Skype has some significant changes in the works. It offered a peek at what’s coming later this year, with a focus on speed, reliability and design, as well as other performance upgrades.
Microsoft announced the addition of the latest features to Skype via a blog post on September 27. The company said that the new plans bring an “improved, faster, reliable, and super modern-looking Skype.”
The most important part of Skype, what Microsoft named the Call Stage is getting several upgrades. The grid that’s displayed during calls will soon include every attendee of the video call. The person starting the video call will have the option to include people who are sharing video in the grid and can disable the video stream. Audio-only participants can use one of the app’s background replacement images while on a call, instead of the standard grey background.
Skype is also getting new colour themes and layouts to this view to allow customisation. Users can select speaker view, grid view, large gallery, Together Mode, and even a content view. To note, Skype already offers animated backgrounds, Together Mode, call recordings, and live subtitles.
An improved side panel on mobile, fluent icons, and colourful themes are also on the way to Skype. These all will complement Name Your Call — a feature Skype introduced earlier that allows users to personalise their video calls down to the very last detail. Skype users can choose from many customised titles, emoticons, and background colours for their meeting titles.
Skype is also updating the Meet Now feature that allows people to join calls without signing up or downloading and installing the Skype app. Skype said that they are redesigning the Meet Now lobby as well to meet people online.
The invitation link on Skype is also getting an update. Soon, invitees will be able to see the name and avatar of your call. This will give confidence to the invitees when they join. Additionally, Skype confirmed that it will soon support all browsers as well.
Office Lens on Skype will allow users to capture memories, create videos, or scan documents, whiteboards, and business cards easily. TwinCam, another new feature from Microsoft will let users add a video feed from a secondary device. The user needs to just scan a QR code with the iOS or Android device to add it to the call as another camera.
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Mastercard rolls out new program
Mastercard unveiled on Tuesday a buy now, pay later (BNPL) program that will allow consumers to pay for online and in-store purchases through equal and interest-free installments.
The Mastercard Installments program will be available in markets across the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, the company said.
Mastercard says its Installments program builds on Mastercard’s investments in open banking that help deliver a simple and convenient experience for consumers, merchants and lenders.
As an elective option for lenders, with consumer consent, account-level transaction histories can be considered as part of the underwriting process, enabling credit to be safely extended to a greater number of shoppers. Open banking technology also facilitates the consumer’s preferred method of repayment, which may be their checking or savings account, a Mastercard debit card, or another payment product.
Key benefits of Mastercard Installments include:
* Consumers: The Mastercard Installments program enables consumers to choose how and when they pay for items from a brand they can trust. Consumers enjoy a seamless experience before and after checkout through options to access BNPL offers, or secure an offer at the time of checkout, from trusted lenders for use at a variety of merchants interest-free. As consumer protection is paramount at Mastercard, Mastercard Installments provides ubiquitous acceptance backed by zero liability fraud protection, not yet available through most current BNPL offerings.
* Merchants & Acquiring Banks: The Mastercard Installments program helps merchants scale BNPL offerings to consumers to turn convenience into a competitive advantage. BNPL solutions have been shown to increase average sales by 45 percent and reduce cart abandonment by 35 percent post-implementation*. Mastercard Installments provides seamless merchant integration with a streamlined process for millions of merchants who already accept Mastercard. Meanwhile, acquiring banks can offer installments capabilities to their entire merchant base with minimal, simple integration.
* Lenders: Through the Mastercard Installments Program, lenders can offer a flexible, seamless BNPL experience to both existing and new customers, expanding their lending opportunities in one of the fastest growing consumer segments. Mastercard Installments provides an expedited time to market and global expansion opportunities with a responsible lending approach.
* Wallets and BNPL players: Digital wallets and BNPL players can easily integrate Mastercard Installments’ APIs and deploy the solution to consumers and already integrated merchants, extending reach beyond their existing footprint. Mastercard Installments is embedded in the core Mastercard network, which means there is no longer a need for wallets and BNPL players to build direct settlement arrangements with merchants or acquirers. BNPL providers can also supplement their existing networks with additional merchant acceptance.
Fueled by changing consumer spending habits during the pandemic, BNPL adoption continues to accelerate globally. In addition to consumer demand, the momentum is being driven by issuer and merchant desire to deliver new, complementary ways for consumers to shop both in-store and online.
The company also said it will work on the BNPL program with banks and fintech firms, including Barclays’s U.S. unit, Fifth Third Bancorp, Marqeta, and SoFi Technologies, in the United States, and Qantas Loyalty and Latitude in Australia.
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COVID-19 pill developers aim to top Merck, Pfizer efforts
As Merck and Pfizer prepare to report clinical trial results for experimental COVID-19 antiviral pills, rivals are lining up with what they hope will prove to be more potent and convenient oral treatments of their own.
Enanta Pharmaceuticals, Pardes Biosciences, Japan’s Shionogi and Novartis said they have designed antivirals that specifically target the coronavirus while aiming to avoid potential shortcomings such as the need for multiple pills per day or known safety issues.
Infectious disease experts stressed that preventing COVID-19 through wide use of vaccines remains the best way to control the pandemic. But they said the disease is here to stay and more convenient treatments are needed.
