On Tuesday, Nintendo announced a new switch model, which is due on October 8 later this year. The new Nintendo Switch OLED model now comes with a larger and brighter 7-inch screen(slightly bigger than the regular Switch model’s 6.2 inch LCD), a wide adjustable kickstand, enhanced audio, and 64 GB of storage for gaming.
Nintendo Switch OLED will be available on October 8, the same day on which Metroid Dread, the most anticipated game in Nintendo’s 2021 lineup comes out. The device will cost $350, which is $50 more than the original. Nintendo says that the new OLED Switch will last up to 9 hours, which is more or less the same as the current Switch. It is also slightly heavier(0.71 pounds) than the weight of the current Switch(0.66 pounds).
Nintendo offers two color schemes- sharp black and white, while the remaining materials look similar to the previous model. It also offers a separate carrying base since you don’t want your $350 device scratched. The hybrid dock exhibits a wired LAN port, and the port can also be adjusted to play in the tabletop mode. Unlike Nintendo Light, it can be slotted into a dock for playing on a TV or used as a handheld console.
Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser said in a press release, “The new Nintendo Switch (OLED model) is a great option for players who want to experience the new vibrant screen when playing in handheld and tabletop mode,”
As per Nintendo, the device will arrive in two color configurations: a white set which features white Joy-Con controllers, a black main unit, and a white dock; and a neon red/neon blue set, which features neon(red/blue) Joy-Con controllers. Original Joy-Cons will work with this new Nintendo Switch, and all the existing games will run on the new model.
Nintendo’s Switch has dominated the US market for two years straight, ahead of the arrival of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox One X. Nintendo’s Switch has sold more than 85M of its consoles since its launch in 2017. The demand for the system boosted after the enormous success of 2020’s Animal Crossings: A new Horizon, a game that sold more than 30m copies.
With both Sony and Microsoft releasing new versions of their consoles last year, it’s certainly time for a big refresh from Nintendo.
I have been thinking about the smart contract audit process and its cost, so I did some little research. Distributions of smart contract arrangements onto the Ethereum blockchain are increasing. Since late 2017, the figure of effective calls to smart contracts has remained steady at 1.2 million per day. It is convincing to ensure that these smart contracts, often holding significant assets, are not misused. At present, a contract audit before deployment is the most preferable option available to detect subtle vulnerabilities and assessing the security code and quality.
What is a smart contract audit?
I am therefore convinced that smart contract audit is a valuation of the secure growth process. In the cause of a smart contract audit, developers have a chance to learn from Ethereum specialists, denote underspecified areas of their system, and detect gaps in their coding process.
What is smart contract audit cost”
The record shows that over 2 billion USD worth of digital assets safeguarded since it was founded in 2017. Some factors contribute to the cost of a smart contract audit, mention as follows;
“How much does a it cost?”
The record shows that over 2 billion USD in digital assets have been safeguarded since the company’s inception in 2017.
The following factors contribute to the cost of a it:
Complexity
The cost of an audit is affected by the changing complexity of the audit.
A low-cost audit, for example, is a token that strictly adheres to the ERC20 standard.
The ERC20 token standard is one of the earliest patterns in Ethereum smart contract development and is defined by the number of hours spent on it.
When the complexity of an audit increases, it necessitates more engineering hours, resulting in a high audit cohesion.
Clear documentation can also help to reduce the complexity of an inspection.
The cost will rise if there is a lot of time spent.
Timeline
The issue of time arises when clients require smart contracts audits to be completed in a short period. These clients will be asked to pay a premium.
The amount of time spent auditing a project varies according to its complexity.
As a result, the best option is to contact Quantstamp as soon as possible so that you can factor audit time into your development cycle
However, just as smart contract audits cannot replace internal quality assurance, poorer architectures, or overcome complexity or vulnerability, everything in this world has limitations.
The newest version of Xiaomi’s custom skin MIUI 12.5 update is now rolling out for Poco X3 Pro, but as of now the latest software update is available only for limited devices. POCO X3 Pro is the first POCO device to receive the MIUI 12.5 update and we can expect other devices such as POCO M3 Pro 5G, POCO X3, and others will soon receive the update in the coming weeks.
