Science and technology

Nokia said on Monday it has signed a new cross-license patent agreement with Samsung following the expiry of a previous agreement at the end of 2022. “Under the agreement, which covers Nokia’s fundamental inventions in 5G and other technologies, Samsung will make payments to Nokia for a multi-year period beginning 1 January 2023,” the Finnish company said. The terms of the agreement remain confidential, it added. The agreement is consistent with Nokia’s previous long-term outlook disclosure, the company said. What is 5G? The successor to the current 4G network technology introduced commercially in 2009 promises nearly instantaneous transfers of huge amounts of data that will likely bring major changes to an array of consumer and health products. But it will take time for the network to be extensive enough to respond the high expectations it has raised. Consumers will not initially notice vastly faster speeds because 5G coverage will be limited to certain cities or neighbourhood...

WhatsApp is to allow voice notes as status in a new feature update, which sounds pretty cool because the messaging app currently lets you send voice messages to regular chats. Here is everything we know about the latest update on WhatsApp. According to WaBetaInfo report, the new feature in 2.22.21.5 Android beta update, and eligible users will see it in the text status section of the app. The messaging app even lets you configure who all can check out your Voice Status update. People will also get control over their voice recordings as the app will also give the ability to discard a recording before making it public. It is unknown whether the play pause process will be as seamless as the one WhatsApp offers for regular chats. It is unclear whether there will be an edit or replay option for the voice status feature. We should get more clarity on this when the feature becomes available for more people. However, there is a time restriction too on this feature. People will be able to...

Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted on Saturday that a higher priced subscription of the social media platform will not carry advertisements. The billionaire also said that ads are “too frequent on Twitter and too big,” and that steps will be taken to address those issues in coming weeks. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Twitter earns nearly 90% of its revenue from selling digital ads and Musk recently attributed a “massive drop in revenue” to rights organizations that have pressured brands to pause their Twitter ads. Read more: Twitter prices Blue for Android at $11 per month Earlier in December, Musk announced that Twitter’s Basic blue tick will have half the number of advertisements and that it will offer a higher tier with no advertisements by 2023. from Science and Technology News - Latest science and technology news https://ift.tt/36zhUXy

A panel of experts investigating the unexplained deaths of thousands of crabs and lobsters along England’s shoreline over the last two years has failed to identify a single clear cause for them. Dead and dying crabs and lobsters began washing up en masse at beaches in the Teesside region of northeast England in October 2021, drawing national attention as local fishing communities suffered and some feared a mass poisoning linked to the area’s industrial past. Fishing groups said decades-old toxic chemicals could have been released by dredging activity and were sceptical of an initial investigation by the environment department which suggested the deaths were likely caused by a natural but devastating algal bloom. In a long-awaited report, a panel of independent experts convened by the British government said both those theories were unlikely, and that it had been “unable to identify a clear and convincing single cause” for the deaths. “We’ve ruled things out, but we’ve not been abl...

Google’s parent Alphabet is cutting about 12,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, it said in a staff memo Friday, as the technology sector reels from layoffs and companies stake their futures on artificial intelligence (AI). Alphabet’s shares were up nearly 3% in pre-market trading. The cuts come at a delicate moment for the U.S. company, which has long been the leader in key areas of AI research. Alphabet now faces a challenge from Microsoft in a branch of tech that can, for instance, create virtually any content a user can think up and type in a text box. Microsoft this week said recession worries were forcing it to shed 10,000 jobs, less than 5% of its workforce, and it would focus on imbuing its products with more AI going forward — a point Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai echoed in the memo. Alphabet faced “a different economic reality” from the past two years when it rapidly expanded headcount, decisions for which Pichai said he took “full responsibility.” Pichai became Alphabet ...

US telecom company T-Mobile announced Thursday that a recent hack impacted 37 million of its customers’ data. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company said it realized on January 5 that a “bad actor” had managed to infiltrate its computer system and was siphoning off information without authorization. After identifying the source of the hack, it was fixed within 24 hours, the company said, adding that it believes the rest of its systems were not affected. The company later determined that the attack likely began around November 25. The hacked information includes T-Mobile customers’ names, addresses, email, phone number, dates of birth and account numbers. It does not include bank or social security card numbers, tax information or passwords, the company said. “Customer accounts and finances were not put at risk directly by this event,” the Deutsche Telekom-owned company said. Affected customers will be notified and an internal investigation...

In the snow and ice on the main drag in Davos, the impact of the crypto winter is plain for WEF attendees to see. Last May, the dressed-up shop fronts that line both sides of the Promenade street running through the Swiss ski resort were dominated by crypto firms, rolling in bitcoin. Now there are just a handful and the executives who have made it to Davos have swapped their hoodies for blazers, despite sub-zero temperatures outside. Some of those from the digital industry which have set up shop on the fringes of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting were quick to distance themselves from cryptocurrencies. “I hope there’s an increased focus on utility value and practical applications of the technology, and less focus on retail investors chasing meme coins,” Jeremy Allaire, CEO of USDC stablecoin issuer Circle, said. “There was a lot of nonsense,” Allaire told the Reuters Global Markets Forum. Former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan believes last year’s plun...