Computer Act!ve - UK (2022-06-08)

7

IN BRIEF

TOMORROW’S

WORLD

Six-wheeled robots from

Starship Technologies are

now delivering goods from

Co-op stores to homes in

the Cambridgeshire village

of Cambourne (see http://www.

snipca.com/42019). Let’s

hope they know their way

around better

than this

confused

robot,

who was

photographed

trundling

through a

wood in

Northampton

(www.snipca.com/42020).

Issue 633 • 8 – 21 June 2022

Amazon releases first

Fire 7 tablet with USB-C

com/42012.

There’s also a new Fire 7

Kids model, priced £109.99,

which comes with a

“kid-proof case” in blue,

purple or red, and has

32GB RAM, double the

previous model.

A year’s subscription to

Amazon Kids+ is included,

containing 10,000 children’s

films, TV shows, books and

educational content from the

likes of Lego and National

Geographic.

A

mazon has finally

released a Fire 7 tablet

with a USB-C port for

faster charging, but it’s £

more expensive than the

previous version.

It has a seven-inch screen

as before, but RAM is doubled

to 2GB, making web pages

and apps load more quickly.

Amazon claims that the

quad-core processor is 30 per

cent faster and battery life

40 per cent longer, which it

says will provide 10 hours

of browsing the web or

watching videos.

The front-facing and

rear cameras both have a

two-megapixel resolution,

and record videos at 720p

HD. You can use it to

control Amazon’s voice-

activated assistant Alexa,

letting you perform tasks

including playing videos

and music.

There’s a 16GB edition

priced £59.99, and 32GB for

£69.99. To remove adverts

from the lock screen and

screensaver you’ll have to

pay £10 extra. It’s available

in three colours: black

(pictured), rose and denim.

You can pre-order the

Fire 7 now, ahead of release

on 29 June, at http://www.snipca.

T

he average time mobile-

phone customers have to

wait to speak to their network

when phoning them has

nearly doubled since 2019,

Ofcom says.

Its annual report (www.

snipca.com/42013) on

customer service in the

broadband and mobile

industry showed that wait

times in 2021 rose to two

minutes, 15 seconds – up by

eight seconds from 2020,

and an increase from one

minute, 18 seconds in 2019.

Ofcom said that the increase

is due to the “impact of the

Covid-19 pandemic”. O

customers had to wait the

longest (three minutes, 59

seconds), followed by

Vodafone (two minutes, 30

seconds). Three answered the

phone fastest, in just 16 seconds.

broadband and landline

customers who complained

to their provider in 2021

were satisfied by how their

problem was dealt with.

No company scored higher

than 57 per cent on this

Despite these problems,

Ofcom reported an overall

“high” level of customer

satisfaction across mobile

(91 per cent), broadband

(83 per cent) and landline

(71 per cent). BT received the

highest broadband rating at

88 per cent, ahead of EE and

Sky (see box below).

However, the time

broadband and landline

customers had to wait

fell in 2021, though it

was still slightly longer

than before the

pandemic. On average,

customers waited two

minutes, 16 seconds, a big

drop from four minutes, nine

seconds in 2020. In 2019, the

average time was two minutes,

10 seconds.

Customers of KCOM,

which serves Hull and the

surrounding area, waited the

longest in 2021, at nearly nine

minutes, followed by Virgin

Media (three minutes, 45

seconds). Now Broadband

answered the phone fastest,

taking 31 seconds on average.

Resolving complaints is also

an area of concern, Ofcom

said. Only half of mobile,

Phone customers stuck on

hold for longer

SKIP TO ‘MOST REPLAYED’

PARTS OF YOUTUBE

YouTube now lets you skip

to the ‘most replayed’ parts

of a video. It will show these

moments in

a graph that

appears at

the bottom

of the clip

(pictured).

Other

new tools include ‘Single

Loop’, letting you watch the

same video for as long as

you want. Read more on

YouTube’s blog: http://www.snipca.

com/42018.

LEAVE YOUR WHATSAPP

GROUPS ‘SILENTLY’

You may soon be able to

leave WhatsApp group chats

without any other members

knowing. It’s working on

a tool called ‘Silently exit

groups’ that shows you a

message saying that the

only person who’ll be told

that you’re leaving is the

group’s admin – ie, the

person running it. Currently,

when you leave a group it’s

announced in the chat, which

makes some people feel

uncomfortable.

BROADBAND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

85%

77%

78%

88%

79%

78%

84%