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WhatsApp users can also choose after how much time the fingerprint lock gets enabled, immediately, or after one, 15, or 60 minutes. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/335JVOH

Traditionally, Pegasus works by sending a link, and if the target user clicks on it, it is installed on the user’s device. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2oFeegc

Traditionally, Pegasus works by sending a link, and if the target user clicks on it, it is installed on the user’s device. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2r4vr3x

The much-awaited Apple's video streaming service — Apple TV Plus — will be available in India today. It was announced back in June this year at WWDC , but the company opened up about it at the annual Apple event held in Cupertino back in September . The Apple TV Plus service is expected to roll out in a few hours as the website says, "Coming 1 November" but is not yet available. A big player like Apple dabbling in this market, it seems like it might rattle other competitors like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and more for sure. Apple TV+  will also feature nine originals, including Jason Momoa-Charlize Theron starrer  See  and the Jennifer Aniston-led  The Morning Show,  not to mention  For All Mankind, Dickinson, Helpsters, Snoopy in Space, Ghostwriter, The Elephant Queen , and a new project from Oprah Winfrey. Apple TV Plus (Also read:  Apple TV Plus Vs Netflix Vs Hotstar Vs Amazon Prime Video: Which one's the best value? ) Apple TV Plus pri...

Apple Music's offer to bundle access to Apple TV+ along with its $4.99 per month subscription was revealed by Hailee Steinfeld on her Instagram account. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2BXvHn8

Xbox Console Streaming for Android is available for US and UK Xbox Insiders who have enrolled their consoles in the Alpha or Alpha Skip-Ahead rings. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2q5KmtH

The Moto Razr folding phone has been in the pipeline for quite some time and there have been countless rumours and renders floating about the device. The company is going to hold an unveiling event on 13 November where it is widely believed that the Moto Razr Flip will launch. Now ahead of this event, we appear to have our first look at the device. Moto Razr concept. Evan Blass As per an image shared by reputed tipster Evan Blass , we see the familiar clamshell design that made the original Moto Razr quite popular. Only this time, the phone will not have a T9 keyboard but an entire display that can be folded shut. Like the Galaxy Fold, Moto has also opted for a folding display tech on its device and it is said to bend vertically instead of horizontally like the Fold. The device will also not be very spec-heavy if the past rumours are anything to go by . The phone is expected to sport a Snapdragon 710 chipset with up to 4 or 6 GB of RAM and 64 or 128 GB of storage. The battery s...

With every passing week, it seems NASA has one more complication or reason to defer its targeted 2024 deadline for the upcoming human mission to the moon, Artemis. The most recent blow (unconfirmed by NASA) was that Congress might decide not to fund the mission for the planned deadline. NASA's enormous rocket-in-development, the Space Launch System (SLS) , has fallen well behind schedule. History has been unkind to deep-space exploration programs since Apollo, which means that a lot rides on NASA's Artemis mission  marking the start of a "moon rush" of sorts. Scientists John Connolly and Niki Werkheiser from NASA shared new details on the Artemis mission at the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, an annual interdisciplinary forum in Washington, held on 30 October. Artemis seems far, far more complex than the agency's earlier missions to the moon under the Apollo program, according to Ars Technica . Artist's illustration o...

When Facebook acquired the VR company Oculus a couple of years back, the social media giant had some grand plans for the future of virtual reality. Now it appears that the bet on the future isn't really paying off as per CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Oculus Quest. Reuters After pouring in $2 billion for the Oculus acquisition , there had been a certain belief that VR was the way to go in the future. However, at the Q3 earnings report, Zuckerberg has said that not everything had gone according to plan. "On VR and AR, you're right. This is taking a bit longer than we thought. And I'm still optimistic," Zuckerberg said as per Business Insider . "I think that the long-term vision and the reasons why I thought this — we're going to be important and big — are unchanged." In any case, Zuckerberg has insisted that the VR market is going to pick up fast and Oculus is going to be leading it. Back at Facebook's annual F8 conference, the company unveiled the $3...

The FridaysforFuture campaign for school strikes led by Swedish climate activist 16-year-old Greta Thunberg and her peers highlight the importance of treating climate change as an urgent issue. The theme is simple: to abide by scientific evidences that point out that global average temperatures are inching towards dangerous and irreversible thresholds. For India, climate change is already an existential threat. Coupled with mismanagement of resources and governance, India faces acute repercussions of climate impacts year-round in the form of extreme and unseasonal rainfall, droughts, floods and heatwaves leading to economic and livelihood losses, food and water security threats. Greta Thunberg stands with School strike for the climate sign during a strike. Image credit: Wikipedia/Leonhard Lenz India’s own positioning on climate change issues at global platforms appears impressive. Recently, at the UN Climate Change Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of rev...

