Tech Roundup: Facebook Messenger Day, YouTube TV & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]
Alphabet/Google:

• Says YouTube users are now watching more than a billion hours of videos every single day; announces live TV streaming platform called YouTube TV with content from ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and YouTube (while missing Viacom, Turner, AMC, Discovery Communications and A&E networks) for $35 per month.
• Announces enterprise focused features for Gmail (add-on support) and Drive (shared cloud drives across teams).
• Releases its own take on Microsoft Surface Hub called Jamboard, a 55-inch digital whiteboard for workplace collaboration, for US$ 4,999.
• Begins trialling Voice over LTE (VoLTE) for a select few people who have subscribed to its Project Fi wireless service.
• Unveils Perspective, created as part of Project Jigsaw and its Counter Abuse Technology, to deal with online trolling.
• Adds support for voice typing and built-in translation features on GBoard keyboard app; integrates Keep into Google Docs for handy import of your notes.
• Says it has no specific plans for a Pixel Chromebook this year, but asks to watch out for a Pixel smartphone.
• Updates Gmail to accept attachments of sizes upto 50 MB from non-Gmail accounts; recommends using Google Drive to exchange files between Gmail users.

Amazon:

• Says Alexa's (its voice assistant) speech is protected by the First Amendment after a murder investigation in Arkansas puts the online retailer's Echo speaker on the hot seat.
• Amazon Web Service's (AWS) data storage module S3 suffers a massive outage; brings internet to a standstill as several websites hosted on AWS including Trello, Splitwise, Quora and IFTTT go down along with it.

Facebook:

• Adds geostickers on Instagram; launches Messenger Day, yet another Snapchat Stories clone, this time for Messenger. (Story copycat clones are officially now on every Facebook platform except within Facebook itself, where it's being currently tested.)
• Says it will weigh reactions — love, haha, wow, sad and angry — over "likes" going forward in determining what content to surface in users' News Feed; begins testing reactions (including dislike) on Messenger.
• Adds a travel-planning feature called City Guides; begins flagging fake news as 'Disputed' based on verification from fact-checking sites it has partnered with.
• Reportedly testing WhatsApp for business communication, reports Reuters, as part of its plan to generate revenue from the messaging service.

Samsung:

• To allow Galaxy smartphone users unlock any Windows 10 PC using the phone's fingerprint scanner through Microsoft's Windows Hello Companion Device Framework.
• Takes on Google with its own rich messaging features in SMS following its acquisition of NewNet Communication Technologies late last year; says it will be interoperable with what Google offers.
• Rolls out mobile payments service Samsung Pay in India.

In other news:

• Antarctica, one of Earth's coldest places, sets heat record of 63.5 degree Fahrenheit on March 1.
• Aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company SpaceX unveils plans to fly two tourists around Moon in 2018.
• Earliest evidence of life on Earth 'found' from rocks in Quebec dated 4.28 billion years old.
• Wikileaks publishes new data about CIA hacking; says the intelligence agency built tools to use smart TVs as active surveillance devices, apart from using "Zero Day" exploits against popular smartphones like iPhone, Android, and Microsoft's Windows devices, while Apple and Google say they have fixed most of the exploits detailed in the leaks. (About that misleading WhatsApp and Signal security scare, of course they can be cracked on your phones through surreptitiously installed malware or a keylogger software no matter how strong the encryption is.)
• Music streaming service SoundCloud adds a mid-tier offering for $4.99 a month called SoundCloud Go that will remove ads and add offline support but restrict unlimited access to catalogue; Spotify hits 50 million paid subscribers.
• Microsoft to shut down its social network so.cl on March 15.
• Instant messaging service Line expands into virtual assistant space with Clova; fellow rival Viber adds self-destructing messages in a bid to improve privacy.