News

X, Formerly Twitter, Has Introduced Voice And Video Calls

Only premium subscribers can make calls at the moment, but all users can receive them.

Published

3 years ago

October 26, 2023

x formerly twitter has introduced voice and video calls

X, the social media company previously known as Twitter, has added voice and video calls to the platform in a bid to expand its product offering.

While only premium subscribers can make calls at present, all accounts can receive them, the X website noted yesterday. The features will be available first on iOS but will soon come to Android as well.

Users can control who can call them using options in the direct messages settings. To call another X user, they must have sent you a direct message at least in the past, X said.

Elon Musk explained that X users would be able to make video and voice calls without sharing their phone numbers. The new features are a direct shot at Meta, owners of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Also Read: Tribit FlyBuds C1 Earbuds Review: The Ultimate Bang For Your Buck

Musk has made several sweeping changes to Twitter since his acquisition. In December, the platform launched Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service that indicates if a user is verified and offers Edit Tweet, 1080p video uploads, and longer tweets.

In July, Musk changed the name of Twitter to X, a move analysts say has wiped between $4 and $20 billion from the company’s value.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.