Google Photos is one of the best photo storage apps you’ll ever come across, but recently Google announced the payable packages for Google Photos storage once users upload more than 15GB onto their accounts. In that case, if you’re one of those users who clicks many photos and always runs out of storage or looking for a secure and convenient cloud storage solution, this article is for you as we’re about to help you with the best Google Photos alternatives.
Microsoft OneDrive:
If you work in the corporate sector, then Microsoft OneDrive is a perfect option for you. Although not particularly designed for storing photos and videos, still it’s an excellent performer. It costs Rs 4,899/year (or Rs 489/month) for 1TB and Rs 6,199/year (or Rs 619/month) for the 6TB Family plan (1TB for per person). The 1TB OneDrive package also includes the Windows 10 suite, productivity tools and premium safety features in the mobile app.
DigiBoxx:
India’s very own cloud storage platform DigiBoxx offers 20GB of free cloud storage. The free plan supports Gmail integration and unlimited external collaborations, along with end-to-encryption. DigiBoxx offers 100GB of cloud storage space per month for just Rs 30, which is pocket friendly for everyone. Digiboxx includes on-demand, real-time access, which is helpful for users to update their digital assets on the go from their smartphone or personal computers.
Amazon Photos:
Amazon Photos is a cloud storage service available on iOS, Android, macOS, and Windows. Anybody with Prime membership will get access to its free unlimited storage, but non-Prime members can upload only up to 5GB of videos and unlimited photos. Along with all the features, the Amazon ecosystem surrounding Photos allows users a super-fast delivery of many types of prints.
iCloud Photos:
If you’re an iOS user, you’re probably already familiar with iCloud, The best Google Photos alternative for iOS users. Apple Photos is an affordable, feature-rich, and highly secure photos app that offers all iPhone, iPad, and Mac owners up to 5 GB of free iCloud storage space with seamless integration. Apple offers 50 GB, 200 GB, and 2 TB packages; you can choose the data upload limit as per your usage.
Flickr:
Flickr is one of the most trusted cloud-based photo storage services and a social media network for amateur as well as professional photographers to share their portfolio with the world. A free Flickr account allows you to upload up to 1,000 full-resolution photos, with the image limit equating to roughly 2–3GB. Flickr Pro accounts provide unlimited storage, ad-free browsing, and access to analytics for images displayed across the Flickr platform.
OnePlus launched the OnePlus TV U1S, the latest model in the company’s growing lineup of televisions for the Indian market, at the company’s Summer Launch Event. Along with the OnePlus TV U1S, the company launched the much-awaited smartphone OnePlus Nord CE 5G, at an affordable price of ₹22,999.
The latest OnePlus TV is an LED LCD television with 4K resolution that supports a 60 Hz refresh rate and comes in three size variants, 50-inch, 55-inch, and 65-inch. The 50-inch variant is priced at ₹39,999, the 55-inch variant is priced at ₹47,999, and the 65-inch variant will fetch you ₹62,999.
The OnePlus TV U1S series features a slim bezel-less design with a UHD resolution of 3840×2160 pixels and features 16GB internal storage with 2GB of system memory. The panel has a 10-bit colour depth and 93% coverage of the DCI-P3 with high colour accuracy of Delta-E<2 in the Movie preset.
The OnePlus TV U1S runs on Android TV 10 OS with built-in apps for Netflix, Prime Video, Google Assistant, and Spotify. The Smart TV comes with a pair of 30W stereo speakers that support standard Dolby Audio co-tuned with Dynaudio tuning and a quick connect feature with the OnePlus Buds.
The U1S TV can be controlled from the OnePlus Watch; when a smartwatch is connected with the TV models, it will turn off the TV after 30 minutes if the user falls asleep. The TV The OnePlus connect app can control the TV and enable Kids Mode to block certain content.
The smart TV also comes with a Speak Now feature, which will let you control the TV from a distance with Ok Google voice commands and works with Amazon Alexa as well. The open sale will start from today, June 11, via the OnePlus website, Flipkart, and Amazon.
Along with the TV, OnePlus is also launching the OnePlus TV Camera, which is designed to attach to all existing OnePlus TVs. The Camera can be useful for making video calls using apps like Google Duo from your television.
Apple’s constant push for better privacy and security features for the iPhone has always forced Google to catch up with them. In the latest Google I/O event, the company announced details of its Android 12 operating system along with matchable privacy features, but within a few weeks, Apple came back to haunt them with their iOS 15, and the tech-war began again.
