NewsBytes Briefing: Google defers 30% commission in India, and more
Last night, Google deferred the enforcement of its Play Store billing policy that requires certain app developers to pay a 30% commission to the tech giant. The rule was set to go into effect from September 2021, but for developers in India, who have expressed concerns over this requirement and Google's monopoly, the company has delayed the policy until April 2022. Here are other developments.
John McAfee, the man behind McAfee antivirus, arrested
John McAfee, the founder of the renowned cybersecurity company McAfee, has been arrested in Spain by the US Department of Justice. He has been indicted on charges of tax evasion and is reportedly awaiting extradition to the US. McAfee left his antivirus software company back in 1994 and has become a cryptocurrency evangelist in recent years.
Slack ran into a major outage
In another case of popular service going down, Slack suffered from a major outage and created performance issues for users around the world - across all platforms. The issues kept people from connecting to the service and lasted for about six hours. Now, the company has confirmed that the problem has been resolved and the Slack app and website should be working normally.
Bing rebranded, Excel error misplaced COVID-19 data
Microsoft has rebranded its Bing search engine to 'Microsoft Bing' as part of an effort to reflect "the continued integration of our search experiences across the Microsoft family." Separately, the company's Excel service became a point of concern after the UK's Public Health England claimed that it failed to record nearly 16,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases due to a size limit error on the spreadsheet.
Other important developments to note
Among other things, YouTube Music is now offering free users the ability to cast audio to smart speakers, while Spotify is bringing a feature to search songs through lyrics. Apple, meanwhile, has removed third-party audio products - speakers and wireless headphones - from its store, including those from Bose, Logitech, and Sonos. The move comes ahead of the launch of its own audio gear.
Finally, some COVID-19-related updates
India on Monday reported a little over 60,000 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the nationwide tally to 66.8 lakh. The death toll rose to over 1,03,621 with 800+ fresh fatalities. Further, Soumya Swaminathan, WHO's chief scientist, said that the vaccine would cover 60-70% of the global population but not before 2022. Additionally, Bharat Biotech secured ViroVax's adjuvant to boost its COVID-19 vaccine's immune response.
