Apple is reportedly planning to launch iPhone 13 lineup next month and now a new report has claimed that the upcoming models will feature low earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication connectivity to allow users to make calls and send messages in areas without cellular coverage,

According to the reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the upcoming lineup will feature hardware that is able to connect to LEO satellites. This could allow iPhone 13 users to make calls and send messages without the need for a 4G or 5G cellular connection, reports MacRumors.

iPhone 13 is expected to use a customised version of the Qualcomm X60 baseband modem chip. This chip will support communications over satellite.

Kuo also noted that the iPhone 13 will use a customised version of the Qualcomm X60 baseband modem chip. This chip will support communications over satellite.

A recent survey has revealed that many iPhone users want the upcoming iPhone model to be named ‘iPhone 2021’ instead of ‘iPhone 13’.

According to the survey, a total of 74 per cent of respondents said they hoped “iPhone 13” will be named something else. The respondents also voted for the best potential name, with “iPhone (2021)” taking the top spot with 38 per cent of the vote.

Around 26 per cent thought that the “iPhone 13” was the best name and only 13 per cent said that they would like to see the devices called the “iPhone 12S”.

Read Complete Article

TCL might be a new name in India, but this Chinese electronics maker is well recognised globally for its feature-rich and competitively-priced smart televisions. Expanding its product portfolio in India, the company recently launched its Android 11 TV platform based smart QLED TVs. Leading the pack are the TCL C725 QLED TV models with screen size of up to 65-inch, quantum LED display tech supported by high dynamic range formats (Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HDR, HLG), Onkyo sound system powered by Dolby Atmos, and wide input and connectivity options. Besides, it is one of the few smart televisions in the market that come with USB-powered plug-and-play webcam (mics integrated) for video calls and meeting over Google Duo. On paper, the TCL C725 QLED TV seems to be a wholesome package. But is it worth spending Rs 72,990 over for a 55-inch model (review unit)? Let’s find out:

Design

The TCL C725 QLED TV boasts a bezel-less front profile for a distraction-free viewing experience. Its 55-inch screen stretches across sides for edge-to-edge coverage. The trimmed bezels result in a screen-to-body ratio better than most smart televisions in its segment. In fact, the TCL C725 QLED TV is one of the most compact and precisely built smart televisions in the segment.

The TV might not have a gigantic build, but it is heavy and protrudes too much on the back side. Like other TVs, you can either mount it on the wall or place it on a flat table. The back side bulge makes hanging it on the wall an unattractive idea. It looks better while mounted on a table. However, its legs are placed on extreme ends and they are big too. A centre-stand here would have been better, as that would have taken less space on the table.

Read Complete Article

The pandemic has seen a proliferation of digital bureaucracy, adding to the inconveniences of everyday life and travel.

Perhaps all the new apps, QR codes and endless clicking haven’t fazed the web wizards. But what of the millions of digital dinosaurs like me who don’t worship our gadgets? If even my nimble children stumbled down the rabbit hole of the British government’s online Passenger Locator Form and failed to find the right Covid PCR test providers due to badly designed IT, what chance do I have?

One answer is go to Estonia, the Baltic republic with a tiny population (just more than 1.3 million people), high-tech achievements and more vaulting international ambitions. Here you can become a naturalized digital citizen, with instant access to all the state’s services, without a geek’s expertise.

“For everybody under the age of 35, digital comes naturally. For everybody else it goes against nature,” says Kaja Kallas, Estonia’s prime minister, who I visited in Tallinn, the capital of the Baltic’s “Digital Republic,” last week.

Kallas, often compared to the unstuffy prime minister Birgitte Nyborg in the Danish TV drama Borgen, answers questions in English more fluently than Boris Johnson at the House of Commons Despatch box. Whereas the U.K. prime minister spouts Churchill-isms, she quotes from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Although her family played a leading role in both of Estonia’s independence movements from neighboring Russia, in 1919 and 1991, Kallas has her eyes fixed firmly on the future. She’s championing a national project to overcome the great digital divides that arise from generational differences (my recently deceased mother in her nineties couldn’t operate a mobile phone) as well as socioeconomic ones. Her goal is to narrow the gap between the analogue oldies and digital youth.

Read Complete Article

The PC market in the US grew 17 per cent year on year (YoY) in the second quarter of 2021, with total shipments of desktops, notebooks, tablets and workstations reaching 36.8 million units, says a new report.

According to market research firm Canalys, notebooks were the best performers, with shipments up 27 per cent YoY, while desktops showed signs of recovery, increasing 23 per cent.

Tablets were almost stagnant, with shipments down 1 per cent, as educators move away from them and the surge of consumer shipments due to the pandemic fades.

“It is clear now that pandemic-related use cases will extend well into the future,” Brian Lynch, Research Analyst at Canalys, said in a statement.

“This points toward a significant refresh opportunity in the future — fantastic news for PC vendors and their channel and ecosystem partners,” Lynch added.

For the second quarter in a row, HP led the US PC market, with over 8 million devices shipped. HP continued to dominate the Chromebook market too, with a 42 per cent market share in the US.

