Apple faces UK ‘batterygate’; Telegram tops 700 mln users; Everest base camp glacier is melting away

Apple is facing another claim of nearly a billion dollars, that it knowingly throttled the performance of older iPhones, this time in Britain. Telegram, a messaging app rival to WhatsApp, said it now had 700 million monthly active users and launched a premium subscription plan. And Khumbu glacier, on which Mt. Everest’s base camp is located, is melting away at an alarming rate, BBC reports. Notes: Apple is facing another claim that it knowingly throttled the performance of older iPhones, this time in Britain. Justin Gutmann, a consumer rights champion in the UK, is taking Apple to court, seeking damages of around £768 million ($939 million) for up to 25 million iPhone users in the country, BBC reports. Gutmann’s claim comes two years after a similar case was settled in the US. In 2020, Apple agreed to pay $113 million to settle allegations that it slowed down older iPhones. Thirty-three US states claimed that Apple had done this to push users into buying new devices. Telegram now has 700 million monthly active users, the company said in a blog post yesterday. The messaging app rose to prominence on the promise of privacy and security, especially after changes were announced last year by Meta’s WhatsApp on how it will share user data. Telegram also announced a premium subscription that offers doubled limits, 4 GB file uploads, faster downloads, exclusive stickers and reactions, improved chat management and other ‘resource heavy’ features, according to the blog post. All existing features will remain free. Telegram didn’t provide details about the pricing of the subscription plan in the blog post, but the plan will likely cost about $5 a month, according to TechCrunch. India’s open network for digital commerce, or ONDC, has partnered with the country’s National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, or Nabard, to extend the reach of the ecommerce enabling the network to the agriculture sector, Economic Times reports. To begin with, ONDC and Nabard have announced a hackathon that has drawn 400 entries so far, including from several agri-tech startups, according to ET. Khumbu glacier, home to the Everest base camp in the Himalayas, is fast melting due to global warming and human activity, BBC reports. The melting is creating crevasses overnight, including in areas where people at the camp could be sleeping, and causing hazardous rock falls. The Nepalese government is now planning to shift the base camp to a different location at a lower altitude, according to the report. The current camp is at an altitude of 5,364 metres above sea level. The new one could be 200-400 metres lower, according to the report. Climate change and human activity is causing the glacier to lose 9.5 million cubic metres of water a year, researchers at Leeds University told BBC. In addition to global warming, human activity at the camp itself, which can have as many as 1,500 people during the March-May climbing season, is exacerbating the problem. These people generate 4,000 litres of urine a day and the fuel they use for cooking and staying warm also contributes to the melting, according to the report. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds: https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds