NASA, in collaboration with a team of international scientists, researchers, designers, and artists led by French engineer Benoit Faiveley, is set to send another time capsule to the moon.
The project, titled “Sanctuary on the Moon”, is part of NASA’s ambitious Artemis CLPS program and enjoys the support of UNESCO and the patronage of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Sanctuary on the Moon aims to engrave 24 sapphire discs with “the very essence of humanity”. The discs, currently being engraved at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), will contain a diverse portrait of our species in micropixels – up to 7 billion per disc.
An inspiration for generations to come
This will be the first time the collective human ‘recipe’ in the form of male and female genomes will be taken to another world, and the project aims to pass on an intelligible message to future generations of humans – and other intelligent life forms who might happen to stop – by using universal symbols of our knowledge and culture. The plan is to tell the story of “who we are, what we know, and what we do” and the discs will include examples of mathematics, culture, paleontology, art, and science, along with the human genome.
The moon, with its ancient surface impervious to natural disasters, is viewed as being the ideal location for this archival time capsule which will be housed in a container designed to endure the harsh lunar conditions for many years, meeting all the space certifications required by NASA.
Joel Kearns, NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, expressed his excitement about the project. “We are delighted to take Sanctuary to the Moon”, he said. “We believe that this internationally curated repository of knowledge on the Moon will serve as an inspiration today and for many generations to come.”
The multidisciplinary Sanctuary team includes 11 renowned scientists, engineers, astrophysicists, paleontologists, cosmologists, and artists. The project has also received support from organizations such as CNES, CEA, INRIA, BCGSC, and UNESCO.
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You can find out more about the Sanctuary on the Moon project here.
SK Hynix, Samsung‘s chief competitor and the world’s number two memory maker, has begun its audacious plan to build the largest chip production facility on the planet.
The construction at SK Hynix’s giant Yongin Semiconductor Cluster in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, will comprise four units. Work on the first unit, which is intended to be the world’s biggest three-story fabrication plant, is anticipated to commence in March 2025.
The Korea Economic Daily reports that the project is estimated to cost over 120 trillion won ($90.7 billion) and will span over two decades, with completion expected by 2046.
Government backing
The plan was first announced in 2019 but ran into delays due to Covid and licensing procedures. It received a boost in 2022 following an agreement between the government, municipalities, and companies, according to SK Hynix. The site of the first unit is now 35% prepared.
Trade Minister Ahn Deokgeun visited the site recently, promising government support for Korea’s chip industry. “All ministries will work together to ensure that Korean companies won’t lag behind global players in semiconductor manufacturing speed. We will actively support high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to achieve more than $120 billion in semiconductor exports this year,” he said.
The Korea Economic Daily says the government will unveil strategies to accelerate artificial intelligence chip exports and bolster semiconductor equipment by the end of June.
Creating the world’s largest chip factory is just part of SK Hynix’s future plans. The manufacturing giant is also intending to invest $4 billion to build an advanced chip packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana.
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The Perseverance rover drills a rock core from the edge of the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater on Mars.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Woodlands, Texas
Scientists are on edge as they wait for NASA to answer two of the most consequential questions in Mars exploration. Where on the red planet will the Perseverance rover collect its final rock samples? And can NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) even afford to fly the mission’s hard-won samples — the prize at the end of a decades-long quest — back to Earth?
Flying Mars rocks to Earth could cost an astronomical $11 billion
Over the past few years, Perseverance has been exploring an ancient river delta in Mars’s Jezero Crater, with the aim of finding signs of past life. The rover’s belly is now stuffed with 17 tubes of Martian rock, dirt and air that scientists say represent an astounding geological collection. “The science is only getting better as we see what Perseverance keeps collecting,” says Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. But the rover’s instruments aren’t sophisticated enough to determine whether molecules in the samples point to signs of life, or to determine the samples’ age, and so reveal something about the history of Mars. For that, laboratories on Earth are needed.
However, bringing Perseverance’s samples back could cost as much as US$11 billion, an independent panel concluded in a scathing engineering analysis last year. That’s more than NASA can afford. By the end of this month, it and ESA are supposed to find a cheaper way to achieve Mars sample return — or risk leaving the carefully collected rocks where they are.
