IT news October 27: Elon Musk’s company announced the cost of satellite Internet, end-to-end encryption was enabled in Zoom, JetBrains talked about updates in IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3
Elon Musk's company announced the monthly cost of access to satellite Internet
Starlink beta testers received an official message from the company regarding the cost of satellite Internet and other important details. Testers were informed that at the initial stage, the Internet from Starlink could provide speeds of 50 to 150 Mbps with a latency of 20 to 40 ms. The company also warned of the possibility of temporary interruptions in the Internet. Starlink promises that the operation of the satellite Internet system will significantly improve with the launch of new satellites, the connection of new ground stations and software improvements. By the summer of 2021, the delay is expected to decrease to a level of 16 to 19 ms. The cost of a monthly Internet subscription from Starlink will be $99. Before connecting, you will have to purchase a tripod for installation and a Wi-Fi router. The equipment set will cost $499. Source: Reddit
Zoom has enabled end-to-end encryption for all users
The video conferencing application Zoom has added an end-to-end encryption feature. You can activate the function in the latest version of the Zoom PC client, the Android application, and also in Zoom Rooms. A version for iOS with end-to-end encryption will appear later, after approval by App Store moderators. To activate maximum privacy mode, you need to go to settings and select the E2E conference encryption method. The mode is available to both paid and free Zoom users, provided they have verified their phone number. All video conference participants also need to set the appropriate settings in their clients. If E2E encryption is enabled, a green shield icon will appear in the upper left corner of the call screen. Source: Android Police
JetBrains has released the fifth preview build of IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3
JetBrains has introduced a new update package as part of the early access program for the IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3 EAP5 development environment. The fifth preview build available for testing includes several new features:
Java code completion based on machine learning.
Customize your own template to create multiple files at once.
Support for Code With Me, a tool for collaborative development and pair programming.
The Lombok plugin is now built in by default.
New interface for editing run and debug configurations in Java and JUnit applications.
Git Stage support.
Automatically corrects invalid characters in new branch names.
Improved debugging for Gradle tasks.
Improved search engine in the Flame Graph panel (added search field, up/down arrows for quick navigation between search results).
More information about the IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3 EAP5 preview build is available on the JetBrains blog. The stable release of IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3 is scheduled for December 2020. Source: JetBrains
Microsoft has expanded the capabilities of the Skype messenger
Microsoft has released a preview version of its Skype messenger 8.66. The release is available only to insiders. The list of significant updates in Skype 8.66 is limited to only one function - the limit of participants in a group call has been increased from 50 to 100 people. In addition, a bug in the Android application that could cause the program to freeze has been fixed. The new update will be available to Skype Insiders in the coming days. Other users will have to wait a few weeks. Source: Microsoft
The YouTube mobile app has received several new features.
Google has added several features to the YouTube mobile app for iOS and Android. The video player interface and controls have been noticeably simplified, support for new gestures has been added, and the arrangement of some elements has changed. In particular, subtitles have become more prominent in the upper right corner, and the autoplay switch is now placed almost centered at the top of the screen. To go into full screen mode, simply swipe up on the screen; to exit it, simply swipe down on the screen. With “video chapters” announced in the summer, long videos can be broken down into parts and quickly switched between them using previews. Also added to the functionality of the application is a reminder that it is time to go to bed. Source: TechCrunch
Google has made its multilingual MT5 model publicly available
Google has opened the source code of its multilingual machine learning model Multilingual T5 (MT5). According to the company, the tool supports high-quality text translation between 101 languages and contains from 300 million to 13 billion parameters (internal variables for the model used for forecasting). Google claims that the MT5 model has successfully passed all the tests necessary for its operation. They included five problems from the Xtreme Multilingual Test; XNLI task for 14 languages; reading comprehension tests XQuAD, MLQA and TyDi QA for 10, 7 and 11 languages respectively; and the PAWS-X Paraphrasing Identity Dataset in seven languages. MT5 is trained on the English T5 model and a dataset of billions of MC4 web pages. To run the MT5 code, you need to representatively install the T5 library. General instructions for training, fine-tuning, evaluating, and exporting models for inference can be found in the T5 repository . Source: Venture Beat
Tinder now has Face to Face video chat feature
After successful testing in several countries, dating app Tinder has added a Face to Face video chat feature. The new option works worldwide, but only for those Tinder users who have a paid subscription. To start communicating via video, both partners need to click on the video camera icon. Until this happens, the interlocutors will not see each other's faces. Video calling can be turned off at any time. Tinder is confident in the success of the new feature as it allows you to communicate directly with a potential partner without the need to meet in person or use external video chats such as Zoom. Source: Engadget
Starlink promises that the operation of the satellite Internet system will significantly improve with the launch of new satellites, the connection of new ground stations and software improvements. By the summer of 2021, the delay is expected to decrease to a level of 16 to 19 ms. The cost of a monthly Internet subscription from Starlink will be $99. Before connecting, you will have to purchase a tripod for installation and a Wi-Fi router. The equipment set will cost $499. Source: Reddit
The fifth preview build available for testing includes several new features:
In particular, subtitles have become more prominent in the upper right corner, and the autoplay switch is now placed almost centered at the top of the screen. To go into full screen mode, simply swipe up on the screen; to exit it, simply swipe down on the screen. With “video chapters” announced in the summer, long videos can be broken down into parts and quickly switched between them using previews. Also added to the functionality of the application is a reminder that it is time to go to bed. Source: TechCrunch
To start communicating via video, both partners need to click on the video camera icon. Until this happens, the interlocutors will not see each other's faces. Video calling can be turned off at any time. Tinder is confident in the success of the new feature as it allows you to communicate directly with a potential partner without the need to meet in person or use external video chats such as Zoom. Source: Engadget
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