POCO India, Country Director, Mr. Anuj Sharma has confirmed that if everything works fine without perceiving any big issue, the update will soon roll out for all the Poco X3 Pro phones. The Chinese tech giant Xiaomi first unveiled the MIUI 12.5 update in late 2020, and since then, the update is being rolled out for various devices of Redmi, Mi, and POCO phones. Recently, it was made available for the Mi 10T, Mi 10T Pro, and MI 11.
POCO X3 Pro was launched in India in March, and since then it is competing with other devices like Xiaomi Mi 10i 5G, Samsung Galaxy F62, Realme X7 5G, and Vivo V20 2021. The phone packs a 6.67-inch LCD 120Hz panel, Snapdragon 860 SoC, up to 8GB RAM, 256GB, quad cameras, and a 5,160mAh battery with 33W fast charging support.
The new build is specified as MIUI 12.5.3.0.RJUINXM, and it weighs 830 MB. The firmware update is said to be lighter, faster, and more durable. In terms of computing power, it has 20 times more rendering power now. The update includes the June 2021 security patches, refreshed UI animations for a more seamless experience., and it comes with fewer and uninstallable system apps, which is one of the most notable parts of the update.
Additionally, the Notes app has received a tremendous update with support for a gesture shortcut, and new tools for doodling and sketching. So, if you own a POCO X3 Pro then go ahead and check for the new firmware update, if you’re one of the lucky users you’ll get it, otherwise wait for a few more weeks!
If there is a brand synonymous with variety, it has to be Samsung. Right from bank-breaking technological marvels to pocket-friendly mobiles, the Korean tech giant has something for everyone. Its latest offering is the Galaxy M32, which we recently got our hands on. With a price tag comfortably below the 20k mark, let’s see if this smartphone is yay or meh.
First impressions:
The box it comes in is quite simplistic and not extravagant, which is evident for a smartphone in this price range. Apart from the smartphone, users will also get a charger, ejector pin and manual.
The phone itself is Light Blue and gets 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage. Although it has a 16.21 cm display, its rounded corners reduce the overall size to 15.87 cm. Not that it is terrible, but it is still a compromise. That said, the Super AMOLED Display does ensure all details are vividly seen.
Usage:
Holding the phone is a breeze due to its ergonomic design. That said, I have always been against fingerprint sensors on the lock screen, but that’s just my personal opinion. The phone doesn’t make its weight felt despite being packed with intensive hardware.
The Galaxy M32 gets a quad-camera setup at the back, with a 64-megapixel primary sensor, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide shooter, a 2-megapixel macro shooter, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. A 20-megapixel front camera ensures the most explicit selfies with bright colours. The camera quality is not the best-in-class, but it offers everything to desire in its segment.
Verdict:
Samsung Galaxy M32 packs a 6,000mAh battery claimed to deliver up to 130 hours of music playback, 40 hours of talk time, or 25 hours of video playback on a single charge. The phone also supports 25W fast charging, though it is bundled with a 15W charger in the box.
With a starting price tag of Rs 13399, the phone seems like a good offer. But we’ll have to use it for a while before passing the final verdict!
Technology has helped humans to cross the boundaries of the planet, but at the same time, it emerges as a curse to humanity; most of the credit belongs to the people who use technology as a widget tool to leak someone’s confidential data.
Sharing someone’s personal images and videos was not a reliable option to exert an act of revenge, but people won’t understand it due to their small mindsets. Well, WhatsApp has introduced a new feature for you on the lines.
The latest feature, View Once, will help you to stay more secure after sharing your images and videos with someone. WhatsApp beta testers are currently testing the feature that enables users to send images or videos that the receivers can only view once. The feature is very similar to the one’s already available on social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.
The View Once feature from WhatsApp will enable the sender to see if the recipient has opened the media or not. Also, it permits the receiver to open the image or video only once, and it gets deleted after being opened, which plays a crucial role in terms of security, but the View Once feature is not completely secured; it comes with a few drawbacks.
