Google Assistant will be less talkative when controlling lights

This may have happened to you. You asked Google Assistant to switch off the lights for the evening so you can sleep. Google Home then answers back, probably a bit louder than you'd like, to confirm that it's turning off the lights... as it, well, turns off the lights. It seems kind of redundant and counterintuitive, doesn't it? Google has heard you and it's started rolling out a new feature. Assistant will no longer verbally confirm that it's turning off lights. Google Home will chime to let you know that it's processed your request, as long as it's in the same room as the lights. And it doesn't just work for turning off lights, it'll work for all light-related actions like dimming, changing colors, etc. It'll also work for switches and plugs identified as lights in Assistant's settings. Smart lights will reportedly be getting the new, quieter confirmation in the coming weeks. And this feature will supposedly work for all Assistant-powered speakers and displays, as long as the device is grouped in the same room in your account.

Source: Android Police 

Twitter looks to improve DMs, will bring search into the feature

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It's definitely long overdue, and we can't wait until Twitter implements the change. The social network is going to be "re-energizing" its efforts around DMs. And one of the highlights will be adding a search feature to direct messages. It's high time for Twitter to focus on its more private space. With competitors like Facebook planning to turn its attention to chat and other "simple, intimate" spaces, this is the time Twitter can respond.

Twitter also plans to include support for Live Photos from iOS devices as GIFs and to give you the freedom to reorder photos in the app after you've uploaded them. So, if you're doing live event tweets, it'll help you rearrange the tweets in an order that makes sense. We don't have details yet on when these plans are coming, but they're something to look forward to.

Source: Engadget

Teardown shows that the Huawei 5G modem is less efficient than Qualcomm's version

A new IHS Markit teardown pitted early 5G smartphones against each other. And one of the revelations of the report is the weaknesses of Huawei's 5G chip. It's been found to be larger, less efficient, and more expensive than its counterpart from Qualcomm and even Samsung. The Kirin 980 chip already has a 4G/3G/2G modem, but the addition of the Balong 5000 5G modem renders the former redundant. Huawei says the Balong 5000 5G is the first commercial multimode 5G/4G/3G/2G chip. This additional chip takes up more space, which made the Mate 20X larger than it should be. Aside from being less efficient, having two modem chips in one phone is also more expensive. And at this moment, it still doesn't support millimeter 5G. It seems Huawei still has a lot of work to do to make a better 5G modem for its smartphones.

Source: GSMArena

Netflix gets rights to a new sci-fi film, ‘Pyros’

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Netflix got the rights to a new sci-fi film based on a short story by Thomas Pierce and its set to have Reese Witherspoon star in the film. The movie will be called Pyros, and it's based on the short story "Tardy Man," which was published last summer in The New Yorker. The story is about a man whose job is to run into big fires and other natural disasters to recover items for rich clients. They're augmented people who are made to wear indestructible fire suits fused to their spines. The man works for a corporation that forbids him from coming to the rescue of any person he encounters along the way. The story jumps off when he breaks this rule to save a little boy.

Pierce is a scriptwriter for the film. This is his second major movie deal based on one of his The New Yorker short stories. The first one, Chairman Spaceman, was bought and is being developed by Fox Searchlight. And according to Deadline, the film will be produced by Simon Kinberg, who has worked on Deadpool and The X-Men film franchise. Witherspoon will co-produce the film through her Hello Sunshine Company. The deal is announced a day after Apple revealed a teaser trailer for Morning Show, which is a series that Witherspoon stars in with Jennifer Aniston for Apple TV+.