Technology News: Tech News: iPhone Price Cuts, Telegram Flaws, Adobe AI, Echo Discontinued, AI for Rural Women, Google Gemini Upgrade

Apple has slashed the prices of all iPhones in India, including new iPhone 15 Pro and older models, shortly after the revision in customs duty on these products as provided in the Budget 2024. The price of the iPhone 15 Pro Max has been revised to Rs 1,54,000 from the earlier Rs 1,59,900, and that of iPhone SE to Rs 47,600 from Rs 49,900. Although there have been price cuts just before the expected release date of the iPhone 16 series, Google has not adjusted Pixel phone prices ahead of the Pixel 9 series launch.

Now, researchers have found a critical security vulnerability in Telegram for Android, versions older than 10.14.5. It is called 'EvilVideo.' It allows hackers to compromise devices by sending files in chat. The zero-day vulnerability was identified by Lukas Stefanko of ESET when he was looking into another issue. Stefanko went to online forums, which proved that the vulnerability can be exploited. The security flaw was reported to Telegram on June 26, and the firm has addressed the problem in version 10.14.5. Users are advised to update their app immediately from the Play Store to protect from this security threat.

Adobe has rolled out new AI features for both Illustrator and Photoshop. On the Illustrator side of the update, the Generative Shape Fill feature is able to create pattern vectors, among other tools like Style Reference, Retype, and Mockup, powered by the Firefly Vector Model. On Photoshop, there's the addition of an AI-powered Generate Image function in baseline images, while the Generative Fill tool gets an Enhance Detail function. These updates are all about making design processes easier and more creative for the user; some of the tools are only available in beta.

Amazon is going to kill off the 5th Gen Echo Dot Smart Speaker with its dot-matrix clock once inventory runs out. The company will soon start shifting focus to the recently released Echo Spot, featuring a semi-spherical design with a 2.83-inch touchscreen and display colors one can customize. It also produces better sound than most smart speakers available on the market. The Echo Spot brings Alexa together with several response animations and, at the same time, some security features like a mic-off switch. This will be priced at USD 79.99 in the US, but there is no word on the India pricing yet.

Launched in 2022, the Microsoft Women In Digital Business program primarily focuses on improving the digital literacy of aspiring women entrepreneurs in India. Half the population consists of women; thus, Microsoft is on a quest to close this digital gap by offering technology training and AI tools to women in rural areas. She said, "The accelerated digital transformation during the pandemic has helped small businesses adapt and grow," while speaking on the impact of the program, Manju Dhasmana, Senior Director, Corporate Social Responsibility, Microsoft India.

Free users of Google Gemini now have an upgraded version called Gemini 1.5 Flash, that is going to support file upload soon. Announced at Google I/O 2024, Gemini 1.5 Flash is the newest member of the Gemini family—a family of models that has led in summarization and features in chat applications and multimodal functions like image and video captioning. Its designers view it as the fastest, most versatile AI from Google, with a four times longer context window and quality and accuracy improved over previous models.