Techy Planet

Highlights: OnePlus halts OxygenOS Open Beta for OnePlus 5 and above smartphones. The company had recently started seeding the new updates. It's paused because some OnePlus 5/5T users reported of their phones being bricked. OnePlus is rolling back the new OxygenOS Open Beta for OnePlus 5 and above smartphones that it recently started seeding. As per the company, the new update is being paused because some OnePlus 5/5T users have complained of the OTA update not installing after being received on their units and for some unlucky few, their handsets were bricked, unable to boot, after installing the new update. So, if you have received the new update, we suggest you hold off on flashing it on your phone. As the open beta for the OnePlus 6/6T was similar to the one released for the OnePlus 5/5T, for good measure, the company has halted its rollout as well.  Those users who are experiencing the above-mentioned issues can try and recover their device by following the instruction laid o...

MSI has today launched new gaming laptops in India powered by the Nvidia GeForce RTX series GPUs, alongside MSI P-series laptops for creators. from RSS Feeds | LAPTOPS - RSS Feed - NDTV Gadgets360.com http://bit.ly/2HQ8idc

France's competition regulator has ordered Google to take measures regarding some of its advertising methods. from RSS Feeds | GOOGLE - RSS Feed - NDTV Gadgets360.com http://bit.ly/2Gb9fdu

Highlights: Google Screenwise Meter app collected extensive user data. The company has apologised and disabled the app on App Store. Like Facebook Research app, the Google app also used an Enterprise Certificate. Everyone slammed Facebook for having an app that was used exclusively for data collection and Apple banned the app from its App Store. Soon after, TechCrunch reported that Google too has a similar app that violates Apple App Store’s policies and collects bundles of data on users and the company has now disabled the app. Called Screenwise Meter, the Google app functioned by crediting gift cards to users who opted in the company’s Opinion Rewards program, in exchange for keeping track of a user's web traffic and data by installing a VPN app. Similar to the Facebook Research app, the VPN app installed by it used an Enterprise Certificate, which indicates that an app is meant for use within a company and not for the public. The app is still up on the Google App Store.  Google...

Highlights: Google+ shut down timeline released. No user will be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities, or events on the platform from February 4. A bug forced Google to prepone the shut down of the consumer version of its social media platform Google+ to April. At that time, not much information was available about the whole process, but now, Google has released an update on the topic. The latest update brings the step-by-step breakdown of the whole procedure that the company wants the Google+ consumers to follow to save their data. Google says that the process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, pages, and album archive will take a few months. According to the timeline shared by Google, no user will be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities, or events on the platform from February 4. If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4 and other sites by March 7. All...

The Honor View 20 is the world’s first smartphone that comes with a 48MP sensor on the back along with a TOF 3D camera. The device is priced at Rs 37,999 in India and is now on sale at Amazon. On the other hand, we have the Xiaomi Poco F1, which gave a tough fight last year to a lot of premium devices. It has a dual camera set up on the back both and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor. So, let’s begin.  The Honor View 20 sports a bigger 6.39-inch display that offers a resolution of 1080 x 2310 pixels, while the Xiaomi Poco F1 features a slightly smaller 6.18-inch display that comes with a resolution of 1080 x 2246 pixels.  The Honor View 20 is powered by a Kirin 980 octa-core processor, which is paired with 6GB RAM and 128GB internal memory. On the other side, the Xiaomi Poco F1 is backed by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, which is coupled with 6GB RAM and 64GB internal memory.  The Honor View 20 features a dual 48MP + TOF 3D camera setup on the back ...

Highlights: ISRO inaugurates Human Space Flight Centre. The centre will be the home of the upcoming GAGANYAAN crewed space mission. GAGANYAAN is expected to take off by 2022. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) inaugurated the Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) at its headquarters in Bengaluru yesterday. The new centre will be the home of all crewed missions by ISRO in the future, including the GAGANYAAN project. The government-owned space agency made the announcement of its new inauguration on its official Twitter account, along with a picture of the dignitaries present and a full-scale model of of GAGANYAAN’s crew module. While S Unnikrishnan Nair serves as the Founder and Director of the HSFC, R Hutton is the Project Director for the GAGANYAAN project. The grand opening was made by K Kasturirangan, the Former Chairman of ISRO in the presence of K Sivan, the incumbent Chairman and Secretary of the Department of Space at ISRO. “HSFC shall be responsible for implementation of ...