Apple introduced iOS 15, its newest operating system for iPhones, where the Cupertino, California, headquartered company makes sure their users will stay more focused & productive with their devices. In contrast, Google prioritises privacy features with the launch of Android 12 OS, but which operating system has better privacy features?
Android 12 is Google’s most ambitious privacy release to date. Yet, the features Google is bringing to Android devices now are already on iOS devices, lets take a look at them:
Phones supported by Android 12 will have visual indicators when cameras or microphones are being used.
With the arrival of Android 12, users can now choose from the given options whether to give apps access to their approximate location or precise location.
Android 12 will notify users when apps use information from their clipboards, like when you copy a text or password from one place and paste it into something else, it will tell you that your clipboard is being accessed.
Android lacks a little behind in some of the privacy features, but we’ve to keep in mind that Android is a much more popular mobile operating system worldwide than iOS, as it powers the majority of the world’s smartphones, including some very cheap models.
Android 12 users can see a list of which apps have used things like their location data, camera, and microphone, while Apple’s iOS does this to a certain extent and allows users to see which apps have used their locations services within the last 24 hours.
The iOS 15 update is coming to all iPhone 6S models and newer, including the iPhone 7 series, iPhone 8 series, iPhone X, iPhone XS series, iPhone XR, iPhone 11 series, iPhone 12 series, iPhone SE (1st and 2nd Gen), and iPod Touch 7th Gen while Android 12, will come first to Pixel 3 series, Pixel 3a series, Pixel 4 series, Pixel 4a series, and Pixel 5, followed by partner devices from OnePlus, Xiaomi, Asus, Oppo, Realme and more.
A massive global website outage linked to US-based cloud company Fastly swept across the internet, affecting international, government, media, e-commerce and news websites. The unexpected outage impacted high traffic websites, including Amazon, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, Reddit, Quora, CNN, Paypal, Vimeo and Spotify. Most of these sites appeared back after a few minutes to around an hour.
Visitors receive error messages while accessing websites, including Error 503 Service Unavailable and a slight connection failure during the worldwide outrage. The Guardian’s UK technology correspondent Alex Hern wrote in a series of tweets that the massive internet outage had been traced to a failure in a content delivery network (CDN) run by a cloud computing services provider, Fastly.
A CDN refers to a geographically distributed group of servers that work together to provide fast delivery of Internet content. The majority of web traffic across the globe today is routed within CDNs, and many Companies rely on these CDNs to help protect their sites against traffic spikes, distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, etc.
The website is just a collection of codes and pages. These codes help dictate the layout of a page and content. When we use the browser to navigate to a page, the webserver examines that request and extracts the information from its database and displays the relevant web page, and when a web server can’t handle that request, the page shows Error 503 on the screen.
Issues with CDNs caused trouble previously in 2020 when Cloudflare, another leading global cloud platform, had faced issues that impacted its client websites. The Cloudflare glitch resulted i3n the shutdown of Discord, Feedly, Politico, Shopify, and League of Legends.
Fastly hasn’t commented thoroughly on the issues other than an outage message on the company’s status page that says the issue has been identified and a fix has been implemented. They also added customers might experience increased origin load as global services return. It also noted that all of its geographies, including the three stations Chennai, Mumbai, and New Delhi in India, suffered from degraded performance.
Apple kicked off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote that outlined new updates to its software for iPhones and other devices. The WWDC keynote sets the tone of what to expect from Apple from the software product perspective, be it the next generation of iOS or macOS or watchOS. Here are the top features from iOS 15, iPadOS, and macOS Monterey introduced at WWDC 2021.
iOS 15: FaceTime, Apple Maps, Weather App
The tech giant started off the event by introducing iOS 15 to the world. The latest update includes significant features such as SharePlay on FaceTime, where users can schedule FaceTime calls with Android and Windows users. Also, a new Portrait mode feature for FaceTime calls allows users to blur their background and play music into a FaceTime call.
The company added a Spatial audio feature for FaceTime that separates the user’s voice from the background noise, helping them reduce distractions. Notably, these features are also coming to other platforms, including iPadOS 15 and macOS Monterey.
Apple has announced a few new features and design updates for Apple Maps to bring a ton more details for cities in commercial districts, buildings, and more. Along with FaceTime & Apple Maps, Apple has redesigned the Weather app, the layout of the new Weather app changes based on the weather in your current location.