Apple remained second in the market despite a 3 per cent decline. It was the only major PC vendor to post negative growth.

It had more success with notebooks, with 24 per cent year-on-year shipment growth, partly due to the success of the M1 chip. Dell saw comparatively modest growth, at 11 per cent.

Meanwhile, Lenovo and Samsung continued to outperform other vendors, posting 25 per cent and 51 percent growth respectively in PC sales-out.

Read Complete Article

Chinese electronics maker Xiaomi on Thursday launched in India the Mi TV 5X series of smart televisions. The Mi TV 5X will be available in 43-inch, 50-inch and 55-inch screen sizes priced at Rs 31,999, Rs 41,999 and Rs 47,999, respectively. All three models will be available from September 7 online on Mi India online store and Flipkart, and offline at the Mi Home, Mi Studio and Croma. In partnership with HDFC Bank, Xiaomi is offering a cashback of up to Rs 3,000 to HDFC Bank credit cards customers. Besides, the smart televisions will be available with up to 9 months no interest equated monthly installments (no cost EMI) offer from select banks and non-banking financial companies.

The Mi TV 5X series is based on Google Android 10 TV platform with Xiaomi’s PatchWall 4 user interface. The company has integrated IMDb in the user interface to show content’s customer ratings, alongside the collections of top IMDb fan-rated titles themed around genres, actors, filmmakers and more featured on the PatchWall homepage.

The TVs are touted to have a bezel-less profile with aluminium alloy frame covering the sides.

The smart televisions support all common high dynamic range formats, including Dolby Vision and HDR10+. Xiaomi says the TVs’ screen support 94 per cent of DCI-P3 colour gamut. According to Xiaomi, the screens are powered by Vivid Picture Engine 2 with adaptive brightness controlled through embedded photo-electric sensor. Besides, there is MEMC to bring interpolate frames of on-screen content and bring them closer to natively supported frame rate, 60Hz that is.

Audio is covered by 40W stereo speakers, supported by Dolby Atmos and DTS-HD. Mi TV 5X series comes with 2GB RAM and 16GB on-board storage. Wired connectivity is covered by three HDMI 2.1 ports, two USB ports, LAN port, optical out port, 3.5mm audio jack, and an Ethernet port. Wireless connectivity includes dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5GHz) and Bluetooth.

Read Complete Article

Expanding its consumer laptops line-up in India, Chinese electronics maker Xiaomi on Thursday launched the Mi Notebook 2021 series. Powered by 11th Gen Intel Core processors, the series comes with models named the Mi Notebook Ultra and Mi NoteBook Pro. Both the Ultra and the Pro models come in Intel Core i5-11300H and Intel Core i7-11370H processors variant, with options to choose from 8GB RAM and 16GB RAM with the former and 16GB RAM in the latter. Both the Mi NoteBook Ultra and Mi NoteBook Pro run-on Windows 10 Home and will be eligible for free upgrade to Windows 11 when available. They come preloaded with MS Office Home & Student Edition 2019, and Mi SmartShare. The laptops will be available online on the Mi online store, Amazon India, and offline at Mi Homes and other retail stores from August 31.

Mi NoteBook Ultra: Specifications and features

This one is a premium laptop made from a single block of series 6 aluminium. Touted as a thin-and-light laptop by the company, the laptop weighs 1.7 kg and is 17.9mm thick. The Mi NoteBook Ultra sports a 15.6-inch 3.2K resolution screen of 90Hz refresh rate stretched in 16:10 aspect ratio. It is an IPS LCD screen with 100 per cent sRGB colour gamut for natural colours rendition. Audio is covered by dual stereo speakers of 2W each, supported by DTS audio processing app.

As for the I/O ports, there is one Thunderbolt 4, one USB type-C with PD support, one HDMI 1.4, one USB 3.2 Gen 1, one USB 2.0, and a 3.5mm audio out jack. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1. The Mi Notebook Ultra supports Windows Hello login with fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button. The laptop has a 720p HD camera with a 2D array dual-microphone. The Mi NoteBook Ultra is powered by a 70 WHr battery, supported by 65W USB Type-C charger.

Mi NoteBook Pro: Specifications and features

Like the Ultra mode, the Pro model is made of a single block of series 6 aluminium. It weighs 1.4 kg and is 17.3mm thick. The Mi NoteBook Pro sports a 14-inch 2.5K resolution screen stretched in 16:10 aspect ratio. It is an IPS LCD screen with 100 per cent sRGB colour gamut for natural colours rendition. Audio is covered by dual stereo speakers of 2W each, supported by DTS audio processing app.

Read Complete Article

Just over a week after the newly appointed Minister of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government will support startups and entrepreneurs in their initial phase, where they face most challenges, he launched Startup Accelerators of MeitY for Product Innovation, Development and Growth (SAMRIDH) programme on Wednesday.

SAMRIDH will create a conducive platform for Indian software product startups to enhance their products and secure investments for scaling their business. The programme is being implemented by MeitY Startup Hub (MSH).

Government will support startups and entrepreneurs in the most challenging phase which is the initial risk phase, Vaishnaw had said earlier.