Highlights: Vodafone has launched a Rs 1699 prepaid plan in some circles. It is the same as the Rs 1499 plan and comes with a validity of 1 year. The Vodafone Plan competes with the Rs 1,699 plans from Reliance Jio and Airtel. Keeping pace with the constantly changing framework in the telecom world, Vodafone has launched the Rs 1699 plan in select circles. The plan essentially matches with the offerings from its competitor Airtel, but offers 500MB data less than what Jio is offering. As per a listing on the Vodafone website, the plan gives users unlimited local, STD and roaming calls within India with 1GB 4G/3G Data per day as well as 100 SMS per day for 365 days. This is the same as the Rs 1499 plan that the telecom giant launched earlier this month. This means that those who wish to get the benefits of the plan will now have to pay Rs 200 more. Unfortunately, the plan is only available in a few circles, like Kerala, and those who wish to purchase it, can directly go to the Vodafone ...

Highlights: Mark Zuckerberg says that integration of Facebook’s services is a “2020 thing or beyond.” Reason for the unification is said to be security, better user experience, and interoperability of services. Zuckerberg also said that over 2.7 billion people use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger each month. Facebook’s Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg was reportedly planning on integrating WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. This is now official as Zuckerberg announced the plans in the company’s Q4 earnings call that the new implementation won’t happen at least until 2020. “We're really early in thinking through this. There's a lot more that we need to figure out before we finalize the plans. And then, of course, this is going to be a long-term project that I think will probably be to whatever extent we end up doing it in -- a 2020 thing or beyond,” Says Zuckerberg.  In the call, Zuckerberg stated that some of the key reasons for the integrating of these ser...

Intel's latest CPU brings workstation-class performance and features to the enthusiast market, plus Intel's highest ever core count. from RSS Feeds | LAPTOPS - RSS Feed - NDTV Gadgets360.com http://bit.ly/2MJ4Lw2

Highlights: After a series of delays, the flagship Intel Xeon W-3175X HEDT is now finally available. The flagship processor houses 28 cores and 52 threads and is specially optimised for a variety of operations. The CPU has a base clock speed of 3.1GHz and go up to 4.3GHz if overclocked. The flagship Intel Xeon W-3175X that was last showcased at Computex 2018, in Taiwan. It is now finally available for sale. The high-end desktop processor has the highest core count ever released by the chip-maker for the HEDT platform. It also happens to be the most expensive Intel processor with a retail price of $2999, a whopping $1000 more than the Core i9-9980XE, the company’s flagship Core-series processor for desktops. The high-end desktop processor saw various delays since its announcement back in June. It was previously thought to launch by the end of 2018. Finally, at the end of January 2019, the chip has been made available. Intel had not disclosed the pricing of the processor all this while ...

Jenga, the popular block stacking game that has been the source of much amusement and plenty of frustration across the world, now has a new player. In a basement on the MIT campus, a team of scientists have taught a robot to play Jenga. The feat was achieved by a team led by MIT graduate student Nima Fazeli. This achievement is a remarkable one for the field of robotics, as Jenga is a game that requires complex understanding of the forces of physics such as push, pull, spatial arrangement. What makes their achievement special is that they achieved their goal using vision and touch, rather than just vision. For a robot to know how to play a game of Jenga using vision alone, the model would have to be trained to be trained for every single scenario that would transpire between the robot, the tower and the block(s). This would require far too many games, which was not feasible. The robotic arm is equipped is equipped with a gripped, a wrist cuff that senses the amount of force being exer...

Highlights:  Spotify could launch in India in March. The music streaming service had a launch party planned at Mumbai's Famous Studios for January 31. The service is awaiting deal completion with Sony and Universal. January 31 is almost over and there’s no sight of Spotify in India. The launch of the international music streaming service in India was expected today, but as per a source aware of the developments, Spotify deferred the January 31 launch because of lack of licensing deals with Sony and Universal. Our source tells us that a launch party for Spotify was scheduled to be held at Mumbai’s Famous Studios on January 31, but the same was cancelled because the service is yet to secure pending deals with Sony and Universal. The source further informed us that the launch of the music streaming service is now set for March, but “nothing is concrete” and it all depends on how soon the service manages to close its deals. Given this new information, it seems like Variety’s...