Adding to the drama, Perseverance’s planners are debating what other science the rover should do before it has to stop exploring. The original mission plan was to explore the ancient river delta and then drive up out of the crater — where there are even older rocks that could tell scientists more about the history of Mars. But as Perseverance approaches Jezero’s rim (see ‘Epic journey’), some engineers are advocating for it to turn around and wait at a lower altitude, where it might be safer and cheaper to pick up the samples.
Source: Nature adaptation from NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL/Brown University
John Mustard, a planetary scientist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, wants the rover to stick to the original plan. The rocks currently on board are “great, but they’re not sufficient to be the transformative samples that we want them to be”, he says. “They’re not Apollo-scale,” he adds, referring to the Moon rocks collected by Apollo astronauts in the 1960s and 1970s that revolutionized scientific understanding of the Moon and Earth.
He and other scientists pressed the case for exiting the crater last week at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas. All eyes are now on NASA to see what it decides.
“Right now what we can say is, we’re committed to [Mars sample return] being the best value,” says Lindsay Hays, acting lead scientist for Mars sample return at NASA headquarters in Washington DC. “My focus is really on making sure that we get as much science out of what we can get.”
A long quest
NASA has been working on various concepts for bringing rocks back from Mars since the 1980s. Perseverance, the fifth in a string of increasingly sophisticated Mars rovers from the agency, landed in Jezero in 2021 to maximize scientists’ chances of finding signs of past life, if it ever existed. Jezero was once filled with water: a river flowed into it that created an ancient delta similar to those on Earth, which can preserve organic material — usually the remnants of plants and other organisms that came from upstream.
NASA Mars rover to cache first rock samples for delivery to Earth
So far, Perseverance hasn’t spotted any obvious signs of ancient life, such as fossils, with its cameras. The best chance of finding past Martian life would be to analyse the rocks the rover has collected for materials rich in carbon, including organic compounds, that might have been created by the decay of long-dead organisms, says Tanja Bosak, a geobiologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. This analysis would need to happen on Earth.
Two of the rock cores are particularly promising for this; they are fine-grained mudstones from the delta that could have trapped organic material. Other cores collected by Perseverance include once-molten rocks from the crater floor that could be analysed to determine the age of that region; sedimentary rocks from the river delta that hold a history of how Mars’s climate and habitability changed through time; and rocks from the delta’s edges that appear to have interacted with deep groundwater, another potentially habitable environment, for long periods.
Stay or go?
The rover is currently exploring a narrow band of rock near the crater’s rim that is rich in carbonate minerals. On Earth, carbonates commonly form along lake shorelines and can preserve evidence of life. But scientists are still debating whether Jezero’s band represents an ancient shoreline.
In the coming months, the rover will roll onto the rim; after that, the question is whether it will leave the crater. If so, it would explore ‘basement’ rocks from around 4 billion years ago — older than the 3.5-billion-year-old delta — and fossilized hydrothermal vents that could have been a haven for Martian life.
When Perseverance drills a rock core such as this one, collected in October 2023, with its robotic arm, it then seals the specimen in a sample tube for safekeeping.Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
But going to this region, known as Nili Planum, might involve more risk than NASA is now willing to take. One concern is that Nili Planum is several hundred metres higher than the crater floor, so the atmosphere above it is thinner, making it more difficult — and expensive — for a sample-retrieval mission to land there.
Scientists are also concerned about how much farther the rover can physically roll before it gives out. Perseverance has travelled nearly 25 kilometres since landing, but mission scientists think it might be able to cover another 70–90 kilometres. If this is confirmed by testing at JPL, it might be able to reach some of Nili Planum’s most intriguing rocks, which are around 16 kilometres from the rover’s current location, and then make it back into the crater for pick up. If Perseverance does die unexpectedly, it has already left a backup collection of ten cores on the floor of Jezero Crater.
Budget constraints
Now the focus turns to money and how much NASA can invest in bringing the samples back. The mission is part of NASA’s planetary sciences portfolio, which currently spends $2.7 billion annually.
Mars rocks await a ride to Earth — can NASA deliver?
NASA has said it doesn’t want to spend more than 35% of its budget on the mission to retrieve the samples in any given year. “Whatever we implement for Mars sample return is going to be done in the context of a balanced planetary science portfolio,” Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s planetary sciences division, told the conference. But the uncertainty about how much funding might be available to work on Mars sample return forced JPL to lay off 8% of its employees last month.
