WhatsApp for Android May Soon Move Attachment Button, Separate Video and Voice Calling Buttons
Highlights
These new features are found in WhatsApp beta 2.17.93
It separates the video calling button from voice calling
It relocates the attachment button to the bottom of the screen
WhatsApp is said to be testing specific business tools
to begin its revenue stream, and is expected to launch the stable
version sometime later in the year. However, in the meantime, WhatsApp
is also tweaking few things here and there to just improve the everyday
experience. The WhatsApp v2.17.93 beta for Android relocates the
attachment button, and finally makes the voice and video call buttons
separate, something that was exclusive only to iPhone users previously.
WhatsApp calling buttons separated
First,
when WhatsApp video was launched, the video calling feature was hidden
underneath the call button on the top right edge. By clicking the 'call'
button, two options used to pop up - one for voice call and one for
video call - and you had to press the one you prefer. Now, WhatsApp is
testing a separate video button in the latest beta version of Andriod to
make the video calling button more visible to the users, and Android
Police was the first one to spot this change.
WhatsApp attachment button relocated
The
new WhatsApp video call button for Android replaces the attachment
button that used to sit next to the call button, and the attachment
button has shifted to the bottom alongside the text bar. It sits right
beside the camera icon which has also been redesigned. This enables the
user to access all of the conversation related buttons in one place, and
users will no more have to head on to the top edge just to attach an
image or a file. For iPhone users, the attachment button is already
alongside the text bar at the bottom of the screen.
Remember,
these features are only available in beta for now, but will be launched
for all Android users soon. If you can't wait, join the WhatsApp beta community in Google Play or download it manually from APK Mirror here.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin signs Eutelsat as first customer
Blue Origin, a rocket company owned by Amazon.com Inc chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, has signed Eutelsat Communications SA as its first customer for satellite launch services, he said on Tuesday.
Blue Origin is developing a reusable orbital rocket called New Glenn that is expected to debut
before the end of the decade.
"We couldn't hope for a better first partner," Bezos said during a keynote address at the Satellite 2017 conference.
The target date for the first launch is around 2021, Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer said.
New Glenn is a follow-on program to Origin's suborbital New Shepard launch system, a rocket and capsule designed to fly payloads and passengers to about 62 miles above the planet. Test flights with crew members aboard are expected to begin this year.
The company has not yet set a price for rides.
Like New Shepard, the New Glenn booster is designed to fly itself back to Earth so it can be recovered and reflown, slashing launch costs. Tech billionaire Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies also favors this approach.
Danish consumer watchdog reports Google for unlimited data storage
COPENHAGEN: A Danish consumer watchdog has reported Alphabet Inc's Google to the Danish Data Protection Agency for potentially breaking privacy laws by not capping the amount of time personal data is stored on Google's servers, the watchdog said in a statement on Tuesday.
Web companies such as Google and Facebook face increased scrutiny over how and where they store location and search history data from users of smartphones and mail accounts.
"The consumer council Taenk would like the Data Protection Agency to assess whether Google's indefinite data collection complies with consumer's basic right to privacy," the watchdog stated in the report seen by Reuters.
"We have become aware of the fact that Google today has 9-10 years of data on users with a Google account," the report stated.
In July last year Google changed its data storage practices to comply with requests by Italy's privacy regulator. Google had to make it clear how users' data was used and guarantee its deletion within a specified time frame.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Reuters.
In the eternal battle of Windows versus Mac, the tide is turning in Microsoft's favor
For decades, Microsoft Windows users were locked in an seemingly eternal debate with fans of Apple's Macs over who had the superior platform - a conflict spurred by the very public rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs .
Around the mid-aughts, things eventually settled out into kind of a stable duopoly, as Apple found its niche as the makers of premium hardware for the culture-conscious, and Windows PCs earned a rep as the computer of the mainstream, especially for gamers and office workers.
Apple opened the door for users to install Windows on Macs, and Microsoft made truckloads of cash selling Office and its associated services on iPhone and iPad. It was all quiet on the PC front, as the battle moved to the smartphone.
The changing perception speaks to the great strides that Microsoft has made under CEO Satya Nadella. Windows 10 is considered one of Microsoft's best operating system updates in years, with a strong focus on versatility and easy of use in both touchscreen and traditional PC modes.
