Category: News

Xbox Cloud Gaming Rolls Out For iOS & Desktop Through The Browser

Microsoft officially launched the public and open beta of its new Xbox Cloud Gaming Platform for iPhone and iPad, which means you can finally stream Xbox games through the Apple Safari on iOS devices. Along with iOS devices, the cloud gaming platform is also launched for Windows 10 and 11 PCs, where you can play Xbox games through browsers like Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. 

The Xbox Cloud Gaming Service is now available to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members across 22 countries. The members can log in to xbox.com/play on Safari, Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome on PCs or mobile devices to start playing over 100 high-quality console games from the Xbox Game Pass library with the help of a compatible controller.

Catherine Gluckstein, Vice President & Head of Product, Xbox Cloud Gaming, said in a statement reported by IANS, “With billions of active Windows 10 PCs, iOS devices and Android phones, we want you to have new opportunities to play the deepest, most immersive games whenever and wherever you choose. To make it more simple, we’re bringing the Xbox experience directly to the devices you use most.”

The cloud gaming on Xbox.com is supported on iPhone and iPad devices running iOS 14.4 or higher. Along with these requirements, users must have at least a 10Mbps internet connection and a Bluetooth or USB controller. iPhone users can purchase Backbone One switch-style game controllers explicitly designed for mobile gaming and enjoy a similar physical experience to the Nintendo Switch and the Razer Kishi.

The Backbone One Gamepad is compatible with all iPhones running iOS 13 or later; it uses a similar layout to Microsoft’s own Xbox controllers. An Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription will cost you ₹ 699 per month, but you can get the best value pack for the first three months for ₹ 50 as part of a limited-time offer.

Vivo Reportedly Plans To Release A Rollable, Slidable & Foldable NEX Series Phones

People were and still are crazy about foldable smartphones, which is why top smartphone manufacturers are risking to join the segment. The latest one comes from the Chinese smartphone brand Vivo, which reportedly plans to release a rollable, slidable, and foldable smartphone by the end of 2021, under the trademark NEX Roll, NEX Slide, and NEX Fold.

Earlier, Samsung kicked off the foldable smartphone segment with the Galaxy Fold, and the Korean brand is now on the third generation of its foldable smartphones. Along with Vivo, 2021 is expected to witness the launch of Xiaomi, Oppo and Google’s foldable smartphone. LG was also preparing a rollable smartphone, but it failed to survive in the smartphone market, and the company shuts down its smartphone manufacturing section.

On May 24, Vivo has trademarked these three NEX devices, but the real journey began when Vivo launched the world’s first smartphone, Vivo APEX, with a full-screen design and a pop-up camera mechanism. Later on, APEX turned into Vivo NEX, which marked the trend of smartphones with a full-screen design and pop-up cameras. 

The upcoming NEX smartphone lineup will bring cutting-edge design and innovative features. Last year, OPPO showcased it’s Oppo X 2021 as the world’s first rollable smartphone, and we all know how Oppo and Vivo are linked to each other as they’re part of BBK electronics. So, it’s not hard to presume that they both are working together to create more innovative smartphones somewhere down the line.

Earlier, a report said that Vivo filed a design patent with the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Office), where the company registered a patent for a new foldable smartphone design with a stylus. Also, the report said, the smartphone will feature an inward folding screen that unfolds into a tablet. Unfortunately, there’s no official statement from Vivo, but hopefully, more details will appear soon.

Instagram Will Soon Allow Users To Post Through Desktop

One of the most searched questions on the internet is can we post pictures on Instagram from the desktop? Earlier, we’re only authorised to view Instagram posts through a desktop website and used to get alternative options as an answer, where we could use third-party tools to create posts on desktops, but now, to do it directly, Instagram is testing on a long-requested functionality of publishing posts through desktop, and soon, we all could post pictures through the desktop as a post, with the help of plus icon.

The new trial feature for the desktop website was first spotted by social media expert Matt Navarra, who shared several screengrabs on his Twitter feed. The screengrabs manifest now we’re allowed to create more on Instagram through the desktop website. Unfortunately, the trial feature is not accessible for everyone, but Instagram could roll it out soon for all the users only if it works smoothly.

Alongside Matt Navarra, Facebook’s spokesperson Christine Pai has confirmed regarding the test in a statement, “We know that many people access Instagram from their computer, and to improve that experience, we’re now testing the ability to create a Feed post on Instagram with their desktop browser.”

