Tesla Inc. delivered its first Tesla Semi electric semi trucks to PepsiCo in a delivery ceremony at its Nevada superfacility on Dec. 2; five years after the company first unveiled the Semi in November 2017. Musk said the Semi will have a range of 500 miles (about 805 km), and future versions of the Semi could have a range of 621 miles (about 1000 km). In addition, the Semi features two 15-inch touchscreens, wireless charging support, and is Tesla’s first 1000V high-voltage product.
Google Testing End-to-End Encrypted SMS Group Chat
In a post celebrating the 30th anniversary of SMS messaging, Google announced on December 2 that it is testing an end-to-end encryption-based group chat feature for SMS messages. The feature is based on RSC, an enhanced version of the SMS standard that Google has been pushing for adoption by cell phone vendors and carriers. Previously, in June, Google had already supported end-to-end encryption for one-to-one RCS text messages. Users first noticed that Google started testing group chat encryption in October. Google said it will make the feature available to users participating in a public beta program in the coming weeks, and that RCS will also support responding to messages with any emoji emoji. At the same time, Google once again slammed Apple for refusing to adopt the RCS protocol, which limits iMessage to Apple devices.
New standard regulates “shake” and other misleading forced jumping behavior
On December 2, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) issued an article through its WeChat public number, stating that in order to regulate the problems of “shake” jumping and protect the legitimate rights and interests of users, CAICT has jointly developed the “App User Rights Protection Evaluation Specification Part 7: Deceptive and Misleading Forced Behavior” (T/TAF 078.7-2022), which was officially released and implemented by the Telecommunications Terminal Industry Association on November 25, 2022. The “shake” messy jump refers to the practice of calling cell phone sensors in the app’s opening screen interface to jump to promotional pages when shaking of the device is detected. The China Academy of Information and Communication Technology said that the “shake” function of some apps is too sensitive, and the page will jump if there is a slight bump in walking or a slight shaking in a car, which triggers a lot of complaints from users and reflects a strong reaction, which seriously reduces the user experience. In this regard, the standard stipulates that the app shall not deceive misleading forced click jump, specifically, “shake” action of the device acceleration should not be less than 15m / s2, rotation angle of not less than 35 °, operation time of not less than 3s, or at the same time consider the acceleration value and direction, rotation angle, or other parameters equivalent to the aforementioned single trigger conditions set to ensure that the user in walking, car, pick up and put down the mobile intelligent terminal, etc. In daily life, if the user does not actively trigger the jump, there will be no misleading and forced jump.
Musk Says Apple Has Resumed Twitter Ad Placement
Speaking to an audience in a Twitter Space chat room on Dec. 4, Musk said Apple has “fully resumed” its advertising on Twitter, adding that Apple is now Twitter’s largest advertiser. On Nov. 30, Musk went to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino to meet with CEO Cook and later said the two had a “good conversation” to resolve the misunderstanding about the possible tweeting downgrade. Since Musk took over Twitter, several major companies have suspended advertising, largely due to concerns about the platform’s speech policies. On Saturday, Musk also posted a tweet thanking advertisers for returning to Twitter.
Google launches long-text reading assistance app
On December 2, Google introduced a new app called Reading Mode with its December Android update, designed to help people with visual impairments and dyslexia read on-screen content, especially long-form articles. Reading Mode will display a floating button on the screen that can be clicked to turn any application or web page into a more readable version; users can also adjust parameters such as background color, font, font size and line spacing by themselves. Reading Mode also supports narration of articles with synchronized highlighting on the screen. Reading Mode is now available on the Play Store for Android 9 or later.
Bloomberg reports that Apple has changed the name of the system under development for the mixed reality headset from RealityOS or rOS to xrOS. Bloomberg also found that a shell company called Deep Dive LLC has registered the xrOS trademark in several countries. As previously reported, the product is expected to launch sometime in 2023.
Recently, microblogger GoneWild posted a picture of Xiaomi’s previously teased mini-host product, which looks similar to Intel’s NUC product, showing a front panel with two USB ports and a headphone port. The user also said that the product is unlikely to be equipped with a discrete graphics card and will use an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H processor.