Homegrown social media platform ShareChat on Tuesday said over 750 million user generated pieces of content were uploaded this year.

The user generated content also saw 24 billion WhatsApp shares during the year.

Hindi users led content creation with 26 per cent contribution, while Tamil users led WhatsApp shares with 24 per cent share.

ShareChat in its report said COVID-19 induced lockdown and physical distancing impacted the community’s behaviour on the platform with users engaging more on ShareChat during and post the lockdown.

The average user time spent daily on the platform increased from 24 minutes pre-lockdown to 31 minutes post lockdown, it added.

The report also brought to the fore Top Moments of the year. COVID-19 and conversations around the life-altering global pandemic led the list, followed by conversations around Sushant Singh Rajput’s demise, ban on Chinese apps, IPL, and the rebuilding of the Ram Mandir.

IPL was trending in a few Indic languages with ShareChat’s users supporting their local teams. Bengali, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Marathi users cheered for their teams and put IPL amongst the top five moments of the year in their respective languages.

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Google diagnosed a widespread outage that knocked out major services earlier this week, such as Gmail and YouTube, as a mistake with its system for identifying people online.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google has several tools that enable it to verify and track logged-in users. In October, the company began moving those tools to a new file storage system, and in the process misreported portions of the data, according to a Friday post. That caused several of its services to go down for 47 minutes Monday morning, a rare technical misstep.

Google’s explanation comes amid heightened cybersecurity vigilance. A hack on software provider SolarWinds Corp. has exposed companies including Microsoft Corp. and multiple U.S. government agencies. A Google spokeswoman said on Friday that the internet giant has found no evidence the SolarWinds hack affected Alphabet or Google’s systems.

About 15% of requests sent to Google’s cloud storage service were disrupted during the Monday outage, the company said. The cloud division offers an identification service similar to one from Okta Inc.

On Tuesday, Google’s Gmail service had another disruption. The company attributed this to an issue with data migration.

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Adapting to the new hybrid normal of working remotely as well as from office, cautiously optimistic companies are looking to hire more people and provide better appraisals in 2021, as they step out of pandemic-ravaged 2020.

The pandemic emerged the biggest inflection point for the Indian job landscape. For corporates, work-from-home and remote workers became the new normal, while for professionals, online learning and digital skills took centre stage.

In 2020, most companies “deprioritised” their hiring plans amid the uncertain economic outlook, while industries such as travel, hospitality, retail, aviation, real estate, construction, and automobile were severely hit. Nevertheless, there is cautious optimism among corporates, which is getting reflected in their recruitment plans for the new year.

“Yes, the market is showing positive signs of recovery with almost all industries showing growth in hiring but with caution. Overall, the intent to hire recovered smartly from 11 per cent during the lockdown period to 18 per cent for HY (half year), and this number is growing,” said Deval Singh, business head, mobilization (hiring), at TeamLease Services.

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David Warner and Sean Abbott have been ruled out of the second Test against India and will rejoin the Australian squad ahead of the third Test, Cricket Australia (CA) said on Wednesday.

CA, in a statement, said Warner and Abbott spent time in Sydney outside the team’s bio-secure hub to recover from injury.

“While neither player has been in a specific ‘hotspot’ as outlined by NSW Health, Cricket Australia’s bio-security protocols do not allow them to rejoin the squad in time for the Boxing Day Test,” the statement read.

“Warner has not fully recovered from a groin injury suffered in the ODI series against India and would not have been available for the second Test match, while Abbott has recovered from a calf strain sustained during Australia A’s tour match against India and would have been available for selection for the Boxing Day Test,” it added.

The pair travelled from Sydney to Melbourne to continue their rehabilitation given the changing public health situation in Sydney at the time. CA also confirmed that no additional players will be added to the squad for the Boxing Day Test.

India stumbled to an eight-wicket loss in the first Test of the series. Both sides will now take on each other in the Boxing Day Test, beginning December 26. India will be without Virat Kohli for the remaining three Tests as he heads back home after being granted paternity leave by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

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Reliance Capital (RCL), part of the debt-ridden Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Group, has received 10 more bids, including from SBI Life, for its subsidiaries, sources said.

Earlier this month, the Committee of Debenture Holders had extended the last date for submission of expression of interest (EoI) to December 17, 2020. Following this, 10 new bids have come in for Reliance Capital’s assets, taking the total number of bids to 70, the sources said.

State Bank of India’s subsidiary SBI Life has also shown interest in picking up Reliance Capital’s stake in Reliance Nippon Life Insurance, they added.

Reliance Nippon Life Insurance Company, a joint venture with Japan’s largest life insurer-Nippon Life which holds 49 per cent shareholding, has a paid-up capital of Rs 1,196 crore as of September 30, 2020.