The in-browser experience advances many of the same features which we see on a mobile app: a plus icon to upload a photo as a post, various filters, primary editing tools and an option to choose an aspect ratio where they can choose from Original, Square (1:1), Portrait (4:5), and Landscape (16:9). Along with an option to post pictures, users are also entitled to add a caption, location, tag people, and most of the advanced features like turning off comments, hiding likes-views and more. 

When it comes to posting a video through a desktop browser, the process is a little different, where users can select any specific frame from the desired video to put it as a cover or thumbnail. The new feature also offers an option for turning the sound off or on. Instagram has always been slow to implement features, especially on desktop, but the problem is solved now, and now we can post our favourite cat and food pictures on Instagram with the comfort of a desktop.

Realme Sub-brand DIZO Will Launch It’s First-ever Product On July 1

Back in late May, Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme unveiled its first AIoT sub-brand, DIZO, focusing on smart home gadgets, accessories, lifestyle, and entertainment products. Now the company is gearing up to launch its first product under its all-new DIZO sub-brand on July 1. DIZO is expected to launch new wireless earbuds, headphones, smartwatches, and feature phones in India, but their first product could be TWS headphones as the brand is teasing us with all the music-related tweets.

The Vietnamese e-commerce website Shoppe has been teasing the upcoming products from the Realme sub-brand, which are claimed to be called the DIZO GoPods, DIZO GoPods D, and DIZO Watch for weeks now, and all these leaked products are similar to Realme Buds Air 2, Buds Q2 and Watch 2, respectively, with a few exterior changes. As per the leaks, along with these products, the brand is also planning to bring a Bluetooth speaker and a vacuum robot.

The feature phones have come a long way and a number of people, mostly old-age people still prefer them first. Most of them can now support WhatsApp, Google, YouTube, and Gmail apps. DIZO is expected to launch two feature phones allegedly called DIZO Star 500 and DIZO Star 300. 

The launch of these feature phones will mark the debut of Realme in the feature phone segment. DIZO feature phones have already created hype around the Indian market, and once they launch, they would surely offer a decent fight to the old bosses of the feature phone market, Jio, Samsung, and Nokia. 

The company aims to launch over 100 new AIoT and lifestyle products in 2021; the long list includes TWS products, affordable smart TVs, smart plugs, trimmers, smart bulbs and more. All the recent leaks and speculations hinted that DIZO would be rebadging some of the existing Realme products and will share more teasers about the products to build the hype.

Samsung & Vivo Emerged As The Worlds Fastest-Growing 5G Smartphone Brands In Q1-2021

Samsung and Vivo emerged as the world’s fastest-growing 5G smartphone brands in the first quarter (January to March) of 2021, with 17 million and 19.4 million shipments, respectively. The latest research done by Strategy Analytics shows that Samsung grew by 79%, and Vivo grew by 62% in 5G smartphone shipments compared to the last quarter (Q4 2020), which includes a cycle from October to December.

Vendor Q4 2020 shipments (million) Q4 2020 Market share Q1 2021 shipments (million) Q1 2021 Market share Quarterly growth
Apple 52.2 40.7 40.4 29.8% -23%
Oppo 13.9 10.9% 21.5 15.8% 55%
Vivo 12.0 9.4% 19.4 14.3% 62%
Samsung 9.5 7.4% 17.0 12.5% 79%
Xiaomi 11.8 9.2% 16.6 12.2% 41%
Others 28.7 22.4% 20.8 15.3% -28%
Total 128.1 100.00% 135.7 100.00% 6%

 

“Global 5G smartphone shipments grew a healthy 6% quarter-on-quarter and hit a record 136 million units during the first quarter of 2021.” quoted Ken Hyers, Director at Strategy Analytics, during a statement. The demand for 5G smartphones is on another level, particularly in China, United States, and Western Europe and by the end of 2021, the shipments will reach a record 624 million units, Hyers added further.

Samsung’s growth was pushed by significant demand for the Galaxy S21 series across South Korea, the US, and Europe. At the same time, Vivo emerges as the second fastest-growing 5G brand, with strongholds over China and Europe. The success of Vivo was driven by its iQOO U3 5G and U7 5G smartphones. 

