Everything she saw on the Chinese app, WeChat, indicated Donald J. Trump was an admired leader and impressive businessman. She believed it was the unquestioned consensus on the newly elected American president. “But then I started talking to some foreigners about him, non-Chinese,” she said. “I was totally confused.”

She began to read more widely, and Ms. Li, who lived in Toronto aat the time, increasingly found WeChat filled with gossip, conspiracy theories and outright lies. One article claimed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada planned to legalize hard drugs. Another rumor purported that Canada had begun selling marijuana in grocery stores. A post from a news account in Shanghai warned Chinese people to take care lest they accidentally bring the drug back from Canada and get arrested.

She also questioned what was being said about China. When a top Huawei executive was arrested in Canada in 2018, articles from foreign news media were quickly censored on WeChat. Her Chinese friends both inside and outside China began to say that Canada had no justice, which contradicted her own experience. “All of a sudden I discovered talking to others about the issue didn’t make sense,” Ms. Li said. “It felt like if I only watched Chinese media, all of my thoughts would be different.”

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The OPPO F17 Pro goes on sale on Monday at select offline stores and online portals, starting 12 noon. Launched recently, the OPPO F17 Pro is a premium model in the OPPO F17 series, which also includes the OPPO F17. It is, however, the Pro model that goes on sale today.

The OPPO F17 Pro comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB onboard storage. Priced at Rs 22,990, the smartphone will be available in Magic Blue, Matte Black, and Metallic White across online and offline stores. As part of its introductory offers, the OPPO F17 Pro gets 7.5 per cent cashback on select banks and no-interest equated monthly instalment for up to six months.

As for the specifications, the OPPO F17 Pro features a 6.43-inch screen of fullHD+ (2400 x 1080) resolution, stretched in a tall 20:9 aspect ratio. It is an AMOLED screen of 60Hz refresh rate. The smartphone is one of the most ergonomically built smartphone. It has a compact form factor (7.48 mm thin) and lightweight design (164g). The phone has a two-tone gradient reflective cover on the back made of plastic.

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Redmi 9 and Redmi 9 Prime go on sale today at Amazon India and Mi online portal. The Redmi 9 is an entry-level smartphone in the Xiaomi India portfolio. The Redmi 9 Prime, on the other hand, is a feature-rich proposition in budget segment. Both the smartphones feature big capacity battery, large display, multi-optic camera set-up and MediaTek processors.

The Redmi 9 Prime comes in 64GB and 128GB internal storage variants, both with 4GB RAM, priced at Rs 9,999 and Rs 11,999, respectively. It comes in matte black, space blue, sunrise flare and mint green colours. The Redmi 9 also comes in similar configurations – 4GB/64GB and 4GB/128GB – priced at Rs 8,999 and Rs 9,999, respectively. It comes in carbon black, sporty orange, sky blue colours.

The Redmi 9 features Xiaomi’s Aura Iconic Design. It sports a 6.35-inch IPS HD+ display of a 20:9 aspect ratio. The display is TÜV Rheinland certified for eye-care protection. The Redmi 9’s back sports a textured design and features a fingerprint sensor. Like its predecessors, the Redmi 9 supports dual 4G standby SIM cards and a dedicated microSD card slot. It has a 3.5mm headphone jack, too.

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Taiwanese company ASUS has announced its new laptops line-up featuring the 11th Generation Intel Core processors. The line-up includes a laptop that has been verified on the Intel Evo platform laptop standards.

Equipped with the Intel 11th Gen chips and ‘Iris Xe’ graphics, the latest ASUS laptops break the boundaries of performance for thin and light laptops and empower users with ultimate experiences in productivity, creativity, gaming, entertainment, and collaboration, the company said in a statement late on Wednesday.

An integrated Intel WiFi 6 and Thunderbolt 4 provide fast, reliable connectivity.

New ‘Iris Xe’ graphics deliver discrete-level graphics performance for next-generation media experiences.

“By empowering users with the latest display, audio, software and network connection technology, ASUS delivers incredible innovations and changes the way users relate to their devices,” ASUS co-CEO Samson Hu said at the ‘Built for Brilliance’ virtual launch event.

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Samsung on Thursday unveiled its first 5G-powered flexible laptop with the Intel 11th Gen Core processor. The thin and light notebook meets the requirements of the Intel Evo platform for advanced computing and specifications, enabling exceptional responsiveness, more efficient battery life and instant wake.

The 2-in-1 Galaxy Book Flex 5G is powered by the new 11th Gen Intel Core Mobile PC chip with Intel Iris Xe graphics, along with Wi-Fi 6 and 5G connectivity for an unparalleled laptop experience, the company said in a statement.

The device comes with a 13MP world-facing camera, a first among Samsung 2-in-1 lineup, and sophisticated S Pen.a

“Thanks to our close collaboration with Intel, Galaxy Book Flex 5G provides users with a powerful performance, next-generation connectivity, effortless productivity and premium entertainment features, all in the form function of their choosing,” said Mincheol Lee, Corporate VP and Head of New Computing Biz Group at Samsung Electronics.