Twitter’s ban on political advertising is ratcheting up pressure on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to follow suit. But so far, that doesn’t appear likely to happen. Facebook’s policy is to accept paid political ads from candidates without fact-checking them or censoring them , even if they contain lies. And Zuckerberg doubled down on that stand Wednesday following Twitter’s announcement , reiterating that “political speech is important” and that Facebook is loath to interfere with it. Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites have come under fire over Russia’s use of such platforms to spread misinformation and sow political division in the US during the 2016 presidential campaign. That debate has heated up again in recent weeks along with the 2020 race for the White house. Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites have come under fire over Russia’s use of such platforms to spread misinformation and sow political division in the U.S. Image: Getty Twitter chose to respon...

The suit against Facebook contends that women and older people were denied the benefits of ads for financial services because Facebook tools allow messages to be targeted at specific age ranges or genders. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2WuWkcB

Chemical residues released from pharmaceutical and personal care products are not only becoming a major contaminant of water bodies in urban areas but are also becoming a source of drug resistance in the environment, a new study has warned. The study, which evaluated the vulnerability and resilience of urban water bodies in Guwahati city, found the presence of viruses and multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, or E Coli in samples collected from the Brahmaputra river. Deepor Beel — a freshwater wetland — was found to be the least polluted in comparison to the Brahmaputra river and Bharalu, the tributary turned urban drain. Raw sewage flows into the river. Image credit: AP Researchers analysed occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, intestine occurring virus, antibiotic resistant bacteria, metal, faecal contamination and antibiotic resistance genes, as well as the long term changes in precipitation and temperature of water. Some microbes displayed 100 per cent re...

In recent times spyware has become quite a threat to society and information stored on your smartphones is under an even greater threat than before. A representation image of the Pegasus spyware by Kaspersky. Isreali company NSO, whose bread and butter is developing spyware, has been put in the limelight the past couple of days for allegedly using WhatsApp to snoop around several high-profile individuals in many countries including India. The word Pegasus keeps cropping up in association with NSO and the spying that the company is doing. What is Pegasus? Pegasus is a modular malware that can initiate  total  surveillance on the targeted device, says a report by digital security company Kaspersky .  It installs the necessary modules to read the user’s messages and mail, listen to calls, send back the browser history and more, which basically means taking control of nearly all aspects of your digital life. It can even listen in to encrypted audio and text files ...

Our list of phones under Rs 20,000 this month is dominated by Xiaomi and its sub-brands. But there’s some stiff competition too. What’s more important is the kind of features and processing power that buyers can get in this budget these days. From sharp Super AMOLED displays to 64 MP cameras to 256 GB of internal storage, you can find it all here. So let's jump into the action and check what your best options are under 20K currently. Best phones under Rs 20,000 in India Realme XT Realme XT (Review) was the first phone with a 64 MP camera that the Oppo sub-brand launched in India. And if that wasn’t enough, Realme chose to add three more cameras at the back to give it company. The quad-camera setup comprises of the main 64 MP camera, an 8 MP ultra-wide shooter, 2 MP dedicated macro camera, and a 2 MP depth sensor. The main camera supports pixel binning and captures some impressive 16 MP images in varied lighting conditions including low light. The images have a good amount of de...

Ten minutes charging time to add 200 miles of driving range: scientists in the US have claimed a technological breakthrough that could resolve one of the key concerns surrounding all-electric vehicles. Writing in the journal Joule on Wednesday, researchers at The Pennsylvania State University said that such a speedy charge rate required a battery to rapidly take in 400 kilowatts of energy. Current generation vehicles are not capable of this feat as it risks the lithium plating, the formation of metallic lithium around the anode, which would severely deteriorate battery life. To get around this constraint, the researchers raised the temperature of their experimental battery to 60 degrees Celsius during the charge cycle, then lowered it back down as it was used. (Also read:  Everything electric: How to go about achieving an all-electric future within the next decade ) Current generation Tesla vehicles require about 30 minutes for a partial charge. Representational Image: Pi...

