TecQ: Yes Bank Crisis, WhatsApp Dark Mode, OTT Users India & More

Unified Payment Interface (UPI) services were affected in the country this week.

(Photo: Hardeep Singh/The Quint)

TecQ is our weekly round-up of the technology stories

1. Swiggy & Flipkart UPI Payments Not Available Amid Yes Bank Crisis

UPI payments using Yes Bank as their back-end network take a hit. (Photo: The Quint)

Major digital services have been affected in the country, as Yes Bank was restricted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from allowing its users to make transactions of large amounts.

That’s not the only thing that has people worried, as Yes Bank is also one of the biggest back-end solution platforms for making UPI payments across popular services like Swiggy and PhonePe as well as online shopping giant Flipkart among others.

Now, PhonePe has updated its users via Twitter that wallet, card services and UPI payments are now available.

Read the story here.

2. Google Assistant Will Now Read Out Web Pages to You on Mobile

The feature works on most Android devices for now.(Photo: The Quint)

Search engine giant Google has started rolling out its article-reading feature 'Read Out Loud', which works with 42 languages, to all the Android smartphone users across the globe.

With Google Assistant, your browser can now read web articles out loud. Whenever a web article is displayed on your browser in your Android phone, you can say, "Hey Google, read it" or "Hey Google, read this page" it will immediately read aloud the content of the web page," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Read the story here to know more.

3. TRAI’s Cable Tariff Hike Pushes Indians Towards Hotstar & Netflix

More Indians preferring OTT apps to stream content over the internet.(Photo: iStock)

Last year’s changes in cable TV tariff for channels by the Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) pushed many TV viewers to ditch their cable networks and rely on digital platforms for consuming content.

This has been mentioned in a survey by YouGov where over 1,000 people participated and the data was collected online. The survey says the data represents the adult population in the country.

From the results that are available publicly, it is evident that hiking TV channel prices, confusing the consumer by offering channels in packs or asking them to select individually hasn’t got the desired response from the people.

Read the full story here.

4. Govt Allows Airlines to Provide In-Flight Wi-Fi Services

The airline will decide the tariff to be charged for its service.(Photo: The Quint)

Soon, you will be able to access Internet even when you are on a plane. The Government of India on Monday, 2 March, permitted airlines operating in India to provide in-flight Wi-Fi services to passengers, according to an official notification.

“The Pilot-in-Command may permit the access of Internet services by passengers on board an aircraft in flight, through Wi-Fi on board, when laptop, smartphone, tablet, smartwatch, e-reader or a point of sale device is used in flight mode or airplane mode.”

Govt Notification

While taking the delivery of its first Boeing 787-9 aircraft at Everett on last Friday, Vistara CEO Leslie Thng had told reporters that it would be the first airline in India to provide in-flight Wi-Fi services.

Read the story here.

5. WhatsApp Brings Dark Mode to Android & iOS – Here’s How it Works

Dark mode is finally coming to WhatsApp for both Android and iOS users.(Photo: The Quint)

After all this waiting, WhatsApp is finally getting dark mode feature, now available for users on Android and iOS.

The feature is rolling to mobile devices running on Android 9 or later, and iOS 13, and should be reflecting on their phone via the version 2.20.30 on iPhone, and in case you haven’t got the update yet, we’d suggest you wait for a few days.

Dark mode has been available through the beta program on WhatsApp before this, and now, it can be used by everybody across the globe. WhatsApp claims to have tweaked the colour code of its theme, to make it user-friendly.

Read the story here to know how it works.