💻 @agamtechtricks

Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible

In recent news, Google has put forth a proposal known as the "Web Environment Integrity Explainer", authored by four of its engineers.

Google's proposal pivots on a key premise: enhancing trust in the client environment. It introduces a new API that allows websites to request a token, providing evidence about the client code's environment.

The proposed API, while framed as a tool for fostering trust, could potentially be used to control user behavior on the web. Some critics fear it could be a covert introduction of Digital Rights Management (DRM) into web pages, making ad-blocking near impossible.

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🧑‍💻 @agamtechtricks

Twitter's app listing on Play Store has been updated!

The app's branding has also been updated in v10.0.0-beta.0

🔗 View on Play Store

💻 @agamtechtricks

Fun fact: Meta, Microsoft, hundreds more own trademarks to new Twitter name

X is so widely used and cited in trademarks that it is a candidate for legal challenges - and the company formerly known as Twitter could face its own issues defending its X brand in the future. “There’s a 100% chance that Twitter is going to get sued over this by somebody,” said trademark attorney Josh Gerben

Microsoft since 2003 has owned an X trademark related to communications about its Xbox video-game system. Meta Platforms - whose Threads platform is a new Twitter rival - owns a federal trademark registered in 2019 covering a blue-and-white letter “X” for fields including software and social media.

Meta and Microsoft likely would not sue unless they feel threatened that Twitter’s X encroaches on brand equity they built in the letter, Gerben said.

🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

Super flexible Arc browser drops waitlist as it hits 1.0

Arc version 1.0 is out today, and the Browser Company is dropping the waitlist to celebrate. Surfing the web in Arc previously required adding your name to a waitlist and being approved while the app was in beta.

If you’ve been waiting for the opportunity to see what the hype is all about, you can download Arc 1.0 without the waitlist starting now. It's available for macOS and iOS

🍏 Download now!
🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

EU opens Microsoft antitrust investigation into Teams bundling

The European Commission will now carry out an in-depth investigation into whether Microsoft may have breached EU competition rules by tying or bundling Microsoft Teams to its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 productivity suites.

Microsoft had “illegally tied” its Microsoft Teams product to Office and is “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”

This is the first time Microsoft has faced an antitrust investigation in the EU for nearly 15 years.

🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

Meta, Microsoft and Amazon release open map dataset to rival Google Maps, Apple Maps

A group formed by Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and mapping company TomTom is releasing data that could enable developers to build their own maps to take on Google Map and Apple Maps. The group, called the Overture Maps Foundation, was formed last year. Today, the group has released it first open map dataset.

The idea behind the Overture Map Foundation is to make it both easier and cheaper for developers to make apps. For context, developers have to pay to access Google Maps’ API. Although Apple allows access to Apple Maps for free for native app developers, web app developers need to pay to access it.

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💻 @agamtechtricks

You can finally enable Mica in Google Chrome stable

Developers were working on this feature for quite a long, but it is now here under your fingertips. While it is still disabled by default, all you need to do is to change one flag to activate the cool Windows 11 effect in the Chrome browser.

This feature is available in the stable Chrome 115.

Enable Mica:
• chrome://flags/#windows11-mica-noscriptbar
OR
• chrome.exe --enable-features=Windows11MicaTitlebar

🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

Heya everyone!

MS-365-Electron v1.0.0 has been released :)

What's Changed:
- Support Dynamic icons for enterprise applications - e9eaaac
- Do not keep splash window always on top - 9e9fe29
- Do not show an error if the URL is unable to load - ac493f1
- New app icons for macOS! - View - be4f74f
- Do not set overlay icons when downloading - Also fixes #130 - f98d304
- Update dependencies
- Update user-agent strings

Full Changelog: v0.9.0...v1.0.0

Donate: GitHub Sponsors | KoFi

🔗 Install: Binaries | Snap Store | AUR
🌐 View on GitHub

💻 @agamtechtricks

LeMUR by AssemblyAI

With LeMUR, you can make LLM apps on spoken data. Search, summarize, ask questions, and generate new text, with knowledge of all your application’s spoken data. LeMUR performs intelligent retrieval to offer high-quality LLM responses with a single API call.

With LeMUR, you can:
• Summarize meetings
• Ask questions for insights on calls
• Generate noscripts and denoscriptions
• and a lot more!

🤖 Try in Playground
🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

Google abandons Fuchsia plans for Assistant smart speakers

Google has been upgrading some devices to its custom-built Fuchsia OS, and the assumption was that the Zircon-powered software would make its way to Assistant smart speakers as well.

Google has abandoned its plans to upgrade its line of Assistant smart speakers to Fuchsia. This news comes as a disappointment to some fans of Fuchsia, who had hoped that the operating system would eventually replace Cast OS as the underlying software for all of Google's smart home products.

The Fuchsia team has removed the code for these speakers from the Fuchsia Gerrit.

🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

Indonesia had banned X.com (Twitter) under country's laws on pornography

Elon Musk's attempt to rebrand Twitter as "X" had faced another obstacle as Indonesia had blocked access to X.com due to concerns about violating the country's strict anti-pornography laws. The Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Informatics stated that the domain had previously hosted content that went against their regulations, which forbid gambling and porn sites.

The ban remained in place until X provided additional information on how it intended to use the X.com domain. This means that approximately 24 million users who were using the platform in Indonesia were not able to access the site until the ban was removed. The government had been in communication with X, and Twitter representatives were expected to send a letter confirming that X.com will be used by Twitter.

The ban has been removed now.

🧑‍💻 @agamtechtricks

Hello everyone!

Here's yet another wallpaper by me (@agam778) for y'all, apply and share your home screen setup in the comments if you liked it

Version without text: https://news.1rj.ru/str/agamtechtrickschat/211447

💻 @agamtechtricks

NASA Is Launching Its Own Streaming Service, NASA+!

Through the ad-free, no cost, and family-friendly streaming service, users will gain access to the agency’s Emmy Award-winning live coverage and views into NASA’s missions through collections of original video series, including a handful of new series launching with the streaming service.

“We’re putting space on demand and at your fingertips with NASA’s new streaming platform,” said Marc Etkind.

NASA+ will be available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV; and on the web across desktop and mobile devices.

🔗 View on NASA's website

💻 @agamtechtricks

WhatsApp copies yet another feature from Telegram: Video Messages

In Meta’s Channel on Instagram, Zuckerberg said that WhatsApp is adding the “ability to instantly record and share a video message in your chats. It’s as easy as sending a quick voice message.” Similar to how Telegram handles this feature, users just need to tap the audio button to change to a camera icon.

Swiping up locks the recording. Users can also switch from the front-facing and back cameras and add visual filters.

WhatsApp says these instant videos can have up to 60 seconds and will play automatically on mute when opened in a chat.

🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

Apple isn't letting Twitter rebrand as X in the App Store

Apple's App Store still lists the app under the name Twitter because it requires all apps to be listed with at least two characters. The logo has been updated to the X logo.

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💻 @agamtechtricks

Reddit is testing its own verification mark

The company said it is testing these labels with a small set of profiles as proof of authenticity. The label appears like a flair next to the username.

"This is currently only available to a *very* small (double-digit) number of profiles belonging to organizations with whom we already have existing relationships, and who are interested in engaging with Redditors and communities on our platform."

Reddit clarified that the official label is only visible on its iOS and Android apps for now.

🔗 Read more

💻 @agamtechtricks

These rare Apple sneakers are selling for $50,000 (₹~40L+)

Sotheby’s is selling the sneakers, which bear the iconic rainbow logo and were originally given out to Apple employees in the ’90s.

🔗 Read More

💻 @agamtechtricks

GPTE: Free database of 4,000+ AI tools

GPTE is a platform that offers a curated list of AI-powered tools and resources in various categories such as code, video, writing, productivity, design, image, audio, and more. Users can discover and explore these tools to enhance their workflows, ranging from content creation and design to marketing and productivity. The website provides brief denoscriptions of each tool and allows users to bookmark the ones they find useful.

🔗 Visit the website

🧑‍💻 @agamtechtricks

realme's Bootloader Unlock Server Update is permanantly closed!

NOTE: Not an official announcement

Earlier, realme's Bootloader Unlock Server was down for maintainance as the server required "an essential update to enhance its security and performance." (source)

Now, realme has taken a definitive step by permanently shutting down the Bootloader unlock servers for Global Devices, as confirmed by some sources with inside knowledge of the company's operations. This move restricts users from unlocking the Bootloader, limiting their ability to customize and personalize their devices. (source)

💻 @agamtechtricks

AMD ‘Zenbleed’ exploit can leak passwords and encryption keys from Zen 2 CPUs

Tavis Ormandy uncovered a flaw "Zenbleed" (CVE-2023-20593) in Zen 2 by exploiting precise scheduling and vzeroupper to spy on operations like strlen, memcpy and strcmp. This vulnerability is capable of spying on operations across virtual machines, sandboxes, containers, and processes, could leak up to 30 kb/core/sec of sensitive data!

According to Cloudflare, the Zenbleed exploit doesn’t require physical access to a user’s computer to attack their system, and can even be executed remotely through Javanoscript on a webpage. The flexibility of this exploit is a particular concern for cloud-hosted services as it could potentially be used to spy on users within cloud instances.

The entire Zen 2 product stack is impacted by the vulnerability, including all processors within the AMD Ryzen 3000 / 4000 / 5000 / 7020 series, the Ryzen Pro 3000 / 4000 series, and AMD’s EPYC “Rome” data center processors. AMD has already released a microcode patch for second-generation Epyc 7002 processors, though the next updates for the remaining CPU lines aren’t expected until October 2023 at the earliest.

🔗 View Tavis' blog
🐦 View on Twitter

🧑‍💻 @agamtechtricks