
Software
Facebook and Google plan to link Southeast Asia and North America with new submarine cables
Facebook today announced that it is planning two new submarine cables to connect Singapore, Indonesia and North America as part of a joint project involving Google and regional telecoms. The new cables are designed to increase the bandwidth of the Internet connection between regions.
“Called Echo and Bifrost, these will be the first two cables to take the new route across the Java Sea and will increase the total trans-Pacific submarine capacity by about 70%,” Facebook VP of Network Investments Kevin quoted Reuters as saying. Salvadori (Kevin Salvadori).
Salvadori declined to indicate the size of the investment, but said it was “a very significant investment for us in Southeast Asia.”
The cables, he said, will be the first to directly connect North America to some of the main parts of Indonesia, as well as improve connectivity in the central and eastern provinces of the country’s fourth most populous country in the world.
Salvadori said the Echo project is being implemented in partnership with Google and Indonesian telecommunications company XL Axiata. It should be completed by 2023.
The Bifrost project is being carried out in partnership with Telin, a subsidiary of Indonesian Telkom, and Singapore-based conglomerate Keppel. It should be completed by 2024.
The source adds that earlier this month Facebook said it would stop trying to cable California and Hong Kong due to “US government concerns about direct links between the United States and Hong Kong.”
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Software
Android 12 is inferior in popularity to Android 11, Android 10 and even Android 9

The latest Android distribution data from Google shows that Android 11 (Android R) currently has the largest user base. About 27% of users remain on this operating system.
Next come Android 10 (Android Q) with a score of 18.8% and Android 9 (Android P), which occupies 14.5% of the market. Although Android 12 (Android S) is almost a year old, this operating system only ranks fourth with a score of 13.5%. That is, today, among active Android devices, only one in eight uses Android 12.
Perhaps thanks to IoT devices and car head units, the Android 4.x operating system, launched more than 10 years ago, still maintains its user base and occupies 1.2% of the market.
The release of Android 13 should take place in September this year, and the first smartphones with this OS should be the Google Pixel 7, which will be released in October.
Software
Telegram Big Update: Custom Animated Emojis, Voice Blocking, and More

The team of the popular messenger Telegram announced the release of a major update for all major platforms.
The update offers a new platform for creating emojis, animated emojis in message texts and captions for media files, custom emoji sets, the ability to gift Telegram Premium to another user, blocking voice messages, and much more.
The new emoji creation platform allows you to upload your own sets with unique characters for Premium users. New animated emoji can be added directly to the text of messages or captions for photos and videos to convey any emotion – even in the middle of a phrase. The first 10 animated sets with over 500 emojis are already available to premium users. New sets and emoji will appear regularly.
Interactive Animated Emoji – If either party clicks on a message with an emoji, both chat participants will see a full-screen animation at the same time.
The new sticker panel in Telegram for iOS lets you quickly and easily switch between stickers, emoji, and GIF sections, just like in the Telegram apps for Android, desktop, and browsers.
Premium-users have a new option in the settings: to prohibit the interlocutors from sending voice and video messages. With its help, you can choose who can send such messages: “Everyone”, “My Contacts” or “Nobody”.
If the user already has a paid Telegram Premium subscription, he can share all the benefits with family, friends and colleagues by giving them a prepaid subscription for 3, 6 or 12 months – at a nice discount.
Phones
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is the first smartphone with Android 12L

Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Z Fold4, was unveiled this week and is immediately available for pre-order. According to Samsung, the new foldable flagship comes with One UI 4.1.1 out of the box and has a host of new features for optimal multitasking that have been developed “together with partners.”
The main attention during the announcement was given to design, screens and cameras, but an important novelty went unnoticed. The fact is that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is the first smartphone that will ship out of the box with the Android 12L operating system.
Google initially introduced the L version of Android 12 back in October 2021, and then reminded about it six months later. L stands for large screens, meaning this operating system is designed for foldable smartphones, tablets, and Chrome OS devices. Android 12L can be installed on any device, but it’s optimized for multitasking and apps have been redesigned for larger screens.
Google apps are arranged in two columns, making it easier to navigate on the square display, while productivity and social media apps also know when the device is folded, so they switch to their normal orientation.
Android 12L will only be in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 for now, the small Flip4 clamshell has received the standard version of Android 12.
In the morning we published a comparison of Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Xiaomi Mix Fold 2.
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