Apple obtained a temporary restraining order against a man of Indian origin, who allegedly stalked and harassed CEO Tim Cook and other company executives. Rakesh 'Rocky' Sharma, a San Francisco resident, reportedly made threatening phone calls to the Cupertino-based company. According to the court documents uncovered by OneZero's Dave Gershgorn, Sharma began calling Apple executives and leaving "disturbing" voicemails. Sharma was directed by the court to steer clear of Apple executives, the company's headquarters as well as Tim Cook and his property. The restraining order is effective until March 3, which is the same day the hearing on the case is scheduled to take place.

Twitter recently tweaked its user interface to make it easier to add new tweets to old threads. With the new feature, you can easily thread multiple tweets together while you compose them. You will no longer have to go digging through your tweets to reply to one with a recent update. While this has been possible for quite some time now, the new feature just makes it easier to connect an in-progress tweet to an earlier post.

Elon Musk dissed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in a tweet saying, "My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh". Musk's remarks came after an unofficial Tesla news account expressed disappointment with the Microsoft billionaire's recent decision to buy a Porsche Taycan instead of a Tesla. At $103,800, the Taycan is a direct competitor to several Tesla models. The tweets came after Gates revealed that he bought his first-ever electric vehicle, a Porsche Taycan, in an interview with popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee. While Gates seemed excited about his first electric vehicle, he also said that Tesla is the frontrunner in the passenger car industry addressing climate change.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently committed $10 billion of his personal fortune to set up the new Bezos Earth Fund to tackle climate change. In the fight for the planet, Bezos' commitment of $10 billion dwarfed the $4 billion that 29 philanthropic organisations had pledged to fighting climate change in 2018. While Bezos' decision does seem like a monumental step forward, it isn't all that surprising, with many summing it up as no more than a publicity gimmick. Amazon is paying a corporate tax rate of barely one percent, which gives Bezos the freedom to invest in philanthropic ventures. Additionally, Politico reported that Amazon's convenient deliveries and massive data centres emitted around 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018. Last year, Amazon employees took to the streets to voice their complaints about Amazon's carbon footprint. While Google, Amazon and Microsoft have been vocal about their efforts to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they are currently teaming up with the fossil fuel industry to help companies squeeze as much oil and gas out of the ground as possible by using artificial intelligence to get the best results in fracking.

Jordan Wildon, a journalist at DW, recently noticed that Google is indexing some WhatsApp group invitations in its search. This will allow random people to discover and join a range of private WhatsApp group chats with a simple search. While group administrators can invalidate a link to a chat if they want, Wildon discovered that WhatsApp generates a new link in such a case and doesn't necessarily disable the original link. Although many of these are relatively harmless, Motherboard found a private group using specific Google searches which did include some sensitive data. The group they joined was apparently intended for NGOs accredited by the UN where it was possible to access the list of participants and their phone numbers.

In a surprising development, the Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4XL found its way onto Amazon shelves in India. The Pixel 4 starts from Rs 69,990 in India, while the XL variant is priced at Rs 76,997. When Google launched the Pixel 4 series in October 2019, the devices didn't arrive in India because of issues surrounding the Soli Radar chip. What's even more surprising is that the Pixel 4 handsets are being sold with the "Amazon Fulfilled" assurance, which means that the e-commerce giant directly handles delivery, customer service, and returns.

While prices of Samsung's Galaxy S20 series have been unveiled in India, there aren't any details about a sale. However, the South Korean electronics giant unveiled the price of the foldable Galaxy Z Flip in the country and already made it available for pre-order on February 21. But, despite its Rs 1,09,999 price, the Z Flip went out of stock within minutes in the country. Pre-bookings are currently on hold and will re-open soon. The pre-booking could be made through Samsung's official site and select retail stores in the country. Those who managed to order the Galaxy Z Flip will start getting the phones from February 26.

First Published on Feb 22, 2020 06:59 pm

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The Tech Weekender: Elon Musk slams Bill Gates, Google indexing WhatsApp group chat links, Bezos fights climate change, and Pixel 4 arrives in India -...