Pegasus Spyware: How it Can Easily Take Over Your Phone With Just a Missed Call

Traditionally, Pegasus works by sending a link, and if the target user clicks on it, it is installed on the user’s device.

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Apple TV Plus to be available in India starting today: Here is all you need to know

The much-awaited Apple's video streaming service — Apple TV Plus — will be available in India today. It was announced back in June this year at WWDC, but the company opened up about it at the annual Apple event held in Cupertino back in September. The Apple TV Plus service is expected to roll out in a few hours as the website says, "Coming 1 November" but is not yet available. A big player like Apple dabbling in this market, it seems like it might rattle other competitors like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and more for sure.

Apple TV+ will also feature nine originals, including Jason Momoa-Charlize Theron starrer See and the Jennifer Aniston-led The Morning Show, not to mention For All Mankind, Dickinson, Helpsters, Snoopy in Space, Ghostwriter, The Elephant Queen, and a new project from Oprah Winfrey.

Apple TV Plus

(Also read: Apple TV Plus Vs Netflix Vs Hotstar Vs Amazon Prime Video: Which one's the best value?)

Apple TV Plus pricing, plans

The Apple TV Plus will be available at a monthly subscription cost of Rs 99. You can get a week free trial today and then decide if they want to continue with the service. Subscription will be automatically renewed until prompted otherwise. As announced by the company, six users can use a particular account under the ‘Family Sharing' with no extra charge.

Apple has also said that all the buyers getting a new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac or Apple TV, you will be eligible for one year of free Apple TV+ subscription.

Apple TV Plus compatible devices

This service will be available on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV 4K, Apple TV HD, Apple TV (3rd generation), iPod touch and Mac. To get the Apple TV+ service, subscribers need to have iOS 12.3 or later, tvOS 12.3 or later and macOS Catalina on their devices. Apple TV+ will also be available on the Apple TV app on select 2018, 2019 and newer Samsung smart TVs, and on Amazon Fire TV, LG, Roku, Sony and VIZIO platforms in the future.

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Apple Music Student Plan to Provide Apple TV+ Subscription At No Extra Cost

Apple Music's offer to bundle access to Apple TV+ along with its $4.99 per month subscription was revealed by Hailee Steinfeld on her Instagram account.

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Microsoft’s Xbox Console Streaming Preview is Now Live for Android

Xbox Console Streaming for Android is available for US and UK Xbox Insiders who have enrolled their consoles in the Alpha or Alpha Skip-Ahead rings.

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Motorola's folding Razr Flip phone leaked ahead of its official launch rumoured to be on 13 November

The Moto Razr folding phone has been in the pipeline for quite some time and there have been countless rumours and renders floating about the device. The company is going to hold an unveiling event on 13 November where it is widely believed that the Moto Razr Flip will launch. Now ahead of this event, we appear to have our first look at the device.

Moto Razr concept. Evan Blass

As per an image shared by reputed tipster Evan Blass, we see the familiar clamshell design that made the original Moto Razr quite popular. Only this time, the phone will not have a T9 keyboard but an entire display that can be folded shut. Like the Galaxy Fold, Moto has also opted for a folding display tech on its device and it is said to bend vertically instead of horizontally like the Fold.

The device will also not be very spec-heavy if the past rumours are anything to go by. The phone is expected to sport a Snapdragon 710 chipset with up to 4 or 6 GB of RAM and 64 or 128 GB of storage.

The battery s rumoured to be of a measly 2,730 mAh capacity which indicates Motorola's inclination towards a slimmer device. The screen inside was said to be a 6.2-inch panel with 876 x 2,142-pixel resolution, while the outer panel will settle for 600 x 800-pixel resolution.

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First of NASA's Artemis moon missions in 2024 to feature two astronauts, lunar rover

With every passing week, it seems NASA has one more complication or reason to defer its targeted 2024 deadline for the upcoming human mission to the moon, Artemis.

The most recent blow (unconfirmed by NASA) was that Congress might decide not to fund the mission for the planned deadline. NASA's enormous rocket-in-development, the Space Launch System (SLS), has fallen well behind schedule. History has been unkind to deep-space exploration programs since Apollo, which means that a lot rides on NASA's Artemis mission marking the start of a "moon rush" of sorts.

Scientists John Connolly and Niki Werkheiser from NASA shared new details on the Artemis mission at the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, an annual interdisciplinary forum in Washington, held on 30 October. Artemis seems far, far more complex than the agency's earlier missions to the moon under the Apollo program, according to Ars Technica.

Artist's illustration of astronauts on the surface, installing a geophone. Image: NASA

Crew of two and a week of sampling

Connolly reportedly told attendees that the first mission under Artemis to the Moon's surface will consist of two crew members, who will study the surface of the moon for 6.5 days — double the longest time any of the Apollo astronauts spent on the surface. The pair of astronauts will carry out four space(moon)walks in total to make various science observations of the surface. Importantly, this will also include the first attempt to gather a sample of water-ice from lunar craters.

The Artemis mission will also feature an unpressurized rover for astronauts to move around faster in. While this moon-mobile will come in very handy during spacewalks, NASA also intends for the rover to have remote control capability for astronauts to call on it without having to walk over to it each time.

While the first mission will deliver the rover, a second Artemis mission scheduled in 2026 is to ferry a pressurized rover to the Moon's surface. Pressurized rovers have far better mileage and could get the astronauts a lot further from the landing site than the first, unpressurized lunar rover.

By 2030, NASA says it could expand the Artemis crew to include four astronauts for 14-day missions to the moon. This will allow the agency to build new facilities — for mining, building, collecting water-ice, and producing oxygen. The companies that were awarded contracts to supply lunar landers for the Artemis mission have been mandated to provide NASA with 35 kg of capacity per lander to ferry back moon rocks, which is also extremely interesting to astrobiologists and astrophysicists alike.

For NASA, the goal, according to Connolly, is to go to the Moon to stay, while also building up capabilities for eventual human missions to Mars.

Also read:  NASA unveils new, bunny-hop proof, astronaut spacesuits for its Artemis mission

Also read:  NASA may opt for inflatable habitats to house future missions to the moon, Mars and beyond

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Facebook's bet on VR isn't going according to plan admits Mark Zuckerberg

When Facebook acquired the VR company Oculus a couple of years back, the social media giant had some grand plans for the future of virtual reality. Now it appears that the bet on the future isn't really paying off as per CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Oculus Quest. Reuters

After pouring in $2 billion for the Oculus acquisition, there had been a certain belief that VR was the way to go in the future. However, at the Q3 earnings report, Zuckerberg has said that not everything had gone according to plan.

"On VR and AR, you're right. This is taking a bit longer than we thought. And I'm still optimistic," Zuckerberg said as per Business Insider. "I think that the long-term vision and the reasons why I thought this — we're going to be important and big — are unchanged."

In any case, Zuckerberg has insisted that the VR market is going to pick up fast and Oculus is going to be leading it. Back at Facebook's annual F8 conference, the company unveiled the $399 Oculus Quest device.

Zuckerberg has claimed that in the near future "hundreds of millions of people will be using the Oculus Quest" and he also said that the device is "growing and doing quite well." Most of the growth for this quarter has been driven by Oculus Quest sales, said chief financial officer Dave Wehner.