Much of the cost for Mars sample return comes from its complexity. According to current plans, NASA would build a lander to retrieve the samples and a rocket to carry them off the surface to orbit Mars. ESA would contribute a spacecraft that would capture the samples in Mars orbit and transfer them to Earth. ESA has not discussed its budget for Mars sample return as publicly as NASA has, but European planetary scientists have expressed “consistent and strong science support” for the programme, says Gerhard Kminek, ESA’s lead scientist for Mars sample return in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
If NASA and ESA can figure out a path forwards, the rock collection would touch down on Earth no earlier than 2033. Meanwhile, the agencies have competition: China has announced plans to return Mars rocks to Earth at around the same time.
March 5, 2012: Apple reaches a staggering milestone, with 25 billion apps downloaded from the iOS App Store. The company celebrates with a giveaway titled the “25 Billion App Countdown.”
The lucky 25 billionth app downloader wins an iTunes gift card worth $10,000.
Apple’s 25 Billion App Countdown
Just four years after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs relented and opened the iPhone’s App Store, the genius of allowing third-party developers to create iOS apps was undeniable. Hitting the 25 billion downloads landmark in such a short time showcased just how smart — and lucrative — the move was.
Developers dreamed up apps that made the iPhone more useful and fun. Apps that became hits made devs rich, and Apple took a cut of the sales. The App Store became a major profit center for Apple.
“We’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,” says Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, in a statement. “When we launched the App Store less than four years ago, we never imagined that mobile apps would become the phenomenon they have, or that developers would create such an incredible selection of apps for iOS users.”
At the time, the App Store offered more than 550,000 apps for download. Apple had doled out more than $4 billion to developers for their 70% share of revenue from paid downloads.
The winner of the gift card in Apple’s 25 Billion App Countdown is Chunli Fu from China. The app is Disney’s Where’s My Water?, a free puzzle game released the previous September.
App Store continues to grow
By comparison, today the App Store peddles nearly 2 million apps, and clocks more than 100 billion downloads a year. The App Store’s reach and influence continue to grow, although Apple’s management of the store faces increasing scrutiny from international antitrust regulators.
“Apps and games have become the essential source for the world’s most innovative and timely entertainment,” Apple said in a 2022 press release. “The efforts, innovation, and creativity of the developers who leverage Apple technology to build these incredible experiences, coupled with the power of the App Store’s global platform to connect businesses of all sizes with over 600 million people each week across 175 countries, has led to developers selling digital goods and services earning more than $260 billion since the App Store launched in 2008.”
Apple continually touts the benefits of the App Store to both consumers and third-party developers. However, the company’s strict control over the app marketplace and the overall iOS ecosystem have landed Apple in hot water. Changes coming soon in iOS 17.4 will open the iPhone to sideloading and third-party app stores in the European Union. And Apple faces a $1.8 billion fine for its allegedly abusive treatment of streaming music rival Spotify.
Apple loved the milestones
Just a few years ago, Apple liked celebrating milestone events with promotions like the 25 Billion App Countdown. In fact, a 2004 contest to mark 100 million iTunes song downloads made the 2012 app download contest look meager.
The winner of the 2004 contest received a personal phone call from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a 17-inch PowerBook, a 40GB iPod and a gift certificate for 10,000 iTunes songs.
These days, Apple mostly avoids making a big deal of these kinds of landmark events. When Apple passed the 1 billionth iPhone milestone, the company did little to commemorate the occasion. The same held true when Apple’s market cap surpassed the $1 trillion valuation. And $2 trillion. And $3 trillion.
Similarly, Apple avoids sharing too many details about the usage of services like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness+. The company also stopped revealing the number of iPhones sold each quarter.
While I understand the logic behind this less-bombastic strategy, I miss the excitement of such old-school Apple events. It was fun when Apple eagerly (and publicly) counted down to its next gigantic sales record with events like the 25 Billion App Countdown.
Rivian generally had a good day yesterday, launching the R2 SUV along with the surprise R3 crossover and dune buggy-esque R3X that were met with general acclaim. Buried in that press release, however, was the news that the automaker is halting production of its $5 billion Georgia plant in order to save money.
