Tech 60 seconds:  Catch up on the latest tech, news around the world

WhatsApp

Read: You can now lock chats individually and make conversations more private

WhatsApp has introduced a new feature that enables users to lock certain chats away from prying eyes.

The feature was introduced by Meta head Mark Zuckerberg who said the feature would allow certain chats to be hidden in a password-protected folder and notifications won’t show the sender or the message content.

Users will soon have the ability to lock and hide conversations.

The feature promises to remove a chat thread from the apps regular onscreen inbox and place it into a new folder that can only be opened by a password or biometric such as facial recognition or a fingerprint.

Chat Lock will protect “your intimate conversations,” WhatsApp said.

 

Eskom and the incoming blackouts

Read full article here: Load shedding may get worse in two weeks

Eskom has implemented Stage 6 due to increased demand in electricity.

While former CEO Andre De Ruyter introduces more challenges from the flank for Eskom in a tell-all book about his tenure at the power utility, Eskom says there is a probability for higher stages than stage 6 as a measure to keep the grid from total collapse.

In a tell-all book, the former Eskom head Andre De Ruyter has fingered people as high up as the Union Buildings as possible accomplices to corruption, while he was at the helm of Eskom.

In a statement Eskom said: “In addtion, the delay in returning units to service at Arnot, Camden, Kendal and two units each at Hendrina and Tutuka power stations continue to add to the current capacity constraints.”

Meanwhile, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema says former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe must be brought back to turn things around at the embattled power utility.

During the party’s briefing on Monday, the EFF leader went as far as calling for the removal of current electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramaokgopa, while labelling him as corrupt.

 

Google’s Bard is on everyone’s lips

Read full article here: Google ups the pace against popular ChatGPT, here’s the latest

Google may have been delayed in the AI race, but the introduction of Bard in March appears to have taken the lead, especially recently when the comparison between OpenAI’s Chat GPT and Bard showed a clear gap between the pair.

Google launched Bard as a response to the AI race which has become not only a topic but the next step in technological evolution.

Google’s Bard AI Chatbot initially did not compare that favorably to the likes of Bing Chat and ChatGPT, not to mention the launch was a flop.

Google went to the drawing board and introduced Bard in a different way by removing a waitlist and making Bard available to anyone in over 180 countries.

The new and improved Bard includes multimodal queries that can work with images, which means users can have Bard explain images to them.

Extensions allow users to gain access to apps and services like Maps, Google Sheets, Gmail and Docs which will make it easier to export Bards responses to Gmail and docs.

Also read: Here’s a solution to protect advertising budgets against load shedding