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Samsung is reportedly planning to launch new Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds next month and a new report has claimed that it will have a feature that is quite similar to the Spatial Audio function available in the AirPods Max and AirPods Pro.

The details were spotted in the Galaxy Wearable app ahead of its official launch, reports 9To5Google.

“It indicated that Spatial Audio, which adjusts audio based on the direction of a user’s head, will work when the Galaxy Buds Pro are connected to a Samsung phone running Android 11”.

Spatial Audio is designed to provide a theater-like surround sound listening experience on iPhone and iPad using dynamic head-tracking capabilities.

Galaxy Buds Pro will also have a “voice detect” feature that automatically enables transparency mode and lowers the volume of your audio when the earbuds sense that you’re speaking.

The new earbuds have also been certified by China’s 3C with a 472 mAh battery in the case, as well as the Korean NRRA certification, the report said on Tuesday.

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China’s ByteDance is in talks to buy into mobile games publisher CMGE Technology Group Ltd, four people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the owner of short video app TikTok moves to strengthen its next pillar of growth.

The deal would come as the gaming industry continues to benefit from COVID-19 pandemic countermeasures which have forced people to stay at home, boosting game downloads.

ByteDance plans to buy part or all of the 27.6% CMGE stake held by Fairview Ridge Investment Ltd, controlled by CMGE chairman Xiao Jian and vice chairman Sin Hendrick, said two of the people.

ByteDance is looking to offer HK$4 to HK$5 ($0.52 to $0.64) per share to purchase the stake, said another person. The range represents a premium of 30% to 62% above the stock’s Monday close of HK$3.08.

Xiao and Sin are the biggest shareholders of Hong Kong-listed CMGE, holding 33.9% and 32.6% respectively through a number of entities, regulatory filings showed.

A 27.6% stake is worth $275 million, Reuters calculations showed based on CMGE’s market capitalisation of $997 million on Monday.

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Many people these days fancy big-screen smartphones but are averse to bulky designs, which is unfortunately what you get in most current-generation big-screen devices. Smartphone makers have in the past made efforts to design balanced smartphones with optimum size and big screen. But they have restricted such products to the midrange segment, leaving the users of premium smartphones in the lurch. That said, there is now a smartphone, the Apple’s iPhone 12 mini, which packs the best of both the worlds – a top-end premium device of an optimum size and a big screen.iPhone 12 mini: Design

The iPhone 12 mini is a no-compromise premium smartphone, which is small in size but not in any other respect. It has the same flat-frame design of its siblings in the iPhone 12 series. The iPhone 12 mini flaunts a premium glass-aluminium construction, with a ceramic shield glass on the front touted to be 4x more resistant to drops than the previous generation. However, the textured scratch-resistant glass and stainless steel frame on the Pro models have been replaced with a glossy glass and an aluminium frame in the mini. The phone’s ergonomic design is complemented by a lightweight (133g) build, which aids its in-hand feel and does not make your jeans pocket look unnecessarily bulky when placed there.

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Global streaming giant Spotify is planning to launch a music streaming service in South Korea, home to the booming K-pop industry, in the first half of 2021.

It would give listeners here access to around 60 million tracks and over 4 billion playlists, according to the Swedish firm. It also expected the move to help Korean artists of various music genres to reach their fans here and abroad, reports Yonhap news agency.

“We are excited about our upcoming launch in South Korea, a market recognized as an epicenter for music, culture and tech innovation,” said Alex Norstrom, Chief Freemium business officer of Spotify.

“We are looking forward to working with our valued local partners to uncover more Korean artists, and to connect them with fans in South Korea and all over the world,” Norstrom said.

Spotify has been running K-pop playlists since 2014. It noted that the portion of K-pop listening has jumped by more than 2,000 percent over the last six years, with total streaming time reaching 180 billion minutes.

Launched in 2008, Spotify provides music streaming service to around 320 million listeners in 92 markets.

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Apple which has had a successful 2020 in India riding on the popularity of iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 and price drop on other key models like XR, will focus on cementing its position further in 2021 with wooing mid-premium range consumers in the price-conscious smartphone market, leading industry experts said on Saturday.

According to the leading market research firm IDC, the premium segment ($500-$700) in India witnessed multifold growth in the month of October with high shipments of the iPhone XR and 11 driven by affordability schemes/offers.

The premium segment registered 16 per cent (on-year) growth in October, with Apple leading the market in 49 of the top 50 cities in the country.

According to Navkendar Singh, Research Director, Client Devices & IPDS, IDC India, Apple has had a good past couple of years in the country.

“With the launch of iPhone 11 and 12, followed by subsequent price drops of last year models (11, X, XR etc), launch of SE 2 at a very aggressive price point and price aggression by the online platforms has really helped Apple,” Singh told IANS.

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