Instead of building the R2 in Georgia as originally planned, the company will start production of the electric SUV at its existing Normal, Illinois plant. “Beyond significantly reducing the amount of capital needed to bring R2 to market, the company believes this approach considerably reduces risk to the launch and associated ramp,” the company said.
The move will also allow Rivian to bring the R2 to market sooner, in the first half of 2026, while saving the company $2.25 billion in capital spending in the short term. That’s important since it has been burning through cash of late, according to recent reports.
Elliot Ross Studio
Of all the EV startups to come along of late, Rivian has been one of the most promising thanks to significant investments from Amazon, Ford and others. The company’s electric R1T pickup and R1S SUV were also widely praised for their attractive designs, healthy range and more.
Ramping up an automotive startup is no easy feat, though, especially in a market that’s been tough on EVs of late — with even stalwart Tesla feeling the pinch. It doesn’t help that startup rivals like Fisker are having serious cash flow issues, as it may spook consumers wary of untested EV brands.
Rivian selected Georgia as the site for its second EV factory back in 2021, receiving up to $1.5 billion in state incentives. At the time, the company said it hoped to eventually produce 400,000 electric vehicles there annually. With plant changes, the Normal, Illinois facility will augment capacity to 215,000 units annually across R1T, R1S, EDV, RCV, and R2.
The Georgia location remains in the picture, but Rivian only said it construction would restart later. “Rivian’s Georgia plant remains an extremely important part of its strategy to scale production of R2 and R3,” it said in a statement.
Apple has been handed a €1.8 billion fine in Europe by the EU regulators for allegedly abusing its dominant position for music streaming apps, Apple has announced that it will be appealing the ruling in Europe.
Apple has claimed that Spotify, which has a 56 percent share of the European Music market and pays Apple no fees for using its App Store, is behind the ruling and the company that brought the original complaint against Apple with the European regulators.
The primary advocate for this decision — and the biggest beneficiary — is Spotify, a company based in Stockholm, Sweden. Spotify has the largest music streaming app in the world, and has met with the European Commission more than 65 times during this investigation.
Today, Spotify has a 56 percent share of Europe’s music streaming market — more than double their closest competitor’s — and pays Apple nothing for the services that have helped make them one of the most recognizable brands in the world. A large part of their success is due to the App Store, along with all the tools and technology that Spotify uses to build, update, and share their app with Apple users around the world.
Apple has said that it will appeal the ruling by the European Commission and you can see full details and their full statement over at the Apple website at the link below.
Source Apple
Image Credit: Andy Wang
Filed Under: Gadgets News
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Disney has announced that it will be making an investment of $1.5 billion in Epic Games, the company behind the popular Fortnite game and Disney will acquire a stake in Epic Games.
The investment will also see a new collaborative partnership between the tywo companies and they will work together to develop new games and also new entertainment, you can see more details below.
“Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe,” said Robert A. Iger, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. “This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can’t wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways.”
“Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio,” said Tim Sweeney, CEO and Founder, Epic Games. “Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities.”
You can see more details about the new partnership between Disney and Epic Games over at the Disney website at the link below, it will be interesting to see what new games and content are released with this new partnership.
Source The Walt Disney Company
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In a significant move within the tech industry, Synopsys, a major player in electronic design automation, has made a bold step by agreeing to purchase Ansys, a company known for its engineering simulation software, in a deal valued at $35 billion. This acquisition is set to create a powerhouse by combining Synopsys’ expertise in design tools with Ansys’ simulation prowess, potentially leading to faster innovation and growth in various sectors that rely heavily on complex electronic systems.
For those holding Ansys shares, the deal terms are quite attractive. Shareholders are set to receive $197.00 in cash and a fraction of Synopsys stock for each share of Ansys they own. This offer not only provides a premium over the current market value of Ansys shares but also highlights the value that Ansys’ technology brings to Synopsys’ future.
The merger is expected to create a dominant force in the EDA and simulation markets. By bringing together the strengths of both companies, the design process from the smallest silicon components to entire systems could become more streamlined. This is particularly important for industries like automotive, aerospace, and industrial manufacturing, where the demand for sophisticated electronic systems is growing rapidly.