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American chipmaker Intel has announced its next generation mobile processors for future thin and light notebooks. The 11th Gen Intel Core mobile processors, codenamed Tiger Lake, brings computing and performance improvement, and several other upgrades over its predecessor, the 10th Gen Intel Core mobile processors. Moreover, the 11th Gen Core processors are touted to be energy efficient, thanks to 10nm SuperFin process technology.

“11th Gen Intel Core processors with Intel Iris Xe graphics are the world’s best processors for thin-and-light laptops across both Windows and ChromeOS. They represent Intel’s most ambitious system-on-chip (SoC), delivering more than a generational leap in performance and the best experiences for U-series laptops in productivity, creation, gaming, entertainment and collaboration. A broad range of integrated features fuel the best thin-and-light platforms available with optimized CPU, GPU, artificial intelligence (AI) acceleration, software optimization and platform capabilities that maximize real-world performance on the applications and features people use the most,” said Intel in a statement.

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Chinese smartphone maker Realme on Thursday launched in India the Realme 7 and Realme 7 Pro. The smartphones bring segment first features, including the MediaTek Helio G95 mobile processor and 65W SuperDart Charger. Successor to the Realme 6 series, the Realme 7 series brings several upgrades with regard to design, performance, imagine, and more.

The Realme 7 is priced at Rs 14,999 and Rs 16,999 for the 6GB RAM + 64GB internal storage and 8GB RAM + 128GB internal storage variants, respectively. Sale starts from September 10 at 12 noon.

The Realme 7 Pro is priced at Rs 19,999 and Rs 21,999 for the 6GB RAM + 128GB internal storage and 8GB RAM + 128GB internal storage variants, respectively. Sale starts from September 14 at 12 noon.

As part of launch offers, both the smartphones get two-year subscription for Discovery+ at an introductory price of Rs 299. The deal is Flipkart-exclusive.

Realme 7 Pro specifications and features

The Realme 7 Pro is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G system-on-chip, paired with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. The phone ships with Android 10 operating system based Realme UI. It sports a 6.4-inch super AMOLED screen of fullHD+ resolution. The 60Hz refresh rate screen has 180Hz touch sampling rate. The display has tall 20:9 aspect ratio, resulting in 90.8 per cent screen-to-body ratio. It is touted to have 600nits peak brightness and 98 per cent NTSC color gamut.

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With 83,883 fresh coronavirus infections in 24 hours, India’s tally mounted to 3,853,406 on Thursday, while the death toll climbed to 67,376 with 1,043 more fatalities, said the Health Ministry.

Out of total confirmed cases, 8,15,538 are the active cases, while a total of 2,970,492 have recovered from the virus so far. With 68,584 recoveries in a day, the recovery rate has increased to 77.09 per cent.

The number of patients recovering is on a steady rise over the past several months. As the daily recoveries increase, India has registered more than 60,000 recoveries each day, seventh day in a row.

The ministry said that 12 states and union territories like Andaman and Dui, Delhi, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Andaman and Nicobar, West Bengal, etc., have reported a recovery rate more than the national average.

Two states — Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, alone account for around 30 per cent of the total recoveries.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit with a total of 8,08,306 cases and 24,903 deaths; followed by Andhra Pradesh with 4,45,139 cases and 4,053 deaths. Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, and Bihar come next.

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Chinese smartphone maker Realme is set to launch in India its Realme 7 series smartphones on Thursday. Successor to the Realme 6 series, the Realme 7 series will include the Realme 7 Pro and its vanilla edition, the Realme 7. The company is hosting a virtual launch event, which will livestream on company’s YouTube channel at 12:30 pm. The announcements made at the event will also be available on company’s social media channels, including Twitter and Facebook.

The Realme 7 series will bring company’s fast charging tech ‘65W SuperDart’ and second-generation 64-megapixel based quad rear cameras, according to Realme.

“The launch of realme 7 series marks a special occasion for us as with this new series, we are bringing the best-in-class technology of 65W SuperDart charging, 2nd Gen 64MP Quad Camera and much more to you. We believe that the realme 7 series will push the boundaries and eagerly await to share the same with you,” said Realme in a statement.

While other features and specifications are unknown, the Realme 7 and Realme 7 Pro are expected to bring several improvements over the predecessors. According to recent leaks, the Realme 7 is expected to come with a 6.5-inch IPS screen of fullHD+ resolution. It will be a screen of 90Hz refresh rate and 120Hz touch sampling rate. The phone is expected to be powered by MediaTek Helio G95 chipset.

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The government on Wednesday banned 118 Chinese apps, including gaming app PUBG and Chinese search engine app Baidu citing they are a threat to the “sovereignty and integrity” of the country. The government invoked its powers under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act and relevant provisions under IT Rules 2009 to block these apps, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said on Wednesday.

The Ministry said it has received several complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for “stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorised manner to servers which have locations outside India”. “The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures,” the statement read.

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