| | | Good Morning! The more things change, the more they remain the same? It is generally considered good practice to tick off the basics, before moving on to more complex questions and conundrums that need answering. It's true for most things in life. Be it making plans. Or writing articles (I've had the fortune of working with some incredible editors over the years, who polished this habit). This has been one of those rare weeks, where plentiful intersections ended up in the spotlight, making basics ever so important. This, we would expect, be true when tech giants come together to shape the future of something as important as the World Wide Web. The good old internet. Many of those who sit at the table of elites (that table is larger than ever) in the Silicon Valley (or on video call from elsewhere) are part of this new group that's expected to knuckle down the foundations of something that sounds fascinating, but still remains ambiguous, to put it mildly. Read: Will a metaverse open standards group with Microsoft and Meta change anything? Let's get one thing clear. Not every attempt (often flimsy) at a 3D-esque experience on the internet, is metaverse. That makes this group's congregation quite timely. On board are 37 members, including Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Adobe, Epic Games, Qualcomm, and Alibaba. The names that stand out, conspicuous by their absence (so far, to be fair) include Google, Apple, Roblox and Niantic. Compatibility, inter-play, basic standards and regulation are certainly important issues to tackle. I feel we may be collectively missing a trick with every conversation about the metaverse. No one seems to be bothering about the comfort of users who'll dive into this metaverse. Here is my submission – researchers from Coburg University in Germany, Cambridge University in the UK, the University of Primorska in Slovenia, and tech giant Microsoft released a study earlier this month detailing what eventually turned out to be travails for 18 people (they were there on their own accord) who spent a week working in the metaverse. The results are worrying. Two dropped out due to nausea, most reported feeling anxious and the sixteen who remained till the end said their eyes hurt towards the latter half of the weeklong experiment. Perhaps we don't need as many VR headsets, as we need to find ways to make the metaverse more accessible on the devices we already have. Augmented Reality company Niantic might be on to something here. They tell us about an in-the-works mobile game called NBA All-World, which will give fans and gamers the experience of a metaverse overlay, but in the real world. (You can sign up here). On the agenda are gear launches and sneaker drops along the way. The key here – this experience will work your smartphone, which you already own and are (largely, we would assume) comfortable with. | | | | KNOW  | | Gmail users, watch out! There is a new interface headed your way. Till now (since February, at least), this was opt in. Now this works the other way. You'll see closer integration of Meet, Chat and Spaces within the Gmail interface – these will now be on the extreme left of the interface as larger buttons and not tiled boxes with some of the recent conversations listed. The good thing is, all of these can be turned off too (much like the Gmail app on Android and iOS), which just leaves you with a slightly refreshed Gmail interface. What's not to like? I had shifted to the new interface months ago, and have kept Chat, Meet and Spaces turned off. | | | | Amazon wants Alexa to be anyone you want it to be. The company is developing foundations that'll allow Alexa to mimic the voice of anyone else, after hearing it speak for less than a minute. This can be in person or an audio clip. Though it will be a lot of fun to have the voice of Samuel L. Jackson order everyone to the dinner table, we don't really know when this potentially cool feature will see the light of day. Amazon though may want to ponder the possibility of this being as a tool for deepfakes. | | | | | PUZZLING I cannot fathom what HTC is attempting here (they still try to make Android phones and someone, somewhere must be buying one too). A new phone called HTC Desire 22 Pro has emerged and is being positioned as a metaverse ready phone. What is a metaverse ready phone? I'll let HTC's curation of marketing materials explain things – "Visit metaverse communities in VIVERSE using your browser or pair Desire 22 Pro with Vive Flow to explore them in VR." What's the VIVE Flow, you ask? That's an augmented reality headset priced at around US$791 (around Rs 62,000), which HTC wants you to buy. Is it really the time to buy a VR headset? Decidedly mid-range specs of the phone, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chip and 8GB RAM, and is up for pre-order at £399.00 (that's around Rs 40,000; the current OnePlus and Xiaomi phones may descend into uncontrollable laughter). Not coming to India anytime soon. Nothing to see here. | | | | COMMAND How much regulation is too much regulation? I'm afraid we may not have an answer for that philosophical question. But upon reflection, the latest guidelines for VPN apps and cloud services in India, are simply a temporary reprieve. They have time till September 25, instead of the earlier envisioned deadline of June 26. Not much changes with the planning (at least the way things