Synopsys to acquire Ansys
Synopsys is set to broaden its market influence by adding Ansys’ simulation tools to its portfolio. This strategic move is timely, as electronic systems are becoming more integral to technological advancements. By expanding into new markets, Synopsys aims to grow beyond its foundational EDA solutions.
Founder of Synopsys
“Since inception 37 years ago, Synopsys has been an innovation pioneer, central to world-changing semiconductor advances in computation, networking, and mobility, and now enabling the new era of ‘pervasive intelligence’,” said Aart de Geus, Executive Chair and Founder of Synopsys. “Joining forces with Ansys, a company we know well from our long-standing partnership, is the latest example of how Synopsys remains at the forefront. Our Board and management team carefully evaluated our top strategic options to lead and win in this fast-growing new wave of electronics and system design. The technology-broadening team-up with Ansys is an ideal, value-enhancing step for our company, our shareholders, and the innovative customers we serve.”
From a financial perspective, the acquisition looks promising for Synopsys. It is expected to improve key financial metrics, such as non-GAAP operating margin and free cash flow margins. Moreover, the deal is predicted to increase non-GAAP earnings per share, which could signal higher profitability and attract investor interest.
The companies anticipate that the merger will generate significant cost and revenue synergies, estimated at around $400 million annually within three to four years after the deal closes. These synergies are likely to come from increased operational efficiencies and the ability to offer more competitive products.
CEO of Ansys
“For more than 50 years, Ansys has enabled customers to design, develop and deliver cutting-edge products that are limited only by imagination. By joining forces with Synopsys, we will amplify our joint efforts to drive new levels of customer innovation,” said Ajei Gopal, President and CEO of Ansys. “This transformative combination brings together each company’s highly complementary capabilities to meet the evolving needs of today’s engineers and give them unprecedented insight into the performance of their products.
Ansys has a strong foundation, as demonstrated by preliminary annual contract value (“ACV”) results for Q4 that are expected to exceed the high end of our guidance, and I am confident that building on our partnership with Synopsys will position us well to deliver even greater value for our customers, partners and shareholders.
The combined company will accelerate the development of our joint portfolio and deliver an increased level of innovation, which will benefit Ansys’ traditional customers. I am proud of all that our employees do every day to make Ansys and our customers successful and look forward to the combined company achieving even greater heights in this next chapter.”
To finance the cash portion of the acquisition, Synopsys plans to use its available cash and secure $16 billion in debt financing. This approach aims to maintain the company’s financial flexibility while undertaking this substantial purchase.
However, the acquisition is not yet a done deal. It is subject to approval from Ansys shareholders, regulatory clearances, and other customary closing conditions. If all goes as planned, the transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025, marking a significant milestone for both companies and their stakeholders.
The tech industry is constantly evolving, and this merger could set a new standard for how companies address the challenges of designing and analyzing modern electronic systems. The combined capabilities of Synopsys and Ansys could lead to enhanced product offerings, increased market presence, and improved financial health, all of which are crucial as the demand for advanced electronic systems continues to rise.
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An Apple-commissioned study has been released this week that reports threats to consumer data stored in the cloud have grown dramatically since the last report was published in December 2022. Report states that 2.6 billion personal records have been compromised by data breaches in past two years, highlighting the need for end‑to‑end encryption.
The study, conducted by MIT professor Dr. Stuart Madnick, reveals a disturbing trend. Data breaches have tripled between 2013 and 2022, and the situation further worsened in 2023. The report, aptly titled “The Continued Threat to Personal Data: Key Factors Behind the 2023 Increase,” provides a comprehensive overview of the escalating threats to personal data.
End‑to‑end encryption
End-to-end encryption is a method of secure communication that prevents third-parties from accessing data while it’s transferred from one end system or device to another. In end-to-end encryption, the data is encrypted on the sender’s system or device and only the recipient is able to decrypt it. Nobody in between, be it an internet service provider, application service provider, or hacker, can read it or tamper with it. Here are the key points to understand:
Encryption and Decryption: Data is transformed into a secure form (encrypted) before transmission and is only transformed back into its original form (decrypted) at the destination. This encryption and decryption happen only at the endpoints.
Keys Involved: End-to-end encryption typically involves public and private keys. The sender uses the recipient’s public key to encrypt the message. The recipient then uses their private key to decrypt it. This ensures that only the intended recipient can read the message.