One can take a screenshot of the received media on WhatsApp, and the sender will never know about it; but in contrast to what WhatsApp is offering, a similar feature in Snapchat even notifies you when the recipient took a screenshot of the image. The new View Once feature is available in group chats too, but the flaw is blocked contacts can still see single-use attachments, which raises an eye over its safety concern.
The feature will be soon available for all Android users if it performs well during the beta testing as it is being monitored for blemishes, but there’s no word on when the feature will roll out to iOS and desktop.
Audiophiles were excited when Apple announced its lossless audio option and industry-leading high-resolution sound quality to subscribers with the addition of Spatial Audio that support Dolby Atmos, but how many of us truly know about its actual definition and purpose? How much better is it than what you’re currently listening to? The answers are a little more involved.
Lossless Audio:
Music in modern times has often been all about innovation, and with every other launch, it offers sharper results. Apple has developed its own lossless audio compression technology called Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), which helps preserve every bit of the original audio file.
The lossless format can compress the silences to almost zero space while maintaining all sound data as their name implies, making them smaller than uncompressed files and offers Apple Music subscribers the exact same thing that the artists created in the studio. The higher bitrate will help the digital audio file to sound more reliable and accurate. The bitrate of a standard lossless audio track is around 1,411 kbps which is more than four times the audio quality of an MP3 file with a bitrate of 320 kbps.
Lossless audio is available on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV 4K. The company will add an entire Apple Music catalogue of over 75 million tracks available in Lossless Audio by the end of 2021.
How to use Lossless Audio service on your iPhone or iPad:
Go to Settings > Music
Tap Audio Quality
Tap Lossless to switch it on or off. You can choose the audio quality for streaming and downloading audio from here.
Choose Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/48 kHz
Choose Hi-Res Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/192 kHz
How to use Lossless Audio service on your Mac:
Open the Apple Music app.
Choose Music > Preferences.
Click the Playback tab.
Under Audio Quality, select or unselect Lossless to switch it on or off. You can also change the settings for streaming and downloading lossless from here.
Choose Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/48 kHz
Choose Hi-Res Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/192 kHz
Apple becomes the latest one to join the Lossless club along with companies like Spotify, Amazon, Tidal, Deezer, and Qobuz, who have already launched a lossless audio feature for their subscribers. Amazon Music HD offers its subscribers the experience to listen to “Ultra HD” (up to 24-bit/192kHz), while Tidal gives its HiFi subscribers the choice of listening to Master Quality Authenticated (MQA) certified tracks (up to 24-bit/96kHz).
Apple’s Spatial Audio:
Apple’s Spatial Audio was first introduced on its AirPods Pro earbuds in September 2020 with iOS 14 and has evolved tremendously over time. Recently, at WWDC, Apple brought Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos to Apple Music and made its greatest advancement ever in sound quality as listening to a song in Dolby Atmos is like travelling to another world.
Spatial audio is a 360-degree sound format that takes 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby Atmos signals and virtualises them into directional audio filters that surround you, making it seem you are in the heart of the action. Spatial audio recreates the audio experience of a cinema and makes watching movies with Apple products more immersive.
Apple Music and Dolby are making it easy for musicians, producers, and mix engineers to create songs in Dolby Atmos by transforming the boundary of music. Apple Music is also collaborating with artists and labels to add new releases and create music specifically for the Spatial Audio experience.
Currently, the service is supported in Apple TV 4K, Airpods & headphones with H1 or W1 chip and built-in speakers of the latest iPhone, iPad and Macs with M1 chips. However, Apple Music isn’t the first to introduce spatial audio service on Apple devices, as Tidal launched Atmos Music to Apple TV 4K back in May 2020.
How to listen to Dolby Atmos on your iPhone or iPad:
Update your iPhone or iPad to iOS or iPadOS 14.6.
Go to Settings.
Tap Music.
Under Audio, tap Dolby Atmos.
Choose Automatic, Always-On, or turn Dolby Atmos off.
