Aarogya Setu has rolled out a new feature that will enable organisations to get the health status of their employees or any other user without violating their data privacy, an official release said on Saturday.

Aarogya Setu has now emerged as the most downloaded contact tracing app in the world, with more than 15 crore users, it said.

The new feature called ‘Open API Service’ will help people, businesses and the economy to return to normalcy, and aims to address the fear/risk of COVID-19 infection.

The service can be availed by organisations and business entities, who are registered in India with more than 50 employees, and they can use it to query the Aarogya Setu application in real-time and get the health status of their employees or any other Aarogya Setu user, who have provided their consent for sharing their health status with that entity, the release added.

“In order to help businesses and economy to start functioning while being safe, the Open API Service enables organisations to check the status of Aarogya Setu and integrate it into its various Work from Home features,” the release by Ministry of Electronics and IT said.

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Microsoft Corp on Sunday said in a court filing that Apple Inc’s threat to cut off the creator of “Fortnite” from Apple’s developer tools would hurt Microsoft’s gaming business, as well as other game developers.

The filing came in a dispute between Apple and Epic Games. Apple removed Epic’s titles from its App Store after the game maker violated the iPhone maker’s in-app payment rules.

  Epic says that Apple has also threatened to cut off its access to Apple tools needed to maintain “Unreal Engine,” software that many game developers license to create better graphics. Microsoft said the move would hurt at least one of its own game titles called “Forza Street” that uses the engine for the iOS version of the game.

ALSO READ: Apple hits $2 trn market valuation, but the next trillion won’t come easy

Kevin Gammill, Microsoft’s general manager of gaming developer experiences, said Microsoft has an “enterprise-wide” license to Unreal Engine and that Apple’s move would hamper it and other gaming firms’ ability to make games with the technology for Macs and iPhones.

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Karnataka CET Result 2020 | The Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) will release the Common Entrance Test (CET) result today. Earlier Karnataka Education Minister had said the results would be announced on Thursday. The Karnataka CET Result 2020 or KCET Result 2020 will be announced on the KEA’s official website kea.kar.nic.in. Soon after Karnataka CET Result is declared, the merit list will be out. The Karnataka CET Result 2020 is valid for one year to get admission in government engineering and technology, B Pharma colleges across the state. Karnataka CET examination was conducted in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic (July 30 and 31)after the Karnataka High Court allowed the state government to go ahead with its plans.

Karnataka CET Result 2020: Steps to check your KCET score

Step 1: Visit the official websites kea.kar.nic.in or karresults.nic.in

Step 2: Click on the ‘KCET Result 2020’ link

Step 3: You will be redirected on new page, enter your registration number and roll number

Step 4: The Karnataka CET Result 2020 and your scored marks will appear on the screen

Step 5: Take a print out for further reference

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There was just a small ripple across the technosphere when Microsoft (MS) announced it would retire its Internet Explorer (IE) browser, shutting down all support by August 2021. MS also stated that the IE successor, the MS Edge browser, would move completely onto Google’s open-source Chromium platform.

Neither IE nor Edge are popular anymore. Barely 1.3 per cent of the world’s surfers (desktop plus mobile) used IE in July 2020, and cynics would suspect that many of those IE windows were opened by accident. MS Edge only has about 2.2 per cent market share.

  Google’s Chrome, (also based on Chromium and integrated with the Android operating system), is by far the most popular of browsers, with 66 per cent market share across all platforms. Apple fans prefer Safari (16.65 per cent). Geeks use Mozilla’s Firefox (4.26 per cent), or Opera (2.05 per cent), or Vivaldi (0.04 per cent). Both Opera and Vivaldi are built on top of Chromium, so Google’s dominance of this space is even more extreme than it looks at first glance.

This is a sea change from the turn of the century. In 1998, Microsoft had to defend itself against antitrust allegations when it integrated the IE browser with its Windows operating systems and offered it for free. In 1998, when MS denied being a monopolist despite the overwhelming dominance of the desktop category, the smartphone wasn’t even a gleam in Steve Jobs’s eyes. In September that year, two college kids would incorporate a search engine company called Google.

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Google is bringing its ‘Kormo Jobs’ Android app to India to help job seekers find and apply for positions across India. The tech giant, which introduced ‘Jobs’ last year in India as part of Google Pay to connect job seekers with opportunities in industries like on-demand businesses, retail and hospitality, said the offering will be rebranded to ‘Kormo Jobs’.

Google Regional Manager and Operations Lead (Kormo Jobs) Bickey Russell said Jobs was originally piloted in Bangladesh (in 2018) and subsequently launched in Indonesia, under the brand Kormo Jobs.

 Last year, Google also made available a similar offering in India under the brand ‘Jobs as a Spot’ on Google Pay app.

