Shiny snippets: Twitter users respond to ‘blue check apocalypse’
Since the beginning of Elon Musk’s reign at Twitter, he’s threatened to remove the legacy verification—signified by a white check in a blue circle beside the account name—that predated his tenure. Musk even set April 1st as the date for the purge, which came and went without any changes, either because of ineptitude or a half-effort April Fools joke. But on April 20th—4/20, lol, ugh—he actually did it. Nearly all of the estimated 407k legacy verified Twitter accounts lost their check marks. The only exceptions were newly unveiled Twitter Blue subscribers—and a few befuddled celebrities including Stephen King and Lebron James. Gizmodo
More than half of low-income households are in the dark about bargain broadband deals that could save them around £200 a year, with just 5% of eligible households havings signed up to a discounted package so far. These special offers, known as social tariffs, are available to an estimated 4.3 million households that receive one of a range of government benefits. However, despite take-up of social tariffs quadrupling since January 2022, Ofcom’s research shows that just 220,000 (5.1%) are now signed up to these deals. Tech Digest
This year’s Shanghai Auto Show signaled the end of the petrol engine era in China, as domestic electric vehicle brands drive change across the sector and leave foreign companies in the dust, analysts and industry insiders said. Government support for EVs and growing interest from a vast consumer base has assured Chinese companies’ dominance of their home market, and they are now beginning to set their sights overseas. Shanghai has shown Chinese brands “can compete with all of the legacy automakers in every way — performance, quality, comfort, there’s nothing they can’t do”, said EV specialist Elliot Richards. Japan Today
Almost 50 MPs and peers have written to Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, the corporate owner of the tycoon’s retail portfolio including House of Fraser and Sports Direct, condemning the use of “live facial recognition” cameras in the group’s stores. Describing the technology as “invasive and discriminatory”, the parliamentarians, a cross-party collection including David Davis, John McDonnell and Tim Farron, have urged the group to end the use of the cameras across the country. The Guardian
If Samsung sticks to its usual schedule then we could be getting successors to the Galaxy Watch 5 and the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro at some point in August – and the new smartwatches may well come with a lot of extra power inside them too. As per SamMobile, the Galaxy Watch 6 models are going to be fitted with a new processor, the Exynos W980. This is apparently around 10% faster than the Exynos W920 chip that was inside the Galaxy Watch 5 and Galaxy Watch 4 wearables. According to SamMobile’s sources, the processor may use 5 nanometer architecture – producing more power in a smaller space, with less of a power drain. Tech Radar
Tens of millions of mobile phone users have received a message and loud alarm during the first nationwide test of the government’s new public alert system. However, many people received the alert at 2.59pm on Sunday, a minute earlier than planned, and others claimed they didn’t receive anything until 10 minutes later – or at all. And in Wales, the government made a spelling error in the translation of the alert sent out in the Welsh language. Sky News
