Gadgets
Twitter Spaces Comes to Android in India and Other Markets for Testing
“We’re expanding to give more people a chance to join Spaces and listen in! Rolling out over the next few days, people with Android will now be able to join, listen, and speak in conversations over Spaces,” Twitter has said in a statement. Twitter first confirmed that it was working on getting the feature to Android users via a tweet in late January.
Announcing the launch, Twitter executives stressed that these are still early days for Spaces, and also added that their first priority was building out moderation, and noted that this is the reason why they’re taking a cautious approach to bringing out features like recording conversations, which could find fans among podcasters and monetising Spaces, which could make the feature much more appealing to Twitter influencers.
Android folks, our beta is growing! starting today you will be able to join and talk in any Space. SOON you’ll be able to create your own but we’re still working out some things. keep your 👀 out for live Spaces above your home tl
— Spaces (@TwitterSpaces) March 2, 2021
Last month, the testing of Twitter Spaces was expanded to 3,000 iOS users from the 1,000 that were initially roped in to try out the new feature. While only the beta testers could create public or private audio rooms, any of their followers on iOS could join in to the Spaces that were created, to get a sense of how the feature works.
Twitter is considering bringing Spaces to the Web interface too, but this is just one of the many features that it is looking at, including user interface changes that could make it easier to make use of different features. However, there’s no timeline given at this point. Other features, such as its captions feature are also evolving, to improve accessibility to the platform, it said.
Twitter has said that Spaces will be rolled out to select Android users over the coming weeks. “Keep an eye out for the purple aura in your fleetline and tap to join. You can also join Spaces via a link shared with you (via Tweets, DMs). People on Android can also use emoji reactions, view captions, and be invited to speak in a Space,” the company said. “Other updates to come include the ability to see more of who’s in your Space as well as naming your Space to add context for new joiners.” It also confirmed that this will not be restricted to any region.
The feature rivals the concept of Clubhouse, the invite-only social media platform only on iOS, which is meant for users to engage in voice chats rather than post text messages. The app recently crossed 10 million downloads globally within a year of its launch, according to a Sensor Tower report.
Twitter has been competing with Clubhouse by consistently launching more audio-focussed features on its platform. It rolled out voice DMs (direct messages) last month in India, Brazil, and Japan. The company had first introduced audio messaging on its platform with voice tweets for iOS users in June last year. It had said in November that it was working hard to make it available to Android users soon.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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