Tech Digest daily roundup: Happy 30th Birthday to the text message
The text message is celebrating its 30th birthday – the first was sent to a mobile phone by a Vodafone engineer in Berkshire in the UK on 3 December 1992. It was sent in order to test out the tech, and read “Merry Christmas”. Neil Papworth sent it to one of the firm’s bosses, Richard Jarvis, who was at a Christmas party. He did not get a reply. Mr Jarvis’s phone, a new-to-the-market Orbitel 901, weighed 2.1kg – roughly the same as 12 standard iPhone 14s. At its peak, phone users exchanged billions of SMS – or Short Message Service – messages every year, and in 2010 the word “texting” entered the dictionary. BBC
The use of hateful language on Twitter has increased substantially since Elon Musk took over, according to new research. Mr Musk completed his $44bn acquisition of the social networking platform in late October, promptly laying off roughly half of the company’s 8,000 workers. Although the head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, said at the time that frontline moderation staff had experienced “the least impact”, last week – having resigned – he said Twitter was not safer under Mr Musk. Sky News
A hands-on video has revealed a strange new Huawei product that uses a smartwatch as a charging case for earbuds, aptly named the Huawei Watch Buds. As unusual as it seems, it could actually prove quite handy. At the very least it’s one less thing to remember to charge, and it’ll also save some valuable pocket space. At first, we assumed this would be some kind of attention-grabbing tech demo, wowing people at a show like CES, but destined to never hit the retail shelves. However, Huawei has acknowledged the existence of its Watch Buds since the video went up. The brand posted a teaser video on its Weibo account that shows a glimpse of the watch before promising a reveal on December 2 2022. Pocket Lint
French President Emmanuel Macron met with Elon Musk for what he called a “clear and honest discussion” amid mounting concerns over a rise in hate speech on Twitter. While visiting the United States on Friday, the French leader posted a photo on Twitter of his encounter with the billionaire, showing the two men sitting across from each other at a table in an empty room. In addition to discussing “future green industrial projects”, Mr Macron said the pair talked about the social media platform’s “transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech”. Yahoo!
In line with our ambition for decarbonizing and reindustrializing France and Europe, with @elonmusk we exchanged on future green industrial projects, such as manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries. pic.twitter.com/uolbo1mTzg
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) December 2, 2022
Streaming giant Roku is adding another TV with built-in Roku OS to its roster in the UK – this time with electronics manufacturer RCA.The TV models, which are available in 32”, 40” and 55” screen sizes will be particularly affordable, starting from £129.99 for the 32″ HD-only model. The smaller sizes, however, will only support HD (720p) and Full HD (1080p) resolutions, with only the 55″ available in UHD (4K). The new RCA Roku TVs join the likes of Hisense, TCL and METZ, which have also launched Roku TVs in the UK. Cordbusters
