Millions of Indian users received an in-app notification from WhatsApp as part of an upcoming global roll-out for over 2 billion users, asking them to either accept the changes in its Terms of Service and privacy policy by February 8 or their accounts will be deleted.

The in-app notification did not elicit much details but clicking on the links clearly mentioned the key changes in how WhatsApp will collect and process users’ information going forward, and the partnership with Facebook, its parent company, as part of a larger unification drive between the family of apps.

“WhatsApp must receive or collect some information to operate, provide, improve, understand, customise, support, and market our Services, including when you install, access, or use our Services,” the updated policy read.

“Businesses you interact with using our Services may provide us with information about their interactions with you. We require each of these businesses to act in accordance with applicable law when providing any information to us,” it further read.

WhatsApp’s new Terms of Service and privacy policy will come into effect on February 8.

The mobile messaging platform said that it works with third-party service providers and “other Facebook Companies” to help it operate, provide, improve, understand, customise, support, and market its services.

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Google’s game streaming platform Stadia has received five new games to its collection as part of Stadia Pro.

The January 2021 games -Ary and the Secret of Seasons, Figment, F1 2020, and Hotline Miami – are now available for Stadia Pro subscribers, reports 9To5Google.

El Hijo is also available to claim, though it was not previously slated to be included. Meanwhile, Jotun and Lara Croft: Temple of Osiris left Pro unannounced.

Figment costs $19.99, though the musical journey is currently on discount for $11.99. F1 2020 is the most expensive game being offered in this batch at $59.99, currently $29.99.

Ary and the Secret of Seasons and Hotline Miami will be available for $39.99 and $9.99 respectively.

Currently, there are over 30 games available as part of the Stadia Pro subscription that costs $9.99 (roughly Rs 740) per month.

Google has announced that around 400 new games are on the way for its Stadia Cloud game streaming service.

In a recent interview with MobileSyrup, Jack Buser, Stadia Director of Games, said most of these games would be arriving in 2021 and beyond.

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Samsung Electronics on Monday confirmed that new models of its flagship smartphone lineup will be unveiled next week as the South Korean tech giant tries to fend off challenges from Apple and Chinese brands.

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 smartphone series will be introduced at the Galaxy Unpacked online event at 10 am (Eastern Standard Time) on January 14 under the theme of “Welcome to the Everyday Epic.”

“Over the past year, mobile technology has taken center stage in everyday life as people are working remotely and spending more time at home,” Samsung said in its invitation to the event.

“The accelerated transition to a mobile-first world brings with it the need for devices that can transform everyday life into an extraordinary experience.”

Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone vendor, has been holding the event every February to unveil its new smartphones for the first half of the year, but the company decided to introduce them early this time to better cope with challenging market situations.

Samsung has yet to confirm any specifications on its Galaxy S21 family, but industry sources said it will come with three models — the S21 with a 6.2-inch display, S21 Plus with a 6.7-inch screen and S21 Ultra with a 6.8-inch panel.

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Slack Technologies Inc said its workplace messaging service was hit by an outage on Monday, disrupting remote work as people returned from the holidays.

The company said it was investigating the connection issues affecting users and would continue to share updates every 30 minutes until the incident has been downgraded.

More than 15,000 users had initially reported issues, as per outage tracking website Downdectector. Currently over 4,000 users are still facing issues.

Downdetector only tracks outages by collating status reports from a series of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outage might be affecting a larger number of users.

As companies around the world shift to working from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for services provided by Slack and Microsoft Corp’s Teams has gained traction as offices conduct meetings remotely.

The messaging app has added more than 20,000 paid customers in the last two quarters, bringing its total number of paid customers to over 142,000.

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South Korean electronics maker LG on Monday launched its Tonefree true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds in India. The earbuds come in two models, named the HBS-FN6 and HBS-FN7, priced at Rs 24,990 and Rs 29,990, respectively. Both the models will be available for pre-booking at the LG brand store from January 5. As part of launch offer, LG is offering up to 70 per cent discount to the pre-booking orders of the HBS-FN7. The pre-booking offer is valid only on January 5. The earbuds will be available for sale on retail stores and online e-commerce platforms from next week onwards.

Both the models will be available in a stylish black and Modern white colours.

The LG Tonefree earbuds come with a ultraviolet-nano charging cradle with ultraviolet light, which sanitizes the earbuds and eliminates 99.9 per cent bacteria while the earbuds charge – according to the company. The case comes with LED lighting on the top, indicating case and earbuds charging status and UVnano status. The earbuds boast active noise cancellation (ANC), Meridian-tuned premium sound, sleek and ergonomic design, amongst others features.