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Can India rise to meet Greta Thunberg’s concerns on the issue of climate change?

The FridaysforFuture campaign for school strikes led by Swedish climate activist 16-year-old Greta Thunberg and her peers highlight the importance of treating climate change as an urgent issue.

The theme is simple: to abide by scientific evidences that point out that global average temperatures are inching towards dangerous and irreversible thresholds.

For India, climate change is already an existential threat. Coupled with mismanagement of resources and governance, India faces acute repercussions of climate impacts year-round in the form of extreme and unseasonal rainfall, droughts, floods and heatwaves leading to economic and livelihood losses, food and water security threats.

Greta Thunberg stands with School strike for the climate sign during a strike. Image credit: Wikipedia/Leonhard Lenz

India’s own positioning on climate change issues at global platforms appears impressive. Recently, at the UN Climate Change Summit, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s announcement of revised renewable target of 450 GW, stress on issues of adaptation to increase coping capacity of vulnerable communities, which faces relative marginalisation as compared to industry-driven mitigation pathways, drew applause from the global community. Further, his award as the “Global Goalkeeper” for addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through the flagship Swachh Bharat Mission reiterated India’s commitment and the necessity to rise to the climate crisis in a renewed context.

But the big question is: Is India ready to tackle climate change?

Transformation of the energy sector and shift to renewables

The country faces challenges in the strategic transformation of the power sector. Coal contributes around three-fifths of India’s carbon emissions. India is still the third-largest carbon emitter globally and its power sector is still highly fossilised with around 196 GW of total 347 GW installed power generation capacity by coal and lignite.

During the financial year 2017-18, the country generated around 1228 billion-kWh units (BU) of electricity of which 1044 BU (around 85 percent) was through burning 540 million tonnes of coal and lignite, as per a Central Electricity Authority (CEA) report. The entry of new electric vehicles, clean electric cooking and proliferation of new electrical and electronic equipment is bound to give the Indian thermal power sector a rebound-effect increase.

India’s quest for 450 GW addition of renewables can decarbonise the Indian power sector but will not be an easy task due to massive intermittence and identification for subsequent peak loads.

Suratgarh thermal power plant in Rajjasthan. Image credit: Bhuvantoo/Wikimedia Commons.

Diffusion of the renewable programme, therefore, requires proper guidance and restructuring. The existing position of renewable programme is also not very satisfactory. India has committed to generating 175 GW which is divided into 100 GW solar, 60 GW wind and 15 GW through other resources towards renewable integration by the year 2022. The solar element which forms the largest segment and political interest is subdivided further into two segments, with 60 GW for utility-scale and 40 GW for solar rooftops.

While the progress on the utility-scale solar, wind and other RE components is steady with 36 GW of installation realised by July 2019, the customer centric decentralised and grid-connected solar rooftop projects have gained least traction. The 40 GW solar rooftop (SRT) programme, mainly focused on domestic households, agriculture sector and commercial establishments, is running much behind its targets with poor adoption rates and an added cumulative capacity of just 4.5 GW.

Moreover, India’s industrial and domestic energy consumption structures have challenges in energy intensity and resource utilisation inefficiency. Every time an industrial entity produces aluminium, steel or any other consumer-oriented product without a strict adherence to recycling and/or emphasis on cleaner fuels for manufacturing process, it adds towards more fossilised economy pathways. An approach towards circular economy with emphasis on resource substitution, efficient and minimal resources utilisation, and thrust towards reusing and recycling can help in addressing climate change goals. This can not only decarbonise the economy but also reduce the challenges of environmental degradation and pollution.

Further, the energy and energy efficiency programmes cannot function optimally when they are only focussed on technical and economic potential without addressing the behavioural patterns of actual target audience. With India’s growing energy demand, energy planning has to be strategically thought within the limits of new technology paradigms, material criticality and human behavioural changes. Such programmes must not only be perceived from an investment-drive perspective but also from a necessity point of view.

Greater focus on decentralised climate actions

In 2009, the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change introduced the State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) for addressing responses to both Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation. This action represents a proactive stance from the Government of India in decentralising the efforts towards climate change actions. India has adopted the co-benefits approach as a dominant strategy – measures that promote [India’s] development objectives while also yielding co-benefits for addressing climate change effectively. For a country like India, where development goals cannot be compromised, the co-benefits approach has been a strategy to address climate change concerns, while meeting development needs.

A sign from the climate Strike in Delhi. Image credit: Arnold Joyce.

Strengthening capacities of stakeholders responsible for planning and implementing actions on the ground with enhanced understanding of climate urgency and feasibility in specific local contexts with involvement of communities is essential. This would also help in better coordination of climate actions of line ministries at various levels of governance. Most of the state machinery like public health department, public works department, state pollution control boards and district level committees have issues of sustainable finance, limited capacity and technical know-how on a multi-thematic integrated approach for solutions of complex issues. Along with the states, cities need greater attention and support for climate actions. Towards the goal of capacity building of state and city machinery, India needs dedicated institutions on climate change.

Mass mobilisation

And lastly, mass mobilisation is central to tackle an enormous and encompassing challenge of climate change. In this regard, the role of youth is critical. Even though few have condemned Greta’s action as an example of youth idealism not necessarily directed at results, the message of science-based actions to tackle climate change is expected to maintain her activism as valid and even necessary. It has helped to draw youth attention in India like in other parts of the world. More involvement of youth in school campuses, community programmes such as afforestation, waste management, awareness building will, on one hand, contribute to solving the climate crises while also acting as multipliers for further dissemination of knowledge and learnings. Such actions would also provide wider scope for media coverage.

Children participate in a climate Strike in Delhi. Image credit: Arnold Joyce.

For India, addressing climate change no longer remains a matter of choice. It is a question of survival of its communities in millions that face unseasonal rainfall, prolonged droughts and agricultural shortfalls. Climate impacts are anticipated to push further millions into poverty in coming times. Implementing climate solutions are ongoing, work in progress and involve learning by doing. However, what is required is an integrated, ambitious and urgent approach which requires three-tier changes at policy and institutional level; industrial and applied segments; and consumer level behavioural interventions with the community and citizen participation. The transition, of course, will not be simple and without sacrifices.

Nevertheless, science provides basic foundations to design new pathways to address energy transitions and coping with climate change through technological innovations.

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Facebook under intense pressure to ban political ads after Twitter announces the ban

Twitter’s ban on political advertising is ratcheting up pressure on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg to follow suit. But so far, that doesn’t appear likely to happen.

Facebook’s policy is to accept paid political ads from candidates without fact-checking them or censoring them, even if they contain lies.

And Zuckerberg doubled down on that stand Wednesday following Twitter’s announcement, reiterating that “political speech is important” and that Facebook is loath to interfere with it.

Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites have come under fire over Russia’s use of such platforms to spread misinformation and sow political division in the US during the 2016 presidential campaign. That debate has heated up again in recent weeks along with the 2020 race for the White house.

Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites have come under fire over Russia’s use of such platforms to spread misinformation and sow political division in the U.S. Image: Getty

Twitter chose to respond with a ban on all political advertising , suggesting that social media is so powerful that false or misleading messages pose a risk to democracy.

