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Category: Tech

  • ‘How we find new ways to embarrass ourselves internationally’: Twitter not happy with Wikipedia ban

    ‘How we find new ways to embarrass ourselves internationally’: Twitter not happy with Wikipedia ban

    The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Friday blocked Wikipedia in the country for not removing sacrilegious content from the website.

    “Action was taken because some of the content is still available on Wikipedia after the expiry of a 48-hour deadline,” wrote Bloomberg while quoting a spokesperson of the telecom regulator.

    Earlier this week PTA restricted access to Wikipedia for Pakistanis for 48 hours.

    In a series of tweets from its official Twitter account, PTA has said that the free online encyclopedia had “sacrilegious” content, despite being asked by PTA to remove it.

    The access to the website will be resumed in Pakistan after the removal of the sacrilegious content.

    Twitter is reacting to the ban, with most people criticising the ban on one of the world’s largest crowd-sourced platforms.

    Have a look at the reactions:

    https://twitter.com/nmemon2004/status/1621802574893518848
  • First-generation Apple iPhone 2G set to sell for Rs1.36 crore at auction

    First-generation Apple iPhone 2G set to sell for Rs1.36 crore at auction

    Apple fans have the chance to own an original 2007 first-generation iPhone – if they are willing to pay the price.

    According to LCG Auctions, where the item is offered for sale, the original 2007 factory iPhone is likely to fetch an amazing $50,000 or more. It is still sealed and unopened in its factory packaging.

    The iPhone had a 3.5-inch screen, a 2-megapixel camera, and 4 or 8 GB of storage when it was originally manufactured. According to CNN, the initial phone was only offered by AT&T on a 2G network and did not have an app store. Time Magazine awarded it the Invention of the Year for 2007.

    The particular iPhone up for grabs is being consigned by its owner, Karen Green, who was gifted the Apple product when it was first released. In a 2019 appearance on “The Doctor & The Diva,” the proud owner said she was gifted the phone but never opened the package as she was happy with her current device.

    She said she held onto it hoping it would come in handy one day. On the air, her 8 GB phone was appraised at $5,000 by Ph.D. Antiques Appraiser Dr Lori.

  • Bhai, Bhenoo, Netflix nay bata diya how it will stop you from password sharing

    Bhai, Bhenoo, Netflix nay bata diya how it will stop you from password sharing

    Welp! It looks like Valentines Day has arrived early, with Netflix acting like a kabab mein haddi for you and bae’s downtime.
    The streaming giant has released a new set of rules and regulations to stop users from sharing their passwords. The streaming giant has updated their Help Center page with details of how users will be stopped from borrowing their sister’s, friend’s or elder brother’s account from now onwards.

    According to the new guidelines as reported by Streamable, Netflix accounts are only shareable within a household. To ensure that devices are connected to the original Wi-Fi, users are required to log in to the app from their primary location, and watch something every 31 days. If a user’s device has been blocked incorrectly, they can contact Netflix in order to get it unblocked.

    To prevent outsiders from sharing an account with someone who isn’t a part of the Netflix household, the app revealed they would block access if the user signs in to their account from elsewhere.


    One of the most controversial rule introduced has been surrounding requirements for travelling users, who wondered how they can log in to the streaming website through their devices.

    Netflix will block your access if users sign in to the app outside their home. For traveling users to work around this, if they wish to use the app on a hotel television, they can request the company to send them a temporary code while signing in. This will allow them access to their account for seven days.

    To track users on whether they’re using internet within their household, Netflix will be using information like IP addresses, device ID’s and account activity.

    However, these list of rules as uploaded by Streamable, are not currently present on the Netflix Help Center page, but they are accessible through Wayback Machine, which means that the app is changing a few rules before enforcing the password protection policy.

    According to the new update on their Password Sharing Page, if users logged in to their device outside their homes, then they would be asked to verify their device by sending a verification code to the primary owner’s email address before using Netflix.

    Especially if a user is travelling, they will no longer be blocked from access if they logged in to Netflix from a different Wi-Fi, but they must occasionally verify their device after a few days.

  • Donald Trump to return to Facebook, Instagram after two-year ban

    Donald Trump to return to Facebook, Instagram after two-year ban

    Donald Trump will be allowed back on to Facebook and Instagram after Meta announced it would be ending its two-year suspension of his social media accounts.

    The ban will end “in the coming weeks,” Meta said. In a statement, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said the public “should be able to hear what their politicians are saying.”

    The former US president was indefinitely suspended from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riots in 2021.

    The social media giant had acted following Trump’s “praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol,” Clegg said. “The suspension was an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances,” he added.

    Clegg said a review had now found that Trump’s accounts no longer represented a serious risk to public safety. However, owing to Trump’s past, he would now face intensified penalties for any offences in the future.

    Meta’s Oversight Board, a body it set up to review moderation rulings, said that the decision to reinstate Trump on its platforms “sat with Meta alone; the board did not have a role in the decision.”

    The board had already informed Meta that a review of Trump’s suspension was necessary.

