Tech Wrap: World Wide Web turns 30, Facebook global outage, YouTube Music, Redmi Note 7 Pro and Realme 3 sale, and more

Missed top technology stories this week? Here’s a wrap up.

From www turning 30 to Facebook’s global outage, top tech stories you missed this week (HT Photo)

What a week the tech space had! Things came to a standstill when Facebook and Instagram went down for hours. Both the platforms are now back and running but the incident shows the social networking giant has still a lot of work to do. Back in India, Spotify has new competitors.But that's not all. Let's check out the top technology stories of the week.

World Wide Web turns 30

Internet is now a 30-year-old adult. On March 12, 1989 Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. He wrote the first web browser in 1990 at CERN. You can also check out how the first website looked like. On the 30th anniversary of web, Berners-Lee, however, also lamented the spread of hatred and commit crime online.

Facebook, Instagram outage

For more than 8 hours, Facebook was inaccessible to millions of users around the world. Facebook had to use rival Twitter to communicate with its followers. Facebook and all of its key applications such as Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger faced the outage. Later Facebook blamed "server change" for what's being dubbed as its biggest outage ever. Facebook also made it clear the outage was not due to a DDoS attack.

YouTube Music in India

YouTube's Premium services are finally available in India. Taking on the likes of Spotify and Apple Music, YouTube Music Premium is available at a starting rental of ₹99. Paid subscribers get 3 months free access to YouTube Music Premium as part of an introductory offer. There's also a free version with limited features.

WhatsApp's new features

Amid criticism over failure to curb fake news, WhatsApp is working on a new feature which allows users to Google search an image. The feature will allow users to verify the authenticity of an image from Google Image search. Apart from the image search, WhatsApp is also working on in-app browser. As the name implies, WhatsApp will now allow users to open a link within the application - similar to Facebook's in-app browser.

New smartphone sales

Realme 3 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Pro went on sale this week. Both Xiaomi and Realme have claimed big response from the customers. Realme claims more than 1.5 lakh units of Realme 3 were sold in the first sale. While Xiaomi did not disclose the units sold, it claimed Redmi Note 7 Pro was sold out "within seconds."

More Bandersnatch-like shows

Netflix said that it is working with content creators around the world to develop more Bandersnatch-like content. "[The interactive content] does not have to be sci-fi. It could be whacky comedy, horror, and even sports," Tedd Yellin said in an interview to Hindustan Times, adding "more interactive content will be available in the next two years with better technology."