Xiaomi has carved out a big space in the smartphone segment in China and India and it is doing the same with its smart TV lineup. The company is all set to release the new Mi TV 5 series in China on 5 November and it would appear that some key specs of the device have been revealed before the launch. Xiaomi Mi TV 5. As per the poster released by Xiaomi for the Mi TV 5, the device is said to come with a 12nm T972 chipset with support for 8K video recording. A jump of 63 percent is being touted for this chipset as compared to the previous generation. In terms of memory options, the Mi TV 5 packs in 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. It had been confirmed earlier that the Mi TV 5 is confirmed to come with a 4K QLED panel covering NTSC 108% wide colour gamut, similar to the one seen on the OnePlus TV. This could mean that the Mi TV 5 will be more in the premium smart TV segment rather than the budget segment it usually aims for. Along with the Mi...

Ten minutes charging time to add 200 miles of driving range: scientists in the US have claimed a technological breakthrough that could resolve one of the key concerns surrounding all-electric vehicles. Writing in the journal Joule on Wednesday, researchers at The Pennsylvania State University said that such a speedy charge rate required a battery to rapidly take in 400 kilowatts of energy. Current generation vehicles are not capable of this feat as it risks the lithium plating, the formation of metallic lithium around the anode, which would severely deteriorate battery life. To get around this constraint, the researchers raised the temperature of their experimental battery to 60 degrees Celsius during the charge cycle, then lowered it back down as it was used. (Also read:  Everything electric: How to go about achieving an all-electric future within the next decade ) Current generation Tesla vehicles require about 30 minutes for a partial charge. Representational Image: Pix...

After a new iPhone is announced, it’s sold in the conventional way where the buyer pays the entire amount upfront. Although there’s the contract model with telecom operators where an amount is paid monthly, it’s implemented by the telecom company and not Apple. It doesn’t really offer anything apart from the device and the voice/data plan along with some perks from the carrier network. Now, some Apple investors want the company to introduce a subscription model for the iPhone. Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, U.S. June 3, 2019. Image: Reuters Coming from a CNBC report , Apple CEO Tim Cook sounded optimistic about the idea of an iPhone subscription plan during the company’s earnings call recently. This idea isn’t new and it’s reportedly referred to as Apple Prime by some people, a moniker based on Amazon’s subscription service. It suggests combining hardware upgrades with its software services such as iClou...

The music streaming app, Spotify , has helmed its position in the market by attracting more and more users with its regular  features  updates . Spotify  is now growing its user base with a new  app called Spotify Kids .  The app is aimed at children of three years of age and above. As per the website, this app has rolled out in Ireland (starting 30 October) for now but will eventually come to other countries in the coming months. One thing that you would want to note here is that you will have to make a separate Spotify account for your child on this app. You can get this app if you have the  Premium Family subscription plan (at Rs 179 per month). All you need to do is get the family subscription plan, download the Spotify Kids app from Play Stor e or App Store and sign up with a separate kid's account and you are good to go. Spotify Kids has rolled out in Ireland. Image: Spotify Spotify Kids will have handpicked curations for kids that ...

Samsung Electronics said Thursday its operating profit for the last quarter fell by nearly 56 percent, with its robust sales of smartphones, displays and TVs offset by a continuously weak market for computer chips. The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman The South Korean technology giant reported an operating profit of 7.78 trillion won ($6.7 billion) for the July-September quarter, which represented a 55.7% drop from the same period last year. Samsung says third-quarter revenue fell 5.3% to 62 trillion won ($53.4 billion). Samsung is the world’s biggest maker of semiconductors and smartphones, but it has struggled with falling prices for DRAM and NAND memory chips since late last year. Experts say chipmakers are suffering after misreading industry demand for their products. They invested heavily in 2016 and 2017 to ramp up production, but global orders for chips used in smartphones, int...

Editor's Note:  This story is part of a series on mindfulness, its concepts and variations, in partnership with the 2nd Mindfulness India Summit, taking place on 30-31 October 2019.  You can find the  full list of stories under the series here .    I know what’s on my mind. I know what I’m feeling right now. And I know whether to act on it or do nothing and let it pass. I also care about people. And I won’t whip my feelings around so they affect other people than myself. Wouldn’t it be nice to have these features programmed into our DNA? Instead, this (and a lot, lot more) is passing for a modern emotional cure-all – a state of equilibrium and zen that people have coined “mindfulness”. It has more than alphabets in common with that other m-word: meditation. Both require a degree of dedication to start and reward you with a truth that is further away from the biased, unpredictable world and closer to who you really are. For a spiritual scept...

