What’s new
Google Drive app will become ‘Backup and Sync’
Google is reinventing its Drive desktop app as Backup and Sync which will allow users to back up entire folders from their hard drive, and keep them in sync with their account. It replaces Google Drive for Mac/PC, with existing settings remaining unchanged after the upgrade. It also features integration with the Google Photos desktop uploader. The new app will be lunched on June 28 and will have a limit of 15GB storage space for free accounts.
You can read more here.
Facebook researchers taught bots to negotiate like humans
Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence Researchers have published a scientific paper in which they detail the “breakthrough” and how the bots ended up acting more human than they expected. Facebook claims the bots got smart enough to negotiate with humans who didn’t realize they were dealing with a machine. As explained in a Facebook blog post: “Interestingly, in the experiments, people did not realize they were talking to a bot and not another person, showing that the bots had learned to hold fluent conversations in English in this domain”.
More info are available here.
New products
Samsung Galaxy Note FE
The Galaxy Note FE will be launched on July 30 and will have a 3,200 mAh battery. It will also come with Bixby assistant and a 5.7-inch QHD AMOLED display with an iris scanner.
More info here.
Meizu Pro 7
The phone will come with Full HD 5.2 inch Super AMOLED display and Mediatek Helio X30 MT6799 processor. It is expected to be launched in early July and to run FlymeOS 5.5, the firmware developed by Meizu based on Android Marshmallow 6.0.
More info here.
You might want to know about this
“Misleading” mobile roaming charges banned across EU
A European Union (EU) law to abolish roaming charges for people using mobile phones abroad comes into force today. The new rules mean that citizens travelling within the EU will be able to call, text and browse the internet on mobile devices at the same price they pay at home.
You can read more here.
Facebook launches support for animated GIF images in comments
TechCrunch reported that the new feature takes the form of a GIF button that lets users search for an image to post. The platform has supported GIFs for two years, but required users to provide an external URL to the image.
More info can be found here.
Fun stuff
Microsoft’s AI system earns the highest all-time score in ‘Ms. Pac-Man’
A Microsoft-made artificial-intelligence system has achieved a perfect score of 999,990 points on the Atari 2600 version of the classic “Ms. Pac-Man”, making it very likely the first time anybody, human or robot, has “beaten” the game. Ever.
You can read more here.
