Tech Talk Today 273

Google suffers from the Telegram ban, Valve is back in the business of making games, and Amazon has a top secret robot.

Plus the puzzle that was hidden in Windows years ago, and a new project that aims to be a Wikipedia for Terms of Service agreements.

Special Guest: Noah J. Chelliah.

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Links:

• Google confirms some of its own services are now getting blocked in Russia over the Telegram Ban — Google has now confirmed to us that its own services are now also being impacted. From what we understand, Google Search, Gmail and push notifications for Android apps are among the products being affected.
• Valve acquires Firewatch developer, Campo Santo - Polygon — Dev team will continue to make its own games
• Amazon Has a Top-Secret Plan to Build Home Robots — The retail and cloud computing giant has embarked on an ambitious, top-secret plan to build a domestic robot, according to people familiar with the plans. Codenamed “Vesta,” after the Roman goddess of the hearth, home and family, the project is overseen by Gregg Zehr, who runs Amazon’s Lab126 hardware research and development division based in Sunnyvale, California.
• Microsoft Developers Hid a Secret Puzzle in Windows Backgrounds as They Knew Images Would Leak — Over the course of numerous builds, the puzzle was developed -- but only one person ever solved it! Over the weekend, Jensen Harris -- a former group program manager of Microsoft Office and Microsoft director leading the team working on the redesign of Windows 8 -- took to Twitter to come clean about the secret puzzle.
• List of Easter eggs in Microsoft products - Wikipedia
• WhatsApp drug dealer convicted using fingerprints taken from photo — Police in South Wales have arrested a drug dealer based on a WhatsApp message with a photograph of the dealer’s hand holding an assortment of pills, according to a report from the BBC.
• Welcome to the Wikipedia for Terms of Service Agreements | WIRED — A website that turns lengthy terms of service agreements into bulleted summaries, and then rates those terms from Class A (very good) to Class F (very bad). It functions as a sort of Wikipedia for terms of service agreements.
• Terms of Service; Didn't Read — “I have read and agree to the Terms” is the biggest lie on the web. We aim to fix that.