Gaming lovers went through a rough patch when Microsoft Xbox services suffered a massive outage that stopped them from launching Cloud games.

Microsoft later fixed the issue that lasted for several hours late on Sunday.

The Xbox Live outage stopped some players from launching cloud games, playing digital games and making purchases from its store.

“Players may be seeing improvement when purchasing & launching games & Cloud Gaming sessions. We are working on full resolution. If you still see issues, rebooting your console may help,” Microsoft Xbox support said in a tweet.

It later informed that the glitch was fixed.

“Players should no longer be seeing issues when it comes to purchases, launching games, or joining Cloud Gaming sessions. Thanks for being patient. Happy gaming!”

Some players were unable to even access streaming apps including Netflix and Disney Plus.

Some users reported that Xbox prompted them to sign in to play their own games.

“No I still can’t get on with my games, keep saying check my connection but it’s fine,” a Xbox user tweeted.

More than 10 million people have streamed games over Xbox Cloud Gaming to date.

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The message reactions feature, which was announced last month by WhatsApp, will now be rolled out to its users.

According to GSM Arena, it will work similar to how Facebook’s reactions work. The user needs to long-press on a WhatsApp message and select the emoji he or she wants to react with.

Right now, users get to choose from six emojis, as shown by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in his Facebook post but WhatsApp has promised to add support for more emojis and skin tones in the future.

The message reactions feature is already available for some users on the latest version of WhatsApp, but it will be about a week or two before it reaches all WhatsApp users globally.

In addition to reacting to messages with emojis, WhatsApp users can also share larger files now since WhatsApp has increased the file transfer size from 100MB to 2GB.

Besides, WhatsApp has doubled the maximum number of participants allowed in a group chat, from 256 to 512 people.

However, as per GSM Arena, the platform has said that it is “slowly rolling out the ability” to add up to 512 people to a group, so users will have to wait before you can add more than 256 members to a WhatsApp group.

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South Korean tech giant Samsung’s upcoming foldable smartphones, Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4, are likely to come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus chipset under the hood.

According to a prominent tipster Ice universe, the company’s much anticipated foldables will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Plus.

“I confirm again that Fold 4 and Flip 4 will use TSMC Snapdragon 8 gen1 plus (SM8475),” the tipster tweeted on Friday.

Several reports have stated that the Galaxy Z Fold 4 will house a 4,400mAh battery as its predecessor. However, Z Flip 4 is said to have a bigger battery than the Flip 3.

Previous reports said that the upcoming Galaxy z Fold 4 is expected to come with a hinge which might reduce weight. The new hinge will also bring improved water resistance and a dust-resistant certification.

The overall primary camera setup is also said to get an upgrade to bring the Galaxy Z Fold 4 on par with the camera quality offered by the current flagship in the market.

The company will aim for 6.9 million units of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 and 2.9 million of the Z Fold 4. For comparison, the 2021 models targeted 4 million for the Z Flip 3 and 3 million for the Z Fold 3.

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Last year, when Samsung had launched its A72 device in the mid-range segment, it had received a fair bit of praise. Even though the price was still high, the phone had an excellent screen, better battery life and with some misgivings, and a good camera set up. It also allowed 25W charging. The speakers, however, were not that great, the refresh rate was just 90Hz and the processor was still a lower one.

While Samsung has kept to its formula with the new A73 device, it hasn’t got rid of the misgivings from the previous generation. Instead, the price has been bumped up to Rs 41,999. It is overpriced compared to the mid-phone segment market. Camera has been upgraded to more pixels, but issues from the previous generation remain.

Design

Ergonomically, the A72 was a better design than the S20FE. Thankfully, Samsung has not changed the design aspect. The phone has a huge screen, but the fairly squarish bezels allow for better handling than the more curved design. The mint colour, which we received for review, lends the phone an attractive look, but the plastic quality doesn’t do justice to the price. The corners are prone to scratches though, so a cover is recommended. The volume and power button are on the right-hand side, but the placement is a bit odd. Given the size of the screen, the buttons should have been a bit lower, so that you don’t have to slide the phone for one-handed operation. The camera bump at the back is less pronounced, so it doesn’t allow much rocking when kept on a flat surface. Sadly, the headphone jack has gone missing.

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Several iPhone users found themselves in a fix when the Apple Music iOS app began installing itself directly to the iPhone’s dock when downloaded, instead of the home screen, thus booting out other apps including music streaming service Spotify.

The bug impacted different iPhone models, kicking out other apps in the dock at the bottom of the iPhone screen and taking their spot, reports TechCrunch.

Apple said that it was looking into the issue.

“Seems like if you download the Apple Music app from the App Store, it will automatically appear on your device (iPhone) dock, more than this, it will change any other 3d party app with the Music app. If on your dock, you only have Apple apps it won’t do anything,” Kevin Archer, an iOS developer, tweeted late on Thursday.

Some iPhone owners also found the bug was causing Apple Music to make it default music service for Siri requests, kicking off Spotify.

In a tweet, Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said: “I just verified this on iOS 15.4.1. With Spotify installed and on the dock, installing Apple Music removed Spotify from the dock and put Apple Music there – without asking. Happens without Apple Music being run, so clearly Apple has rigged their OPERATING SYSTEM to do this!”

Epic is already fighting a long-drawn antitrust lawsuit with Apple.

In fact, the Apple Music app replaced all sorts of apps that were in users’ docks, including first-party apps like the built-in Camera app.

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Micro-blogging site Twitter has announced that Spaces hosts and co-hosts can now have access to analytics on both iOS and Android platforms.

