iWorld
JioCinema announce a star-studded expert panel for the two test series of the India Tour of West Indies
Mumbai: JioCinema announced their expert panel for the two test series of India’s Tour of West Indies, starting 12 July. Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Wasim Jaffer, Aakash Chopra, Saba Karim, and Abhinav Mukund will come together to present the tip-off of India’s 2023-25 World Test Championship cycle on JioCinema for free.
The all-format bilateral tour starts 12 July with the first Test in Dominica followed by the second in Trinidad on 20 July. The two Test series also marks the beginning of Ishant Sharma’s new spell as an expert panellist.
Sharma is the second India fast bowler to have played over 100 Tests (105) and his best bowling figures in a Test match of 10/108 were recorded in the West Indies during the 2011 tour. On the same tour, another JioCinema expert Abhinav Mukund made his debut for India. Wasim Jaffer, who scored his career-best 212 at St. John’s in 2006, made his debut for JioCinema.
The three match ODI series begins 27 July and will be played in Barbados and Trinidad. The five-match T20I competition tips off in Trinidad on 3 August, followed by two matches in Guyana and the last two fixtures in Florida, USA.
JioCinema will offer fans their favourite sport in a never-seen-before presentation for free. Viewers will be able to watch the limited-overs action in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri, Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. This will be the first time a limited-overs bilateral series will be presented in 11 languages.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