    It encouraged Meta to be open and to offer more details about new laws protecting public figures so that it could assess how they were being applied.

  • AI ChatBot passes MBA exam given by a Wharton professor

    AI ChatBot passes MBA exam given by a Wharton professor

    According to recent research by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the chatbot GPT-3, powered by artificial intelligence, was successful in passing the program’s final exam for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.

    Professor Christian Terwiesch, who wrote the research paper “Would Chat GPT3 Get a Wharton MBA?” A Prediction Based on Its Performance in the Operations Management Course,” claimed that the bot scored between a B- and B in the exam.

    The bot’s score shows its “remarkable ability to automate some of the skills of highly compensated knowledge workers in general and specifically the knowledge workers in the jobs held by MBA graduates, including analysts, managers, and consultants,” according to Terwiesch.

    The AI bot did an “amazing job at basic operations management and process analysis questions, including those that are based on case studies,” Terwiesch wrote in the paper, which was published on January 17. He also said the bot’s answers were “excellent.”

    The bot is also “remarkably good at modifying its answers in response to human hints,” he concluded.

    The results of Terwiesch’s research come as schools become more worried that AI chatbots may encourage cheating. Despite the fact that chatbots are not a recent invention, ChatGPT took off on social media in late 2022. The New York City Department of Education announced earlier this month that ChatGPT would no longer be allowed on any equipment or networks in its schools.

    The majority of the argument is centered on how difficult it is to differentiate between human responses and ChatGPT’s conversational speech style and cohesive, topical response style.

    Experts in artificial intelligence and education have admitted that ChatGPT and other such bots may eventually harm education. However, other educators and professionals said in recent interviews that they weren’t worried just yet.

    The GPT-3 model utilised in the study seems to be an older sibling of the most recent ChatGPT bot, which has generated debate among academics and AI professionals.

    ChatGPT, the newest version, “is fine-tuned from a model in the GPT-3.5 series,” according to OpenAI’s website.

    While Chat GPT3’s results were impressive, Terwiesch noted that Chat GPT3 “at times makes surprising mistakes in relatively simple calculations at the level of 6th-grade math.”

    According to NDTV, the present version of Chat GPT is “not capable of handling more advanced process analysis questions, even when they are based on fairly standard templates,” Terwiesch added. “This includes process flows with multiple products and problems with stochastic effects such as demand variability.”

    However, Terwiesch said ChatGPT3’s performance on the test has “important implications for business school education, including the need for exam policies, curriculum design focusing on collaboration between humans and AI, opportunities to simulate real-world decision-making processes, the need to teach creative problem solving, improved teaching productivity, and more.”

  • Twitter bird statue sells for $100,000 as Musk auctions off old office mementos

    Twitter bird statue sells for $100,000 as Musk auctions off old office mementos

    A Twitter bird statue fetched $100,000 on Wednesday as owner Elon Musk auctioned off furniture, decorations, kitchen equipment, and more from the tech firm’s San Francisco headquarters.

    A 10-foot neon light in the form of Twitter’s bird logo was included in an online auction of “surplus corporate office assets of Twitter” that lasted just over 24 hours and received a winning price of $40,000, the Heritage Global Partners auction service reported.

    Espresso machines, ergonomically sound desks, televisions, bicycle-powered charging stations, pizza ovens, and a colourful planter in the form of a “@” sign were some of the 631 lots.

    As he set out to hire a new CEO for his struggling social media network, Musk claimed in December that drastic cost cutbacks at Twitter had fixed the company’s poor financial situation.

    At the time, the erratic billionaire claimed in a live chat room that Twitter would have lost $3 billion annually without the reforms, which included sacking more than half of its staff.

    At the platform he paid $44 billion for, Musk claimed to have been “reducing expenses like crazy.”

    Shortly after taking over Twitter, Musk let go roughly half of its 7,500 employees, raising concerns that the firm lacked the manpower to handle content moderation and alarmed regulators, advertisers, and governments.

    According to Musk, his strategy is to drastically cut expenses while increasing revenue and a new $8 monthly membership service dubbed Twitter Blue will aid in achieving this objective.

    Mass layoffs, the reinstatement of blocked accounts, and the suspension of journalists who criticise the wealthy South African-born Elon Musk have all contributed to the instability that has gripped Musk’s Twitter.

    Racist or offensive tweets also increased after Musk’s takeover, which attracted regulatory attention and drove away major advertisers, Twitter’s primary source of income.

  • WhatsApp to get new camera modes, blocking shortcut

    WhatsApp to get new camera modes, blocking shortcut

    WhatsApp will soon get two new features that will make using messenger more convenient. The first feature is the option to block a contact right from the message notification pop-up, and the second feature offers separate tabs for taking photos and recording videos from within the app.

    Presently, if you want to block someone on WhatsApp, you have to go to the app, select the chat, tap on the contact information, and then select the option to block the contact. Some people might find the process too lengthy, which is why WhatsApp is working on offering an option to block a contact right from an unwanted message’s pop-up notification. This will make it easier to block a contact.