The micro-blogging site said that it is also making it easier for users to follow Spaces hosts.

“Hosts and co-hosts on iOS and Android will now have access to analytics like total live listeners, total replays, and speakers…” the company wrote on its platform.

“We are also making it easier for you to follow Spaces hosts. After a Space is over, you will now see a list of the co-hosts and speakers with the option to follow them. Rolling out on Android, iOS soon!” the company added.

However, the company also mentioned that, for analytics, co-hosts might experience access issues right now but the platform is working on it.

The analytics feature was first introduced as a test for select number of hosts in March, but it is now available to all hosts and co-hosts on the platform.

The company also wrote, in an another tweet, that it is testing a feature that will tweet out a Space card once hosts start a Space.

“When some Hosts start a Space, a Space card will be sent as a Tweet so listeners can reply, engage, and share… straight from the Space! We hope it makes it easier to see and participate in the conversations. Now testing on iOS and Android!” the company said.

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In a bid to make the platform more user-friendly, micro-blogging site Twitter is reportedly working on new features, including mixed-media tweets and more.

According to 9To5Google, this week, Twitter for Android has revealed support for adding both pictures and videos to the same tweet, hints at tweet “awards” and more.

The report mentioned that Twitter seems to finally be making it possible to tweet both a picture and a video in the same tweet.

As it stands today, tweets with media can include a gallery of up to four photos or a single video, with no mix of the two. Even with this new ability to mix media, tweets can still only house up to four pieces of media, the report said.

The other major new addition uncovered was “awards” for tweets.

While the exact details on how this feature will work are still unclear, Developer Dylan Roussel found a button that will allow users to give an award to a tweet and evidence that a tweet will show the number of rewards it has been given.

This appears to be similar to Reddit awards, and it seems entirely possible this could be a perk of Twitter Blue or another form of monetisation for the social network.

Meanwhile, recent reports said that Twitter is working on the edit button, as requested by its users as well as Elon Musk, but the micro-blogging platform is reportedly going to keep a digital trace of your earlier tweets.

App researcher and reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong had said in a tweet that the edit button may have an “immutable” quality.

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The Indian government has recently asked VPN service providers to register and record certain information about its users for a period of at least 5 years.

This was one among the several new directives issued by CERT-In, or Central Emergency Response Team, which is India’s national agency that looks into matters of cybersecurity.

The new directives are slated to come into effect from June 27 this year. However, experts say that these rules raise serious privacy concerns, especially the ones about VPN service providers

But before moving ahead, let’s understand what a VPN really is. VPN or a Virtual Private Network establishes a secure and encrypted connection between a user and the internet.

VPN helps users hide their browsing history, IP address and geographical location, as well as their web activities and the devices being used.

In a connected world, it’s of immense use to journalists, whistleblowers and activists.

Now let’s understand how the new rules pose challenges to a VPN user’s privacy?

CERT-In’s new rules require VPN service providers to collect and store certain ‘accurate’ information for a period of at least five years, even after a customer has cancelled his/her subscription.

The ‘personal’ information to be collected and stored includes names, IP addresses, emails, contact numbers and purpose for using the VPN service.

Data centres and cloud service providers will also have to abide by these directives

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Google’s ‘Pixel Fold’ has been in the news for quite some time now. The latest update for the foldable phone is that it will have a smaller outer display and an inner-size display similar to the Galaxy Z Fold4, as per industry insider Ross Young.

As per GSM Arena, allegedly called the ‘Pixel Notepad,’ will have a 5.8-inch outer display, wider and shorter than the Galaxy Z Fold4’s 6.19-inch expected screen.

Confirmed by a previous leak, the ‘Pixel Notepad’ is rumoured to have similar-sized folding displays, which means that the Pixel Notepad will have a wider aspect ratio than the Fold.

Young says, “Z Fold 4 and Google foldable will have similar-sized foldable displays, but the Google cover display will be quite a bit smaller at 5.8″. This should mean it will have a wider aspect ratio than the Samsung 6.19″ Fold 4. Hear more at our conference next week.”

It is most likely to use a Tensor chip but resort to the older Pixel camera hardware, namely the 12.2MP IMX363 sensor from the Pixel 2, 3, 4, and 5 series, a 12MP IMX386 ultrawide sensor, and two 8MP IMX355s for selfies.

Although Ross Young did not share the exact date when we can expect Google’s first foldable, it is speculated that its launch would take place around the Pixel 7’s fall launch.

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Around 78 per cent of Indian organisations surveyed were hit by ransomware in 2021 and some of the entities paid over Rs 76 crore as ransom to get their data back, cybersecurity firm Sophos said in a report.

According to the report, the average ransom paid by Indian organizations that had data encrypted in their most significant ransomware attack was USD 1,198,475 (around Rs 9 crore) with 10 per cent of victims paying ransoms of USD 1 million or more.

The survey found that 48 per cent of Indian firms paid less than USD 5,000, while 10 per cent paid USD 1 million or more.

Three companies in the survey admitted to having paid a ransom of USD 10 million and more to get back their data and keep it safe.

“The ransomware situation in India is worrying. The numbers of victims, ransom payments and the impact of these attacks continued to rise during 2021, at considerable cost,” Sophos, managing director for sales in India and SAARC Sunil Sharma said.

The survey covered the impact of ransomware on 5,600 mid-sized organizations in 31 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, including 300 in India.

The report found that 78 per cent of organizations that had data encrypted in a ransomware attack paid the ransom in 2021 and it was the highest rate of ransom payment reported across all 31 countries surveyed.

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