How to listen to Dolby Atmos on your Mac:
Update your Mac to macOS 11.4.
Open the Apple Music app.
Choose Music > Preferences.
Click the Playback tab.
Choose Automatic, Always-On, or turn Dolby Atmos off.
The company is also bringing the Spatial Audio experience to FaceTime, its video conferencing app. Apple’s Spatial audio feature is yet to be available for its headphones as Apple is still working on the technology needs that’ll support head tracking. Still, at the same time, Sony’s Reality Audio 360 is available on its own headphones and high-end speakers.
The Cupertino based company loves music and always tries to offer the latest innovations to its consumers. Once Apple revolutionised the music experience by putting a thousand songs in your pocket with the launch of the iPod and iTunes, and now they are taking your music experience to another world with Lossless & Spatial Audio.
Just a few years ago, people used to walk around malls-showrooms to gaze at luxury watches, some of them were secretly saving money to buy one of the watches, and then the real gangster arrived, in the form of Smartwatches and changed the world of wearables.
With every new launch, their popularity increases, be it fitness or a style statement, and people started looking at smartwatches more than ever since but buying a smartwatch that suits you the best is still a headache. And that’s why I’ve come up with five things you need to know before buying a smartwatch! Roll it out before you spend your hard-earned money on them.
Phone Compatibility & Operating System
All the smartwatches are designed to serve as companions to a smartphone, but compatibility plays a significant role in choosing the right one. For example, if you’re eying for an Apple smartwatch, you should know one thing: Apple Watches only works with iPhones.
So, the first thing you should check is whether the smartwatch you’re planning to buy is compatible with your existing smartphone or not. Furthermore, you should know, there are mainly three types of OS in smartwatches:
WatchOS, which is the operating system used only by the Apple Watch.
Tizen OS, which runs on Samsung Galaxy smartwatches.
WearOS, which belongs to Google and supports Android as well as iPhones devices. To know whether your smartphone is compatible with WearOS, just go to g.co/WearCheck from your smartphone browser.
WearOS by Google works fine with smartwatches from Fossil, LG, Huawei and others. Notably, it works well with iPhones too, but with limited features only. Bottom line, Fitbit smartwatches are also compatible with both Android devices and iPhones.
Display
In our eyes, an average wristwatch enhances into a smartwatch when it substitutes its familiar face and routine hands with a touch screen, and for that matter, the display becomes a crucial factor.
Most smartwatch makers use a colourful LCD screen or AMOLED display, which let you access photos, apps and other content in more elegant colour and tend to be livelier but shortens the battery life. Meanwhile, OLED displays are found in the Apple Watch as well as in the Samsung Galaxy Watch. Some smartwatch makers use OLED displays instead of LCD; it obviously increases the price but unloads an extra weight from your wrist.
Battery Life
A Smartphone’s battery is an essential feature one should inspect before buying a smartwatch as battery life still remains one of the biggest complaints about smartwatches. However, smartwatch makers are trying hard to develop the solution and improve the devices’ efficiency; I hope they’ll soon come up with a good one.
Most Apple Watches and WearOS devices last for two days, while other smartwatches can last five to seven days, but they usually have fewer features and lower-quality displays. So, analyze your everyday usage and basic needs along with battery consumption, then decide which one is better for you.
Features
Preferring a touchscreen smartwatch over a touchless one ultimately depends on one’s choice but opting for a touchscreen has its limitations, as it can be difficult to select items on a smaller touch display. Apple smartwatches land with a dual approach, as they provide a touch display, a digital crown and a side button on the right side, which makes them one of the most relevant watches. If you’re buying a smartwatch with WearOS, then be prepared to spend some extra time swiping to get to other apps.
Some smartwatches can serve as an extension of your phone, while the rest are marketed as health-focused devices, like the Fitbit Versa 3 and Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 3. If fitness and daily activities are on top of your list, you should look for which smartwatch offers a heart rate monitor, GPS (to track your runs), and sleep monitoring features.
