Smartphones are running out of differentiators. The current line of premium smartphones is piggybacking on the assumption that their most innovative — and impractical — design language speaks to everyone alike. A metallic chassis sandwiched between glass panels on both sides has become too common to be called innovative. This is why every once in a while, when a phone tries to break this stereotype, it catches my attention. The recently launched gaming phone from Nubia, the Red Magic 3S, has spent more than a few days in my hands as an entertainment device, also fiddling with coins and keys in my pocket and capturing the sun and the seas in a new country. Here’s what it can do.

Design 4.5/5

The Red Magic 3S is a performance upgrade of its predecessor. So it gets the same 6.65-inch HDR AMOLED display with a tall 19:5:9 aspect ratio in a similar design. The phone is almost as long as my face so I find my eyes running up and down on the screen far too often, unless I hold it at a distance. But turn it horizontally and the ultra-wide screen is near-perfect for gaming and streaming videos. The phone weighs about 215 gm, making it heavier than the iPhone 11 (194 gm), the OnePlus 7T (206 gm) but lighter than its gaming rival ASUS ROG Phone II (240 gm). It’s an important consideration if you spend many hours in bed holding the phone above your face. The phone gets an even top and bottom notch (border), which does not interfere with full-screen videos and gaming. Readmore

It’s hard to believe that in a country of shrinking spaces, a 55-inch television screen has almost become a bedroom staple. Brands such as Micromax, VU and Xiaomi had anticipated this trend a few years ago. They introduced a sub-Rs 60,000 category in large-screen TVs when the price of a 50-plus-inch LED was easily over a lakh. That price has almost halved again. Take this Kodak TV (pictured below), for instance. A 55-inch, Ultra High Definition 4K Smart LED TV with High Dynamic Range support for as little as Rs 32,999 did not exist till last year. But let me explain why the lure of size and specs is nearly not enough.

Design 3.5/5

Let’s start with size. The dimensions claimed are more or less reliable. The bezels around the screen, however, define its screen-to-body ratio. Anything above, say, 90 per cent, means that the borders are thin and the set won’t look outdated. This TV passes with flying colours at 97 per cent. I would have liked to praise how the TV looks from the front if not for the jarring white Kodak logo at the bottom. The unimaginative stamping is highly distracting. Read Complete Article

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday presented the prestigious Award for Corporate Excellence to Pepsico India for its efforts to save more than 17 billions of litres of water through community water programs and positively impacting thousands of community members.

Established in 1999, the ACE recognizes US companies that promote and uphold high standards as responsible members of their communities where they do business.

Today we honour one of PepsiCo’s regional arms, PepsiCo India. It is India’s largest purchaser of potatoes. And it uses this to power good, sourcing sustainably from 24,000 small Indian farmers. It also has a program aimed at replenishing water in stressed areas, through which it has restored nearly five billion litres of water, he said.

Other recipients of the award are Chambers Federation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Procter and Gamble Asia Pacific in Singapore and Agilis Partners in Uganda.

Read Complete Article

Parts of Mumbai, Surat, Chennai and Kolkata will be either underwater or ravaged by recurring floods by 2050 as sea levels across the world will continue to rise with increasing carbon emissions.

Across India, an estimated 31 million people live in coastal areas at risk of annual flooding, a number that could go up to 35 million by mid-century and rise further to 51 million by the year 2100. These projections are based on extreme-case scenarios if global carbon emissions continue to rise unabated. At the moment, 250 million people around the globe live in areas at risk of annual coastal floods.

“This research means that the stakes are even higher than we thought,” said Benjamin H. Strauss, CEO and chief scientist at Climate Central, where the study was conducted.

Read Complete Article

The husband-wife pair of cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma has been ranked as the leading pair, according to a study by Mumbai-based Indian Institute of Human Brands, promoted by adman Sandeep Goyal. The survey looked at popular ‘power couples’ in the country. Virat and Anushka were followed by actors Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna. These couples were ranked using a set of 24 brand attributes, Goyal said.

These attributes included what these couples represent to consumers and how they are perceived by young people. Some of the other power couples, who were part of the study included actors Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan.

