We’ve asked YouTube for comment.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the move was intentional. YouTube Premium offers background playback as one of its major perks, and it wouldn’t be difficult to use PIP on the web to negate that perk. Still, that could easily be frustrating — it would amount to YouTube taking away functionality that was already present, however briefly.

This also comes as promised YouTube 4K support on Apple TV has yet to materialize. The video giant promised that it’s still coming “soon” through an updated app, but it wasn’t ready alongside tvOS 14 like some had hoped. You’ll have to make do with 1080p for a little while longer.

Waze users can now view their saved locations on the web and select them when searching for an origin or destination, so you won’t have to enter your home address for every trip. The new features are available on both iOS and Android devices.

These are relatively minor, but definitely helpful, changes. The ability to save trips across the web and apps is also available on Google Maps, so you could argue that the two are getting closer in terms of the features they offer. Though, as we learned last week, Google Maps is using DeepMind AI to improve its ETAs with traffic predictions. As far as we know, Waze doesn’t pack that level of AI tech.

As of summer 2021, Microsoft will remove the Flash-related developer frameworks, group policies and user interfaces from legacy Edge and IE11 through cumulative updates across multiple Windows versions, including Windows 10 and 8.1.

Corporate customers that need Flash will still have options. Edge will let Flash run as a plugin through the Internet Explorer mode. You’ll switch away from the Microsoft-supplied Flash code, though, and you won’t get Microsoft’s support as a result.

Microsoft doesn’t have much choice about the primary end-of-2020 cutoff. Google is removing Flash support from Chromium, the underlying engine for the current version of Edge, around the same time. Adobe has added that it will tell people to uninstall Flash well before that change happens. It’s nonetheless good to know just when Microsoft will drop the web technology — and you probably won’t miss it given its obsolescence and security issues.

Google isn’t done finding ways to wring more battery life out of Chrome. TheWindowsClub has discovered that Google is experimenting with a meta tag that would let websites switch on energy-saving features. They could reduce the frame rate, slow down script execution or otherwise tone things down to help your laptop run a little while longer. It could react to user preferences or even the state of your machine, such as a low battery.

This could be particularly helpful if you want to keep your system alive during a long video call, or to prevent web apps from consuming too much energy when speed isn’t of the essence.

The feature is poised to reach Canary builds of Chrome starting with 86. It could be a while before you see this in a beta release, let alone a polished version. If this takes off, however, it might discourage sites from spamming if they know their notifications aren’t an all-or-nothing proposition.

Microsoft’s support for Android is going beyond native apps and devices like the Surface Duo. Thurrot reports Microsoft is collaborating with Google to help bring more (and importantly, better) progressive web apps to Android devices through the Play Store. Apps built using Microsoft’s PWABuilder tool will use Google’s Bubblewrap utility and library to take advantage of new features, including a new standard for web shortcuts, “deeper” push notifications and visual customizations. Web apps should feel more at home on your phone, to put it simply.

The expanded features shouldn’t require significantly more effort to implement, Microsoft said.

If you’ve ever searched for something and seen a panel to the side of the main interface that displays some facts related to your query, then you’ve seen the Knowledge Graph in action. The company first introduced the database back in 2012. Since then, it has expanded to include approximately 500 billion facts related to 5 billion entries.  

Google

As you might have guessed, ensuring Search connects an image with the correct facts can be tricky. Google says it’s using a deep learning algorithm to parse and evaluate an image’s visual and text signals. It then combines that with its understanding of the text on a website. The company says that information helps it determine the most likely people, places or things related to a specific picture. 

Currently, this latest extension of the Knowledge Graph is only available on mobile devices in the US. Moreover, not every image you tap on will include related information. That said, Google plans to expand the feature to make it compatible with more languages and pictures over time. 

Chrome still has a reputation as a battery hog, particularly if you tend to open many tabs, but Google appears poised to fix that. TheWindowsClub understands that an experimental feature in Chrome 86 will reduce energy use by shutting down unnecessary JavaScript timers and trackers when a tab is in the background, such as those that check your scrolling position. The savings could be significant in the right circumstances. Reportedly, Google saved two hours of battery life in a test with 36 background tabs and one blank foreground tab — extreme conditions, to be sure, but not far-fetched.

The gains weren’t quite as dramatic when playing a YouTube video, but the more intensive test still added about 36 minutes of runtime.

WhatsApp is rolling out a handful of new features over the next few weeks. To make it easier to add new contacts, WhatsApp is introducing a new QR code capability. You’ll soon be able to scan another user’s QR code to add them to your contacts, no more typing in a phone number manually. As you may remember, WhatsApp tested this feature a few months ago.

On video calls, which now support up to eight people, WhatsApp will let you press and hold to maximize a participant’s video to full screen. There’s also a video icon in group chats, so you can easily start a group video call with one tap. Though, the icon will only appear in chats with eight or fewer participants.

Mozilla’s effort to secure domain name requests now has a major new ally: Comcast. The cable giant’s Xfinity brand has become the first internet provider to provide encrypted DNS services through Mozilla’s Trusted Recursive Resolver program. If you’re a Firefox user with Xfinity service, it should be that much harder for people to snoop on your website requests or intercept them for attacks.

The technique needs companies like Comcast to help due to its very nature. In addition to encrypting the data using DNS over HTTPS, Mozilla needs to ensure that companies managing the data have rules that limit data collection, provide transparency for that data and prevent the domain name resolver from either blocking access or modifying the content. Companies like Cloudflare and NextDNS have already signed on.