IT news March 20: Netflix and YouTube deliberately degraded the quality of broadcasting, the developer of robotic cars Uber admitted guilt in stealing Google technology, New Relic released Java profiling tools
Netflix and YouTube deliberately degraded broadcast quality
Netflix has complied with the request of the European Union authorities, deciding to temporarily stop broadcasting content in HD quality. This is necessary to reduce the load on Internet networks and ensure stable operation of telecommunications during a period when people en masse stay at home. It is expected that the refusal to broadcast high-quality video will reduce the amount of traffic by 25%. The proposal to temporarily deteriorate the quality of broadcasting was put forward by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton. According to him, during negotiations with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, mutual understanding was reached. The Netflix platform has already switched to adaptive broadcasting. This will allow users to receive video content in the quality that their Internet connection can handle. It also became known that, following Netflix, the quality of video broadcasts in the European Union was temporarily worsened by the YouTube platform. Source: Reuters
Self-driving car developer Uber pleads guilty to stealing Google technology
Former Uber engineer Anthony Lewandowski, who previously worked at Google developing autonomous driving technology, has entered into a plea deal. She involves pleading guilty to stealing technology from her former employer Google. The trial against Lewandowski lasted about three years. The Alphabet holding company Waymo accused a former employee of stealing classified information, which he then used in his own company Otto. Subsequently, Lewandowski sold his company to Uber and went to work for it himself. The US Department of Justice indicted the engineer on 33 counts. If convicted, he faced up to 10 years in prison on each charge. Thanks to the plea deal, Levandowski's probable prison term will be reduced to 30 months, as prosecutors agreed to drop some of the charges. Source: TechCrunch
New Relic Releases Real-Time Java Profiling Tools
New Relic, maker of the surveillance and monitoring platform of the same name, has announced the release of real-time Java profiling and cluster JVM viewing tools. They are designed to more effectively troubleshoot performance problems in Java applications. The real-time Java profiling tool relies on data generated by the Java Flight Recorder (JFR). Events are processed in real time through the callback API, rather than by parsing the file after the event has already occurred. Both New Relic tools are currently available on demand only. To test software in Java 14, the user must have a New Relic One account and a New Relic Java agent. Source: Infoq
Microsoft Teams will receive a functionality update
The popular business app Microsoft Teams has seen a surge in users. Due to the transition of many companies to a remote schedule, the number of Teams users in just the week of March 11 and 18 increased from 32 million to 44 million people. Microsoft Teams said the app will receive new features over the coming months. Among them it is worth highlighting:
real-time noise reduction (Teams will be able to remove the sound of fingers on the keyboard, the rustling of a bag of chips, or the hum of a vacuum cleaner in the background during calls);
“raise hand” button (when pressed, Teams will notify other interlocutors that the user wants to speak;
the ability to read and write messages in chats at low connection speeds and offline (sending will occur automatically when the connection appears or improves);
ability to open chats in a separate window.
Last November, Teams' daily audience was less than half what it is now - about 20 million people. Source: Venture Beat
Yandex.Ether allowed users to upload videos
The Yandex.Ether video service, whose daily audience is about 9 million viewers, announced the expansion of its functions. Users are given the opportunity to create their own channels and upload videos. Previously, Yandex.Ether showed mainly television content and films. To stimulate downloads, the best user videos will be shown in thematic channels of Ether and even on the main page of Yandex. Unlike YouTube, all videos uploaded to Yandex.Ether will undergo manual moderation. The company is going to financially support the best authors, help them create and promote content. “We see our task as helping talented people to express themselves and gain popularity. It's not easy for new creators to succeed on established platforms. “Efir” has a place for both recognized professionals and those who are just starting their creative journey, but are already making high-quality video content,” the video service assures. Source: VC.ru
Instagram is testing self-destructing messages
Following WhatsApp and Messenger, the new self-destructing message feature is coming to Instagram. This assumption was made by developer Jane Manchun Wong. After researching the app through reverse engineering, she noticed that the new feature was already present in Instagram's code. According to Wong, Instagram is currently testing self-destructing messages. In response to her tweet , the official Instagram Comms account admin confirmed that the feature is indeed in testing. As you know, after the Cambridge Analytica personal data leak scandal, Facebook management set out to make messaging more private. Mark Zuckerberg has already promised that correspondence between the company's various platforms will become fully encrypted in the future. Source: The Next Web
Atlas Deep Learning Platform Released
Dessa has released a beta version of the Atlas opensource platform. It is designed for developing deep learning projects. Atlas includes a scheduler, Python SDK, CLI, and GUI. Using these tools should ease infrastructure management efforts and also increase the speed of building deep learning models. The platform can run on a single server, a multi-node cluster, or in several cloud clusters. Atlas supports task scheduling for team collaboration, with every task recorded and tracked. On her Twitter account, Dessa demonstrated a video showing how the Atlas platform works. Source: Jaxenter
The proposal to temporarily deteriorate the quality of broadcasting was put forward by the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton. According to him, during negotiations with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, mutual understanding was reached. The Netflix platform has already switched to adaptive broadcasting. This will allow users to receive video content in the quality that their Internet connection can handle. It also became known that, following Netflix, the quality of video broadcasts in the European Union was temporarily worsened by the YouTube platform. Source: Reuters
Microsoft Teams said the app will receive new features over the coming months. Among them it is worth highlighting:
According to Wong, Instagram is currently testing self-destructing messages. In response to her tweet , the official Instagram Comms account admin confirmed that the feature is indeed in testing. As you know, after the Cambridge Analytica personal data leak scandal, Facebook management set out to make messaging more private. Mark Zuckerberg has already promised that correspondence between the company's various platforms will become fully encrypted in the future. Source: The Next Web
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