are structured now). Any VPN or cloud storage app that remains available in India, will have to store extensive customer information (that'll include validated names, addresses and IP details – the latter being your trackable address on the internet) for a period of 5 years. Read: Government extends deadline to comply with new cybersecurity rules Not all is well, mind you. A few days ago, I happened to receive an email from the good folks over at Norton, which they've been sending to all subscribers. "Norton Secure VPN is no longer available for use within India, but you can still use it when traveling outside of India. Browse anonymously and more securely with a no-log Virtual Private Network (VPN) when travelling overseas," it read, before going on to talk up the encryption capabilities that can be utilised by subscribers when traveling outside India. Earlier this month, another very popular VPN app ExpressVPN confirmed they're exiting the Indian market. The likes of Surfshark are waiting and watching. Guess which other country recently made peace with the decision to completely ban VPN apps? The answer isn't difficult if you think hard enough. Mind you, India's regulators aren't banning VPN or cloud storage apps. Yet that poses an existential question for these platforms, because of the very nature of what they sell. You would have heard of "no-log" VPNs. Simply put, most VPN companies allow complete anonymity and encryption for user data. The point of contention is, they'll need to change their entire approach, if they are to start saving user data. Understandable, but misuse falls well within the unintended realms. The larger question here is, how much anonymity is good? This isn't the first time rules of the land have been at loggerheads with the very fundamentals of encryption technology. Popular messaging apps (you've probably got them too), WhatsApp has been arguing its view for a while now, and so has Signal. | | FALTER That's not gone well, has it? The annual official Formula 1 game release is something fans tend to look forward to. So does yours truly (it is one of the few games I really like). With F1 2022 arriving on July 1 (for those of us who have paid for the F1 2022 Standard Edition; that'd be Rs 3,999 on the Sony PlayStation 4), the wait is getting quite unbearable. But better this, than what the gamers who paid a lot more (Rs 5,299 for the F1 2022 Champions Edition), had to endure even though they'd been promised a 3-day head start with early access. It was unplayable, particularly for gamers who downloaded it on their PCs from the Steam store. EA acknowledged it on their part, in a tweet that confirmed the work was on to find a resolution for the bug. Not sure if anything really makes up for the broken promises. There's an extra element to this year's F1 game. F1 2022 is the 13th successive official F1 game that has been created by game studio Codemasters, but is also the first since the $1.2 billion buyout by EA Sports. F1 games returning to the EA fold is quite exciting (revisiting memories from my teenage years), but this false start may only be a blip. Hopefully, I'll have my game edition ready on time, and we can have a conversation about it next week. | | RIGHTS Isn't it true that even when something is expected, its full impact is only really felt when the hammer drops? That's exactly how it is unfolding after the US Supreme Court's (this can be categorised as major) decision on abortion, overturning Roe v. Wade and declaring that the U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee the right to abortion. The outcome was expected, after all a draft decision leaked months ago. The debates will continue, as they should. For the time being, companies in the US, and that includes tech companies, have been updating employees on the new measures they can make use of if the need so arises. The common thread across what companies are offering employees is the promise to help with healthcare coverage that'll include the cost of travel to a US state that allows abortions. Google goes a step ahead, in a widely reported mail that the tech giant's chief people officer Fiona Cicconi sent to employees. "To support Googlers and their dependents, our US benefits plan and health insurance covers out-of-state medical procedures that are not available where an employee lives and works. Googlers can also apply for relocation without justification, and those overseeing this process will be aware of the situation," it reads. Two sides to every coin, as it is many a time. Meta owned social media platforms Facebook and Instagram promptly started removing posts (they aren't always this responsive, are they? Something to ponder over, perhaps?) that may have otherwise helped citizens in states where pre-existing laws banning abortion snapped into effect. It didn't take long after the ruling for posts and shares that may have offered genuine guidance on how to legally obtain abortion pills. Amazon is also restricting pill purchases. There can be a perceived political angle to everything. Democratic governors of the states of California, Oregon and Washington quickly released a joint statement saying they'll support patients and care providers. | Please share your feedback with us What do you think about this newsletter? | | | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. 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