South Korean electronics maker Samsung on Wednesday launched the Galaxy A21s in India. The smartphone will be available in black, white and blue colours, from June 17 at retail stores, Samsung Opera House, Samsung.com and online e-commerce platforms. The Galaxy A21s comes in 4GB and 6GB RAM variants, both with 64GB internal storage, priced at Rs 16,499 and Rs 18,499, respectively.

Samsung Galaxy A21s specifications

 The Galaxy A21s has a 6.5-inch screen of HD+ resolution, stretched in 20:9 aspect ratio. The screen has punch-hole on the top left corner, accommodating the phone’s 13-megapixel front camera. On the back, the phone has a quad-camera set-up, featuring a 48MP primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, a 2MP macro sensor and a 2MP depth sensor.

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Apple’s App Store has removed Chinese video app Zynn, a clone of the hugely popular video app TikTok, following accusations of plagiarism. The app was taken down from Googles Play Store last week.

A spokesperson for Zynn told The Verge that its issues with plagiarism were minor, and that the company was “in communication with both Google and Apple to ensure compliance with their guidelines and regulations.”

 Zynn arrived on iOS and Android in early May and quickly reached the top of the download charts.

By the end of May, the app had become the most downloaded free iOS app and a top 10 download in the Google Play Store.

Part of the reason for this rapid growth is the app’s rewards programme where users got paid for watching videos and also to get other users on the app, said the report.

Google Play Store earlier removed another TikTok rival app Mitron.

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E-commerce giant Amazon is reportedly testing a wearable device that will alert warehouse workers if they come too close to each other so that they can maintain social distance and cover themselves against Covid-19.

According to a report in CNBC on Tuesday, the device comprises a clear plastic sleeve and a clip which has an LED light and audio system embedded in it.

  The device sounds an alarm with a loud beeping noise and the light flashes when workers do not maintain safe distance.

The device will first be used by workers at Amazon’s facility in Kent, Washington, starting Wednesday, said the report, citing a private online group for warehouse workers.

The report comes amid fierce criticism that Amazon has faced from its former and current employees regarding its safety measures for workers.

Amazon is even being sued for allegedly failing to protect employees from Covid-19.

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A cheap and widely used steroid called dexamethasone has become the first drug shown to be able to save lives among Covid-19 patients in what scientists said is a “major breakthrough” in the coronavirus pandemic.

Trial results announced on Tuesday showed dexamethasone, which is used to reduce inflammation in other diseases such as arthritis, raeduced death rates by around a third among the most severely ill of Covid-19 patients admitted to hospital.

 ALSO READ: Covid-19 crisis: Green shoots visible in the economy, PM Modi tells CMs

The preliminary results suggest the drug should immediately become standard care in patients with severe cases of the pandemic disease, said the researchers who led the trials. The researchers said they would work to publish the full details of the trial as soon as possible, with some scientists saying they wished to review the evidence for themselves.

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After adding 5G network support to Snapdragon 8-series and 7-series processors, Qualcomm on Wednesday brought the 5G network support to its Snapdragon 6-series processors with the launch of Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 system-on-chip. Aimed at midrange smartphones between $300-$500 segment, the new SoC also brings Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1 with aptX adaptive codec support, up to 120Hz screen refresh rate support, and much more.

Here is what the Qualcomm Snapdragon 690 brings on table:

 CPU and GPU

The Snapdragon 690 is manufactured on Samsung’s 8nm LPP process. It has an octa-core CPU based on ARM’s bigLITTLE architecture. It has two big ARM Cortex-A77 cores and six little Cortex-A55 cores, operating at a peak frequency of up to 2GHz. The CPU is paired with Adreno 619L graphic processing unit (GPU), which is up to 60 per cent faster than the GPU in its predecessor, the Snapdragon 675 – according to Qualcomm. The Snapdragon 690 supports a maximum of 8GB RAM — 2 x 16-bit LPDDR4X memory at up to 1866MHz.

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In a steep escalation of the ongoing Sino-Indian border face-off in eastern Ladakh, soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked and killed 20 Indian soldiers, including a colonel, on Monday night.

This is the first deadly clash on the 3,488-kilometre disputed border since four Assam Rifles jawans were ambushed and killed by Chinese border guards in October 1975.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, the army said: “During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday (Monday) night with casualties on both sides. The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers. Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation.”

Late on Tuesday evening, another statement from the army said: “17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty at the stand-off location and exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain have succumbed to their injuries, taking the total of those killed in action to 20.”

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A researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad has developed an Artificial Intelligence-powered COVID-19 test, which can be performed at an affordable cost.

The test kit can produce results in around 20 minutes for symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

 The test kit has already been field-tested at ESIC Medical College and Hospital in Hyderabad to ascertain its efficiency. It can be transported quickly, enabling the test to be conducted at the point-of-care. A major benefit of this testing kit is that it does not require RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction).

Each test costs around Rs. 600 device now. However, mass production of the testing kit will help reduce the cost to around Rs. 350 per test.

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Lenovo-owned smartphone maker Motorola on Tuesday launched the Motorola One Fusion+ in India. Priced at Rs 16,999, the Flipkart-exclusive smartphone will be available in moonlight white and twilight blue from June 24. The smartphone features a multi-optic rear camera set-up, big capacity battery, HDR10 certified display and gaming-centric Qualcomm processor.

The Motorola One Fusion+ has a 6.5-inch IPS LCD screen of fullHD+ resolution stretched in 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The screen supports HDR10, which is uncommon in LCD-based smartphones. Being an LCD-based smartphone, it features a rear mounted fingerprint sensor. 

Powering the smartphone is Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G system-on-chip, paired with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. The dualSIM phone has a microSD card slot for storage expansion. The phone ships with stock Android 10 operating system with some minor customisations added on top by Motorola. Powering the device is a 5,000 mAh battery and the phone comes with 15W charger for fast charging capability.

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HMD Global on Monday launched the Nokia 5310 feature phone in India at a recommended best buy price of Rs 3,399. This is a third feature phone from the Finnish smartphone maker under its ‘Originals’ series; the other are the Nokia 3310 and Nokia 8110.

The phone’s pre-orders start today, June 16, at Nokia online portal, whereas, sale commences from June 23 at Nokia online portal and Amazon e-commerce platform. The feature phone will be available in retail stores from July 22.

The Nokia 5310 is a music-centric feature phone with front-facing dual speakers, wireless FM radio, dedicated music control buttons and microSD card storage. Based on original Nokia 5310 Xpress-music, the Nokia 5310 2020 edition has rounded design, curved display and alpha-numeric keypad with D-pad for navigation. It ships with Nokia Series 30+ featurephone operating system. The phone is touted to have a 22-day on-battery time.

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Amazfit T-Rex is Huami’s first offering in the rugged smartwatch segment. Priced in the sub-10,000 range (Rs 9,999 to be exact), the T-Rex’s price is clearly a talking point, but the smartwatch has also been touted for, as the name suggests, its robustness. It is available in four colours — Rock Black, Army Green, Camo Green, and Khaki. We reviewed a rock black unit, and this is our impression of the T-Rex:

Design

The Amazfit T-Rex is a beautifully crafted smartwatch with an old-school round dial. It is a bit bulky (13.5 mm thickness), and has pronounced bezel, but it is deceptively light at 58 g since most of the material is polymer. Moreover, the makers have also used the raised bezel for a few metal screws and some fine detailing work which, combined with the distinct angles and strong texture, give the T-Rex a solid look. The four etched metallic buttons (two on either side) are fairly responsive.

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