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Windows

Windows 11 Notepad Finally Gets Spellcheck and Autocorrect (bleepingcomputer.com) 100

Microsoft today announced a preview release of Windows Notepad, with built-in spellchecking and an autocorrect feature. BleepingComputer reports: Microsoft says they are rolling out this preview to Insiders in the Windows 11 Canary and Dev channels, but it may take some time before it's available for everyone. "With this update, Notepad will now highlight misspelled words and provide suggestions so that you can easily identify and correct mistakes," reads Microsoft's announcement. "We are also introducing autocorrect which seamlessly fixes common typing mistakes as you type."

Once installed, Notepad will now show a red squiggly line under misspelled words that, when clicked, shows suggestions on the correct spelling. It's also possible to ignore words in a single text document or add them to the global dictionary so they are not shown in the future.

Microsoft says that this feature will be turned off for log and source code files. This is because it's common for non-standard words to be used in these files, triggering multiple spellcheck errors. Users can control this setting globally or for specific file types in the Notepad app's settings. The autocorrect feature is a bit more seamless, automatically making small changes to grammar and punctuation as you type.

IOS

AirPods Pro To Gain 'Hearing Aid Mode' In iOS 18 (macrumors.com) 27

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, AirPods Pro will gain a new "hearing aid mode" with the release of iOS 18 later this year. MacRumors reports: Writing in the subscriber edition of his regular Power On newsletter, Gurman claims that the "big news" for AirPods Pro in the near term will be support for a hearing aid-style function when iOS 18 drops in the fall. To be clear, this isn't the first time we have heard a potential hearing aid feature for AirPods Pro. The first rumor appeared in a 2021 Wall Street Journal report, but it was previously framed as a feature that would be exclusive to a next-generation model of AirPods Pro. However, Apple in September 2022 released the second-generation AirPods Pro, while the company more recently released a refreshed model with a USB-C port.

AirPods Pro already offer a Conversation Boost feature, which boosts the volume and clarity of people directly in front of the wearer, but Apple has not advertised the earbuds as a hearing aid device, because this would require FDA regulatory approval. As per the FDA, a hearing aid is defined as "any wearable device designed for, offered for the purpose of, or represented as aiding persons with or compensating for, impaired hearing." This definition encompasses both air-conduction and bone-conduction devices in a variety of styles (for example, behind-the-ear, in-the-canal, or body worn). [...] It is not yet clear whether Apple will need FDA clearance in order to make explicit or implicit claims about the rumored "hearing aid mode," which may not even adopt this exact name. If, for example, Apple subsequently suggests that AirPods Pro are for users with certain types or severity of hearing loss/impaired hearing, or for use as an alternative to a hearing aid, then they will require FDA regulatory approval to be marketed as such.

Encryption

Facebook Kills PGP-Encrypted Emails (techcrunch.com) 37

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In 2015, as part of the wave of encrypting all the things on the internet, encouraged by the Edward Snowden revelations, Facebook announced that it would allow users to receive encrypted emails from the company. Even at the time, this was a feature for the paranoid users. By turning on the feature, all emails sent from Facebook -- mostly notifications of "likes" and private messages -- to the users who opted-in would be encrypted with the decades-old technology called Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP. Eight years later, Facebook is killing the feature due to low usage, according to the company. The feature was deprecated Tuesday. Facebook declined to specify exactly how many users were still using the encrypted email feature.
AI

ChatGPT's Voice Chat Feature Is Rolling Out To Android and iOS 9

OpenAI's "ChatGPT with voice" feature announced in September is now rolling out to all free users on mobile. Engadget reports: When the company first introduced voice chats, it admitted that the capability to create "realistic synthetic voices from just a few seconds of real speech" presents new risks. It could, for instance, allow bad actors to impersonate public figures or anybody they want. As a result, it decided that ChatGPT's voice feature will focus on conversations. It's powered by a text-to-speech model that can generate "human-like audio from just text and a few seconds of sample speech." OpenAI worked with voice actors to create the capability and offers five different voices to choose from.
Youtube

YouTube Tests a 'Play Something' Button (theverge.com) 24

Emma Roth reports via The Verge: YouTube appears to be testing a new "play something" button on its mobile app that directs you to a random video when you don't know what to watch. As first spotted by Android Police, the prompt shows up between content as you scroll through the feed on your homepage -- but only some users are seeing it. While Android Police mentions that the button only directs users to YouTube Shorts, one of my colleagues here at The Verge found that the feature also shows them random full-length videos. It's still not clear if YouTube takes your watch history into account when picking the random videos it plays or how widely Google is rolling out this feature.
Android

