Technology News: Tech News Roundup: Amazon, Google, Apple, YouTube, WhatsApp, OpenAI, Windows

Reports indicate it is going to charge as much as $10, which is Rs 830, for its next-generation Alexa AI, Remarkable Alexa. The company did give a glimpse of the GenAI tools in September 2023 but has not released it yet. The most courageous thing to do here would be starting with a subscription model right from the beginning, as most companies do the free model first, while now Alexa will compete with free AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Inadequate data and a lack of computing resources have hampered Amazon's progress on artificial intelligence, delaying its full public rollout for even longer.

Google has extended Gemini AI to the side panel in Gmail for sophisticated capabilities in emails—thread summarization, response suggestions, and draft writing. It was added earlier to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Gemini 1.5 was released at I/O 2024 and enables users to ask questions and see specific information in their emails and even in their files on Drive. It is now available on both Gmail for Android and iOS, and it's going to drastically make extensile email conversations easier since users will get to see all emails related to such conversations in one thread. Domains with rapid release started rollout on June 24, and domains with scheduled release will start rollout on July 8.

Apple doesn't want to start a cooperation with Meta over their AI chatbot due to privacy concerns. Their dealing with user privacy does not go hand-in-hand with the controversial data trades of Meta. Reports have confirmed that Apple and Meta were unable to agree. Apple has turned to OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT on their devices, which shows it basically has nothing against partnerships so long as it serves strict privacy standards. Details of the integration of ChatGPT itself are due to arrive later this year with iOS 18.

The Indian government has issued a high-severity warning regarding multiple security vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Edge browser, which may allow remote code execution, denial of service, and security bypass to access user data. Affected versions are prior to 126.0.2592.68. Users are advised to update Edge immediately. Microsoft has provided the update instructions in their security bulletin. Moreover, it's been reported that Microsoft has paused the release of the contentious feature called Recall in Copilot Plus PCs for reasons of privacy infringement.

YouTube is testing a new feature that is meant to increase community support for small video creators. Called Hype, available in three markets — Brazil, Turkey, and Taiwan — viewers will now be able to hype a video to increase its ranking alongside liking the video. It is also available to YouTube Partner Programme creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers. With Hype, more of the little guys are hopefully going to get some views. It's also testing a sleep timer and tools for more contextual videos.

WhatApp is intending to withdraw its support for more than 35 various Android and iOS smartphones. This is after increasing the minimum requirement specifications of its system. Now it requires, for example, the models like Samsung S3 mini and iPhone 6 to have a minimum specification of Android 5.0+ and iOS 12+, respectively. This means that users with earlier versions will either need to upgrade their smartphones or risk losing access to WhatsApp to enable perfect running and security updates on their devices.

Now, OpenAI has finally made its ChatGPT app available for macOS, previously held exclusively for GPT Plus subscribers. Native Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later are supported, and one can access the app quickly with 'Option+Space'. Further, it has the options for screenshot analysis and file upload, and it will support voice interactions. More advanced Voice Mode, with GPT-4o, will also be made available soon. It claims to bring the same to Windows later this year after first delaying the rollout of its app.

There is also one more rather persistent Windows 10 and Windows 11 bug that prompts users to get a constant flow of notifications telling them to reset their time zone where no changes have been made in the first instance. According to a report by Windows Latest, the problem reflects one of the broader issues wherein Windows updates often introduce several different bugs—is some cases, small annoyances, while others are system-breaking errors. Such a constant flow of new features that Microsoft is releasing quite often gives rise to some unexpected problems, under which users face frequent notifications regarding the necessity of many bug fixes and improvements in update management.