The timing of the announcement, the same day as Facebook’s quarterly earnings report, seemed designed to goad Zuckerberg.

“The pressure is going to be extremely strong on Facebook to do something similar, and if they don’t, the criticism of Facebook will only increase,” said Tim Bajarin, president of consultancy Creative Strategies.

In fact, some of the Democratic presidential candidates immediately suggested Facebook follow Twitter’s lead.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock tweeted: “Good. Your turn, Facebook.” And Pete Buttigieg said, “I think other online platforms would do well to either accept their responsibility for truth or question whether they should be in the business at all.”

But Zuckerberg stood firm.

“This is complex stuff. Anyone who says the answer is simple hasn’t thought about the nuances and downstream challenges,” the Facebook CEO said. “I don’t think anyone can say that we are not doing what we believe or we haven’t thought hard about these issues.”

"So, you won't take down lies or you will take down lies? I think that's just a pretty simple yes or no."

Complete exchange between @RepAOC @AOC and Mark Zuckerberg at today's House Financial Services Cmte hearing.

Full video here: https://t.co/heT7Psnlp1 pic.twitter.com/0iiWtfU5gQ

— CSPAN (@cspan) October 23, 2019

As for refusing to fact-check political ads, Facebook has said it wants to provide politicians with a “level playing field” for communication and not intervene when they speak, regardless of what they’re saying.

Banning political ads has its own challenges, starting with defining what exactly is political. For example, Greenpeace might not be able to buy an ad urging people to support legislation to fight climate change. But what if an oil company wanted to run an ad for its products that also seemed to come out against such legislation?

Twitter and Facebook already take steps to prevent political manipulation by verifying the identities of political advertisers — measures prompted by the furor over Moscow’s interference. But the verifying systems, which rely on both humans and automated systems, have not been perfect.

In one case, Facebook mistakenly took down ads for Bush’s baked beans because they contained the word “Bush” and the food company was not registered with Facebook as a political advertiser. Media organizations have also seen their ads flagged for review when they promoted news stories about candidates or important issues.

And then there’s the question of what to do with individual posts from politicians or other opinion makers, which can carry political messages and be shared widely even though they are not paid ads.

Details about Twitter’s new policy won’t be released until 15 November, a week before it takes effect. But Twitter does call for removing not just campaign advertisements but also ads on issues of legislative importance. That could include such topics as climate change, gun control and immigration.

EMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said Zuckerberg’s stance probably isn’t a financial decision, since political ads aren’t big moneymakers.

Facebook, which had 2018 revenue of $55.8 billion, said Wednesday that it expects ads from politicians to account for less than 0.5 percent of its revenue next year.

Twitter, which had revenue last year of about $3 billion, is thought to make even less from the ads; it said it brought in only $3 million from political ads during the 2018 midterms.

“It is a really complicated decision,” Williamson said. “I think that Mark Zuckerberg is truly struggling with figuring out what is the best thing to do for the company and Facebook users.”

Wedbush Securities managing director Michael Pachter likewise said the Facebook founder is trying to pull off a tricky balancing act.

“Zuckerberg is trying to satisfy investors by growing revenues and satisfy regulators and legislators by cracking down on false and misleading ads, while maintaining the virtuous stance of being a defender of free speech,” Pachter said.

Daniel Kreiss, a journalism professor at the University of North Carolina, said that a middle ground for Twitter and Facebook might be to allow political ads but to prohibit targeting, or showing them only to specific groups of people.

If campaigns aren’t allowed to target, he said, messages will become broader and perhaps less misleading.

Laura Packard, a partner at PowerThru, a digital consulting firm that works with left-of-center campaigns and advocacy groups, said Twitter’s ban was the right decision for voters.

“This might make my work harder,” she said. “But in general, I think that if any platform cannot police misinformation and lies, then they shouldn’t offer paid advertising.”

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Facebook Sued For Age, Gender Bias in Financial Services Ads, Says Complaint Being Reviewed

The suit against Facebook contends that women and older people were denied the benefits of ads for financial services because Facebook tools allow messages to be targeted at specific age ranges or genders.

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Chemicals from pharmas and personal care products are polluting the water in cities

Chemical residues released from pharmaceutical and personal care products are not only becoming a major contaminant of water bodies in urban areas but are also becoming a source of drug resistance in the environment, a new study has warned.

The study, which evaluated the vulnerability and resilience of urban water bodies in Guwahati city, found the presence of viruses and multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, or E Coli in samples collected from the Brahmaputra river.

Deepor Beel — a freshwater wetland — was found to be the least polluted in comparison to the Brahmaputra river and Bharalu, the tributary turned urban drain.

Raw sewage flows into the river. Image credit: AP

Researchers analysed occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, intestine occurring virus, antibiotic resistant bacteria, metal, faecal contamination and antibiotic resistance genes, as well as the long term changes in precipitation and temperature of water.

Some microbes displayed 100 per cent resistance to major antibiotics — levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, kanamycin monosulphate and sulfamethoxazole.

“The Brahmaputra due its high diluting capacity through enormous discharge is providing resilience to urban water and all the pollution added by the city drains gets diluted in the downstream,” pointed out Manish Kumar of Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, who led the study, while speaking to India Science Wire.

The results are published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The research team included scientists from Sri Lanka and Japan as well.

Water samples were collected from the Brahmaputra before it entered the city as well as before its water got mixed with Bharalu. Another set of samples was collected from after downstream mixing, and then from the location at ten kilometres downstream of Guwahati city. The other three samples were collected from upstream to the confluence point of Bharalu.

It was found that the concentration of pharmaceutical and personal care products were high in drain samples and very low in lake and river water.

A map that shows the flow of the Brahmaputra river. Image credit: Britannica

Researchers said it was clear that pharmaceutical and personal care product residues were directly associated with raw sewage and hence not detected in upstream or downstream of the Brahmaputra, or in the Deepor Beel wetland.

The study further reports contamination of drain water by toxic metals like arsenic, cobalt and manganese correlates with water quality parameters such as acidity and appear to be inducing antibiotic resistance in E.coli bacteria.

“As there are not much new antibiotics discovered all over the world, the existence of superbug, resistant to several antibiotics is alarming,” commented Ryo Honda, another member of the team from Japan.

“Hundred per cent resistances for all six antibiotics that we have tested is the result, we never expected,” added another team member Tushara Chaminda from Sri Lanka.

Widespread use of antibiotics must be controlled through the attention of scientists, policymakers, and medical practitioners.

“It is time to adopt a holistic approach for vulnerability and resilience evaluation of water systems and to revise the ambient water quality guidelines by including new age parameters,” Kumar added.

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Pegasus malware explained: All you need to know about the spyware affecting high profile targets

In recent times spyware has become quite a threat to society and information stored on your smartphones is under an even greater threat than before.

A representation image of the Pegasus spyware by Kaspersky.

Isreali company NSO, whose bread and butter is developing spyware, has been put in the limelight the past couple of days for allegedly using WhatsApp to snoop around several high-profile individuals in many countries including India. The word Pegasus keeps cropping up in association with NSO and the spying that the company is doing.