Apple introduced iPadOS 15 with added features for multi-tasking, bringing widgets and an app library to the iPad. The new multi-tasking system for applications is having a similarity with iPadOS 14, but Apple has twisted how you access the controls. The widgets on the home screen and app Library located directly in the dock for easy access to all of your applications are now available on the iPad for the first time.
Furthermore, the translate application is now available on the iPad for the first time. The app will help users translate anything on the iPad by selecting it and tapping translate, even handwritten texts. Along with all these, Apple has also announced an iCloud+ subscription service with a focus on privacy.
Apple has also announced macOS Monterey, the latest version of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system, which features Universal Control, improvements to Safari, and more. Universal Control will let users control their iPads and Macs with just one keyboard and trackpad. It also allows users to move between Mac and iPad for a seamless experience. Safari highlights a redesign for the browsing experience with a new tab design that permits users to see more of the page as they scroll.
Google has launched its third significant operating system, Fuchsia, but not on a phone as many had expected and supposed. The company introduced a new operating system on the first-generation Nest Hub, a smart home product made by Google.
The Fuchsia operating system has been a secretive project Google has been working on since 2016, inviting all kinds of wild theories and opinions from all corners of the tech community. Nothing substantial was known about it until its launch a few days ago at Google’s I/O conference event.
The Fuchsia-based update for the Nest Hub will roll out over the coming months, and transitioning to Fuchsia OS from Cast OS will be a slow process, but considering the smoother and unchanged interface, Nest Hub owners won’t even notice they’ve been switched over to Fuchsia OS.
First released in 2018, Nest Hub is a Google Assistant-powered smart speaker with a large 7-inch display, which will now replace its existing Linux-based Cast OS with Fuchsia OS. The new update will neither change any functionality nor bring any significant UI changes to the Nest Hub.
Fuchsia is written in C++, C, Dart, Rust and runs on modern 64-bit intel ARM processors. Unlike Android and Chrome OS, which are Linux-based, Fuchsia OS is built from ground zero and uses a new microkernel called Zircon.
The newest operating system comprises four independent modules called Zircon, Garnet, Peridot, and Topaz, which have been designated individual tasks. It positively impacts the OS updating, an area that has been troubling Android and also improves the code’s readability.
Fuchsia can be a new, modern, safer platform, and it is definitely a challenge to Android, which has captured 75% of the market share, but it would be folly to suggest Fuchsia OS as a replacement for Android, especially at this initial stage.
Google hasn’t clarified yet if and when it plans to bring its Fuchsia operating system to other Cast OS-based devices, including the 2nd gen Nest Hub but we’re expecting it will launch it soon for other devices too.
Apple launched AirTag item trackers at the company’s event in April, and recently, the tech giant has announced a bunch of changes designed to improve the privacy of AirTag item trackers. Apple is upping its privacy efforts with AirTags a week before the Worldwide Developers Conference Event is a brilliant move made by the company.
The new update in AirTag item trackers will change the time window for when it will make a sound to alert others of a lost tracker. Previously, AirTag trackers would only make a sound after three days of the tracker being separated from its owner, but with the new update, to restrict users from using AirTags to track people without their awareness, the separated AirTag will now make a sound at a random time, between 8 and 24 hours.
Apple updated the AirTag trackers to avoid unwanted tracking a little over a month after they went on sale for ₹3,190 a pack and ₹10,900 for a four-pack. Currently, only iPhone users and Android devices equipped with NFC can detect an unwanted AirTag tracker, and they can disable the tracking by tapping on it with their respective devices, as it leads them to instructions on how to disable the unwanted tracking.
But what if someone owns an Android device and is dealing with unwanted tracking? To overcome such issues and reassure people about its AirTags, Apple is developing an app for Android users where they could use the Find My-enabled accessories option and check if an abandoned tracker is around them.
“The recent introduction of AirTag included industry-first proactive features that discourage unwanted tracking,” Apple said in a statement. The upcoming app will allow Android users to receive proactive notifications to alert them from unwanted tracking. The American tech giant told CNET that it’d release an Android-friendly unwanted tracking app later this year.
Xiaomi sub-brand Redmi recently launched the Redmi watch alongside the Redmi Note 10S. Redmi’s first smartwatch comes with a 1.4-inch LCD colour display, and its battery can stay as long as ten days. 5 ATM water-resistant Redmi watch has been affordably priced at Rs. 3999 and offers over 200 watch faces. Here we will be looking at what the new Redmi Watch offers and let you know all about it.
