Google Play Games for Windows opens beta channel in Canada

Canada joins a handful of countries that can now access Google Play Games for Windows. This service lets you play Android games on your Windows PC. It started as a closed beta program in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. But now, the service moves to an open beta channel and expands availability to Canada, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States.

There are now over 60 titles to play, and Google has lowered the minimum hardware requirements for running Play Games for Windows. You just need a Windows 10 machine with a quad-core CPU and integrated graphics. You can try it out by downloading the beta from Google's official site.

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Meta reportedly plans mass layoffs this week

Meta might be laying off several thousand of its employees this week. The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources familiar with the company's plans that an announcement might come as soon as Wednesday. If accurate, these layoffs will be the first large-scale workforce reduction in its 18-year history. Facebook's parent company is reportedly looking to slash its costs by at least 10% within the next few months.

These cost-cutting efforts show how companies, which make money through ads, are looking to rein in spending following the tech industry's rapid growth during the pandemic. Meta currently employs 87,000 people. And its CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted during its third-quarter earnings call that job cuts might be imminent.

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Apple reportedly wants you to say 'Siri' instead of 'Hey Siri' as a trigger phrase

Source: Apple

Apple is supposedly looking to swap Siri's trigger phrase. Instead of "Hey Siri," the company just wants you to use "Siri." Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported that this feature has been in the works for the past several months, and it's expected to come out next year or in 2024. But Apple needs to put in a "significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work" to get this feature to function properly. Its smart assistant will need to understand that single wake word in different accents and dialects. The "Hey Siri" two-word trigger phrase has a better chance of the smart assistant picking it up.

Changing to the single wake word will put Apple in line with Amazon's Alexa and give it an edge over Google Assistant. But the latter doesn't need the wake word when you're saying back-to-back commands. Aside from the shorter trigger phrase, Apple is exploring third-party integration for Siri and improvements in its ability to process user requests.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon chips are expected to power Samsung Galaxy S23 series exclusively

Rumours have been going around that the next-generation Samsung Galaxy S23 flagships will run exclusively on Snapdragon chipsets. During Qualcomm's Q4 earnings call, CFO Akash Palkhiwala confirmed expectations for a strong second half of the March quarter in 2023. This time frame coincides with the first months of sales for the Galaxy S23 series. He also said the company has moved from a 75% share of chipsets in the Galaxy S22 series to the global share for the S23 line. 

Qualcomm's CEO Cristiano Amon also confirmed a multiyear partnership with Samsung to expand the use of Snapdragon chipset to all premium Samsung Galaxy phones globally. We can't outright confirm yet that an Exynos-powered S23 is out of the question. But we're sure to hear more as the launch of the new Samsung flagship approaches.

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