What is Pegasus?

Pegasus is a modular malware that can initiate total surveillance on the targeted device, says a report by digital security company Kaspersky.  It installs the necessary modules to read the user’s messages and mail, listen to calls, send back the browser history and more, which basically means taking control of nearly all aspects of your digital life. It can even listen in to encrypted audio and text files on your device that makes all the data on your device up for grabs.

It was first discovered to Ahmed Mansoor, a UAE human rights activist, who happened to be one of its targets. He received several suspicious SMS' on his device containing what he believed to be malicious links. He sent these messages to security experts from Citizen Lab, who along with another cybersecurity firm called Lookout confirmed the existence of Pegasus and also called it the most sophisticated malware currently in existence.

So how can we detect if our device has been infected with Pegasus? As per the report, that is not an easy task to do as the malware tries to hide quite diligently. It will self-delete if it does not hear from the command server for more than 60 days, or if it detects that it has been downloaded on the wrong device.

Are both Android and iOS devices affected?

Researchers from Lookout revealed that Pegasus exists not only for iOS but for Android as well. For the latter, the malware has been dubbed Chrysaor and it is quite similar to Pegasus, which attacks only iOS devices, but different in terms of the techniques it uses to penetrate the device.

The report states that for iOS users, Pegasus relies on three zero-day (previously unknown) vulnerabilities which could be used to remotely jailbreak the device. A zero-day vulnerability means that the developers or software experts have just learned about the flaw and as such, there is no security patch to prevent the flaw. For Android, Chrysaor does not rely on a zero-day vulnerability but instead uses a sophisticated rooting method called Framaroot to install surveillance on the target device.

Is your device safe?

Learning about the Pegasus vulnerability, Apple has immediately issued a security update (9.3.5) that patched all three of the aforementioned vulnerabilities. Google has notified directly to all those Android users who have been affected by Pegasus and it is in the process of issuing a patch for the issue.

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Best smartphones under Rs 20,000 (Nov 2019): From Redmi Note 8 Pro to Realme XT

Our list of phones under Rs 20,000 this month is dominated by Xiaomi and its sub-brands. But there’s some stiff competition too. What’s more important is the kind of features and processing power that buyers can get in this budget these days. From sharp Super AMOLED displays to 64 MP cameras to 256 GB of internal storage, you can find it all here. So let's jump into the action and check what your best options are under 20K currently.

Best phones under Rs 20,000 in India

Realme XT

Realme XT (Review) was the first phone with a 64 MP camera that the Oppo sub-brand launched in India. And if that wasn’t enough, Realme chose to add three more cameras at the back to give it company. The quad-camera setup comprises of the main 64 MP camera, an 8 MP ultra-wide shooter, 2 MP dedicated macro camera, and a 2 MP depth sensor. The main camera supports pixel binning and captures some impressive 16 MP images in varied lighting conditions including low light. The images have a good amount of detail along with natural colours.

Realme XT runs Android 9.0 Pie with the pleasant Color OS 6.0 UI on top.

While the 64 MP camera is its marketing mouthpiece, the other features of the phone are even more impressive. The design is elegant and has a glass back that is protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5, and so is its sharp 6.4-inch Super AMOLED Full HD+ display. There’s an in-display fingerprint scanner too. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 SoC which is a great choice in this segment. Its 4,000 mAh battery keeps the phone powered for a day and a half of moderate usage. But what’s even better is the bundled VOOC 3.0 fast charger that refills it from 0 to 100 in under 90 minutes, with the first 50 percent recharge taking just 30 minutes.

Realme XT runs Android 9.0 Pie with the pleasant Color OS 6.0 UI on top. The 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage variant is available in this budget too, but 8 GB RAM is a bit of an overkill on this chipset. So, you can choose to save a couple of thousand Rupees and opt for the 6 GB RAM / 64 GB storage variant instead. You can always pop in a micro SD card and increase the storage.

Realme XT price in India: Rs 16,999 for 6 GB RAM / 64 GB storage; Rs 18,999 for 8 GB RAM / 128 GB storage

Redmi Note 8 Pro

Redmi Note 8 Pro (Review) is Xiaomi’s answer to Realme XT. This too comes with the exact quad camera combination at the back, with the 64 MP sensor being the flag-bearer. Camera performance is comparable but the colours and contrast are slightly spiced up. While purists won’t appreciate it, social media enthusiasts may actually like it. The phone's design is as good as the XT’s with a glass back and Gorilla Glass 5 protection at the front as well as at the back. The phone is on the larger side courtesy of its 6.53-inch Full HD+ display. The company hasn’t opted for an AMOLED screen here but the display is sharp and supports HDR.

Redmi Note 8 Pro is powered by Mediatek Helio G90T SoC which raises the performance bar in the midrange segment.

The protagonist of the Redmi Note 8 Pro is its Mediatek Helio G90T SoC which raises the performance bar in the midrange segment. Not only does it outperform its Qualcomm counterparts in system benchmarks, it comfortably takes the honours in gaming performance as well. One can play PUBG Mobile on it in Ultra mode with HDR on — that’s some performance for the segment. It has a 4,500 mAh battery that can last you for a couple of days of moderate usage without much gaming, and just over a day if you indulge in ample gaming.

It runs Android 9.0 Pie with MIUI 10 on top. You again get an 8 GB variant of the phone with 128 GB storage for 2K more, but you won’t see any noticeable performance gain over the 6 GB RAM variant.

Redmi Note 8 Pro price in India: Rs 15,999 for 6 GB RAM / 128 GB storage; Rs 17,999 for 8 GB RAM / 128 GB storage

Redmi K20

The next Xiaomi phone on the list is the Redmi K20. The K20 has a more practical but competent triple camera setup comprising a 48 MP main camera with a Sony IMX582 sensor, 13 MP ultra-wide camera with a 125-degrees FOV, and an 8 MP telephoto lens that facilitates 2X optical zoom. They manage to capture some really sharp images in varied lighting conditions. You also get an option to record super slo-mo 720p videos at 960 fps. And there’s a 20 MP pop-up selfie camera too that adds to the cool quotient of this device.

The Redmi K20 runs Android Pie with MIUI 10 on top and is equipped with a 4,000 mAh battery.

With a glass body and Aura Prime design, the Redmi K20 has one of the most attractive designs among mid-range phones. There’s a 6.4-inch Full HD+ all-screen notch-less AMOLED display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. There’s also an in-display fingerprint scanner. The phone is powered by an upper-midrange Snapdragon 730 SoC and comes bundled with 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. There’s also a 128 GB variant that sells for 3K more and one can give it a serious thought as there is no memory card slot here. A 4,000 mAh battery keeps the phone running for over a day of moderate usage. The Redmi K20 runs Android Pie with MIUI 10 on top.

Redmi K20 price in India: Rs 19,999 for 6 GB RAM / 64 GB storage

Poco F1

We can’t keep this phone out of our lists, can we? Xiaomi sub-brand, Poco last year launched a phone with Qualcomm’s then flagship Snapdragon 845 SoC for just over 20K in India. While its base variant was priced at 21K at launch, you can now get its top end variant with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage for just Rs 18,999. You can add another 256 GB to it using a microSD card, just in case. The design isn’t the most eye-catching, but it is still a beast when it comes to performance.