Actors Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan were second on the stylist list of couples, followed by Akshay-Twinkle, said Goyal. The most traditional couple were Deepika and Ranveer, followed by Abishek-Aishwarya and Akshay-Twinkle.

Yes, high calorie and junk food are among the leading causes of obesity; but a new study has presented yet another key reason behind obesity in children.

Gut bacteria and its interactions with immune cells and metabolic organs, including fat tissue is found to play a key role in childhood obesity, according to a new study published in the journal Obesity Reviews.

Not only the gut, but the mother’s health, diet, exercise level, antibiotic use, among others can also pose as a risk factor in a child getting obese.

“The medical community used to think that obesity was a result of consuming too many calories. However, a series of studies over the past decade has confirmed that the microbes living in our gut are not only associated with obesity but also are one of the causes,” said lead author Hariom Yadav, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist.

Obesity is increasing at a 2.3 per cent rate each year among school-aged children, which is unacceptably high and indicates worrisome prospects for the next generation’s health, the study stated. Read Complete Article

Pakistan Train Incident: At least 65 people were killed and scores injured on Thursday as a massive fire broke out on a moving train after cooking gas stoves carried by some passengers exploded in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province.

The train, Tezgam Express, was on its way to Lahore from Karachi when the fire broke out, destroying three bogies at Liaquatpur near Rahim Yar Khan, some 400 kms from Lahore.

District Police Officer Amir Taimur said that 65 passengers lost their lives after the fire erupted in three coaches.

Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said that most of the victims belonged to the Tableeghi Jamaat (Islamic preachers) who were going to Lahore to attend a major annual congregation at Raiwind.

The Railways Minister said gas stoves carried by some passengers blew up when they were preparing breakfast on the speeding train in violation of rules. Read Complete Article

The Reebok Sole Fury is a celebratory release to mark the 25th anniversary of a coveted piece of sneaker history, the Reebok InstaPump. Like its predecessor, this one too has something interesting happening around the middle outer sole.

The Sole Fury is ridiculously lightweight. No wonder it’s missing a piece. A chunk of the outsole is cut from the arch side, splitting its EVA midsole into two. Not only does the wacky engineering make the Sole Fury among the lightest performance sneakers ever produced — 230 grams for a size 8 – it also increases the flexibility of the midsole. A graphite plate running through the midsole ensures that stability is not compromised.

The neoprene upper and asymmetrical eyelets give the pair an edgy look. The bootie construction is not as snug as you would expect from a knit upper, but it’s hardly necessary in a sneaker. Reebok says the Sole Fury is an athleisure pair, but after walking and casually sprinting in the “clover green” colourway, I was convinced the pair belonged in the gym.

Read Complete Article

MSBSHE HSC application 2020: The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education, Pune, has extended the deadline for filling up online forms for HSC 2019.

According to the previous notification, the deadline was ending on October 23, 2019. However, due to technical reasons, the last date has now been revised to November 15, 2019.

Late applications for students, which were earlier to be received from November 1 to 8, 2019, will be taken with a fine from November 16 to 25, 2019.

The Maharashtra Board class 12 exam will begin on February 18, 2020, with English as the first subject. It will be conducted in the morning session. The exam will conclude on March 18, 2020, with Sanskrit in the morning batch and Russian and Arabic in the evening slot, on the same day. Read Complete Article

Twitter is working on a new policy to tackle deepfake videos on its platform that will address the content which could threaten someone’s physical safety or lead to offline harm.

The micro-blogging platform has asked its users how best the synthetic and manipulated videos can be addressed.

“Deepfakes” are video forgeries that make people appear to be saying things they never did, like the popular forged videos of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that went viral recently.

“We’re always updating our rules based on how online behaviours change. We’re working on a new policy to address synthetic and manipulated media on Twitter, but first we want to hear from you,’ Twitter said on Monday.

“We need to consider how synthetic media is shared on Twitter in potentially damaging contexts; we want to listen and consider your perspectives in our policy development process and we want to be transparent about our approach and values,” Twitter Safety posted on its platform. Read Complete Article