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Showing posts from May, 2020

Samsung Odyssey G7 240Hz WQHD Curved Gaming Monitor Launched Globally

Having been unveiled at CES 2020 back in January, Samsung’s Odyssey G7 curved gaming monitor has finally been launched globally . In an official blog post announcing the global launch, Samsung said that the “Odyssey lineup reimagines the gaming experience by combining the deepest, most immersive curved displays with best-in-class performance features” . It’s worth noting that alongside the Odyssey G7, Samsung had also unveiled a larger, more high-end monitor called the Odyssey G9, and while Samsung hasn’t announced anything about its official availability yet, it is currently up for pre-order on Overclockers UK for £1,279.99 (around Rs. 1.19 lakh or $1,600) The company also last week announced an official sponsorship deal with global esports team and three-time League of Legends champion, T1 Entertainment & Sports (T1), to market the two monitors. The Odyssey G7 comes in 27- and 32-inch options , and according to Samsung, is the world’s first 1000R gaming monitor, meaning it

India Launches National Artificial Intelligence Portal and Skilling Program

The Indian government has launched a dedicated AI portal . The portal was launched by India’s Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology, Law & Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad over the weekend. Dubbed IndiaAI, the portal has been jointly developed by the Ministry of Electronics and IT and IT Industry. “INDIAai is the central hub for everything AI in India and beyond. A joint initiative of MeitY, NeGD and NASSCOM, the website aims to be the trusted content powerhouse in the backdrop of India’s journey to global prominence in Artificial Intelligence,”   reads the website. The portal will serve as a platform for sharing AI-related resources such as articles, startups, investment funds in AI, resources, companies, and educational institutions related to AI in the country. Alongside IndiaAI, Prasad also announced a national program called “Responsible AI for Youth” . The program aims to empower students with relevant AI skill-sets and AI-related tools.

Apple Closes US Retail Stores Because of Protests

Apple closed a large number of its retail stores in the US over the weekend following widespread arson and looting in many cities around the country. The company has now extended the closures at least through Monday as the situation continues to remain tense across the nation. Apple had earlier announced that it was taking the decision to shut down some of its stores to ensure the safety of its employees. “With the health and safety of our teams in mind, we’ve made the decision to keep a number of our stores in the US closed on Sunday” , Apple originally said in a press release over the weekend. According to 9to5Mac ‘s Michael Steeber, the company will assess the situation day-by-day to decide when it will be safe again to reopen the stores. Unsurprisingly, many of Apple’s store closures today have been extended at least through tomorrow. They’ll definitely be assessing this situation day by day. It’s hard to imagine stores were boarded up that tight for just one night. pic.twitter

How to Access Newly Added Free Fonts in macOS Catalina

Very few things offer me as much pleasure as the sight of beautiful text crafted with nice-looking fonts . Though I’m not a designer, collecting a variety of fonts and using them on social networking sites like Instagram has long been my penchant. That’s the reason why I’m so happy to know that Apple recently introduced brand new macOS fonts which can be used system-wide on Mac. Apart from being in huge numbers, they are available from well-known sources such as Klim Type Foundry and Commercial Type. If you love to use them as well, head over to learn how you can access newly added free fonts in macOS Catalina on your Mac. How to Access Newly Added Free Fonts on Mac The recently added fonts are slightly under wraps as they aren’t downloaded by default. However, you can easily track them down and then download them on your Mac. Some of the new fonts that have called for my attention are Produkt (8 styles), Proxima Nova (12 styles), Domaine (6 styles), Founders Grotesk (17 styles), a

Mi Band 5 to Launch on June 11

Xiaomi has been working on the Mi Band 5 for a while, and we have been hearing about it for some time. Now, a WeChat post by the Xiaomi Mall public account (via GizChina) confirms that the Mi Band 5 will launch on June 11 in China. The post itself doesn’t give away much about the upcoming fitness tracker, but we have a lot of leaks and reports about the band. The Mi Band 5 is going to change the design of the tracker a bit. It seems Xiaomi is removing the slight indent on the front of the band and going for a simple, flat design this time. Image courtesy: Gizchina There are also reports that the Mi Band 5 will come with a new type of charger. GizChina says the band is going to come with a plug-in charger instead of a cradle with pogo pins on it. On the feature front, the Mi Band 5 will likely add NFC to the global variant as well. There are also reports that the band will come with Google Pay support . That will likely be a pretty big addition to the band allowing users to make

