Asus on Tuesday launched AMD Ryzen 4000-series powered TUF A15 and TUF A17 gaming laptops in India. Starting at Rs 60,990, the TUF A15 notebook will be available in bonfire black (FA506) and fortress gray (FA566) colours, whereas, the TUF A17 (FA706) will be available in fortress gray colour only. Along with the TUF laptops, the Taiwanese electronics maker also launched AMD Ryzen powered GA15 and GA35 desktops under its gaming ROG brand.
The TUF Gaming A15 and A17 are powered by AMD Ryzen 4000-series mobile processors with up to eight cores and sixteen thread configuration, paired with up with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GeForce RTX 2060 discrete graphic processing units, respectively. The laptops support up to 32GB dual-channel DDR4-3200 RAM and come with solid state drive (SSD) storage of up to 1TB. Both the notebooks boast dual anti-dust fans to keep thermals in check.
Google has customised the Bedtime mode to help improve your sleep with the help of technology. Besides, the technology giant also added new functions to help you get better and more restful sleep. These functions include a new Bedtime tab in clock app and Bedtime reminder on YouTube app for Android. The new bedtime experience is rolling out to Pixel devices and will be available in the Clock app on other Android devices later this summer.
Formerly known as Wind Down in the Digital Wellbeing settings, the new Bedtime mode keeps your phone screen in dark mode and silences notifications while you sleep. While Bedtime mode is on, it uses Do Not Disturb to silence calls, texts and other notifications.
Google has also made it easier to customise how and when to turn on Bedtime mode. Based on your bedtime schedule, you can choose to have it turn on automatically or after your phone is plugged in to charge. Moreover, there is now an option to add Bedtime mode to your phone’s Quick Settings panel that allows you to instantly turn it on or off with a single tap.
Here is a selection of important Covid-19-related articles in Indian news publications. From the informal Indian economy in the time of a pandemic, to making cities liveable for migrants after lockdown, and why Mumbai is still struggling to cope with coronavirus — read these and more in today’s India dispatch.
Expert Speak
Migrant labourers are the most disenfranchised invisible citizens: For a majority of migrant labourers, migration is either a livelihood accumulation strategy or survival risk-reducing strategy, whichever way we define the nature of migration. Migration studies also confirm that migrant labourers are the most exploited and disenfranchised invisible citizens. Read this interview with political scientist Ashwani Kumar, whose forthcoming co-edited book Migration and Mobility is to be out soon. Kumar speaks on migration, inter-state workers and amendment to the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act, 1979.
Managing Covid-19
Govt would have done well to heed experts: In their second joint statement, a Covid-19 task force of the Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) and Indian Association of Epidemiologists (IAE) has stated that the current situation in India with regard to the coronavirus cases could have been avoided if migrant workers had been allowed to go home before a lockdown was imposed.
Why Mumbai is still struggling to cope with coronavirus: Hospital wards have corpses left unattended in hallways. Patients are asked to sleep on the floor until beds open up. A woman with brain damage dies because she is refused medical help until her family would prove she is virus-free. The public healthcare system in Mumbai, epicentre of India’s worsening coronavirus outbreak, is overwhelmed as Covid-19 patients pour in and hospital staff work around the clock. Medical care for non-coronavirus patients has basically been shut off for lack of resources.
Chinese electronics maker Xiaomi is set to debut its Mi-branded laptop in India. The launch event will livestream across company’s social media platforms and Mi.com at 12 noon (IST) on June 11.
The company has laptops in its products catering to consumers in its home country, and the upcoming Mi laptop in India is expected to be one of the notebooks that has already been launched in China. However, there are reports that Xiaomi will debut a new laptop series in India that is crafted for Indian consumers.
In China, Xiaomi sells laptops under Mi and Redmi brands. The company recently upgraded its Redmibook with AMD Ryzen 4000-series processors.
Last week, Xiaomi announced that it will enter the Indian laptop market in June.
“We are ready to introduce the next big category in India with the Mi Notebook series. We will broadly have two series under Mi Notebook that we are going to launch. It will be a minimalistic design, a power-packed device with latest technology to fulfil the requirements of our Indian users,” Raghu Reddy, Chief Business Officer, Xiaomi India, told IANS.
