China is preparing to launch an antitrust probe into Alphabet Inc’s Google, looking into allegations it has leveraged the dominance of its Android mobile operating system to stifle competition, two people familiar with the matter said.

The case was proposed by telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd last year and has been submitted by the country’s top market regulator to the State Council’s antitrust committee for review, they added.

A decision on whether to proceed with a formal investigation may come as soon as October and could be affected by the state of China’s relationship with the United States, one of the people said.

The potential investigation follows a raft of actions by US President Donald Trump’s administration to hobble Chinese tech companies, citing national security risks.

This has included putting Huawei on its trade blacklist, threatening similar action for Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and ordering TikTok owner ByteDance to divest the short-form video app.

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Perhaps it’s a sign of our times that a potentially landmark battle with antitrust implications is shaping up over digital pickaxes. The court case involving Apple and Epic Games, the maker of the video game Fortnite, is the result of the gamemaker’s rebellion against rules and fees set by Apple in its role of gatekeeper for apps on its iPhones and iPads.

What’s the case about?

In August, Epic’s billionaire founder, Tim Sweeney, announced that he would no longer abide by Apple’s rule that all purchases of apps and items within apps designed for its iOS-based devices go through Apple’s payment system. After he activated Epic’s own payment system, Apple kicked Fortnite out of its app store. It also threatened to make it hard for developers using Epic’s tools to build games. In response, Epic sued in federal court; it also sued Google over the same issue Apple soon counter-sued.

What was Epic unhappy about?

That Apple and Google charge fees of up to 30 per cent to developers using their app stores. Consumers spent $50 billion worldwide on the App Store and Google Play in the first half of 2020, according to Sensor Tower estimates. That generated billions of dollars in highly profitable revenue for the companies. Some developers have derided this as an unfair and unwarranted tax, especially since it applies not just to the purchase of an app, but to anything bought within one.

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Computer systems across a major hospital chain with facilities across the nation were down on Monday due to what the company termed an unspecified technology security issue”.

Doctors and nurses had to rely on paper.

Universal Health Services Inc, which operates more than 250 hospitals and other clinical facilities in the US, said in a short statement posted to its website on Monday that its network was offline and doctors and nurses were resorting to back-up processes including paper records.

The Fortune 500 company, with 90,000 employees, said patient care continues to be delivered safely and effectively and no patient or employee data appeared to have been accessed, copied or misused”.

The company also has hospitals in the United Kingdom, but its operations in that country were not affected, a spokeswoman said on Monday night.

UHS provided no details about the incident, but people posting to an online Reddit forum who identified themselves as employees said the chain’s network was hit by ransomware overnight Sunday.

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(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said late Monday a recent change it introduced likely caused a major outage, affecting users’ access to multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook.com and Microsoft Teams.

The developer of Windows and Office software said it did not “observe an increase in successful connections” even after it rolled back the change to mitigate the impact.

“A moment ago nothing was working, then I went into files in Teams and it was working, now nothing is working. Well I guess now I have an excuse to not do work and watch TV,” one Twitter user tweeted.

“We’re pursuing mitigation steps for this issue. In parallel, we’re rerouting traffic to alternate systems to provide further relief to the affected users,” Microsoft said on its status page, without specifying how many users were affected.

Several other Twitter users complained that the outage meant they could miss their job interviews and deadline for college assignments.

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Xiaomi is hosting its annual ‘Smarter Living’ event on Tuesday where the Chinese electronics maker is expected to unveil its ecosystem products and internet of things (IoT) devices. The virtual event will begin at 12 noon and it will live stream on company’s YouTube channel. As for the products, the company is expected to announce a fitness band, smart speaker and a smartwatch.

Xiaomi has been teasing the upcoming products through its social media channels. The product portfolio is likely to include the Mi Band 5, Mi Watch, and a smart speaker. The Mi Band 5 was launched in China earlier this year. It seems to be coming to India now.

The health and fitness band sports a 1.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen. It supports 11 sport modes supported by company’s Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) activity index. The band comes with improved magnetic charging mechanism.

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 Are you looking for a reliable way to track a cell phone with its phone number? This is technology only the government, the police, and network carriers can typically access.

What are you to do then? You could use a reverse phone lookup service to track the cell phone’s location by its number for free. But this isn’t real-time tracking. You won’t be able to follow the phone user on your screen as they move around on a map.

If you wish to track them on a map in real-time, your only option is to use a specialized phone number tracker. For example Spyine. We explain everything you need to know about this subject in this mini-guide.

Why Using a Phone Number Tracker Like Spyine is Your Best Bet

Mobile number trackers are built for tracking. They use a mix of GPS, WiFi, and the cellular signal to pinpoint a device’s location on a map. With the right tracker, such as Spyine, you will be able to follow the device’s movement remotely in real-time.Read Complete Article

Apple has temporarily waived its customary 30 per cent App Store fee on in-app purchases for paid online events by small businesses on Facebook.

The social networking giant said on Friday that online event fees will be processed through Facebook Pay without Apple collecting its 30 per cent cut, reports TechCrunch.

It means that small businesses will receive all of the earnings from their online events.

This Apple waiver will last until December 31 and will not apply to gaming creators.

Facebook last month launched a new ability for businesses, creators, educators and media publishers to earn money from online events on its platform.

Facebook Page owners can now create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place.

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Realme Narzo 20’s first sale starts on Monday at 12 noon at Flipkart and Realme online store. Launched on September 21, the Narzo 20 is a successor to the Narzo 10 (review). It features a HD+ resolution screen, quad rear camera, MediaTek’s gaming-centric processor, and big capacity battery with fast charge support.

As for the specifications, the Narzo 20 sports a 6.5-inch LCD screen of HD+ resolution.

It is powered by MediaTek Helio G85 system-on-chip, paired with 4GB RAM and up to 128GB onboard storage. The dualSIM phone has a dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion.

It has a triple-camera set-up on the back, featuring a 48MP primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, and a 2MP macro sensor. On the front, the phone has an 8MP sensor for selfies, videos and phone unlock mechanism.

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To ensure productivity along with enough self-care in between, Google has introduced a new Workday routine that makes Google Assistant help you stretch, walk and drink water as you work from home.

Available in English, the new workday routine automatically reminds you of all the small and big things to do throughout your work day – from staying on top of your calendar to taking a break away from the desk.

After you enable the routine in the Assistant settings on your Android or iOS device, you can start with a pre-set routine.

For example, at 2 p.m., Google Assistant might suggest going for a walk, and then to grab a glass of water at 3 p.m.

“At 4:45 p.m., you’ll be reminded to start wrapping things up. Assistant will also regularly share the time with you throughout the day, so that you don’t lose track of upcoming meetings,” said Alice Liang, Product Manager at Google.

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Instagram Reels is getting new features, including extended recording time limit of up to 30 seconds, ability to extend the timer to 10 seconds while recording, and an option to trim and delete clip from the timeline. Launched in India in July this year, Reels is a short-video service from Instagram that lets user create and share short-videos with their followers on their Instagram Feed.How to create Instagram Reels

Tap on Reels icon available at the bottom of the Instagram app to get into camera recording and editing mode. There is a variety of creative editing tools available to process the recorded video before publishing. Here are some of the features and tools available:

Audio: Search for a song from the Instagram music library for your reel. You can also use your own original audio by simply recording a reel with it.

AR Effects: Select one of the many effects in our AR library, created by both Instagram, and creators all over the world, to record multiple clips with different effects.

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