The SAMRIDH initiative will not only provide funding support to startups, but will also help in bringing skill sets together which will help them become successful, Vaishnaw said Wednesday.

“Employment in traditional as well as new age industries is a stated mission of our government and is also the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. Initiatives and schemes like SAMRIDH will help accelerate the implementation of that vision,” he added.

Technology can play a role in accelerating and in taking a quantum jump in reaching out to people, which would have otherwise taken many years. Using the energy of startups these areas can be reached within months, the minister said.

Speaking at the launch event, MeitY Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney said the SAMRIDH scheme will pick up startups that are ready for acceleration stage and will provide them with funding support, mentorship and a lot of other support that is required by startups at this stage.

The SAMRIDH programme will focus on accelerating 300 startups by providing customer connect, investor connect, and international expansion opportunities in the next three years.

Read Complete Article

Analytics firm Tableau has partnered with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Ministry of Education, Government of India to equip students and educators from AICTE’s over 10,500 higher learning institutes with modern data analytics skills.

Through the partnership, AICTE plans to train 500,000 students and faculty over the next two years, said Buddha Chandrashekhar, Chief Coordinating Officer, AICTE.

“That’s a great goal, that’s the target we picked up for the next two years. We need to go step by step. We will…by the end of two years, train more than 5 lakh students to get empowered by using Tableau,” he added.

Through this partnership, Tableau will provide AICTE with Tableau Desktop and Tableau Prep licenses, access to eLearning, and sample curriculum material co-created with University professors for educators to get started teaching analytics in classrooms.

AICTE has selected over 200 educators as Tableau Champions to teach 1-2 other educators from each higher learning institute through a series of workshops and e-learning curriculum.

The idea, from an education point of view, is to make students industry-ready by providing them with analytics know-how, said Chandrashekhar.

“And after the introduction of 5G, there are several reports which talk about the increase in the employability options in the data and data analytics field. We want to empower our students and faculty in a way that they will get better opportunities in the future. That’s where we see the opportunity to work with Tableau, which has a parent company like Salesforce and has an amazing brand across the globe,” he added.

Tableau was acquired by Salesforce in 2019.

The educators trained by Tableau will create courses for students to learn data skills with Tableau.

Read Complete Article

Electric vehicle maker Tesla has started to hire roboticists to build its recently announced Tesla Bot, a humanoid robot to become a new vehicle for its AI technology.

The automaker started listing some roboticist job postings related to Tesla Bot — Mechanical Engineer-Actuator Integration (Humanoid Robot), Mechanical Engineer-Actuator Gear Design (Humanoid Robot), etc, reports Electrek.

“The Tesla humanoid robotics modelling team is looking for a highly skilled and motivated colleague that would like to help building the next generation biped robot. You will be working closely with a multi-disciplinary team with the goal to build a humanoid robot that can support manufacturing operators in tedious and exhaustive tasks,” Tesla wrote in one of the job descriptions.

Recently, Musk announced that his company is working on a humanoid robot and the prototype will arrive sometime next year.

The 5.8-inch bot would be used to handle automated machines at Tesla factories, as well as some of the hardware and software that powers the Autopilot driver assistance software, Musk announced during the ‘AI Day’ event.

“Basically, if you think about what we’re doing right now with cars, Tesla is arguably the world’s biggest robotics company because our cars are like semi-sentient robots on wheels,” Musk said recently.

The bot is “intended to be friendly and navigate through a world built for humans,” he added.

The Tesla robot will weigh 125 pounds and have a walking gait of 5 miles per hour. The face will house a screen to display important information.

Read Complete Article

Foraying into the wireless charger segment, American storage device maker Western Digital on Wednesday announced the SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger portfolio. The new line-up of wireless chargers includes the SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger Sync and SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger 15W with adapter. The SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger Sync is a one-of-its kind device with functionality of wireless charging and data storage integrated in one device.

With storage capacity of up to 256GB, the SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger Sync allows automatically back up of photos, videos, and contacts while the phone is charging on the wireless charger. Compatible with Qi charging protocol, this charger wirelessly charges the supported smartphone at a peak power of 10W. The SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger Sync comes with adaptor and 6-foot (1.8m) cable. It supports multiple backup profiles.

For the backup, the charger requires wireless connection, and supports devices based on iOS 11 or above or Android 5.0 or above required. Ixpand Wireless Charger app is available for download from the App Store or Google Play.

The SanDisk Ixpand Wireless Charger 15W with adapter comes with charging adaptor and USB-C cable. As the name suggests, it charges the supported devices at a peak power of 15W. The new SanDisk Ixpand wireless chargers are backed by a two-year limited warranty.

The Ixpand Wireless Charger Sync is available now in 256GB capacity at Rs 9,999. The Ixpand Wireless 15W Fast Charger with QC 3.0 Adapter is priced at Rs 2999. Western Digital is also offering the Ixpand Wireless 15W Fast Charger sans the charging adapter for Rs 1,999. All the products are available on online on Amazon India, and offline at Croma, Poorvika and select retail stores.

Read Complete Article