“Chernobylite” Lets You Explore the “Exclusion Zone” of Chernobyl

On Saturday, April 26, 1986, one of the most dangerous man-made disasters occurred when there was a nuclear blast in reactor number 4 of the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant. The accident released billions of radioactive materials in the air that made the place inhabitable for any form of life. Known as the “Exclusion Zone”, the powerplant location near the city of Pripyat in the north of Ukraine has become a ghost town. Now, although we cannot go to Chernobyl physically due to the radiation, we can explore the place and its mysteries through the eerie adventure game, Chernobylite. Released back on October 16, 2019, Chernobylite is a horror-adventure game that lets you explore the “Exclusion Zone” in Chernobyl. The game puts you right smack in the middle of the eerie, abandoned town of Chernobyl as Igor, the protagonist . Igor is a nerd kind of guy who is desperately looking for his girlfriend, Tatyana. She mysteriously disappeared during the Chernobyl disaster and Igor is looking for h

Here is the First-Ever Video That Was Posted on YouTube

Fifteen years ago, on Valentines’ Day of 2005, the domain name “www.youtube.com” went live. The following months saw developments of the website and the first-ever video on the platform was posted on April 23, 2005. The YouTuber who shared the video was none other than one of the founding members, Jawed Karim. The YouTube that we know now is a massive video streaming platform with innumerable audience members. However, it is fascinating to see from where the platform started its journey . So, in this article, I want to talk about the very first video that was uploaded on the platform, and surprisingly, it still exists. So, the 240p, grainy video, titled “Me at the zoo”, shows a 25-year-old Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, standing in front of a group of elephants at the San Diego Zoo. The 18-second video went live on April 23, 2005, and it is still there with over 96 million views and 3.2 million likes . In the video, Karim tells us about a rather basic fact about eleph

Google’s New “Scam Spotter” Website Aims to Help People Avoid Scams

There was a time before the internet when people used to con other people through physical contact. However, as the internet has made communication effectively contact-less, online scams have become much more popular in recent times. Now, for people like us who know the internet like the back of our hands, it is easy to spot the scammers. However, for a layman who receives an email out of the blue stating that he/she has won a lottery of Rs 50,000 would surely believe it. So, to help these people spot and avoid these types of scams, Google has come up with a new “Scam Spotter” website. “ Scam Spotter ” is not actually a tool for the users, rather it is an educational website for the scam-spotting-noobs out there. The Mountain View-based tech giant has partnered with Cybercrime Support Network to build the website . This website provides information that will be help users to spot who a scammer is and who is in real need of money. Now, when you go to the homepage of the website, you

Mac Users Can Now Convert Their DSLRs into Webcams

The lockdowns due to the Coronavirus has suddenly increased the demand for video conferencing . However, as most of the laptops come equipped with an inferior 720p camera, users cannot get a high-res picture quality in video calls. In light of these issues, Canon released a new software late in April that lets Windows users use a compatible (you can check the compatibility from here ) Canon EOS, Mirrorless, or Powershot camera as a webcam for video calls. Now, the company has extended the support to macOS users as well. Most of Apple’s MacBooks and iMacs come with a mere 720p FaceTime camera. So, Canon now wants macOS users to enjoy what Windows users have been using for a month now. The “EOS Webcam Utility Beta” from Canon will now help macOS users to turn their grainy pictures into high-quality ones during a video call . How to Convert Your Canon Camera into a Webcam Now to use the software and set up your camera as a webcam, follow the steps below: First, download the EOS We