    To prevent you from unintentionally blocking your contacts, this option will only appear for contacts that are not saved on your device.

    Currently, in WhatsApp, you must press and hold the camera shutter button in order to shoot a video. If you want to record a lengthy video, it can feel fairly difficult.

    WhatsApp is now testing a new feature that provides various tabs for shooting pictures and making videos. So, all you have to do to record a video is choose the video mode in the viewfinder and give the record button one quick tap.

    These features are expected to roll out to the stable version of the app in the next few months.

  • YouTube to launch free ad-supported TV channels

    YouTube to launch free ad-supported TV channels

    YouTube is testing new content on its platform with a hub of ad-supported TV streaming channels. The company is actively working with various companies in order to bring TV shows and movies to the platform. While it is currently just being trialed, there is the possibility that it could be offered to the public for free at a later date.

    A YouTube spokesperson corroborated the report with The Wall Street Journal, stating that “a small experiment that lets a subset of viewers watch free, ad-supported channels” is currently in progress and that it is “using it to gauge viewer interest.” The addition of free and ad-supported channels could be a big one, adding to the already large amount of revenue that the platform generates from ads.

    Similar to its agreement with content creators on its platform, YouTube is seeking to collect a 45 per cent cut of the ad revenue while talks are still in progress. Despite the fact that this would be an uncharted area for YouTube, businesses like Roku, Samsung, and others have long provided free, ad-supported TV channels through their own platforms. The ability for YouTube to seamlessly provide consumers with simple access to a range of other material on its platform might differentiate the user experience.

    The recent multi-year agreement that was signed to provide NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels starting in 2023 is just one example of the extensive work that YouTube has done in recent years to enhance its content.

    Additionally, the company has grown by introducing YouTube TV, a distinct online TV streaming service that offers over a hundred TV channels much like your local cable or satellite provider. The platform has expanded to include short-form user-created videos in addition to more traditional user-generated content.

    It launched Shorts last year in an effort to take on TikTok, and it appears to be succeeding. As YouTube has begun the process of sharing ad revenue with Shorts producers by altering the conditions of its YouTube Partner Program, this year might be even better. This might be a significant step over the coming year that puts TikTok and its neck and neck. Things might get hotter for YouTube in 2023 if it is successful in integrating free ad-supported channels into its platform.

  • Apple CEO Tim Cook requests and receives a 40% salary cut

    Apple CEO Tim Cook requests and receives a 40% salary cut

    Apple chief executive Tim Cook will see his annual salary package trimmed by up to 40 per cent this year.

    According to reports, Cook asked for a reduction in pay after receiving criticism from shareholders.

    He received a total “target compensation” from Apple’s compensation committee of $49 million for 2023.

    According to details, a global economic slowdown and supply chain issues caused the iPhone manufacturer’s shares to drop precipitously in 2022.

    “The Compensation Committee balanced shareholder feedback, Apple’s exceptional performance, and a recommendation from Cook to adjust his compensation in light of the feedback received,” Apple said in a filing with a US financial watchdog.

    Still, Cook’s annual basic salary will remain unchanged at $3 million, as well as a bonus of up to $6 million.

    The biggest difference in his salary package is how he will be awarded shares in the company.

    The company granted him $75 million worth of shares in 2022, half of which were based on how well Apple performed on the stock market.

    For this year his stock award target has been slashed to $40 million, with three-quarters of that dependent on share performance.

    The target for Cook’s compensation for 2022 was $84 million, although his actual total pay for last year was $99.4 million. That figure included $630,600 in personal security costs and $712,500 for his use of a private jet.

    Earlier, Apple shareholders were asked by a top investor advisory group to vote against Cook’s pay package.

    In a letter to investors, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said there are “significant concerns” over the “design and magnitude” of the package.

    According to reports, Cook’s pay was surprisingly 1,447 times more than the wage of an average Apple employee.

    Cook became Apple’s chief executive in August 2011, just weeks before the death of co-founder Steve Jobs.

    The 62-year-old’s personal wealth stands at around $1.7 billion, according to Forbes.

  • Apple may launch iPhone 15 Pro without physical lock and volume buttons

    Apple may launch iPhone 15 Pro without physical lock and volume buttons

    Ming-Chi Kuo, a renowned analyst and source of Apple-related rumours, predicted that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max may not include any physical, clickable, conventional buttons when they were first released in October of last year.

    And Kuo is back at it again, basically repeating the same facts. His most recent survey of Apple’s supply chain partners indicates that the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are still expected to go on sale without clickable buttons in the second half of this year.

    https://twitter.com/9to5macPro/status/1613236746451386371

    Both phones will instead use solid-state buttons that will be assisted by extra taptic engines to mimic the sense of physical buttons when pressed.

    As the only provider of the controller IC for the Taptic Engine’s solid-state buttons, Cirrus Logic is the business that stands to gain the most from Apple’s decision.

    If customers like Apple’s fake buttons, according to Kuo, other firms may follow suit and add haptic buttons to their phones.