Technology - Google News

Xbox & Epic Partner To Bring Fortnite Back To iOS For Free - IGN Daily Fix - IGN
Apple, Google, Microsoft Join Hands To Bring End To Passwords - Benzinga - Benzinga
WhatsApp's emoji reactions begin rolling out to everyone - Engadget

Xbox & Epic Partner To Bring Fortnite Back To iOS For Free - IGN Daily Fix - IGN

Posted: 05 May 2022 05:02 PM PDT

Apple, Google, Microsoft Join Hands To Bring End To Passwords - Benzinga - Benzinga

Posted: 05 May 2022 07:54 PM PDT

Apple Inc AAPL, Alphabet Inc's GOOGL GOOG Google, and Microsoft Corporation MSFT are coming together to support password-free logins.

What Happened: The big-tech trio will support a new sign-in standard by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium, according to company statements.

FIDO said the technology will allow users to sign in through simple verification such as fingerprints, facial recognition, or a device PIN.

Kurt Knight, Apple's senior director of platform product marketing, said working with the industry to establish new, more secure sign-in methods was "central to our commitment to building products that offer maximum security and a transparent user experience."

"We look forward to making FIDO-based technology available across Chrome, ChromeOS, Android and other platforms, and encourage app and website developers to adopt it," Google's senior director of product management, Mark Risher, said.

"The complete shift to a passwordless world will begin with consumers making it a natural part of their lives," said Alex Simons, corporate vice president, identity program management at Microsoft.

Why It Matters: The open industry association said the new approach would protect users against phishing, and sign-in will be radically more secure.

The new capabilities are expected on Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms over the next year, FIDO said, adding that users will be able to automatically access their sign-in credentials on multiple devices without having to re-enroll each account.

They will also be able to use FIDO authentication on their mobile device to sign in to an app or website on a nearby device, regardless of the platform or operating system.

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WhatsApp's emoji reactions begin rolling out to everyone - Engadget

Posted: 06 May 2022 12:56 AM PDT

After teasing the feature last month, WhatsApp has starting rolling out emoji reactions to all users around the world, it announced. In the coming days, you'll be able to react with one of six emojis: Thumbs Up 👍, Red Heart ❤️, Face with Tears of Joy 😂, Face with Open Mouth 😮, Crying Face 😢, and Folded Hands 🙏. The messaging app also introduced two more features — 2GB file sharing and an increase in group members to 512 people.

On top of the message reactions, WhatsApp will now allow you to send files a whopping 2GB in size, up 20 times from the previous 100MB limitation. That seems designed to support video files in particular "and we think [it] will be helpful for collaboration among small businesses and school groups," the company said. It also introduced the ability to create group chats with up to 512 people, double the previous limit.

The features will be rolling out over the next week across iOS, Android, macOS and Windows, so you many not see them tout de suite. That should be just the beginning as well, because WhatsApp has previously said that it plans to support reactions with all emoji and skin tones down the road.

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