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Amazon is working to tackle a frequent complaint about smart home speakers by adding Adaptive Volume, which would cause Alexa to react louder if it senses that you are in a noisy area. The mode, according to the company, is designed to ensure that Alexa’s replies can be heard over background noise. According to Amazon, the functionality is presently accessible to US customers and can be enabled by asking “Alexa, switch on adaptive volume.” Amazon does not mention adaptive volume operating in the reverse direction, becoming quieter if there is…

Facebook is expanding an experiment that aims to reduce political information in the News Feed. According to an update to a February blog post, the company has found “good outcomes” in reducing this content for some users in a few regions. It is now expanding a test of the strategy to Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain, and Ireland. Axios reported on Facebook’s plans prior to the announcement. AAs it notes, Facebook’s new test also involves changing the signals it favors when promoting content. “Some engagement signals can better indicate what posts…

Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced in an email to employees today that, while “we are welcoming back tens of thousands of Googlers on a voluntary basis,” the company will extend its voluntary return to work policy until at least January 10th, 2022. After that date, the current plan is to have countries and locations make mandatory return to work decisions depending on local conditions. The most recent publicly disclosed plan would have brought Google employees to the workplace at some time in September, but that will not happen. Pichai underlined…

LinkedIn announced Tuesday that it is discontinuing its ephemeral Stories product. According to Liz Li, senior director of product, the company intends to “remove the existing Stories experience by the end of September.” Internal testing of the Snapchat-style video Stories started in February 2020. LinkedIn discovered that users didn’t want disappearing video, which was one of the reasons for the suspension. “When we developed Stories, we anticipated that users wouldn’t want informal videos connected to their profile, and that ephemerality would lower the barriers that people feel about posting,” Li…

Netflix is introducing support for UPI AutoPay payments in India. Users will be able to pay for their monthly Netflix membership automatically using the new UPI AutoPay function. That is, instead of having to make payments manually, if you switch to AutoPay, the money will be deducted immediately from your UPI account. AutoPay will be available to Android users and on netflix.com. This feature is available to both new and existing users. Talking about the AutoPay feature, Gunjan Pradhan, Head of Payments, Netflix India said, “Starting today, anyone signing up…