WeTransfer seems to have been blocked by some internet service providers (ISPs) in India. This came after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), in an order on May 18, directed all licence holders or internet service providers to block the website in the ‘interest of national security or public interest’. Interestingly, the DoT letter does not specify a reason for blocking the website.
The popular file sharing platform in a blog post said, “At this moment in time, WeTransfer seems to be blocked and unavailable in India. We are working hard to understand the reasoning behind this block, as well as how to get it reverted as soon as possible.”
The block, however, seems to have affected only limited batch of users. On June 2, the service worked fine to transfer a 1GB file and its recipient was able to download the file, too. It seems that not all ISPs are affected by the block and there is a partial ban on the services of the file sharing platform.
WeTransfer took on Twitter to let users know that the issue persists and the company is investigating it. However, it also clarifies that removing such blocks is out of company’s control. It also suggests using virtual private network services to access the platform to send files.
Indian cricket team dashing all-rounder Hardik Pandya on Sunday announced that he and his fiance, Serbian actress Natasa Stankovic, are expecting their first child.
Hardik made this announcement on social media platform Instagram, along with their pictures, which went viral instantly.
Hardik’s Instagram post read: “Natasa and I had a great journey together and it is just about to get better. Together we are excited to welcome a new life into our lives very soon. We’re thrilled for this new phase of our life and seek your blessings and wishes.”
India head coach Ravi Shastri was one of the first to wish the duo and he wrote in the comment section: “Congratulations Hardy and Natasa.”
A new app surfaced on the Google Play Store recently that claims to help you clean up your Android smartphone from apps developed and distributed by Chinese firms. Named ‘Remove China Apps’, the app is currently leading the chart of the top free app and the top trending app on Google app store. Moreover, the app has crossed a million downloads within a short span of 15 days, and has 4.8 star rating out of 5 star.
Developed by Jaipur-based app development and web designing start-up OneTouchAppLabs, the app is labeled as a tool to scan the Android smartphone for Chinese app and help user delete them. The app weighs 3.5 MB in size and does not require any special permission to load up before scanning the phone’s app.
Interestingly, the app developers call it an app developed for educational purposes to help user identify the country of origin of a certain application(s).
According to the apps description on Google Play Store, the developers have mentioned that they do not promote or force people to uninstall any application(s) and the Remove Chine Apps is developed primarily for educational purposes to scan Android phones for Chinese app.
Google has once again postponed the launch of Android 11 operating system’s first beta version. The delay could possibly be due to the on-going internal conflict in the US or due to the coronavirus crisis. However, Google did not specify the reason for the delay.
“We are excited to tell you more about Android 11, but now is not the time to celebrate. We are postponing the June 3rd event and beta release. We’ll be back with more on Android 11, soon.” said Google in a blogpost.
The first beta of the Android 11 was earlier postponed to go official on June 3 through an online event. However, the launch now stands cancelled and Google will come out with a new launch date in future.
Applehas quietly raised the price by double for upgrading the RAM on its entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro. In US, customers will now have to pay $200 to get a RAM upgrade to 16GB RAM from 8GB RAM that comes standard with the MacBook Pro. Previously, such RAM upgrade used to cost $100.
In the European Union countries the price hike is from 125 euros to 250 euros, and in the UK it has moved to 200 pounds from 100 pounds. There are no such price hike reports coming from India, but the revision in RAM upgrade price might soon be seen in India, too.
Earlier this month, Apple updated 13-inch MacBook Pro with the new Magic Keyboard that comes with physical Escape key, along with Touch Bar and Touch ID along with doubling the standard storage for enhanced performance.
With the total number of coronavirus cases across the world rising consistently, the fear of death and insecurity is mounting. Worse, there is still a big question mark on a possible treatment for Covid-19. And, in the midst of this crisis, misinformation has been spreading virally. On WhatsApp, which boasts over 2 billion users worldwide, and other social messaging networks like Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, the spread of misinformation in many ways seems to mimic how Covid-19 itself moves through societies — from individual to individual, group to group.
Here is afact-check on some of the common myths being circulated on social media and messaging platforms:
1. Myth: Drinking alcohol protects against coronavirus
Fact: Drinking alcohol does not protect you against Covid-19, and can in fact be dangerous. The harmful use of alcohol increases your risk of health problems, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
News Time 