Google Removes the Photo Sphere Mode From the Pixel 8 Camera (androidauthority.com) 9

Since 2012, Google Pixel phones have had a Photo Sphere Mode, allowing users to capture 360-degree images. Now, according to Android Authority, Google has dropped the feature from the Pixel 8 series with no explanation given. From the report: Photo Sphere Mode allowed you to capture panoramic 360-degree pictures by stitching multiple images together. The feature was first introduced back in 2012 on the Nexus 4 and persisted well into the Pixel era, with the likes of the Pixel Fold and Pixel 7a still offering it. The act of capturing a Photo Sphere wasn't exactly seamless owing to the sheer number of images required, although it had an admittedly intuitive UI. Significant stitching issues and exposure/white balance differences were also very common.

We're therefore not surprised Google has decided to drop the feature. Even without taking the aforementioned issues into account, the mode's utility seemed limited beyond some scenarios like mapping purposes (e.g. viewing environments in Google Maps) and VR. In saying so, we hope the company rebounds with a more polished take on 360-degree photos in the future.

Music

Spotify Is Adding Auto-Generated Transcripts To Millions of Podcasts (theverge.com) 14

Mia Sato writes via The Verge: Spotify is rolling out auto-generated podcast transcripts to more creators in the coming weeks, the company announced Thursday. The text transcripts will also be time-synced so listeners can visually follow along as a podcast episode progresses. Transcripts are available by scrolling down below the podcast player and tapping into a "read along" section. A transcription of a show makes the podcast more accessible to users and allows listeners to skip around and skim an episode without listening through.

Spotify says "millions" of podcast episodes will get the tool, and in the future, creators could add media to transcripts -- a useful feature if a creator is describing an image on the show, for example. Beyond transcripts, mobile podcast listeners globally will now be able to jump around an episode using chapters as well. Podcasters can add time-stamped chapters to their shows that briefly describe a segment of the show, allowing listeners to preview topics or start listening at specific points.
The feature follows the recent addition of an AI-generated voice cloning tool that translates podcasts into different languages.
Google

Google Is Retiring Its Gmail Basic HTML View In January 2024 (bleepingcomputer.com) 79

Bill Toulas writes via Bleeping Computer reports: Google is notifying Gmail users that the webmail's Basic HTML view will be deprecated in January 2024, and users will require modern browsers to continue using the service. After that date, all users of the popular webmail service will automatically be redirected to the more modern Standard view, which supports all the latest usability and security features.

The basic HTML view is a stripped-down version of Gmail that does not offer users chat, spell checking, keyboard shortcuts, adding or importing contacts, setting custom "from" addresses, or using rich text formatting. This feature is designed for people living in areas with internet access, using older hardware with limited memory, or using legacy web browsers that do not support current HTML features.

However, one of the biggest reasons users use HTML view is that text-to-speech tools used by users with visual impairment are more reliable, as the Standard view introduces technical complexities that are harder for these tools to manage. Nonetheless, Google has decided to retire Gmail's HTML view without providing specific reasons.

Windows

Windows Feature That Resets System Clock Based On Random Data Is Wreaking Havoc (arstechnica.com) 119

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A few months ago, an engineer in a data center in Norway encountered some perplexing errors that caused a Windows server to suddenly reset its system clock to 55 days in the future. The engineer relied on the server to maintain a routing table that tracked cell phone numbers in real time as they were being moved from one carrier to the other. A jump of eight weeks had dire consequences because it caused numbers that had yet to be transferred to be listed as having already been moved and numbers that had already been transferred to be reported as pending. "With these updated routing tables, a lot of people were unable to make calls, as we didn't have a correct state!" the engineer, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Simen, wrote in an email. "We would route incoming and outgoing calls to the wrong operators! This meant, e.g., children could not reach their parents and vice versa."