Design:
The Redmi watch has an overwhelming resemblance to the Apple Watch design, but it still has many good design elements. The watch looks stunning and has one of the most sophisticated designs in the category of affordable watches. At the price of ₹3,999, Xiaomi’s latest affordable wearable competes against the Amazfit Bip U and the Realme Watch.
The watch is available in Ivory, Black and Blue case colour options, and the strap uses a simple buckle design with four strap colour options: Ivory, Black, Blue and Olive. The display is covered by 2.5D glass that curls gently around the edges, and the back of the watch has a small bump with the optical sensor for heart rate monitoring.
Display:
The Redmi Watch has a 1.4-inch, 320 x 320 resolution IPS LCD type display, and when turned off, the black coloured 2.5D curved glass makes the watch look very premium. The colours aren’t vibrant, but the display has reasonable image quality for the price. The viewing angles also aren’t as good as OLED panels, and elevated black levels are also typical of LCD panels; that’s the apparent reason the black background doesn’t match with chunky black bezels, especially when outdoors.
Features:
The Redmi watch packs fitness tracking features like a heart rate monitor, sleep tracker, and GPS, all inside a traditional watch-shaped, water-resistant body. Along with these features, Redmi Watch can help you get notifications, control music, set alarms, check the weather, and more. The watch comes with 11 sports modes, including trail running, walking, hiking, indoor cycling, swimming, swimming, freestyle, cricket, treadmill, and more.
Software:
The Redmi Watch has a simple, easy-to-navigate User Interface. The home screen consists of three pages: the main time dial, a heart rate page, and a music control page. One can swipe down to access your recent notifications and swipe up to access a control centre of sorts with some quick access buttons. Along with these, one can also browse the extensive collection of Watch Faces inside the Xiaomi Wear app.
Battery & Verdict:
The Redmi Watch has a claimed battery life of ten days, but it will discharge the watch within five days when used extensively. The charger is designed well compared to its competitors and has the potential to charge the watch 100% in one and half hours. The Redmi Watch is attractive, with good material quality. The software is simple and easy to use. So, if you’re looking for budget-friendly watches under Rs. 5000 then you should definitely go for this one.
The 44th Reliance AGM 2021 date has been officially revealed, and the much-awaited meeting is scheduled for later this month on June 24 at 2 PM IST. In the last couple of years, it turned its path from an annual investors’ meet into an annual tech event that introduces new telecom and technology ventures.
The AGM will be expected to be live-streamed through YouTube as well as social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, as it happened over the past few years. We expect Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani to address the shareholders at the AGM 2021 and announce a low-cost Jio-Google 5G smartphone, Jio laptop, Jio 5G rollout timeline, and a few other 5G related services by the telco.
Expected Launches at Reliance AGM 2021:
Jio-Google 5G Smartphone: Last year, Reliance Jio announced it had partnered with Google for the Jio-Google 5G phone launch in India, where Jio received ₹33,737-crore investment from Google for its 7.7 percent stake. Recently, Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that the tech giant is working actively with Reliance Jio to develop the affordable 5G smartphone, which will run on a JioOS, theorised to be a custom fork of Android suited for budget devices. As per early reports, Jio could launch the 5G smartphone around Rs 2,500, far cheaper than the current most affordable 5G smartphone in the country, priced at Rs 13,999.
Jio 5G Services: Along with the Jio 5G smartphone, the Reliance AGM 2021 may witness Jio’s plans to roll out its 5G network. In December 2020, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani revealed that Jio 5G services would begin in India in the second half of 2021. Reliance Jio has already achieved speeds of over 1Gbps in its 5G trials, which states a lot about Jio’s 5G launch plans.
JioBook Laptop: Another fundamental expectation of the event is an announcement of a low-cost JioBook laptop. The laptop is claimed to have 4G LTE connectivity and is based on Android-based JioOS. It could be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 chipset, which makes sense considering Jio’s ongoing partnership with Google and Qualcomm. The laptop is rumoured to have two variants, one with 2GB RAM and 32GB internal storage and another with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage.