The Samsung Galaxy M20 has been finally launched in India at a starting price of Rs 10,990. The phone is powered by an Exynos 7885 octa-core processor and has a dual camera setup on the back. On the other hand, we have Xiaomi’s mid-range segment device Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro, which is available in India for Rs 9,999 for the base 3GB/32GB variant. The phone features a traditional notch on top of the display and a dual camera setup on the back. Let’s do a quick specs comparison of the two to know which one would be the right buy for you in terms of hardware?  The Samsung Galaxy M20 sports a slightly bigger 6.23-inch display that offers a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, while the Xiaomi Redmi 6 Pro features a 5.84-inch display that comes with a resolution of 1080 x 2280 pixels.  When it comes to the processor, the Samsung Galaxy M20 is powered by an Exynos 7885 octa-core processor, which is paired with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal memory, the phone is also launched in 4GB/64GB varian...

Highlights: Reliance and Honor partner to sell View 20 phone offline. The phone will be sold at Reliance Digital as well as My Jio stores in 700+ cities. Potential buyers can get their hands on the phone from February 6. Honor has tied-up with Reliance to sell its recently-launched Honor View 20 offline at Reliance Digital outlets as well as My Jio stores in 700+ cities. Customers can get their hands on the View 20 at these stores starting February 6. The pre-bookings of the Honor View 20 started on January 24 and the phone was launched in India on January 29. According to the press note, there will be no price difference between offline and online channels. Jio customers can also get Rs 2200 cashback and upto 2.2TB data on purchase of this phone. “At Honor, we are committed to delivering the best of technologies to our customers at affordable price points. In line with our commitment, the partnership with Reliance enables us to reach a larger audience. Further, thi...

Highlights: User Agent profile on Huawei's website revealed important details of the upcoming Huawei P30 Lite. The P30 series has been certified by Russian Certification Agency, EEC. The phones are expected to launch sometime in March 2019. Quite predictably, Huawei will be unveiling the next-generation P-series flagships in the first half of 2019. The Huawei P30 phones reportedly have codenames named after fashion brands — Elle, Vogue and Marie Claire. Incidentally, the latter seems to be the Huawei P30 Lite with model number MAR-LX1M and now, more information about the phone is available. The phone, which had been doing the rumour rounds for quite some time now, has once again surfaced via the handset’s UA profile available on Huawei’s website. The User Agent profile information reveals some important details about what the smartphone will offer. According to the UA profile, the Huawei P30 Lite's display will sport a 1080x2312 pixel resolution. That indicates the display wil...

Highlights: PUBG Vikendi PS4 contest kicked off on January 29 and will go on till February 7. The winner will get a custom PS4. Are you playing PUBG on your PS4? Would you like to win a custom PS4 Pro by showcasing your PUBG skills? Well you are in luck. Take a look at the PS4 Pro in the image above. That could be yours! If you can show your stunt skills in the Vikendi map. The Vikendi map is available on the PS4. With the release of the map PUBG for PS4 has a new contest. It is called the Vikendi Stunt Contest! The official PUBG website reads, “Show us your sleek stunts on Vikendi and win cool prizes! We will pick the top 10 players with the best stunt footage and the winners will receive Custom PUBG PS4 Pros (supplied with American power plug)!” Every eligible participant that meets the requirements will also receive special in-game items. If you are interested in participating in the contest, you can do so by dropping into Vikendi, performing a stunt and record it using the PS4’s S...

The latest stable version of Chrome has a "Navigation suggestions for lookalike URLs" flag to confirm the feature. from RSS Feeds | GOOGLE - RSS Feed - NDTV Gadgets360.com http://bit.ly/2sYZCa6

LG Electronics Inc posted its slowest quarterly profit growth in two years on Thursday citing higher marketing costs and tougher competition in the television business. from RSS Feeds | LAPTOPS - RSS Feed - NDTV Gadgets360.com http://bit.ly/2sWO0V5

It is finally January 31, but it appears that there is still no Spotify service available for Indian customers. A quick visit to the company’s website reveals the message “Spotify is currently not available in your country” in big, bold letters. The last few days, Spotify’s January 31 launch date has been dominating the news cycle, but unfortunately, Indians continue to be left out of the service’s coverage. There were always signs that the January 31 deadline may not be met, but let’s examine what has happened in the last few days, which is bound to paint a clearer picture of the service’s launch status. The T-Series Deal Probably the first and the biggest clue to an impending launch of Spotify in India was the company signing a licensing deal with T-Series. The deal was to add T-series’ portfolio to Spotify’s streaming platform, at a global level. T-Series has the largest library of Bollywood songs and without access to T-Series’ library, Spotify would not have a relevant enough col...