The Poco F1 (Review) comes with a 6.18-inch full HD+ notched display and a 12 MP + 5 MP dual camera setup at the back that does a good job in average to good lighting. The image quality is pretty good, but is nothing fancy. There’s also a more than decent 20 MP front camera for selfies. But this is mainly a phone for gamers on a budget than for camera enthusiasts. If you are looking to play PUBG in its full glory on a tight budget, Poco F1 is still an excellent option. The Poco launcher on top of Android 9.0 Pie remains a better alternative to MIUI that you get in most Xiaomi phones.

Poco F1 price in India: Rs 15,999 for 6 GB RAM / 128 GB storage; Rs 18,999 for 8 GB RAM / 256 GB storage

Asus Zenfone 5Z

If you are looking for a classier version of the Poco F1, Asus Zenfone 5Z (Review) is a great option. This too boasts of a Snapdragon 845 chip, and now you can buy its mid variant with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage under 20K, which is a great deal. The storage can be expanded further up to 2 TB with a microSD card.

It has 12 MP+8 MP dual rear cameras that do an impressive job in most lighting conditions courtesy of an f/1.8, 24 mm wide-angle lens with large pixel size and 4-axis optical image stabilisation. It can also record 4K videos at 30 fps and slow-mo videos at 1080p and 720p resolution at 120 and 240 fps respectively.

The Zenfone 5Z looks and feels premium thanks to its glass and aluminium body. The 6.2-inch Full HD+ notched display is really sharp and the phone feels fairly compact in hand. The Zenfone 5Z is a solid all-round phone with premium looks, very good cameras, a powerful SoC, and now at a great price. The phone runs Android 9.0 Pie with ZenUI on top.

Asus Zenfone 5Z price in India: Rs 18,999 for 6 GB RAM / 128 GB storage

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New battery design to help electric cars run 320 kilometres with just 10 minutes of charge

Ten minutes charging time to add 200 miles of driving range: scientists in the US have claimed a technological breakthrough that could resolve one of the key concerns surrounding all-electric vehicles. Writing in the journal Joule on Wednesday, researchers at The Pennsylvania State University said that such a speedy charge rate required a battery to rapidly take in 400 kilowatts of energy.

Current generation vehicles are not capable of this feat as it risks the lithium plating, the formation of metallic lithium around the anode, which would severely deteriorate battery life. To get around this constraint, the researchers raised the temperature of their experimental battery to 60 degrees Celsius during the charge cycle, then lowered it back down as it was used.

(Also read: Everything electric: How to go about achieving an all-electric future within the next decade)

Current generation Tesla vehicles require about 30 minutes for a partial charge. Representational Image: Pixabay

What this does is "limit the battery's exposure to the elevated charge temperature, thus generating a very long cycle life," said senior author Chao-Yang Wang, a mechanical engineer at The Pennsylvania State University. But scaling up the design and bringing it to market may take a decade, Rick Sachleben, a member of the American Chemical Society told AFP. Makers will need to make sure that rapidly raising the temperature is safe and stable, and doesn't lead to explosions given the phenomenal amount of energy that is being transferred.

"Fast charging is one of the holy grails of electric vehicles," he said. "It's one of the things that is necessary for them to compete with petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines."

Current generation Tesla vehicles require about 30 minutes for a partial charge.

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Xiaomi reveals some key specs of its upcoming Mi TV 5 ahead of official launch on 5 November

Xiaomi has carved out a big space in the smartphone segment in China and India and it is doing the same with its smart TV lineup. The company is all set to release the new Mi TV 5 series in China on 5 November and it would appear that some key specs of the device have been revealed before the launch.

Xiaomi Mi TV 5.

As per the poster released by Xiaomi for the Mi TV 5, the device is said to come with a 12nm T972 chipset with support for 8K video recording. A jump of 63 percent is being touted for this chipset as compared to the previous generation. In terms of memory options, the Mi TV 5 packs in 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage.

It had been confirmed earlier that the Mi TV 5 is confirmed to come with a 4K QLED panel covering NTSC 108% wide colour gamut, similar to the one seen on the OnePlus TV. This could mean that the Mi TV 5 will be more in the premium smart TV segment rather than the budget segment it usually aims for.

Along with the Mi TV 5, Xiaomi will also be launching the Mi CC9 Pro smartphone which will have penta-lens setup including a 108 MP camera.

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New battery design to help electric cars run 200 miles with just 10 minutes of charge

Ten minutes charging time to add 200 miles of driving range: scientists in the US have claimed a technological breakthrough that could resolve one of the key concerns surrounding all-electric vehicles. Writing in the journal Joule on Wednesday, researchers at The Pennsylvania State University said that such a speedy charge rate required a battery to rapidly take in 400 kilowatts of energy.

Current generation vehicles are not capable of this feat as it risks the lithium plating, the formation of metallic lithium around the anode, which would severely deteriorate battery life. To get around this constraint, the researchers raised the temperature of their experimental battery to 60 degrees Celsius during the charge cycle, then lowered it back down as it was used.

(Also read: Everything electric: How to go about achieving an all-electric future within the next decade)

Current generation Tesla vehicles require about 30 minutes for a partial charge. Representational Image: Pixabay

What this does is "limit the battery's exposure to the elevated charge temperature, thus generating a very long cycle life," said senior author Chao-Yang Wang, a mechanical engineer at The Pennsylvania State University. But scaling up the design and bringing it to market may take a decade, Rick Sachleben, a member of the American Chemical Society told AFP. Makers will need to make sure that rapidly raising the temperature is safe and stable, and doesn't lead to explosions given the phenomenal amount of energy that is being transferred.

"Fast charging is one of the holy grails of electric vehicles," he said. "It's one of the things that is necessary for them to compete with petroleum-fueled internal combustion engines."

Current generation Tesla vehicles require about 30 minutes for a partial charge.

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Apple is working on new ways to sell iPhones, a subscription model is one of them

After a new iPhone is announced, it’s sold in the conventional way where the buyer pays the entire amount upfront. Although there’s the contract model with telecom operators where an amount is paid monthly, it’s implemented by the telecom company and not Apple. It doesn’t really offer anything apart from the device and the voice/data plan along with some perks from the carrier network. Now, some Apple investors want the company to introduce a subscription model for the iPhone.

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks during Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, U.S. June 3, 2019. Image: Reuters

Coming from a CNBC report, Apple CEO Tim Cook sounded optimistic about the idea of an iPhone subscription plan during the company’s earnings call recently. This idea isn’t new and it’s reportedly referred to as Apple Prime by some people, a moniker based on Amazon’s subscription service. It suggests combining hardware upgrades with its software services such as iCloud storage, Apple Arcade or Apple TV+ for a single monthly fee.

In this mode, users won’t have to deal with different payments since everything could be taken care of by selecting the appropriate subscription pack. Switching from a transactional model to a subscription model could also potentially boost stock prices without any need to increase the prices of the products, the report said.

In the earnings call, Cook said, “We’re cognizant that there are lots of users out there that want a sort of a recurring payment like that and the receipt of new products on some sort of standard kind of basis and we’re committed to make that easier to do than perhaps it is today.” Although nothing was officially announced, it’s indicative that Apple could be moving towards a subscription plan in the near future.

