use their phones even after the December deadline, but with caution, as the security problems wont be patched anymore. It is unclear whether the app store for Windows Mobile stays online after the deadline.
Netflix has revealed new financials and other statistics during their fourth quarter earnings report, and by the looks of it Reed Hastings can continue smiling.
User base grew massively over the last year, especially outside the United States. Netflix added 33 million new subscribers last year, and an estimate-beating 8.8 million in the last quarter alone.
The company's smash hit feature film Bird Box was watched over 80 million times.
Even with the impressive growth numbers, Netflix slightly missed the revenue target, and that seemed to put the tiniest of dents to stock price.
One of the more interesting statements in the earnings report is where Netflix mentioned that the toughest competition comes from not other streaming TV services but video games.
"We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite more than HBO," Netflix says. The streaming giant isn't worried about closest competitors in the TV and movie space, instead it has to share much more of people's time with interactive entertainment.
Netflix has already tried one type of answer to this challenge. Recently it released a new type of interactive movie, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, which is a hybrid of video games and movies.
Late last year European Parliament voted for a new copyright directive which would have massive implications to both EU citizens as well as technology companies when it comes to sharing information online.
One company that has been very vocal about the shortcomings of the new laws, especially Article 11 and Article 13 within the directive, is Google. The search giant would have to start paying license fees to share pictures, summaries, or even headlines of linked news stories.
To further make the point, Google has provided Search Engine Land screenshots to illustrate how ridiculous the proposed laws are.
The picture is perhaps the most extreme example since companies could, for example, agree to provide some information in order to improve their ranking in search. What that world would look like, no one knows as of yet.
EU directive is currently in the final stages of drafting after which it needs to be ratified by the member states. Alongside Google and other tech giants digital rights groups such as the EFF have expressed their concerns over Article 11 and Article 13.
The latest being perhaps the toughest challenge, as Apple is used to increasing revenues and profits, and that won't be the case for previous quarter. The quarter will be the first in 16 years Apple has had to reduce expectations for.
Now Bloomberg is reporting, that Apple has to cut back hiring because of the problems.
According to Bloomberg's Apple analyst Mark Gurman, Apple CEO Tim Cook has informed employees about slowing down recruitment. This is likely due to unexpectedly low iPhone demand in China.
However, this doesn't mean that all hiring stalls or that any lay-offs are planned. Some divisions won't be hiring new people as much, but there will still be recruitment.
AI divisions are said to continue aggressive hiring as growth in that sector is expected.
Microsoft has revealed some upcoming features of Windows 10 on their official Windows blog. The update log is for Windows Insider test build but will soon be available to the greater public as well.
The features it showcases on the blog post are for Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18317, and are expected to hit the final Windows 10 update later this spring.
The largest change is separating Cortana from the search box. Microsoft is taking Cortana entirely out of the Windows 10 search box found next to the Start menu.
Windows 10 search will from now on be solely used for text search and a separate Cortana function next to the search bar can be used for voice search.
Other updates include improvements to Start menu stability (works now as a separate executable), drag and drop function to fonts tool and of course loads of smaller improvements and bug fixes.
The most recent version of Google's mobile operating systems, Android Pie, is still very much in the minority on Android devices, but we've already gotten past it and are getting leaks about the next version.
For those of us that have a Pixel or a phone from a manufacturer that truly respects Android updates, there are some exciting news.
New information about the upcoming Android Q reveals a few highly anticipated features. XDA-Developers reveals that the developer version of Android Q includes system-wide dark mode.
The feature has previously been rumored but this seems to all but confirm it's going to be on Android Q. Of course, Google could still axe the feature as Android Q is months away.
Dark mode turns the entire OS into a darker themed, and in OLED devices more battery friendly, Android phone. While you already can change the theme to a dark version, the new version will improve the support across the OS.
Some updates revealed by the developer version have to do with security. According to XDA, Google is making also system-wide changes to privacy.
One of these changes is to allow "only while the app is in use" permissions.
Smartphone sales might have peaked already but app usage is likely going up for a few years still.
Research firm App Annie has released the most recent figures about app sales and downloads, and there are some interesting trends as well as predictable results.
China has become the dominating force in app markets as it became in smartphone sales. Nearly half of all app downloads are done by the Chinese, even though Google Play isn't available.