Furthermore, look for customized and pre-loaded apps to get the most out of your smartwatch. However, keep in mind that using GPS will have a substantial impact on battery life. Many smartwatches have NFC chips inside, which means you can use them to pay for your things; Apple has Apple Pay, whereas WearOS has Android Pay (only available in a few smartwatches). Also, Samsung has its self developed mobile payment system, Samsung Pay, which works on all of its newest models; consider all these features before buying a smartwatch.
Most smartwatch makers offer a customization option, choice of straps and swappable bands to keep you updated with fashion and style. For example, Apple smartwatches allow you to choose your preferred dial shape, band colour and face colour before purchasing.
Watches like the Apple Watch Series 4 or later offer a fall detection feature, where if the watch senses you take a hard fall and don’t get up, then a pre-selected person and the emergency services will be informed automatically, caretaker at your wrist.
Pricing
The best smartwatches generally cost between ₹25,000 to ₹45,000, while mid-range smartwatches cost between ₹10,000 to ₹20,000. With high price comes advanced fitness, music and communications features, and some of them come with onboard GPS, music storage, and NFC, which budget devices generally lack.
If you’re looking for an entry-level smartwatch, companies like Realme have a very affordable smartwatch range that starts under ₹4,000. Also, Boat is coming up with its Xplorer edition, which offers plenty of features on a pocket-friendly budget. Ultimately, everything depends on your preference, choice and, of course, the budget.
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra represents the best of the Korean tech giant. But is it the best one overall? In this detailed review, we finally tell you our verdict of the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and the answer burning question on everyone’s mind, “is it worth its high price tag?”
January without a holy trip to Las Vegas is something that I am not used to for the last 14 years. Holy because of CES and for a tech addict like me, there can’t be a better pilgrimage than to be at CES – the hotbed of all innovation. The city of Las Vegas is just the cherry on the “Prasada”. But we all know the world has changed and 2020 has been a catastrophic year taking away all the sunshine. The clouds are now beginning to break and with 2021 we can see that ray of sunlight in the shape of the vaccine. Vaccine or no vaccine, life has resumed. Covid-19 has already pushed the human race to the wall and it is bound to rebound. There is no other way but to move forward and swapping places with Covid and plastering it to the wall now.
This is our Exhibit Tech Awards 2020 special. Again, we could not host all the stakeholders of the Indian Consumer Tech Industry, but we followed the process of public voting and for the first time had a virtual jury meet where Rakesh Biyani joined from London, Siddharth Sharma joined from Toronto and rest of us including Mr Brian Bade, Dj Aqueel, Nucelya, Avinash Gowarikar all through their screens “zoomed” in and together we picked the winners that you can meet in the following pages. Just to add some flamboyance in the Exhibit way, we booked the 38th-floor lounge of St Regis and laid out all the winning gadgets against the beaming Mumbai skyline and
a pompous setup and did a walkaround video that is now live on our Youtube channel. Next year hopefully, we will revert to the meeting, greeting and awarding in person and have perhaps a high decibel gala awards night as always.
It’s the start of 2021 and already from the automotive industry, invitations are trickling in for launch events and hopefully, the tech industry will follow suit and we will all get back to business as usual, perhaps with the masks on. Did you know that the face mask market is projected to grow from USD 737 million in 2019 to a whopping USD 22143 million in 2021 [Source: markets and markets research Pvt ltd]? No one could have anticipated that. We are waiting to see some interesting tech innovations coming for the masks and sanitization market, which will become a way of life even after the pandemic is gone. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who has visited Japan anytime in 2019 or earlier, and they will tell you that people with masks on was a common sight in Japan even then and it just got more layered up in 2020.
There is plenty of anticipation and expectation from the year ahead, but don’t forget to take away all the learnings from 2020 which is to survive you need basics and we have to be there for each other because we are all in this together.
Today we will unbox the Oppo Enco X, the upcoming True Wireless Stereo (TWS) Earbuds. We will also compare them to the top-spec Apple Airpods Pro and the Realme Buds to see which one comes out on top in our first impression.