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Spotify launches standalone music streaming app for kids with hand picked playlists

The music streaming app, Spotify, has helmed its position in the market by attracting more and more users with its regular features updates. Spotify is now growing its user base with a new app called Spotify Kids. The app is aimed at children of three years of age and above. As per the website, this app has rolled out in Ireland (starting 30 October) for now but will eventually come to other countries in the coming months.

One thing that you would want to note here is that you will have to make a separate Spotify account for your child on this app. You can get this app if you have the  Premium Family subscription plan (at Rs 179 per month). All you need to do is get the family subscription plan, download the Spotify Kids app from Play Store or App Store and sign up with a separate kid's account and you are good to go.

Spotify Kids has rolled out in Ireland. Image: Spotify

Spotify Kids will have handpicked curations for kids that will include TV shows, movies, playlists that will help them sing along during activities like bedtime, homework, playtime and more.

Also, the app offers small UI differences based on the age of the kid you create the account for. For example, the artwork for younger kids is softer and character-based, while content for older kids is more realistic and detailed. As per the company, the kids will be able to listen to ad-free music and they will not be exposed to any explicit content the parents would disapprove of.

Parents will have control over the content being streamed in the app and they can switch accounts whenever they want.

The company has recently rolled out its Premium Family subscription plan in India and there might be chances that Spotify Kids will also arrive in India soon.

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Samsung's operating profit for the last quarter falls by nearly 56 percent after poor chip sales

Samsung Electronics said Thursday its operating profit for the last quarter fell by nearly 56 percent, with its robust sales of smartphones, displays and TVs offset by a continuously weak market for computer chips.

The logo of Samsung is seen on a building during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman

The South Korean technology giant reported an operating profit of 7.78 trillion won ($6.7 billion) for the July-September quarter, which represented a 55.7% drop from the same period last year. Samsung says third-quarter revenue fell 5.3% to 62 trillion won ($53.4 billion).

Samsung is the world’s biggest maker of semiconductors and smartphones, but it has struggled with falling prices for DRAM and NAND memory chips since late last year.

Experts say chipmakers are suffering after misreading industry demand for their products. They invested heavily in 2016 and 2017 to ramp up production, but global orders for chips used in smartphones, internet-connected cars and other products have been slower than expected.

Samsung said there are positive signs for its semiconductor business, which could possibly be boosted by data-center customers and the expansion of 5G smartphone services in the coming months. However, the company said semiconductor demand for next year should be “viewed with caution as uncertainties remain in the macroeconomic environment,” a likely reference to the U.S.-China trade dispute.

Samsung said 29.25 trillion won ($25 billion) of its revenue was generated from its mobile devices and network business, thanks to strong sales of its Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy A smartphones and increased demand for 5G communication equipment.

The company also said it saw increased sales of high-end TVs and stronger demand for OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display screens.

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For a concept so full of promise, mindfulness is as hard to grasp as high-school mathematics

Editor's Note: This story is part of a series on mindfulness, its concepts and variations, in partnership with the 2nd Mindfulness India Summit, taking place on 30-31 October 2019. You can find the full list of stories under the series here. 

 

I know what’s on my mind.
I know what I’m feeling right now. And I know whether to act on it or do nothing and let it pass.
I also care about people. And I won’t whip my feelings around so they affect other people than myself.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have these features programmed into our DNA?

Instead, this (and a lot, lot more) is passing for a modern emotional cure-all – a state of equilibrium and zen that people have coined “mindfulness”. It has more than alphabets in common with that other m-word: meditation. Both require a degree of dedication to start and reward you with a truth that is further away from the biased, unpredictable world and closer to who you really are.

For a spiritual sceptic like me, it sounds like much-too-perfect a pill to tempt or pursue. If there’s one pill that can make you leaner, cure cancer, HIV, make you more productive or make you happier, I’ve learned to raise my eyebrow, tilt my head sideways and go, “Really, though?”

In the case of miracle vs medicine, it’s easier to tell a placebo and pill apart with a little scientific digging. When it’s fad vs fact though, the combination of talented storytellers and our human virtues of being trusting, gullible and forgetful tend to get the better of us. It’s simply too difficult to tell fad and fact apart before it becomes irrelevant somehow. Is gluten allergy a fad? Is climate change real?

It’s easier to get overwhelmed by the nuance of it all, and far more difficult to respond after some mindful introspection.

Mindfulness is as organic as consciousness, but it takes a little more effort to exercise. Image: NOMA.org

Our intelligence has made many of us wary and mistrusting of good news. We’re far more comfortable in the bad moments, remembering pain or snapping at someone when we’re hurt, angered or insulted instead of thinking our reactions through. It’s so “human” to let emotions get the better of us. But listening to a bunch of scientists, authors and mindfulness experts share the value of mindfulness tells me there’s another way – a better one.

Mindfulness has to do with the mind, with breathing, with focus, with awareness, and being attentive. Apparently, there are successful, happy people that do all of this and go about their lives, just better, happier and more intentional.

If you break it down, the only real difference between something that’s mindful and isn’t is in “the experience” of living itself. How you experience the world is really the only thing that counts at the end of the day (this includes compassion, which is a big part of one’s experience). For this reason alone, a few mindful lessons about mindfulness might be worth looking into. The choice we all have but don’t see is to pick a moment and decide to make the time to learn and change what isn’t working.

Mindfulness has as much to do with biology and psychology as it does with behaviour and will. Naturally, the road to being mindful is many-layered, with concepts, breathing exercises, change in behaviour and long-term changes in brain structure to look forward to along the way.

Representational Image.

A range of speakers took the stage to discuss mindfulness at the Mindfulness India Summit this year (30 and 31 October in Mumbai), speaking about what it is, and the potential they see in it to affect change in human behaviour and society. Mindfulness can apparently apply itself to some of the biggest, trickiest problems ailing humanity today, and turn them into child’s play, or make them irrelevant. This, be it war, cruelty, bad work culture, unhappy marriages, animal cruelty, or general mistrust.

But the best part of all has to be that some of the tools to becoming mindful are already part of our programming. It takes only a shift, a change in perspective to really see them. And if there’s one thing we know from all those AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings in shows we watch, the first step towards changing a bad habit is acceptance.

In 1987, two Yale professors were painting one of their houses when the idea was born. Peter Salovey (who is also the current president of Yale) and colleague John Mayer were painting the walls of Salovey’s house. Salovey studied emotions and behaviour, and Mayer studied the link between emotions and thought. According to the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence’s history, the pair of them opined that existing theories of intelligence had no place for emotions. So they created a branch of study into emotional intelligence, which has its roots in Plato’s words some 2000 years ago:

“All learning has an emotional base.”

There was a common thought that emotions stand in the way of success that it should be controlled and suppressed. The study to prove or disprove the importance of feelings started from this age.

Along came Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary biology, with his theories on the survival of the fittest. Darwin worked specifically on evolution. In his view, it wasn’t the strongest of the species or the most intelligent, but the most responsive organism to change that survives the odds. He also proposed that whilst humankind is responsive and adaptive, feelings and emotions colour our decision-making.