This $420 “Anti-5G” USB Stick is Just Stupid

Although 5G technology is gaining momentum in the smartphone industry , there are also conspiracy theories that link the tech with the Novel Coronavirus. Well, if there are people who are naive enough to believe that 5G is the cause of inception for the Coronavirus, then surely there are customers for this completely “anti-5G” USB stick. The 5GBioShield USB Key is apparently a device that “provides protection for your home and family”, according to the manufacturer’s website . On the other hand, it is nothing more than a mere 128MB USB drive that costs £339 (~$420) . “We consider it to be a scam,” said the Operations Director of London Trading Standards, Stephen Knight. He further went on to say that, “People who are vulnerable need protection from this kind of unscrupulous trading,” . The manufacturers of the 5GBioShield USB Key, BioShield Distribution stated earlier that they developed the device with the help of their “research” . However, following the latest events, official

Google Introduces Anxiety Screening Tool in Google Search

The Coronavirus-led pandemic has locked down most of the population of the world. Now, recent survey data reveals that the level of people suffering from clinical anxiety has increased by many folds. So, to help detect anxiety symptoms and deal with stress, Google has come up with a new tool integrated right in the Google Search for US citizens. The Mountain View-based tech giant recently partnered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to create a tool to help people facing questions about their mental health. Although it is not a replacement for a diagnosis by a professional mental health expert, it might help people self-assess for any symptoms of clinical anxiety . Now, the tool created by Google works right in the search results in the US. Whenever anyone makes a search for anxiety-related queries, the tool will show up in the “knowledge panel” of the search results. This will contain a “clinically validated questionnaire” known as the GAD-7 (Generalized Anxiety Di

Google Reveals How Countries Reacted to the Coronavirus Lockdowns

Since the rise of the Novel Coronavirus, a substantial part of the world was forced to go on lockdown and maintain strict social distancing. However, the questions remain: Did people do enough? Did they actually stay inside their homes during the lockdown period? If not, where did they go the most? Well, if it was during the pandemic of 1918, we might not be able to answer these important questions. But thanks to the technological advancements of the 21st century, scientists and researchers can get hold of relevant data to answer the questions. And Google has stepped up to provide this crucial data. Google’s Android platform and its services have become kind of essentials in our daily lives. While people use these services for making their lives easier , Google uses these services as a massive pot of data. Now, the Mountain View-based tech giant has released a massive pool of “Community Mobility Reports” of hundreds of countries that suggests how these countries reacted to the lockdo

Nvidia’s New AI Recreated “Pac-Man” from Scratch

We have witnessed the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years. Now, it can  guide the military on the battlefield , write songs , and even control an entire ship . However, this is certainly not the end of the possibilities that AI opens up. Nvidia has now proved that an AI can create a game just by watching gameplays of it. The Santa-Clara based GPU company recently recreated the popular retro-classic arcade game “Pac-Man”, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the game, using an AI model. The company’s research team led by researcher Seung-Wook Kim took their own powerful new AI model, named GameGAN to create a fully functional copy of Pac-Man that can run without an underlying game engine . The GameGAN is a first-of-its-kind neural network that can mimic a computer game by securing, what are called, generative adversarial networks a.k.a., GANs. It consists of two opposing neural networks, a generator and a discriminator. These help the AI to create a cop

Apple Producing Next Martin Scorsese Film Starring DiCaprio and De Niro

Not very long after the launch of Apple TV+ , Apple had to halt a few shows due to the ongoing Coronavirus. Now, recent reports suggest, the Cupertino-based tech giant is investing their earnings in the film industry. According to the reports, Apple has joined Paramount Pictures to produce the next Martin Scorcese film starring legendary actors, Robert De Niro and Leonardo Di Caprio. The film will be an adaptation of the 2017 non-fiction book, “Killers of the Flower Moon” written by American journalist David Grann. It will be of the same name as the book. So, if the film goes by the book, it will be set in the 1920s and show a major FBI investigation involving a series of mysterious murders. And moreover, this is directed by the same iconic director who brought us crime films like Shutter Island, Taxi Driver, The Irishman, and Goodfellas . Now, it is not yet clear if this film will be added to Apple’s streaming service, the Apple TV+. However, a deal is set to be announced in the