YouTube and Vimeo are two of the most popular hosting platforms worldwide, but if you look at the numbers, Vimeo looks significantly more petite community than YouTube’s ginormous base of more than 1 billion users. Approximately 10 out of 8 people from the globe are familiar with YouTube, while there are very few people who know and practically use Vimeo. However, with only 170+ million users, Vimeo can still be your gateway to showcase your talent. At first glance, both these platforms look similar, but they operate differently and have key differences with their respective advantages and disadvantages.
Membership:
YouTube and Vimeo both offer free services but also have various premium services, which differ significantly. YouTube has a massive community, which produces more content compared to Vimeo. A substantial sum of YouTube’s earnings comes from showing advertisements. These advertisements are illustrated inside the video player, in the sidebar, and inside the YouTube app.
Along with advertisements, YouTube earns through a paid subscription called YouTube Premium. The subscription allows viewers to get rid of advertisements while enjoying the content, access premium YouTube Originals, and play videos in the background while using other apps on the phone. When it comes to creating, YouTube lets you upload as many videos as you want for free.
Vimeo has a unique business model that differs from YouTube in almost every way. It offers Plus, PRO, Business, and Premium membership options, and each of the membership options has different levels of storage and support. Along with paid memberships, Vimeo does offer free membership, but it limits you to 500MB maximum storage per week and 25GB per year.
Vimeo makes most of the earnings by selling video hosting services. They charge money from publishers and content creators to upload their content, so their users can enjoy an ad-free viewing experience. Vimeo lets you watch the videos for free, but in some cases, it offers a pay-per-view basis service called Video on Demand, where you can choose from Rent, Buy or Subscribe service alternatives; these payments go directly to the creator.
Upload Limits:
YouTube lets creators upload videos up to 15 minutes long, but you must have to verify your account if you want to extend these 15 minutes. Once your account is verified, your video upload limit will be expanded to 12 hours or 256GB; along with that, verification allows you to add custom thumbnails and live streaming.
Unlike YouTube, Vimeo upload limit works on a weekly format and has different limitations on the upload size for each plan. As mentioned earlier, free account holders can upload 500MB per week with no more than ten videos in 24 hours. Plus and Pro account holders can upload 5GB and 20 GB data per week, respectively. Pro Unlimited, Business and Premium accounts have no weekly upload limit and allow you to store 3TB, 5TB and 7TB of data, respectively.
Audience:
The first question one should ask themselves before turning on the camera or choosing an uploading platform is who they are making a video for? or what they’re expecting in comments from their audience? Because if you want to reach as many people as possible, YouTube is a better option than Vimeo, but if you prefer quality content over quantity, then Vimeo will take you places.
Almost all Android phones in the world come with a pre-installed Google-owned YouTube app. It has a community of more than 1 billion users, and about 2 billion users login and watch videos on YouTube every month. In contrast, Vimeo has just 1 million registered users, and it is growing at a notable pace. Vimeo’s audience base is very supportive and has numerous users that offer more constructive feedback than you may find on YouTube, where most of the users are not hesitant to tell you bluntly about your video.
Vimeo offers ad-free viewing and higher-quality video uploads with better sound. Also, Vimeo is the roof to a few of the most creative content creators, budding filmmakers and graphic designers in the world. Most of them use the Vimeo channel as a portfolio to showcase their work to potential clients.
Features:
Copyrights: YouTube will detect copyrighted music and images almost immediately upon upload and disable such elements, which will help you keep your account secure and away from copyright issues.
Updating Videos: Vimeo allows you to replace and update a video after being uploaded without losing that video’s stats. It comes in handy when you’ve made a mistake or want to update something. Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t have a video updating feature, so one must be careful before hitting the upload button.
Privacy: Vimeo offers more privacy options than YouTube, allowing you to make videos public, private, or unlisted. You can also share video only with users you follow and can also add password-protected videos. Paid membership users of Vimeo can even disallow their videos to be viewed on Vimeo.com and can offer to view their video to their own websites only.
Monetization: YouTube allow content creators to join the YouTube partner program by signing up for Google Adsense to monetize their videos, but first, they need to have at least 1000 subscribers and generate 4000 watch time hours within 12 months, whereas Vimeo offers Video On Demand option where you can sell videos directly to viewers.
YouTube and Vimeo both are great platforms that offer almost equal business opportunities for their users. So, in the end, it all depends on the type of audience you want to reach and how you want to grow as a creator. Along with these two, there are various other platforms to showcase your talent to the world, so look out for the one which suits you the best and happy creating.