It has taken humanity 2,000 years and counting to see Emotional Quotient (EQ) as a necessary part of schooling, the workplace and in life. Whatever you manage to pick up along the way will serve you well, but the science and understanding of mindfulness and emotional intelligence is fast-changing. And if being an emotionally intelligent person would give you an edge in almost every aspect of your life, wouldn't it be silly not to explore it? What’s the littlest amount of learning that’ll get me to a mindful place, and help me sustain and practice it for years to come?

For individuals, we know today that mindfulness helps us manage our inner life better, relate to other people with empathy and compassion, it improves our cooperations and collaborations with other people, and brings more than a semblance of peace to one’s family and personal life.

For leaders, knowing what you need, what the company needs and how to communicate that to a team defines every aspect of the workplace. It can make a world of a difference to morale, a company’s culture and performance if a boss gets it right. The only hurdle is seeing its importance and relevance to your company and your employees.

Ikigai is a Japanese practice of mindfulness.

Building a mindful workplace is no small project – it’s a commitment. The company and its HR, foremost, ought to have mindful values intrinsically. It needs to sweep across all elements of the workplace for it to work its magic. The payoff, say experts, is performance and peace of mind.

Another aspect of life where mindfulness is growing in importance by the day is technology. It is as present as the air around us in urban settings, and immersive to say the least. What if you had the choice – a say – in what your distractions were? Which ones to embrace and which ones to drop? Kids that grow up in mindful homes and around emotionally-intelligent people soak up these values.

Millennials and the kids of today are exposed to technology on par with human interaction from the day they’re born. Rules from 20 years, even 10 years ago, don’t apply the same way to our youngest today. Real life throws failures, rejection letters from universities, bad fights with friends and family, heartbreak and a lot of unfamiliar situations our way. This is an inevitable part of growing up. Can our kids handle them when the times comes? Can they be prepared to? Maybe.

And maybe the answers do, in fact, lie in a mindful place.

The second edition of Mindfulness India Summit will be held on 30-31 Oct 2019 at 'The Westin Mumbai' with speakers from across the world including Harvard Medical School, Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, UNESCO-MGEIP, Daniel Goleman among others.

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China announces new commercial spacecrafts as India bags deal with Spaceflight

China has announced that it will soon be ready to launch commercial satellites into space with the help of new ‘small space rockets’.

The commercial arm of the Chinese space agency, China Rocket, has unveiled three solid-fuel rockets named ‘Smart Dragon’ (SD) and a liquid propellant rocket named Tenglong. They are expected to be ready to launch in the next two years.

SD-1, with a lifting capacity of 200 kg has completed its first flight on 17 August. SD-2 with a 500 kg lifting capacity will fly in 2020 and SD-3, which has a lifting capacity of 1,500 kg, will complete its first flight in 2021. The liquid-propellant rocket, Tenglong is slated to fly in 2021.

The PSLV-C40 mission launching from ISRO's launchpad at Sriharikota. Image credit: ISRO

This will be China’s foray into the industry of commercial satellite launches.

India, on the other hand, has already carved a niche for itself with its commercial arm, NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) having got orders from private aerospace companies.

Spaceflight, an American company that dabbles in ridesharing and one of NSIL’s first clients recently announced that they have will be launching 14 more spacecrafts. They are re-using NSIL services and the satellites will be launched on ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) this year. The PSLV is capable of launching satellites in the 1,100-1,600 kg class into the Sun Synchronous Orbit. India has completed 46 missions on the PSLV and these new payloads will be launched anytime between November and December on the C47, C48 and C49 missions.

Spaceflight's customers aboard the launch vehicle will include payloads from Analytical Space, Spire, iQPS and Kleos Space.

The PSLV C48 which is slated for an early December launch will carry Japan’s iQPS SAR microsatellite and four multi-payload Earth observation nanosatellites that add to Spire Global’s constellation of maritime, aviation and weather monitoring satellites.

The PSLV C49 launch also scheduled in December, will take Luxembourg-based Kleos’ Scouting Mission satellites, the foundational system in the company’s radio frequency monitoring constellation, and additional Spire nanosats to orbit.

PSLV's Payload Fairing and Heat Shield. Image courtesy: ISRO

Usually, small satellites have to hitch rides on spacecraft that are carrying other, heavier payloads. The bigger cargos get preferential treatment with the smaller cargo fitted into any of the leftover space. With these ridesharing launches, a bunch of smaller satellites are clubbed together and launched into their prefered orbits.

India, with its PSLV, has launched 297 foreign satellites. It also holds the world record for launching 104 satellites in one go.

The PSLV has various variants, which are meant for carrying different-size payloads to different orbits. ISRO has also introduced the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) which is specifically designed to inject small satellites weighing up to 500 kg in low-earth orbits. ISRO has also started using the fourth stage of the rocket for carrying nanosatellite or experimental modules of private parties for experimental purpose. It is safe to say that India has found a market for its services.

However, with the entrance of China’s fleet of satellites, it remains to be seen how this scenario will play out in the future.

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App Store bug affects Google, Microsoft, other popular apps, erases app ratings: Report

A bug recently made its way through Apple's App Store and removed over 20 million ratings from apps.

According to a report by TechCrunch, App Figures first spotted the bug, which apparently broke out last week, and as of 29 October, the issue was reportedly resolved.

Representational image.

The bug affected more than 300 popular apps including Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Nike. Reportedly, 155 countries were affected by this and on average, the apps saw a 50 percent decrease in ratings in these countries. However, some apps got it worse than the others. App Figures reports, "Hulu lost 95 percent of its ratings in the US. Chase and Dropbox lost about 85 percent of their ratings in the US."

WOW @Starbucks iOS app lost about 1.3mln of ratings overnight! @hulu lost about 900k, as well as dozens of other apps.
I hope this is just @AppStore bug. pic.twitter.com/cUIrb8yeeN

— ilia kukharev (@ilyakuh) October 28, 2019

Apple has now restored ratings to all affected apps.

Hulu lost 95% of its ratings last week in a sweep/error by Apple that wiped more than 20 million ratings across hundreds of apps https://t.co/MH8GQICKTg #iOSDev #AppStore pic.twitter.com/9J5E0cTTlo

— Appfigures (@appfigures) October 28, 2019

Developers speculate that this may have an error or that Apple could possibly be working on cleaning up fake app ratings. However, App Figures found that both positive and negative ratings were removed, hinting that the 'clean up theory' may be unlikely:

"Three and four-star ratings were hit the hardest, with a decrease of 40 percent and 41 percent respectively. Two-star ratings saw a decrease of 36 percent while 5-star ratings, which would normally be where most fake ratings are, saw a drop of 35 percent and one-star ratings dipped by 30 percent. All-in-all, suggesting that maybe that isn’t the real explanation."

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WhatsApp reportedly confirms that Israeli spyware was being used to track Indian journalists

It was revealed yesterday that Facebook-owned online messaging platform WhatsApp sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group on Tuesday, accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users. Now it appears that some of those users had been Indian journalists.

WhatsApp.

A WhatsApp spokesperson told Indian Express that the company was aware of those targeted and had contacted each one of them.

