Microsoft has come up with a solution for when you're too pressed for time to tidy your room before hopping in to a video call. The tech company's new "decorate your room" feature for Microsoft Teams, announced at the Ignite 2023 conference this week, will launch next year. For those wanting a festive touch to their background, the tool can even place fairy lights and a Christmas tree into the picture. "Meeting participants can now use generative background effects in Teams to show up their best – even when the space they're working from isn't at its best," Microsoft said.

The best PlayStation 5 consoles and bundles available in stock currently on Amazon for Black Friday 2023.

Apple is to adopt a messaging standard that will make texting between an iPhone and an Android device a better experience. The US technology giant has confirmed it will adopt the rich communication services (RCS) “later next year”. RCS is considered an industry standard for messaging and allows users to send and receive high-quality photos and videos, chat over wifi as well as mobile data and users are able to see when messages have been read – a range of features that currently do not exist or work to the same standard when messaging between an iPhone and Android. Until now, Apple has focused on its own messaging system – iMessage – which allows for seamless communication between iPhone handsets. Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS Apple spokesperson Adopting RCS alongside iMessage will likely make the experience of chatting to an Android user from an iPhone closer to the iMessage experience. In a statement given to industry news site 9to5Mac, Apple said: “Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. “We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS.” The announcement of the proposed change also comes as EU regulators have continued to pressure Apple to make iMessage more interoperable with other services under its new Digital Services Act – legislation designed to rein in tech giants, improve competition and ultimately provide better, more accessible services for consumers. Earlier this week, smartphone maker Nothing also revealed its Android phones would begin to support iMessage via a new app. Read More ICO seeks permission to appeal against Clearview AI tribunal ruling Users of iPhones can now check bank balance from Wallet app VR tool aims to help rail passengers spot and safely tackle sexual harassment

Archaeologists in Turkey are slowly unravelling the secrets of a previously unknown ancient language. And among them are revelations that long-forgotten civilisations used language to promote multiculturalism and political stability. The ancient clay tablets unearthed from archaeologists, in the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire at Hattusa, were recently found to contain the previously unknown language. Researchers had dusted off nearly 30,000 unique tablets at the scene – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – with most written in Hittite, and a few in the brand new language. The ongoing excavations have since revealed that the imperial civil service had whole departments whose job it was to research their subject peoples’ religions. Back in the second millennium BC, Hittite leaders told their officials to record religious ceremonies and other traditions of subject peoples by writing them in their respective local languages. The idea was that the traditions would be preserved and incorporated into the wider empire, in what appears to be a push towards multiculturalism. The fact that multiculturalism was such a prominent part of Bronze Age culture certainly has resonances in the modern day, where debates around immigration and multiculturalism continue to be a hot topic. So far, experts have found at least five subject ethnic groups who have had the treatment, with the latest example unearthed two months ago. It was written in a previously unknown Middle Eastern language that had been lost for up to 3,000 years. The language is being called Kalasmaic, because it would have been spoken by a subject people in an area called Kalasma in the northwest of the empire. And while only five minority languages have so far been found on the Bronze Age tablets, the reality is that there were probably at least 30, archaeologists say. Daniel Schwemer, a Wurzburg University professor who is leading the investigation into the newly discovered texts, said: “Bronze Age Middle Eastern history is only partly understood – and discovering additional clay tablet documents is helping scholars to substantially increase our knowledge.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SpaceX has launched a new type of zero-fuel propulsion system into orbit, which its creators claim will revolutionise the space industry. The Quantum Drive engine, built by US startup IVO Ltd, was fitted on a microsatellite that entered orbit aboard SpaceX’s Transporter 9 mission, which lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. IVO claims that its technology is the world’s first commercially viable pure electric propulsion technology that works in space, drawing “limitless power for propulsion from the Sun”. It relies on a controversial theory called Quantized Inertia (QI) that challenges Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion, with some physicists dismissing the technology as impossible. The QI theory was first proposed in 2007 by physicist Mike McCulloch, who drew on the mysterious properties of quantum mechanics to account for a new understanding of inertia as defined by Newton’s First Law of Motion. IVO chief executive Richard Mansell said his company performed 100 hours of vacuum chamber testing before the launch, during which the quantum drive produced a small amount of thrust. “Deploying Quantum Drive into orbit in a Rogue satellite on SpaceX Transporter 9 is a milestone for the future of space propulsion,” Mansell said. “Quantum Drive’s capability allows Rogue to produce new satellite vehicles with unlimited Delta V.” A pair of Quantum Drives are fitted to the BARRY-1 cubesat, which will take around one month to settle into its orbit before the next-generation propulsion system is activated in an effort to raise the satellites orbit by 100 kilometres. If successful, its creators say it will not only rewrite the critical principles of physics, but also form the foundation for a new era of space travel and exploration. “There are many things that have held back space exploration, one of them of course is power and propulsion,” said Mansell. “IVO’s quantum drive eliminates this propulsion problem by eliminating the fuel. By taking away the fuel, then you have essentially unlimited thrust.” Read More ‘It’s becoming like an airport’: How SpaceX normalised rocket launches

By Greg Bensinger (Reuters) -Amazon.com on Friday announced it is trimming jobs at its Alexa voice assistant unit, citing “shifting”

Larian Studios announced that Baldur's Gate 3 is being released in physical form as a

Ice T has confessed to spending lots of money on progression in a zombie mobile game.

The RPG is getting a bumper boxset with plenty of goodies.

SEGA's COO doubts "that kind of transaction is going to happen".

A UK-government backed renewable energy fund plans to mobilize $1.6 billion to help provide 16 million people and

BEIJING China will allow road trials of some intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) in designated city areas, the industry