And Microsoft promises to keep updating Windows 10, constantly refining the operating system with cool new forthcoming features like the video game-improving Game Mode . The OS was pretty good to start with, and it's just getting better.
Apple, by contrast, has yet to ship a Mac with a full touchscreen and is instead positioning the iPad Pro tablet as a laptop replacement (which is ironic since the iPad Pro itself was clearly inspired by Microsoft's own Surface Pro tablet ). For Mac users who want a touchscreen, Apple gave a consolation prize of sorts with the "Touch Bar," a strip of controls above the new MacBook Pro's keyboard that has received mixed reviews.
Some Apple fans are also getting annoyed at the fact that new MacBooks are focused on slimness and battery life, rather than the processing power or even the device ports they need to get work done. Whether or not this change in focus will pay off for Apple is still up in the air, but it'sdefinitely alienating die-hards .
Apple is far from doomed, but there is a sense that the tide is turning: Macs are no longer the unimpeachable gold standard in computing. And Microsoft and its partners are exploiting that vulnerability to great effect.
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Alexa will now give you medical advice, courtesy of WebMD
Headache or cancer? Find out now!
Amazon’s Alexa already boasts more than 10,000 skills, but has now added medical advice to its repertoire. WebMD announced today that it’s launched its own skill for all Alexa-enabled devices (including the Echo, Echo Dot, and Fire TV), which can answer basic health-related queries. Topics include treatments for common ailments (“Alexa, ask WebMD how to treat a sore throat”), definitions of basic diseases (“Alexa, ask WebMD what diabetes is”), and the side-effects of certain drugs (“Alexa, ask WebMD to tell me about amoxicillin”).
WebMD stresses that, like its website, the new Alexa skill is only meant to offer supplementary information, and adds that the software is a work-in-progress.
“We want to be in the place where we believe computing is going,” WebMD’s vice president of mobile products, Ben Greenberg, tells The Verge. “[This] is going to be really helpful in situations where you want to access something hands-free. For example, a mom with her baby. The baby’s got a rash and is on amoxicillin, and there’s poop all over the place and it’s scary. The mom can find out that diarrhea is a side effect of amoxicillin, without having to navigate through a visual interface.”
We tried the new skill and found that it works as advertised. Basic questions get common sense responses (feeling bloated? Drink some water and go for a walk), and for more complex queries, like asking for drug side-effects, users are given some information and then directed to WebMD’s website via the Alexa app. There were some odd gaps in WebMD’s knowledge, though; including not knowing how to treat a headache, no matter how we phrased the question. And, as ever with voice interfaces, sometimes queries just aren’t understood. It’s also a pain having to start every request with “Alexa, ask WebMD,” but again, that’s par for the course.
There are bigger worries. WebMD boasts that it’s the “leading source of health information” in the US (each month, it says, one third of America’s online population visits the site or its apps), but the company has been criticized for providing alarmist information, as well as for its ties with pharmaceutical companies. In 2010, for example, the website offered users a quiz to find out more about their mental health. No matter what answers people gave, they were told they were at risk of depression. The quiz itself was sponsored by the drug company Eli Lilly, makers of the antidepressant Cymbalta — which happened to be advertised on the same page.
Giving out misleading or incomplete information is a particular worry with voice interfaces. Unlike searches on mobile or desktop, there’s no space to provide multiple answers, or news from different sources. With a bot that doles out medical advice, that could mean steering users towards a particular brand of drug by simply not mentioning alternatives.
WebMD is adamant that its advice is impartial and independent. “We have a really, really strong wall between our editorial and promotional organizations,” says Greenberg. “Our content is just never influenced by promotional concerns.” And when asked if the company’s Alexa skill might, in the future, include advertising of the sort that appears on its website, Greenberg replied: “Right now we’re not thinking about monetization at all. It’s just about expanding to a new mode of communication and a new interface.”
At the moment, WebMD’s Alexa skill is well suited to answering basic questions, and could be genuinely helpful — if users remember install it in the first place. In the future, says Greenberg, the interface will be improved, and users may be asked follow-up questions to better pin down what might be ailing them. (Medical chatbots that do the same thing are already getting pretty common.) But, says Greenberg, “the voice part of it is a crucial investment to where we will be one day. Our grandkids will make fun of us for ever having used a keyboard.”