WhatsApp first found a cyberattack involving a vulnerability in their video-calling feature back in May, wherein users were being attacked with spyware via a malicious video call, that would affect their device even without them answering the call.

“Indian journalists and human rights activists have been the target of surveillance and while I cannot reveal their identities and the exact number, I can say that it is not an insignificant number,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in an interview with Indian Express.

WhatsApp head had said that their investigation led them to servers and Internet-hosting services that were previously associated with NSO.

Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research laboratory based at the University of Toronto that worked with WhatsApp to investigate the phone hacking, told Reuters that the targets included well-known television personalities, prominent women who had been subjected to online hate campaigns and people who had faced “assassination attempts and threats of violence.”

Neither Citizen Lab nor WhatsApp identified the targets by name.

(Also read: WhatsApp security breach: Amnesty international files lawsuit against NSO group)

Governments have increasingly turned to sophisticated hacking software as officials seek to push their surveillance power into the furthest corners of their citizens' digital lives.

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WhatsApp May Soon Work on Multiple Devices at the Same Time; You Can Now Rejoice

As of now, you can only run one WhatsApp account on your registered device.

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Sharp KC-G40M Air Purifier Review: Magical PANDAA is a Secret Anti-Pollution Weapon

If You Have Dry Throat Issues, You Need This. Complete Air Purification And Humidification, in one purifier.

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Mysore city's thriving bird scence now has a first-of-its kind bird atlas to its credit

Mysore city (or Mysuru) in Karnataka sure knows its birds. A lesser-known secret of the city that wears a royal cape is its thriving birding scene. On any given day, you can’t miss a few birders with binoculars and cameras gallivanting avian hotspots like the three famous lakes—Karanji, Kukkarahalli and Lingambudhi—and the equally famous Chamundi hills. These avid birders have pulled a rare feat of sorts when they got together to create a Bird Atlas of the city—a first of its kind in the country.

The peacock in the Mysore zoo. Image credit: Wikipedia

The Bird Atlas effort, which has completed three years of operation, documented 192 species of birds in the city with 130 species spotted in winter and 105 in summer/monsoon. The next time you hear the beautiful melody of an Asian koel more frequently than the cawing of the ubiquitous house crow in Mysore, don’t be surprised. Asian koels are more frequently found in this city than crows, reveals the Atlas. And black kites, rose-ringed parakeets and common myna too, outshine the humble crow.

“There are about 400-500 bird atlases made in the world but this is the first one in India,” said Mysore-based Shivaprakash Adavanne who spearheaded the effort with Sheshgiri Bagde. Both Shivaprakash and Sheshgiri are engineers by profession and naturalists by passion. Scientist Suhel Quader of Nature Conservation Foundation who helped the birders with the technical aspect of putting together the Atlas said that this is the first atlas that has been systematically done, though there have been two non-systematic attempts in the past—in Delhi-Haryana and Manipal.

An ambitious volunteer project, the Mysuru City Bird Atlas was attempted to map the birds of the entire city of Mysore. For this, the volunteers divided the city into square cells and each cell was surveyed for birds in the winters and summers of 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Suhel said the idea came about during a conference organised by the Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History at Coimbatore in 2013. “The idea of a city bird atlas was discussed and Sri Shivaprakash, who was part of the discussions, said that it could be done in Mysore together with the group of nature enthusiasts he coordinates, called Mysore Nature,” Suhel said.

Mysore city is divided into 33 grid cells of 1.25×1.25 minutes (approximately 2.2×2.2 km). Image credit: Shivaprakash

How was it carried out?

The extent of the city (160 sq km) was divided into 33 cells of 2.2 x 2.2 km size which were further subdivided into four equal-sized sub-cells. There were, thus, a total of 132 sub-cells of 1.1 x 1.1 km. A labour-intensive process, Shivaprakash shared that over the three years that took to make the Atlas, 60 birders volunteered with their time, effort, and bird-watching skills to collect the information. A single survey involved a team of one to four birders visiting a sub-cell for 30 min, between 6:30, am, and 10:00 am, and noting down the number of individuals of each species.

The study was done in the months of June and February. “Migratory birds arrive in February. The local birds are few in numbers at this time because of the migration season, which is from the third week of November to the third week of March. In June, it is mostly the local birds that are present in the city and most of the migratory ones would’ve gone except those that overstay, like the juveniles,” said Shivaprakash. So these months were chosen for the study to get the most accurate account of all the birds in the city.

The idea, said the birders, was to understand the distribution and abundance of birds in Mysuru and the seasonal changes in avifauna. The information garnered will also help to understand the relationship between birds and their habitat in an urban setting.

Another interesting finding during the survey was that the commonest of the birds lived off humans and human settlements making it a good case study in the adaptability of birds and how urbanisation is possible without disturbing their habitats.

A house sparrow. Image credit: KR Kishendas.

The “disappearing house sparrows” from urban jungles like Bangalore and Mysore have been a much-discussed topic and the declining number of house sparrows which were very commonly spotted is reflected on the Atlas as well. Shivaprakash explained that house sparrows have not disappeared or gone extinct; they have only moved away to places with lesser disturbances (like Melukote, Pandavapura, and Suttur near Mysore) due largely to change in our food habits.

 

Understanding how urbanisation affects bird species and their habitats is the next step to be taken, said Suhel. “We hope to do a follow-up study to understand urban habitats that support bird species. The idea is to provide information to the city administration on how development can be planned in a way to reduce the impact on habitats.”

Soon, the birders will meet the city administration to apprise them of their study findings. Whatever be the next step, Suhel said, it will be taken in consultation with the administration. “Instead of doing studies and presenting them with data, we think it’s more practical if we get them involved at the beginning itself so the study can be curated to make urban development more sustainable through a collaborative effort,” said Suhel.

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Rising Seas Could Destroy Homes of Nearly 300 Mn People by 2050; Mumbai at Risk Too

The new projections suggest that much of Mumbai is at risk. Built on what was once a series of islands, the city’s historic downtown is vulnerable.

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Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC now available for pre-load via Rockstar Launcher

After a long and anticipated wait, game developer Rockstar's latest title Red Dead Redemption 2 is set to hit PCs on November 5 after being initially only being announced for consoles last year. The PC preload for the game is however now available for download.

Red Dead Redemption 2.

The information was given by Rockstar on its Twitter page and the game is up for preload means that those who have pre-purchased the game can now preload it on their system through the Rockstar Launcher. Even so, be prepared to shell out a lot of hard disk space for the game as Red Dead Redemption 2 clocks in at over 110 GB. This is more than size of the game on both the PS4 and Xbox One.

(Also Read - Red Dead Redemption 2: The symbology, morality and philosophy of Rockstar Games' latest)

"The first game in the Red Dead Redemption series to be featured on the PC platform, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC features a range of graphical and technical enhancements for increased immersion along with new Bounty Hunting Missions, Gang Hideouts, Weapons and more," said Rockstar in a statement.

Aside from the fact that this game will be occupying a very large portion of your hard disk, the open-world map of the game is said to be even bigger than the one seen on GTA V. For those who are not aware, Red Dead Redemption 2 happens to be primarily third-person open-world game set in the wild west back in the late 1800's.

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