Oppo, with a 55% increase and Xiaomi with a 41% increase, complete the top-four makers’ list; both of these companies grew dramatically due to solid hold in China. There’s no doubt, Samsung and Vivo have topped the Quarterly growth based on shipment percentage, but Apple still holds the lead with total shipments of 40.4 million.

Apple dipped with -23% quarter-on-quarter, following a spree during last quarter’s holiday period where the new 5G iPhone was wildly popular. However, the American tech giant still stands strong with a 29.8% market share in Q1 2021, and it will soon bounce back in the percentage of the shipment.

OnePlus Announces Its Official Integration With Oppo

Everyone knows that OnePlus has always been associated with Oppo behind the curtains, and to make the grip tighter, OnePlus is now officially merging with Oppo after working together on some level for the last one year. OnePlus and Oppo are popular smartphone brands in India, both owned by the Chinese parent group BBK Electronics that also owns brands such as Vivo and Realme. 

Earlier, both the companies collaborated closely for a while, and now OnePlus has announced that it will further integrate with its sister smartphone brand Oppo, with OnePlus becoming an Oppo sub-brand; however, it will continue to operate independently. 

The dramatic move appears after premium smartphone maker OnePlus CEO Pete Lau took on additional responsibility as Oppo’s chief product officer to develop a product strategy for both OnePlus and Oppo. Lau said in the forum post, “Since then, we have integrated a number of our teams with Oppo to streamline our operations better and capitalise on additional shared resources”.

The formal integration will give OnePlus additional resources to develop and create even better products for the consumers. “We’re at a turning point for the future of OnePlus, and I’m confident that this change will be positive for our community and our users. It will also allow us to be more efficient, for example, bringing faster and more stable software updates for OnePlus users,” he wrote further in the post titled “A New Journey for OnePlus”.

Furthermore, Lau said in the post; the OnePlus brand will continue to operate its events and customer feedback channels independently. The move might also merge the mid-premium segment play of both brands, the Nord and Reno series. Also, the OnePlus spokesperson for the company confirmed that OnePlus products and regional markets would run the business as usual and continue to compete in the markets the same way they previously did.

Apple Announces AirTags With Better Privacy & Promises An Android App

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.

Redmi Watch: One Of the Best Affordable Smartwatch Under ₹5000

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.

Reliance AGM On 24th June: Jio 5G Smartphone, JioBook Laptop & More Rollout Expected

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.

100% Charge Within 8 Minutes: Xiaomi Brings Vision Into Reality

Xiaomi launches a 200W HyperCharge fast charging technology and excites other smartphone manufacturers in ongoing charging wars. The Chinese smartphone brand claims to charge a 4,000mAh battery in less than 8 minutes, and with that, Xiaomi brings a long-awaited vision into reality. Along with 200W HyperCharge fast charging technology, the company has introduced 120W wireless fast charging technology that fills the same battery capacity in under 15 minutes.

Xiaomi became the first Original Equipment Manufacturer to come up with a practical concept of 200 W HyperCharge technology in a smartphone. Last year, the company introduced 120W wired charging and 80W wireless fast charging in the Mi 10 Ultra. Along with Xiaomi, currently, Realme has its 125W UltraDART, and Oppo has its 125W Flash Charge in the wired charging war that claims to charge a 4,000mAh battery in 20 minutes.

The Chinese tech giant announced the invention of 200W charging on Twitter along with a video, where the experiment took place with a custom-built Mi 11 Pro with a 4,000 mAh battery instead of the 5,000 mAh regular model. We can see in the video that the phone reaches 10% charge in 44 seconds, 50% in just 3 minutes, and accomplishes the benchmark of 100% within 8 minutes with the wired fast charging technology.

On the other hand, we can see a 10% charge on the wireless charging test in less than a minute, followed by a 50% in seven minutes and ultimately a 100% charge in 15 minutes. HyperCharge fast charging technology looks excellent at first glance, but only regular usage will tell us whether it’s a good invention or not, as such kind of fast charging might harm the device.

Xiaomi is a top-five vendor in over 47 countries worldwide and one of the most popular smartphone makers in India. Though, the company has announced 200W wired and 120W wireless charging technologies but hasn’t shared a timeline of when we can expect to see these two chargers in the box and which phones will get it first. However, it’s expected to debut this year with the upcoming flagship models from the company.

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