ALSO READ: Gmail services disrupted across the globe, company says probing issue

Companies like Zomato and Dunzo have found candidates with the required skills, experience and location preferences using the service, with over two million verified jobs posted on the platform, he said in a blogpost.

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The Cupertino-headquartered firm’s manufacturing partner, Taiwan-based Wistron, has already begun a trial run for the iPhone 12 project at its new facility near Bengaluru. The contract manufacturer, with a planned investment of over Rs 2,900 crore, has also initiated the hiring process for the same. It plans to employ some 10,000 workers at the new facility in a phased manner, while around 1,000 are already at work. The plant has already received over half of its planned investment and is expected to be fully operational by October. Expansion of Wistron’s production capacity is in line with Apple’s mid-term goals – adding newer models quickly into its ‘Made in India’ portfolio. The American multinational had recently confirmed that its next-generation iPhone 12 would be delayed beyond September in global retail stores. The iPhone 12 (5G) range is expected to start at Rs 70,000.

Sources said while the new facility in Narasapura (Karnataka) could be dedicated for the upcoming iPhone 12, its existing plant in Bengaluru will be used to produce iPhone SE (2020). The second generation SE handsets, launched in April, is currently the cheapest iPhone available in the market with a starting price of Rs 42,500. Analysts at IDC, a market intelligence firm, pointed out that iPhone SE (2020) became one of the top five sold models in the above-Rs 40,000 price range during the April-June quarter. 

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The PlayGo T44 is a pair of affordable true wireless stereo (TWS) earphones imported from China by Play, an Indian lifestyle products brand. Priced at Rs 2,999, these earphones have semi in-ear earbuds with stems, a design made popular by the Apple AirPods (review). These, however, do not look anything like the AirPods (and that is a good thing).

As for performance, the earphones are tuned for a neutral output and they seem best suited for music tracks where emphasis is on acoustics and not vocals. Interestingly, the earphones are one of the few in the budget segment that are not bass-heavy. Unfortunately, there is no way to tune or customise the output for lack of an app support. Moreover, the equaliser settings on connected devices (smartphone, laptop or tablet) sometimes distort the audio output, so it is best to use them as is.

 The PlayGo T44 supports audio sub-band codec (SBC) and advance audio codec (AAC). They have Bluetooth 5.0 for connectivity, and they work great even if the connected device is at a distance (up to 10 metres). Moreover, you can use just one of the earbuds if you like. The earbuds support touch control, which is a good addition. These controls, however, are somewhat confusing; press and hold on either of the earbuds to reject a call and double tap to answer, double tap on either of the earbuds to play and pause an audio track, and press and hold on either of the earbuds to change the audio track.

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The Logitech G502 Lightspeed is a wireless mouse for PC gamers that promises a performance matching wired mice. For perspective, wired mice are considered good for gaming due to limited or no latency issues. By comparison, wireless mice are flexible to use but have latency issues, which lead to sub-par performance while gaming. The Logitech G502 Lightspeed is a one-of-its kind wireless mouse for gamers that seems to have beaten these latency issues.

The Logitech G502 Lightspeed has a response rate of 1 ms, which is even better than some wired mice. Technical jargons aside, this mouse is responsive and shows no latency. While reviewing, I did not come across any moment where the PC took time to respond to mouse inputs.

Besides stellar response rate, the Logitech G502 Lightspeed is accurate and sensitive, thanks to its Hero 16K optical sensor that covers wide dots-per-inch (DPI) coverage spectrum (from 100 to up to 16,000). It is the best sensor you get in any mouse currently available in the market, and its benefits go beyond gaming. Moreover, the sensor works across surfaces – glass, mouse pad, wood, plastic, tiles — without any visible detriment in performance.

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South Korean electronics maker Samsung has announced to roll out three-generation of Android operating system upgrades for its Galaxy devices, including smartphones, foldable screen devices and tablets. Usually, only select original equipment manufacturers on Android One platform deliver three-generation of Android OS upgrades, while most smartphone brands stick to two-year of OS upgrades and three-year of security upgrades from Google. Before the announcement, Samsung also promised to service its Galaxy devices with Android updates for a maximum period of two years. However, the select Galaxy devices will now get up to three-generation of Android OS upgrades from Samsung.Galaxy devices eligible for three-generation of Android OS upgrades:

Galaxy S series: Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, S20 Ultra, S20+ 5G, S20+, S20 5G, S20 in addition to S10 5G, S10+, S10, S10e, S10 Lite and upcoming S series devices

  Galaxy Note series: Galaxy Note20 Ultra 5G, Note20 Ultra, Note20 5G, Note20, Note10+ 5G, Note10+, Note10 5G, Note10, Note10 Lite and upcoming Note series devices

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