Data Security During Transit: The data is unreadable to any servers, routers, or other systems it passes through. This is crucial for sensitive information, as it protects the data from potential interception or hacking attempts during transmission.
Applications: This form of encryption is widely used in various applications like messaging apps (WhatsApp, Signal), email services (ProtonMail), and in transferring sensitive data over the internet.
Limitations and Challenges: While end-to-end encryption is effective at securing data in transit, it doesn’t protect against endpoint vulnerabilities. If a device is compromised, the data can be accessed. Additionally, if a user loses their private key, they lose access to their encrypted data.
Privacy and Legal Implications: End-to-end encryption is a crucial tool for ensuring privacy. However, it can also pose challenges for law enforcement, as it can make it difficult to access potentially critical information during investigations.
The increasing digitalization of personal and professional lives is a significant factor contributing to the rise in data breaches. As more data is stored in the cloud, it becomes an attractive target for cybercriminals. The report reveals that over 80 percent of breaches in 2023 involved data stored in the cloud, and attacks targeting cloud infrastructure nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022.
Despite robust security practices, even the most secure organizations are not immune to these threats. Consumer data can still be compromised by hackers, underscoring the importance of strong protections like end-to-end encryption.
Advanced Data Protection for iCloud
In response to these growing threats, Apple has introduced Advanced Data Protection for iCloud. This feature employs end-to-end encryption, offering users an additional layer of protection for their iCloud data in the event of a data breach. iCloud already protects 14 sensitive data categories using end-to-end encryption by default, and this number rises to 23 for users who enable Advanced Data Protection.
Apple’s commitment to data security is reflected in its innovative features like Lockdown Mode and Advanced Data Protection for iCloud. These features, combined with Apple’s long track record of engineering powerful and innovative solutions, make its products some of the most secure on the market. The threat landscape, however, continues to evolve. In 2023, the number of data breaches nearly tripled compared to 2013, and this trend is set to worsen, with nearly 20 percent more breaches in the first nine months of 2023 than in any prior year.
Ransomware attacks, in particular, have seen a significant increase in 2023. There were nearly 70 percent more attacks reported through September 2023 than in the first three quarters of 2022. In fact, there were more ransomware attacks through September 2023 than in all of 2022 combined, leading to alarming trends both in the U.S. and abroad.
The study underscores the urgent need for strong data protection measures in the face of escalating threats to personal data. The increasing digitalization of our lives, coupled with the growing sophistication of cybercriminals, makes robust security measures like end-to-end encryption more critical than ever.
As the threat landscape continues to evolve, companies like Apple are at the forefront, developing innovative solutions to protect consumer data. However, the responsibility for data protection is a shared one, requiring a collective effort from organizations, individuals, and policymakers alike.
Read the report The Continued Threat to Personal Data: Key Factors Behind the 2023 Increase in full to learn more about the personal records that have been compromised over the past two years. Here are some other articles you may find of interest on the subject of Apple iCloud :
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Apple will finally support RCS Messaging in 2024 and Google has announced that Google Messages now has 1 billion RCS users, they are also bringing some new features to messaging on their platform.
There are seven new features for Google Messages, these include Photomoji, Voice Moodsa, Screen Effects, Custom Bubbles, Reaction Effects, Animated Emoji, and Profiles, have a look at the video below.
By replacing the outdated SMS and MMS protocols, users benefit from a more modern and secure messaging experience with typing indicators, read receipts, threaded replies, high-quality media sharing, improved group chats, better privacy like end-to-end encryption and more with RCS. RCS is a much better messaging protocol, and we know that people love using it.
Today marks a new milestone that we are incredibly proud of: There are now more than one billion monthly active users with RCS enabled in Google Messages. We are grateful to our partners and our users that have advocated for RCS over the years — it’s been a lot of work to get here, and we want to thank you. Beyond Google Messages, there are other messaging clients that use RCS and we are pleased that Apple also took their first step two weeks ago in announcing that they’re embracing RCS.
You can find out more information about all of the new features that have been released for Google Messages over at Google’s website at the link below, these new features are now available to use.
Source & Image Credit: Google
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March 5, 2012: Apple reaches a staggering milestone, with 25 billion apps downloaded from the iOS App Store. The company celebrates with a giveaway titled the “25 Billion App Countdown.”
