Technology

New Delhi: Microsoft has announced to end its 20-year-old Open License programme for small and midsize organisations from January 1, 2022. The organisations can continue to renew and purchase new software licenses, software assurance and online services through the Open License programme until December 31, 2021.

"As of January 1, 2022, commercial customers won't be able to buy new or renew software licenses or online services through the Microsoft Open License programme," the tech giant said in an update. "New license-only purchases should be transacted through partners in the Cloud Solution Provider programme".

The Microsoft Open License programme was created over 20 years ago for small and midsized customers to buy multiple perpetual software licenses at a volume price. Microsoft said it is taking a significant step to simplify licensing by introducing perpetual software license purchases through the new commerce experience, as part of its Cloud Solution Provider programme for partners, with a target availability date of January 2021.

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in a recent interview said that the company was rethinking its long-term work options for employees as most of them do not want to return to office full-time.

Around 62 percent of employees at the tech giant want to return to offices, but not on a daily basis, the company said after conducting a survey of employee. Hence, Pichai said that Google was working on “hybrid” work models for a long-term remote working.

Pichai added that employees will experience a more “flexible” approach and will work in “hybrid” models that blend remote and in-office working methods.

To boost productivity amid uncertainty, Pichai said, "We firmly believe that being together and having a sense of community is super important when you have to solve hard problems and create something new so we don’t see that changing. But we do think we need to create more flexibility and more hybrid models."

New Delhi: Apple has released iOS 14.0.1, the first update to the new iOS 14 operating system that addresses several issues that were left unpatched in the initial launch. One can now set a third-party browser or mail app as default on their iPhone, but a bug was causing those settings to be reverted every time the iPhone restarted.

This issue has been resolved in iOS 14.0.1 so the users do not have to keep changing default apps going forward. The update also addresses bugs that were stopping iPhones from connecting to WiFi networks, preventing some apps from sending email, and preventing images from showing up in the News widget, the Cupertino-based tech giant said in a release note on Thursday.

Facebook India vice-president and managing director Ajit Mohan moves Supreme Court against the summons of the Delhi Assembly Committee, which is looking into the social media giant’s alleged failure to crack down on hate speech, saying the issue falls within the exclusive domain of the Union of India.

The assembly panel on peace and harmony is looking into complaints on the “role or complicity of Facebook officials in the Delhi riots" that happened in February.

Since Facebook had refused to come on first summon, the assembly panel had to sent second summon.

On 15 September, the committee, headed by Aam Aadmi Party MLA Raghav Chadha, asked Facebook to ensure that company executives appear before the panel at its next meeting, warning that a refusal will lead to “breach of privilege" proceedings against the officials. “Refusing to appear before the committee is contempt of the Delhi legislative assembly. This shows Facebook has something to hide," Chadha said.

New Delhi: LG Electronics has unveiled its new dual-screen smartphone called Wing with a rotating form factor that boasts enhanced multitasking features. The main screen will have a 6.8-inch OLED FullVision Display with a 20.5:9 aspect ratio. The 3.9-inch secondary display has a 1.15:1 aspect ratio.

The Wing will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 5G chipset that is 10 percent faster than the standard Snapdragon 765 processor in graphics processing unit performance. The Wing has an 8GB RAM and a 128GB internal storage, which can be expanded to 2TB with a microSD card. It packs a 4,000mAh battery.

The device will go on sale next month starting in South Korea and will be available in North America and Europe. LG did not confirm the price of the Wing at the launch event late on Monday but industry insiders expected it to be sold at more than $845 in South Korea, reports Yonhap news agency. The latest handset is the first product developed under LG's new smartphone initiative Explorer Project, which aims to deliver an "unexplored usability experience" with devices and services from its platform partners.