Highlights: The periodic table has turned 150. UNESCO celebrates the anniversary with a day-long programme.   It’s 1869. An energetic 35-year-old Russian named Dmitri Mendeleev is writing the second volume of his book titled The Principles of Chemistry while teaching at the Technical Institute in St Petersburg. On a cold winter day in March, his mind is preoccupied with a certain table structure he is certain will reveal to him all the known elements in some logical way. Having written the names of all 65 known elements on small individual cards along with their fundamental properties, Mendeleev moves them around on a table to find the right logical order. Weary, he naps at his table, but when he awakes, something significant is born from his mind—the periodic table. Can you believe it? One and half centuries have passed since that historic day when Dmitri Mendeleev formulated the first periodic table. Today, the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (as it’s officially called by th...

Highlights: PUBG on PC gets Update #25 on live servers. The new update brings Moonlight mode for Vikendi, along with loot rebalance. The Snowbike has not included with this update. Update #25 for the PC version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is now available for gamers. The new update brings a slew of new changes to the game, including a new SMG weapon called the Bizon that is said to be a low recoil, fully equipped weapon. There is also loot rebalance and a new weather setting for Vikendi, multiple quality of life improvements and more. However, the company has decided to not include the Snowbike with this update, which was previously teased, because of some gameplay issues that still need to be fixed. The Snowbike is said to be made available in a forthcoming update once the problems have been fixed. Additionally, a new 'secret location’ has also been added to Vikendi. With this update, one will notice that there are fewer SMGs and DMRs to be found in Vikendi as a loot rebalan...

Highlights: Both Samsung and Apple lost smartphone shipment market share. Chinese players HOVX (Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi) end the year with positive growth. HMD Global registered a 126 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth.   The global smartphone market saw a 4 percent decline in shipment in Calendar Year (CY) 2018 even as the fourth quarter of the year saw a 7 percent fall, Counterpoint Research’s Market Monitor Service has said. The research firm claims that the decline in shipments in Q4 2018 marks the fifth consecutive quarter of this behaviour. Chinese players HOVX (Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi) continue to defy market decline ending the year with positive growth, the report notes. “This is the first time that the global smartphone market has witnessed decline for a whole year. The decline in smartphone shipments can be attributed to lengthening replacement cycles in developed markets like US, China and Western Europe. Smartphone OEMs tried to push sales by adding fea...

Highlights: Apple is reportedly working on a laser-based 3D camera system for 2020 iPhones. The new camera setup is said to enable better AR implementation and imaging functionality. The company is said to debut the tech with a new 10-inch iPad. We already know that Apple is working on its new generation of iPhones as we brought you the first look at how the upcoming iPhone XI might look like, with a triple-rear camera on the back. Now, a new report by Bloomberg claims that the company is planning to launch the 2020 iPhones with a “more-powerful 3-D camera to get a leg up in the Augmented Reality (AR) market". Citing people close to the development, the report states that future iPhones could come equipped with a longer-range 3D camera that is made for scanning the environment and reconstructing it in 3D. It is said to work up to about 15 feet from the device, as opposed to the front-facing 3D camera in current generation iPhones that can scan a user’...

Highlights: Fortnite for Android and iOS now supports bluetooth controllers. The game supports 60FPS on select Android devices. The update for Fortnite on mobile brings with it bug fixes. If you are frustrated using touch controls for Fortnite on iOS and Android then there is good news for you. Epic has updated the game on iOS and Android to support bluetooth controllers. On Android you can use any bluetooth controller, but on iOS users can only use controllers that are “Made for iPhone” certified. On its official website, Epic says, on Android “most of Bluetooth controller adapters, such as Steelseries Stratus XL, Gamevice, XBox1, Razer Raiju, and Moto Gamepad” are supported. On iOS, “MFi controllers, such as Steelseries Nimbus and Gamevice” are supported. Fortnite already supported 60FPS on the new iPhones but the developer has also added 60FPS support for select Android devices. As of now, 60FPS is supported on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (USA variant), HONOR View 20 and the Huawei M...