Chinese were responsible for 40% of money spent on apps. Worldwide people used just over $100 billion on a total of 194 billion app downloads.
Among video streaming YouTube took the first spot globally by time spent, but only seventh by revenue. Netflix, as expected, made the most money of any app.
While Netflix definitely made its fair share of money, worldwide people spent 74% of their app money in games. A lion's share was shared by global Battle Royale hits PUBG Mobile and Fortnite.
The trend is still clearly up, even if smartphone sales is slowing down, and app sales is up 75% since 2016 worldwide.
Mastercard has changed rules for merchants that offer free trials to consumers in order to prevent consumers from being charged for services they don't want.
A lot of merchants offer free trials for subscription services so that potential customers can test them out before paying for them. However, at the end of such trials, merchants can often begin charging subscription fees automatically, which can be a surprise to some consumers.
To fight this common occurrence, Mastercard has changed rules for merchants that offer time-limited free trials to consumers. Merchants will be required to gain cardholder approval at the conclusion of the trial before they start billing.
Either by e-mail or SMS, merchants must send the cardholder the transaction amount, payment date, merchant name along with explicit instructions on how to cancel a trial. Each subsequent payment must also result in a receipt being issued by email or text message with clear instructions on how to cancel the service if the consumer so desires.
In addition, all charges that appear on the cardholder's statement must now include the merchant website URL or the phone number of the store where the cardholder made the purchase.
Troy Hunt has set up up a searchable database that contains a whopping 773 million breached login details. The data has been put together by combining various high profile data breaches from the past years, including the data breaches to LinkedIn and Adobe
The database that he calls "Collection #1" includes email addresses and passwords totalling 2,692,818,238 rows. Yes, you got that one right, more than two and a half billion details. When all the duplicates removed, it still leaves more than one billion login details (email address and password combination) to the database. And there are more than 700 million unique email addresses there, so some email addresses were breached in more than one data leak, with different password.
Mr. Hunt, who works as a regional director for Microsoft got the data from popular anonymous file sharing service MEGA and its origins, according to him, point to a popular hacker forum where the set of files is distributed openly among the hackers. Dataset in question is 87 gigabytes in size and has more than 12'000 files in it. He details the project in his own blog.
After the so called Batterygate, Apple started offering cheaper battery replacements for iPhone. Now report says over 10 million iPhone batteries have been replaced.
Batterygate was a controversy over Apple throttling the performance of iPhones after the battery started wearing out. Complaints in the social media pushed Apple to renew their software policy as well as offer a cheaper replacement option.
Battery replacement prices for iPhones up until iPhone 6 were dropped from $79 to $29. Combined with better knowledge of the deterioration of battery capacity and performance, even Apple was surprised how many people replaced their iPhone batteries.
According to Tim Cook, this even had an effect on the bottom line last quarter, although it probably wasn't the most significant contributor. Some people might have just replaced the battery instead buying a brand new iPhone.
Now, according to Daring Fireball, Apple has revealed in a meeting that they replaced 11 million iPhones under the $29 program. Usually Apple replaces batteries for around 1-2 million devices in a quarter.
Apple is considering a couple different manufacturers for 5G chips, among which Samsung is an option.
The information was revealed from the court documents from patent dispute between Apple and chipmaker Qualcomm, reports Reuters.
Testimony by Apple VP of Procurement Tony Blevins discloses that Apple has been in talks with Samsung and Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer MediaTek about 5G modems for an upcoming iPhone.
Currently Apple is receiving modems from Intel for their most recent iPhones after patent disputes have turned trade relationships with former partner Qualcomm sour.
Apple has stated that it doesn't want to rely on a single component provider, and as Qualcomm is not an option for upcoming iPhones they've been looking into both Samsung and MediaTek as options for Intel's chips.
Rumors late last year claimed that Apple has pushed 5G adoption back, and thus wouldn't be bringing the new wireless technology to iPhones this year.
The European Union's controversial copyright reforms came to a stall this week after member states failed to agree to the changes.
Microsoft is working on some voice assistant changes, as is evident from recently revealing that search bar and Cortana are going to be separated in Windows 10.
The world's leading music streaming service has managed to keep itself on a narrow path not expanding the scope of the operation beyond simple streaming service, and perhaps that is what's responsible for the company's continuing success in entertainment.