“We need to have oral alternatives for suppression of this virus. We have people who aren’t vaccinated getting sick, people whose vaccine protection is waning, and people who can’t get vaccinated,” said Dr. Robert Schooley, an infectious diseases professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Pfizer and Merck, as well as partners Atea Pharmaceuticals and Roche AG have all said they could seek emergency approval for their COVID-19 antiviral pills this year.
Rivals are at least a year behind. Pardes began an early-stage trial last month, Shionogi plans to start large-scale clinical trials by year-end, Enanta aims to start human trials early next year and Novartis is still testing its pill in animals.
Enanta Chief Executive Jay Luly said re-purposing drugs originally developed for other viral infections is not an unreasonable approach. But it is not known how potent they will be against COVID-19 or how well they can target lung tissue, where the virus takes hold.
The risk is “if it’s not a great effort …you’ll end up losing time,” Luly said.
Antivirals are complex to develop because they must target the virus after it is already replicating inside human cells without damaging healthy cells. They also need to be given early to be most effective.
Currently, intravenous and injected antibodies are the only approved treatments for non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
An effective, convenient COVID-19 treatment could reach annual sales of over $10 billion, according to a recent Jefferies & Co estimate. Merck has a contract with the U.S. government that implies a price of $700 for a course of treatment with its antiviral molnupiravir.
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Several classes of antiviral drugs are being explored. Polymerase inhibitors such as Atea’s drug – first developed for hepatitis C – aim to disrupt the ability of the coronavirus to make copies of itself. There are also protease inhibitors, like Pfizer’s pill, which are designed to block an enzyme the virus needs in order to multiply earlier in its lifecycle.
We are trying to halt the processes “that allow the virus to set up a replication factory,” said Uri Lopatin, CEO at Pardes, which is also developing a COVID-19 protease inhibitor.
Merck’s molnupiravir, developed with Ridgeback Therapeutics, was at one point envisioned as a flu drug and works by introducing errors into the genetic code of the virus.
“The broad spectrum activity of molnupiravir against RNA viruses, including other respiratory viruses, suggests that it should be a durable, useful molecule,” said Jay Grobler, who oversees infectious disease and vaccines at Merck.
Merck said data shows the drug is not capable of inducing genetic changes in human cells, but men in its trials have to abstain from heterosexual intercourse or agree to use contraception.
Until reproductive toxicology study results are available, “we don’t know if there’s any potential effect of drug on sperm,” said Merck research executive Nicholas Kartsonis.
Both molnupiravir and Pfizer’s pill are taken every 12 hours for five days. Pfizer’s drug must be combined with older antiviral ritonavir, which boosts the activity of protease inhibitors but can cause gastrointestinal side effects and interfere with other medications.
“It is a nuisance to add a drug you don’t need to have a drug you want to take be effective,” Schooley said.
Pfizer said a low dose of ritonavir will help its protease inhibitor remain in the body longer and at higher concentrations.
Enanta, which gets most of its revenue from a hepatitis C deal with AbbVie Inc, scanned its library of antiviral compounds early in 2020. It instead chose to design a new protease inhibitor that targets an enzyme vital to the ability of the coronavirus, and its variants, to replicate.
The drug will be tested at once daily dosing with no ritonavir boosting, Luly said.
Lopatin said Pardes is assessing once- and twice-a-day dosing and whether its drug needs to be combined with ritonavir. “We do not anticipate that we will need to use a booster,” he said.
Pardes received funding from Gilead Sciences, which gave up on an inhaled version of its remdesivir, an intravenous polymerase inhibitor approved for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Gilead is still working an oral remdesivir, which was also first developed for hepatitis C and is currently the only antiviral approved for treating COVID-19.
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Alibaba apps start offering WeChat Pay option
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Google defends Android phone maker deals
Google on Tuesday said deals with Android phone makers that landed it a record 4.3-billion-euro ($5 billion) antitrust fine boosted competition and rejected EU charges they were a carrot-and-stick tactic that stifled rivals.
Google was addressing the second day of a week-long hearing as it tries to get Europe’s second-highest court to annul the fine and a European Commission order to make it loosen its search engine grip on Android devices.
Lawyers for Google and the EU competition executive clashed over the company’s Mobile Application Distribution Agreements (MADAs) that require phone makers (OEMs) to pre-install the Google Search app and Chrome browser app in return for licensing Google Play for free.
“This licensing model is what attracted OEMs to the Android platform, and what enabled those OEMs to offer a consistent and high-quality user experience at the lowest possible price,” Google’s lawyer Alfonso Lamadrid told the General Court.
“People use Google because they choose to, not because they’re forced to,” he said.
Commission lawyer Carlos Urraca Caviedes rejected the argument, calling the deals and other restrictions Google’s carrot-and-stick policy towards phone makers.
“These helped Google ensured its competitors would not achieve critical mass to challenge its dominance,” he told the court.
He also said such deals were unnecessary in view of the market power of Google, the world’s most popular internet search engine, and its significant number of users.
Urraca Caviedes said what Google did “goes beyond what is necessary to develop and maintain the Android platform”.
A verdict may come next year. The case is T-604/18 Google vs European Commission.
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