Simen had experienced a similar error last August when a machine running Windows Server 2019 reset its clock to January 2023 and then changed it back a short time later. Troubleshooting the cause of that mysterious reset was hampered because the engineers didn't discover it until after event logs had been purged. The newer jump of 55 days, on a machine running Windows Server 2016, prompted him to once again search for a cause, and this time, he found it. The culprit was a little-known feature in Windows known as Secure Time Seeding. Microsoft introduced the time-keeping feature in 2016 as a way to ensure that system clocks were accurate. Windows systems with clocks set to the wrong time can cause disastrous errors when they can't properly parse time stamps in digital certificates or they execute jobs too early, too late, or out of the prescribed order. Secure Time Seeding, Microsoft said, was a hedge against failures in the battery-powered on-board devices designed to keep accurate time even when the machine is powered down.

"You may ask -- why doesn't the device ask the nearest time server for the current time over the network?" Microsoft engineers wrote. "Since the device is not in a state to communicate securely over the network, it cannot obtain time securely over the network as well, unless you choose to ignore network security or at least punch some holes into it by making exceptions." To avoid making security exceptions, Secure Time Seeding sets the time based on data inside an SSL handshake the machine makes with remote servers. These handshakes occur whenever two devices connect using the Secure Sockets Layer protocol, the mechanism that provides encrypted HTTPS sessions (it is also known as Transport Layer Security). Because Secure Time Seeding (abbreviated as STS for the rest of this article) used SSL certificates Windows already stored locally, it could ensure that the machine was securely connected to the remote server. The mechanism, Microsoft engineers wrote, "helped us to break the cyclical dependency between client system time and security keys, including SSL certificates."

Social Networks

Telegram Adds Stories For Premium Subscribers (9to5mac.com) 10

Telegram is introducing a new Stories feature that is currently only available for Premium subscribers but will be available to all users eventually. 9to5Mac reports: With Telegram Stories, users are able to share photos and videos that disappear after a while. However, Telegram is trying to do more than its competitors. For instance, users can choose whether a Story will expire after 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours. Most apps make Stories disappear after 24 hours. Telegram also lets users create lists with different contacts for each Story. This means that you can share a specific Story with your best friends and another one just for your coworkers. The interface is similar to what you find in other apps that already offer Stories, with a list of available Stories at the top of the list of chats. Also similar to the Stories feature in apps like Instagram and Snapchat, you can send reactions and reply to someone else's Story. However, there's a catch.

While everyone can see Telegram Stories, only those who pay for Telegram Premium can post Stories. "Posting stories is currently available only to subscribers," a message in the app says when non-Premium users try to create a new Story. It's uncertain whether the Stories feature will become free for everyone eventually, but the term "currently" suggests it will. According to Durov, although the Telegram team was initially against the idea of having Stories in the app, the feature was one of the most requested by its users. "Even the skeptics on our team started to appreciate this feature. We can no longer imagine Telegram without it," he said last month.

IOS

iOS 17 Will Decode Your Car's Dashboard Symbols and Warning Lights (gizmodo.com) 85

According to a Reddit user, Apple's Visual Look Up feature has been expanded in iOS 17 to include all of the various symbols on a vehicle's dashboard -- "everything from the labels used for HVAC controls, to the warning lights that only turn on when there's a problem," reports Gizmodo. From the report: Apple introduced a feature with iOS 15 called Visual Look Up that uses AI to analyze photos taken with the iPhone's camera and attempt to decipher them, providing more information about what's in the shot. It gave the iPhone the power to determine the breed of the dog you snapped at the park, or what type of flower was growing in your neighbor's garden.

Reddit user yahlover shared several screenshots of the iOS 17 beta successfully recognizing and showing explanations for symbols like the double triangle labelling the button that turns on a car's hazard lights, and even the setting that defrosts the windshield.

Although these symbols are now nearly universal across all vehicles, they can still be cryptic, especially to newer drivers. And while eventually vehicle dashboards will all just be giant screens with the ability to provide more descriptive information about controls and warnings, it's going to be decades before the standard dashboard iconography used today disappears forever.

IOS

iOS 17 Gives You 72 Hours To Undo An iPhone Passcode Change (macrumors.com) 16

In iOS 17, iPhone users who change their passcode will be able to reset it within 72 hours using the previous passcode. However, users can choose to expire the previous passcode immediately in the Settings app to increase security. MacRumors reports: If you enter an incorrect passcode, tapping on "Forgot Passcode?" at the bottom of the screen will lead to another screen with a "Try Passcode Reset" option. Tapping this option allows you to enter the iPhone's previous passcode and create a new passcode. As a safeguard, an option in the Settings app lets you expire the previous passcode immediately so that it cannot be used to reset the new passcode.