Coronavirus Impact: Niantic is Taking the Pokemon Go Fest Online

The ongoing Coronavirus-led pandemic has wreaked havoc for numerous events of this year. Some events like Facebook’s annual F8 conference and the MWC have been completely canceled. However, some companies like Apple and Microsoft have plans to hold their events in a new virtual format. So, Niantic has joined the latter group and has announced to hold this year’s Pokemon GO Fest as a global virtual event. The Pokemon Company, Niantic, recently announced that they are bringing back the Pokemon GO Fest this year in a new virtual format . It is set to go live from 25-26 July as a global event and trainers from anywhere in the world can join in on the adventures of the event. Niantic held the first Pokemon GO Fest back in 2017 in Chicago to celebrate the game’s one year anniversary . Since that time, the company expanded the event to cities like Dortmund and Yokohama and has brought almost 600,000 players together. However, after the rise of the Coronavirus from early March, Nianti

FAA Allowing Drones to Deliver PPE Kits and Medical Supplies to US Hospitals

We have seen the use of drones for many significant tasks like inspecting metro tunnels and disinfecting large areas . However, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not allow operators to fly drones in areas that are out of their line of sight, until now. The FAA is now allowing drones to carry emergency medical supplies to healthcare institutions in light of the current crisis. Zipline, a drone firm, has been given green light by the FAA to fly their drones to deliver medical supplies and PPE kits. This is the first time that the FAA is allowing drone operators to fly the machines in beyond-line-of-sight areas in the US . The firm, that has been negotiating with the FAA to use their drones for deliveries, has to use one of the two specified routes to fly the drones . The drones will launch from a specified fulfillment center. They will then deliver a box of medical supplies to nearby hospitals in North Carolina. The box should drop by parachute at designated spots near th

Christopher Nolan Blew up a Real Aeroplane Instead of Using VFX for “Tenet”

Christopher Nolan’s next mind-bending movie, Tenet is set to release pretty soon this year. The second trailer of the film was recently released and premiered in Fortnite. Apart from knowing that the film is about World War III and time reversal, we do not know much as of now. However, according to recent reports, we came to know that the genius director blew up an airbus to shoot a scene for the movie! Nolan, in a recent interview, told that to shoot a scene of the film involving an airplane, he had to throw a real 747 under the bus instead of using VFX . Actor Robert Pattinson, who plays one of the main characters of the film entitled this move by the director “ so bold to the point of ridiculousness” . Now, the first plan of the director was to use miniature planes and sets along with visual effects.  “I planned to do it using miniatures and set-piece builds and a combination of visual effects and all the rest,”  said Christopher. However, after the crew found a huge collection

Razer’s “Gigantus V2” Mouse Mat Takes Up an Entire Desk

Apart from manufacturing high-end, modular gaming PCs , and unique gaming peripherals , Razer is also known as one of the best manufacturers of mouse pads and mouse mats. Now, the gaming accessories-makers have come up with a ridiculously sized mouse mat that can probably also be used as a bedsheet (just kidding)! Razer recently announced the appropriately named “Gigantus V2” mouse mat for gamers. The new mouse mats come in four different sizes, ranging from standard size of 360 x 275 x 3mm to a massive 1,200 x 550x 4mm 3XL size . It is so huge that it can easily cover up an entire desk and still hang from the edges. The mouse mats are specially designed for gamers and come with an “upgraded surface with a higher thread count weave” . This enables gamers to attain those “fluid swipes and pixel-precise aim” . Now, to get an idea of how big it actually is, check out the image below that features the 3XL size of the Gigantus V2. In the picture, we can see that only half of the Gigantu

