Short-video sharing platform TikTok, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, is facing a huge backlash in India after an internet war broke out between its influencers and YouTube content creators. The app’s rating on Google Play Store reduced to 1.3 stars on May 20 from more than 4.5 stars only a few days earlier. Moreover, there has been a growing demand for a ban on the platform in India owing to alleged distribution of insensitive and hateful content on TikTok.

Recently, the National Commission for Women (NCW) wrote to the video-sharing social networking service TikTok over a video in which one of its users allegedly glorified acid attack and crime against women. The video has been taken down since, and the user’s account has been suspended.

Rekha Sharma, the chairperson of the NCW said several videos of women being abused had been shared on the platform. Expressing her views on Twitter, she said that the platform should be banned as the app was pushing youngsters towards unproductive life where they were living only for a few followers.

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British engine-maker Rolls-Royce said that it would need to lay-off at least 9,000 of its 52,000 staff to make annual cost savings of 1.3 billion pounds ($1.59 billion) as it seeks to cope with the downturn in air travel caused by the pandemic.
 

ALSO READ: Covid-19 woes: Exodus of skilled migrant labourers badly hits MSMEs in Pune

The job losses would mostly take place in its civil aerospace business, the company said, as it started consultations with unions.

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Chinese smartphone brand Realme is set to foray in consumer electronics segment with the launch of its first smart television on May 25. Besides, the company will also introduce its first full-sized smart wearable, the Realme Watch. Both the products will be part of company’s AIoT products ecosystem, which will get around 20 products under tech-lifestyle category in this year. While there is still time for the official unveiling, home-grown e-commerce platform Flipkart has already published the products landing pages with information on products’ key features.

Realme Smart TV

  The Realme Smart TV is touted to feature a bezel-less design for immersive TV viewing experience. The TV will feature Chroma Boost Picture Engine, which is touted to push its screen brightness up to 400 nits from standard 250 nits. The brightness boost indicates that the Realme Smart TV will support HDR10.

Realme has a long-standing partnership with MediaTek – the company’s first phone was powered by a MediaTek processor. The Realme Smart TV is another of the company’s products to use MediaTek system-on-chip. It will be a 64-bit quad core processor featuring ARM Cortex-A53 cores, paired with Mali 470 MP3 graphic processing unit.

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iPhone SE is set to go on sale for the first time in India. The most affordable Apple smartphone will be available today from noon on the home-grown e-commerce platform Flipkart. Price starting at Rs 42,500, the iPhone SE will get Rs 3,600 instant discount offer from HDFC Bank that brings down its effective cost to Rs 38,900. The iPhone SE will be available in white, black and red colours.

Launched in April, the iPhone SE is a cross of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 11 — It takes design cues from the iPhone 8 and ships with hardware and features of the iPhone 11-series. The phone’s has a 4.7-inch HD retina display, glass-metal construction, touch ID for biometric, and ingress protection (IP67) for water and dust resistance.

 ALSO READ: Will Apple’s iPhone SE dramatically alter the company’s prospects in India?

The phone is powered by Apple A13 Bionic chipset, which is the same system-on-chip that powers the company’s flagship iPhone 11-series smartphones. This chipset makes the iPhone SE the most affordable flagship-grade Apple smartphone. The iPhone comes in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB storage variants. It ships with a battery with a rated output that can last for up to 13 hours of video watching on a single charge, according to the company. Though the phone supports fast wired charging, it comes with 5W charger in the box.

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Super cyclone ‘Amphan’, which will make landfall on May 20 between Digha in West Bengal and Hatia Island in Bangladesh, is a significant development and 53 teams are on the job to save lives and property, NDRF Chief S N Pradhan said on Monday.

Addressing a press conference along with IMD DG M Mohapatra, Pradhan said the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was not taking Amphan lightly as it was only the second time that India is facing a super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal region. He said this was a very “significant development” as this is the second super cyclone after the first one hit the Odisha coast in 1999.

The landfall of cyclone ‘Amphan’ would be on May 20 between Digha in West Bengal and Hatia Island in Bangladesh, he said.

ALSO READ: ‘Amphan’ is serious’; will make landfall in Bengal, Odisha on Wed: NDRF

“Cyclone Amphan is very intense. It has the potential to wreak large-scale damage,” Mohapatra said.

The landing could also take place between Sagar Island or Kakdwip and both are residential areas, the NDRF Director General said.

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Tata Motors on Monday announced a package of offers for safe and convenient personal mobility with easy financing, to help maintain social distancing norms amid the nationwide lockdown.

Under the package, with features such as affordable EMIs with long-tenure loans and special offers for frontline warriors, customers can drive home the entry-level model Tiago with customised EMI plan starting at just Rs 5,000 every month (for a loan of Rs 5 lakh) for six months. This EMI amount then gradually increases over a maximum tenure of five years, the company said.

Also, on its entire range of cars and sports utility vehicles, the company is offering 100 per cent on-road funding, Tata Motors said in a release.

As an additional benefit, customers can choose from three value-adding options while paying their final EMI, the company said.

Muse Wearables, a start-up incubated by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), is developing a bluetooth-enabled tracker to monitor skin temperature, heart rate and SpO2 (Blood Oxygen saturation) sensing, activity data which help in early diagnosis of Covid-19.

The tracker can be connected to the mobile phone via an app called the Muse Health App. The body vitals of the users are stored in the phone as well as a remote server. Administrative access can also be provided for centralised monitoring of people in containment areas for Covid-19 symptoms.

 The tracker can get notifications from the Arogya Setu App and raise an alert to the user when he enters a Covid-19 containment zone. The tracker will help to detect early hypoxia, a health condition in which the body or a part of the body does not get adequate oxygen supply, which is an early symptom of coronavirus infection even in asymptomatic patients, at an early stage. It will also help normal people in proactive monitoring of their health, a statement said added.

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An antibody from a patient who recovered from SARS has been shown to block COVID-19 infection in a laboratory setting, researchers said Monday in another potential breakthrough in the search for coronavirus treatment.

Scientists based in Switzerland and the United States previously isolated the antibodies from the patient in 2003, following the SARS outbreak that killed 774 people.

They experimented with 25 different types of antibodies — which target specific protein spikes on viruses — to see if they could prevent cells becoming infected with COVID-19.

ALSO READ: Entire office needn’t be shut if 1 or 2 Covid-19 cases are reported: Govt

Both SARS and the pathogen which causes COVID-19 are coronaviruses, thought to have come from animals, and so their structures are similar.

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Indian skipper Virat Kohli said he is ready to act in his biopic but wants his wife Anushka Sharma to act alongside him in the movie.

Kohli joined Indian football team captain Sunil Chhetri on an Instagram Live video session where both the athletes talked on a range of topics.

“With Anushka, I will definitely do the biopic myself,” Kohli said during the interaction. Kohli also credited Sharma for making him the person he is now.

“I wasn’t this person always. I truly believe that everyone has a giving and compassionate side to them but there is always an individual that comes in your life who brings it out. For me, meeting Anushka was that moment when I started to realise that this is not all about me. Life is to look at another person and live like that,” Kohli said.

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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme on Friday announced to launch its much-anticipated TV and smartwatch in India on May 25.

According to the company, it will host an online event which will be streamed via Realme’s YouTube channel as well as its social media platforms.

 “The wait is finally over, the party is about to get started with Realme! As we are ready to introduce new members of our family – the Realme TV and the Realme Watch along with other accessories,” the company said in a statement.

The Realme TVs would compete against Xiaomi TV which already has several successful TV models in the country along with OnePlus TV.

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