As of the first beta of iOS 17, it is still possible to change an Apple ID account's password with an iPhone's passcode, despite a Wall Street Journal report in February highlighting instances of thieves spying on an iPhone user's passcode in public and then stealing the device in order to gain widespread access to the device. In an interview with Daring Fireball's John Gruber last week, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said Apple has continued to "look at other ways to address this," but no changes have been made as of yet.

IOS

Apple's New iOS 17 Will Warn You If Someone Tries To Send Unsolicited Nudes (businessinsider.com) 70

Apple's new iOS 17 includes a Sensitive Content Warning feature that notifies users when they receive unsolicited nude images. Insider reports: Apple said in a press release that the Sensitive Content Warning would help adult users avoid seeing unwanted nude images and videos. The company would not get access to the content as processing for the new feature occurred on the user's device, the press release added. The tech giant is also expanding Communication Safety, a feature aimed at protecting children, to cover sending and receiving content via AirDrop, Contact Posters, and FaceTime messages. The privacy feature will also expand to cover video content, as well as images. Further reading: Apple Announces iOS 17 With StandBy Charging Mode, Better Autocorrect
Television

Amazon Introduces New Feature To Make Dialogue In Its TV Shows Intelligible (arstechnica.com) 121

Amazon has introduced a new feature to Prime Video called Dialogue Boost. It's intended to isolate dialogue and make it louder relative to other sounds in streaming videos on the service. Ars Technica reports: Amazon describes how it works in a blog post: "Dialogue Boost analyzes the original audio in a movie or series and intelligently identifies points where dialogue may be hard to hear above background music and effects. Then, speech patterns are isolated and audio is enhanced to make the dialogue clearer. This AI-based approach delivers a targeted enhancement to portions of spoken dialogue, instead of a general amplification at the center channel in a home theater system."

Not all content will be eligible for the dialogue boost feature, though -- at least not yet. Amazon says it "has initially launched on select Amazon Originals worldwide" like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Big Sick. While this is partly an accessibility feature for people who are hard of hearing, Amazon is also responding to a widespread complaint among viewers. A 2022 survey found that 50 percent of 1,260 American viewers "watch content with subtitles most of the time," many of them citing "muddled audio" and saying that it's more difficult to understand dialogue in movies and TV shows than it used to be. [...] The company hasn't announced when the feature will expand to more content. But we wouldn't be surprised to see rapid expansion -- not just from Amazon, but from other streamers offering similar features, too.

Television

YouTube TV Nabs Its First Technical Emmy Win For 'Views' Feature (techcrunch.com) 15

YouTube TV just won its first Technical Emmy award for its "Views" suite of features, which lets users access sports highlights, key plays, player stats and game scores. TechCrunch reports: At the 74th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards last night, YouTube TV was declared the winner for the category "AI-ML Curation of Sports Highlights." The tech company also announced today that Key Plays reached a notable milestone -- the feature was used in over 10 million watch sessions on the platform. Last year, viewers used key plays the most during the World Cup, regular season NFL games and Premier League matches.

The Key Plays view tracks important plays in a game. Users can tap on the plays to rewatch when it occurs in the game. This is helpful for users that missed a live game and want to catch up on key moments. When YouTube TV launched Views in 2018, it was only available for baseball, basketball, football and hockey. Soccer and golf were added later on. The suite of features was also initially limited to phones and tablets. Today, the feature is available within the YouTube TV app across smart TVs and mobile devices.

In addition to Stats, Key Plays and Scores View, there's also Fantasy Football View, which is a mobile-only feature and lets users link their existing fantasy football account. That way, when a user is watching NFL games on YouTube TV, the feature allows them to see how their team is performing in real time. Plus, there's a "Jump to" function for users to quickly access a segment they want to view, which is especially handy for tennis fans and for users watching the Olympics.
"Views came out of a team brainstorm about five years ago and launched about a year after YouTube TV," said Kathryn Cochrane, YouTube TV's group project manager, in a company blog post. "A lot of our viewers are devoted sports fans, and we found that when they watch sports, they aren't just looking at what's on the big screen. They were also actively on their phones, finding more details such as stats for their fantasy football league, updates from other games, and more, all to enhance what they were already watching."

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