Highlights: Retail box image leak shows Moto G7 Plus with 27W TurboPower fast charging support. The main 16MP camera is also seen having OIS. The phone is seen sporting a waterdrop notch. Last week, all the phones belonging to the Moto G7 series were leaked delving out a lot of information about the devices. It seemed that we might not see any major leaks in the run-up to the launch event, but now the images of the retail box of the Moto G7 Plus are making rounds on the internet showing that the phone will come with 27W TurboPower fast charging support. Previous generation of Motorola phones ship with the Turbo charging support. However, there is no confirmation if all other phones in the series, apart from Moto G7 Plus, will have the same TurboPower fast charging support. In addition to the TurboPower charging, the Moto G7 Plus is expected to have the Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) on its main 16MP camera. Brazilian tech website Tudocelular also reports that Motorola...

The Samsung Galaxy M10 is powered by an Exynos 7870 octa-core processor and has a dual camera setup on the back. Samsung has launched the M series in India to target Millenials. The phone has a water drop notch on top of it, which makes it stylish in terms of design. On the other hand, the Redmi 6A is a very basic phone in terms of design and display but packs a powerful set of specifications under a price of Rs 6,000. So, let’s compare these two budget devices to know which one packs better hardware under its hood within a limited budget.    Let’s begin with the display of these two smartphones. As you can see in the sheet above, the Samsung Galaxy M10 sports a 6.22-inch display that offers a resolution of 720 x 1520 pixels, while the Xiaomi Redmi 6A features a 5.45-inch display that comes with a resolution of 720 x 1440 pixels.  When it comes to the processor, the Galaxy M10 is powered by an Exynos 7870 octa-core processor, which is paired with 2GB RAM and 16GB interna...

Highlights: Canary channel of Chrome OS gets support for multiple Google accounts. The feature should appear in all Chromebooks soon. New accounts can be added using the account manager.   You may have read reports about Chrome OS getting support for multiple Google accounts around September last year. Well, according to a recent report by Chrome Story, the updated Canary channel of Chrome OS finally has it. What it means is that support for multiple Google accounts will soon roll out even to the Stable version of Chrome OS. When it does, you should be able to add more than one Google account on your Chromebook using the newly added account manager. According to Chrome Story’s report, the account manager is already available on the Canary channel of Chrome OS. For the uninitiated, Chrome and Chrome OS are available in four release channels: Stable (recommended for most regular users), Beta (for those wanting to try features still in development), Dev (for those wanting to experime...

Highlights Samsung Galaxy S10 enters mass production. Phone may come with screen protector pre-installed. 5G variant to go into mass production later. With Samsung just 20 days away from announcing its next set of flagship smartphones, the Samsung Galaxy S10 and S10+, a source has told The Investor that the S10 has entered mass production. The insider says that the production for the three variants of the Samsung Galaxy S10 has begun and that these are the 4G variants of the phone. The source says that the 5G variants will enter mass production later and will be manufactured at Samsung’s Gumi plant. The insider also told the publication that the mid-sized and large Galaxy S10 will come with a screen protector pre-installed. Typically, curved screen protectors have cost a pretty penny in the past, so Samsung pre-installing screen protectors would be a great move. However, we expect these to be standard flexible screen protectors and not actually tempered glass protectors. The Galaxy S1...

Highlights: Apple bans Facebook Research App that accessed root-level information on users’ phones. Facebook allegedly paid up to $20 per month to users to download the VPN app. The social media company denies any wrongdoing, says it took consent to access data.   It seems that Facebook hasn’t learnt from its mistakes. It is already shrouded by several controversies related to data theft, yet new reports of spying and data collection activity crop up ever so often, putting the data protection claims of the Menlo Park-based company under the lens. In the latest development, it is alleged that Facebook was spying on teenagers through an app by accessing all the data passing through their phones in exchange of up to $20 a month. Apple has now banned the app. According to TechCrunch, Facebook has been secretly paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN that gives it access to users’ data and web activity. The report claimed that Facebook sidestepped the App Store and...