China has announced that it will soon be ready to launch commercial satellites into space with the help of new ‘small space rockets’. The commercial arm of the Chinese space agency, China Rocket, has unveiled three solid-fuel rockets named ‘Smart Dragon’ (SD) and a liquid propellant rocket named Tenglong. They are expected to be ready to launch in the next two years. SD-1, with a lifting capacity of 200 kg has completed its first flight on 17 August. SD-2 with a 500 kg lifting capacity will fly in 2020 and SD-3, which has a lifting capacity of 1,500 kg, will complete its first flight in 2021. The liquid-propellant rocket, Tenglong is slated to fly in 2021. The PSLV-C40 mission launching from ISRO's launchpad at Sriharikota. Image credit: ISRO This will be China’s foray into the industry of commercial satellite launches. India, on the other hand, has already carved a niche for itself with its commercial arm, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) having got orders from private aerosp...

A bug recently made its way through Apple's App Store and removed over 20 million ratings from apps. According to a report by  TechCrunch ,   App Figures first spotted the bug , which apparently broke out last week, and as of 29 October, the issue was reportedly resolved. Representational image. The bug affected more than 300 popular apps including Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Nike . Reportedly, 155 countries were affected by this and on average, the apps saw a 50 percent decrease in ratings in these countries. However, some apps got it worse than the others.  App Figures reports, " Hulu lost 95 percent of its ratings in the US. Chase and Dropbox lost about 85 percent of their ratings in the US." WOW @Starbucks iOS app lost about 1.3mln of ratings overnight! @hulu lost about 900k, as well as dozens of other apps. I hope this is just @AppStore bug. pic.twitter.com/cUIrb8yeeN — ilia kukharev (@ilyakuh) October 28, 2019 Apple has now...

It was revealed yesterday that Facebook-owned online messaging platform WhatsApp sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group on Tuesday, accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users. Now it appears that some of those users had been Indian journalists. WhatsApp. A WhatsApp spokesperson told Indian Express  that the company was aware of those targeted and had contacted each one of them. WhatsApp first found a cyberattack involving a  vulnerability in their video-calling feature back in May ,  wherein users were being attacked with spyware via a malicious video call, that would affect their device even without them answering the call. “Indian journalists and human rights activists have been the target of surveillance and while I cannot reveal their identities and the exact number, I can say that it is not an insignificant number,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in an interview with Indian Express . WhatsApp head had s...

As of now, you can only run one WhatsApp account on your registered device. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/31Yd8K8

If You Have Dry Throat Issues, You Need This. Complete Air Purification And Humidification, in one purifier. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/36l83yQ

Mysore city (or Mysuru) in Karnataka sure knows its birds. A lesser-known secret of the city that wears a royal cape is its thriving birding scene. On any given day, you can’t miss a few birders with binoculars and cameras gallivanting avian hotspots like the three famous lakes—Karanji, Kukkarahalli and Lingambudhi—and the equally famous Chamundi hills. These avid birders have pulled a rare feat of sorts when they got together to create a Bird Atlas of the city—a first of its kind in the country. The peacock in the Mysore zoo. Image credit: Wikipedia The Bird Atlas effort, which has completed three years of operation, documented 192 species of birds in the city with 130 species spotted in winter and 105 in summer/monsoon. The next time you hear the beautiful melody of an Asian koel more frequently than the cawing of the ubiquitous house crow in Mysore, don’t be surprised. Asian koels are more frequently found in this city than crows, reveals the Atlas. And black kites, rose-ring...

The new projections suggest that much of Mumbai is at risk. Built on what was once a series of islands, the city’s historic downtown is vulnerable. from Top Tech News- News18.com https://ift.tt/2WrBmvb

After a long and anticipated wait, game developer Rockstar's latest title Red Dead Redemption 2 is set to hit PCs on November 5 after being initially only being announced for consoles last year. The PC preload for the game is however now available for download. Red Dead Redemption 2. The information was given by Rockstar on its Twitter page and the game is up for preload means that those who have pre-purchased the game can now preload it on their system  through the Rockstar Launcher . Even so, be prepared to shell out a lot of hard disk space for the game as  Red Dead Redemption 2  clocks in at over 110 GB. This is more than size of the game on both the PS4 and Xbox One. ( Also Read - Red Dead Redemption 2: The symbology, morality and philosophy of Rockstar Games' latest ) "The first game in the Red Dead Redemption series to be featured on the PC platform, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC features a range of graphical and technical enhancements for increase...