The earbuds are compatible with wide range of Bluetooth-enabled devices, including iOS and Android smartphones. The earbuds are supported by a complementary app, available on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

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Consumers around the globe spent an estimated $407.6 million across Apple’s App Store and Google Play on Christmas, a year-over-year growth of nearly 35 per cent per cent from approximately $303 million in 2019, according to a new report by data analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Between the two platforms, Apple’s App Store captured the bulk of the spending at $278.6 million, while Google Play saw $129 million in revenue, said the report.

This is in line with the massive growth in worldwide spending on mobile apps and games in 2020 which passed $100 billion in a single year for the first time ever in November.

The majority of the holiday spending was on mobile games, which climbed 27 per cent from $232.4 million on Christmas 2019 to $295.6 million this year, said the report.

Tencent’s Honor of Kings was the category leader with approximately $10.7 million in consumer spending, up 205.7 per cent year-over-year from $3.5 million on the same day in 2019.

Consumers spent $112 million on non-game apps this Christmas, up 59 per cent from $70.5 million in the previous year, Stephanie Chan, Mobile Insights Strategist at Sensor Tower, wrote in a blog post.

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South Korea’s two electronics giants Samsung Electronics and LG on Monday vowed to foster their future growth engines in 2021 as they unveiled New Year’s goals amid the pandemic.

Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone and TV vendor, said it aims to actively cope with social and economic changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic so that 2021 can be the year that provides a platform for its future growth.

“The transition to the era of data and intelligence is accelerating with the rise of new technologies and businesses,” Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam, who leads the company’s chip business, said in the company’s New Year kickoff meeting held online.

“Let’s foster our new growth sectors systemically and look out 10 years into the future.”

Samsung, also the world’s top memory chip producer, has been trying to boost its competitiveness in the foundry business in recent years and develop its next-generation quantum-dot display solutions. The company has been also seeking to expand its presence in future mobility businesses.

Kim added that Samsung will also improve its corporate social responsibility, saying it needs to better develop sustainable management of the firm.

Samsung last year launched an independent compliance committee to promote a law-abiding culture at the company, reports Yonhap news agency.

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US telecommunications giant T-Mobile has suffered a security breach that may have exposed call records and phone numbers for some of its customers.

According to T-Mobile, the data breach did not expose account holders’ names, physical addresses, email addresses, financial data, credit card information, social security numbers, tax IDs, passwords or PINs.

First reported by Bleeping Computer, T-Mobile said the breach exposed customers’ proprietary network information (CPNI), including phone numbers and call records.

“Customer proprietary network information (CPNI) as defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules was accessed,” the company said in a security update.

“The CPNI accessed may have included phone number, number of lines subscribed to on your account and, in some cases, call-related information collected as part of the normal operation of your wireless service”, it added.

Earlier breaches at T-Mobile exposed customers’ information in 2018, prepaid customers’ information in 2019 and exposed customer and financial data in March last year, the report mentioned.

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Samsung Electronics on Monday confirmed that new models of its flagship smartphone lineup will be unveiled next week as the South Korean tech giant tries to fend off challenges from Apple and Chinese brands.

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 smartphone series will be introduced at the Galaxy Unpacked online event at 10 am (Eastern Standard Time) on January 14 under the theme of “Welcome to the Everyday Epic.”

“Over the past year, mobile technology has taken center stage in everyday life as people are working remotely and spending more time at home,” Samsung said in its invitation to the event.

“The accelerated transition to a mobile-first world brings with it the need for devices that can transform everyday life into an extraordinary experience.”

Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone vendor, has been holding the event every February to unveil its new smartphones for the first half of the year, but the company decided to introduce them early this time to better cope with challenging market situations.

Samsung has yet to confirm any specifications on its Galaxy S21 family, but industry sources said it will come with three models — the S21 with a 6.2-inch display, S21 Plus with a 6.7-inch screen and S21 Ultra with a 6.8-inch panel.

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Tech giant Google recently added a new section on its online store which gives all the information one needs about all the different subscriptions that the tech giant offers at one place.

Mashable quoted a reported by XDA Developers stating that the navigation bar on the Google Store now features a Subscription landing page where users get all the deets and updates about its different offerings including YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Stadia Pro, Google One, and Google Fi.

The section features a short description of each service, which is followed by a “Learn more” link.

If a user clicks on the link, they will be redirected to a signup page for that particular service. The new section on the Google online store is broken down as follows – Shows & Music: YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Gaming: Stadia Pro, Google Play Pass, Storage & Security: Google One, Nest Aware, Phone Plan: Google Fi.

In another Google-related news, it has been reported that Google is testing a new feature that will aggregate videos from Instagram and TikTok in a separate carousel format within the Google app. The feature will allow users to watch all the videos from these popular platforms in one separate place. It will also allow Google to retain users on its page.

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