7 Best Chinese Apps Alternatives for Enhanced Privacy

In the recent years, the app ecosystem in the Indian market has been taken over by Chinese apps. At present, most of the top-charting apps on the Play Store have Chinese roots. Many experts claim that Chinese apps collect user data and even some personally identifiable information. The recent case being Mi Browser collecting search queries even in incognito mode and sending the data back to China. Similarly, TikTok has been accused of sending draft videos to servers in China. There have been many such instances, and all of them have one common thread: user data are sent to Chinese servers disregarding user privacy. As we know, any data that is held in China is wide open to access by Chinese authorities, and that is a major concern. So in order to protect your data, here are the best Chinese apps alternatives that you should use on your smartphone. Best Chinese Apps Alternatives in 2020 1. Triller (Alternative to TikTok / Likee / Kwai) Among the many issues with TikTok, privacy ha

Warrants Required to Check Even the Lock Screen of a Suspect’s Smartphone

With the evolution of smartphones over the years, the tiny computers have become one big pot of data of the user. We store anything and everything in our smartphone nowadays. So, some times law enforcers might want to get their hands on these personal data in the name of investigation. Well, thanks to the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the police generally need an official warrant to search a device. Now, a judge has ruled that not only unlocking the device will require a warrant, even looking at the lock screen without a warrant will be termed as unlawful. The District Judge of the US District Court in Seattle recently passed this new rule in the light of a case involving an alleged robber and burglar. The man, Joseph Sam, was arrested back in May 2019 and was using an undisclosed Motorola device. At the time of his arrest, an officer got his hands on the man’s phone and turned it on to check the lock screen of the device . In another instance, the FBI took the same man’

JK Rowling is Releasing a Whole New Book Online for Free

To ease the lockdown frustrations of the global population, Harry Potter writer, JK Rowling has come up with a whole new book for readers to indulge into. We saw the writer come up with the “Harry Potter at Home” hub for book lovers to lose themselves during the ongoing pandemic-led lockdown. Now, she is publishing this new book online for free. The new book, the Ickabog, already has a dedicated website where Rowling wrote about how the book came into being. According to her note, she wrote the book a long time ago and used to read it to her two children chapter-by-chapter while she was working on it. However, when she finished the book, instead of publishing it, the writer put the book in the attic for the time being. Now, as the Novel Coronavirus-led pandemic has locked down most of the countries, the writer brought down “the Ickabog” from the attic. After making a few changes to the story by taking suggestions from her little ones, Rowling decided to publish it online on a ch

Apple’s 6K Pro Display XDR One of the “Best Displays of the Year”

Apple has always been a company to release high-end, professional products for the market. The company’s Pro Display XDR was one of those expensive products that launched alongside the new Mac Pro and the infamous $999 monitor stand. Now, the Society for Information Display honored the Pro Display XDR with the title of “Display of the Year”. The Society for Information Display is an organisation of top scientists, engineers, corporate researchers, and business entities from the display industry. It came into being in the year 1962 to monitor display technology and honour the achievements of companies in the display industry . Every year the organisation announces the “Best Displays of the Year”. This year, the list included Samsung’s foldable display, BOE’s 65″ UHD BD Cell Display, Audi’s Virtual Mirror System with the OLED display, and of course Apple’s 32″ 6K Pro Display XDR. The chairman of the organisation, Wei Chen, said some kind words about Apple’s monitor and highly praised

This iOS 14 Concept of Home Screen Live Widgets Looks Dope

As Apple’s WWDC 2020 is approaching , iOS users (including myself) are eagerly for the first beta of iOS 14. The next version of iOS is rumoured to bring an array of new features to the iPhones, including a new UI for widgets. So, this concept video shows, which I think, is the most perfect implementation of the widgets on the home screen. The popular and credible leaker, Ben Geskin (@BenGeskin), recently shared the concept video on Twitter . Originally created by concept designer, Aleksey Bondarev, the video (below) exists on Dribbble and has received numerous positive feedback from netizens because it is that good. https://cdn.dribbble.com/users/202820/screenshots/11587660/media/8161e502a4476bf8b6f7d36a85095620.mp4 Now, the concept shows how iOS users can easily convert an app icon on the home screen into a widget. In the video, we can see the user haptic touching icons of apps like Airbnb, Weather, Instagram, Compass, and more and convert them into live widgets with a dynamic