Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

LG W10, W30 to Go on Sale for First Time in India Today via Amazon

LG will put its new W-series smartphones – LG W10 and LG W30 – on sale for the first time today in India. https://ift.tt/2NquTzF

D-Link agrees to new security monitoring to settle FTC charges

Apple reveals App Store takedown demands by governments

For the first time, Apple has published the number of requests it’s received from governments to take down apps from its app store.

In its latest transparency report published Tuesday, the tech giant said it received 80 requests from 11 countries to remove 634 apps from its localized app stores during July 1 and December 31, 2018.

Apple didn’t list the apps that were removed but noted in most cases why the apps were pulled. China made up the bulk of the requests, seeking to remove 517 apps claiming they violated its gambling and pornography laws. Vietnam and Austria also requested the takedown of several apps which violated its gambling laws, while Kuwait asked Apple to pull some apps that fell foul of its privacy laws.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Lebanon were among the countries that requested the removal of some apps, along with The Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.

The move comes more than a year after the company promised to publish the figures starting with this latest transparency report.

Apple said it will in a future transparency report — slated for mid-2020 — will report on appeals received in response to government demands to remove apps from the company’s localized app stores.

The tech giant also for the first time posted several national security letters it received permission to publish.

National security letters (NSLs) are controversial subpoenas issued by the FBI with no judicial oversight and often with a gag order preventing the company from disclosing their existence. Since the introduction of the Freedom Act in 2015, the FBI was required to periodically review the gag orders and lift them when they were no longer deemed necessary.

Apple first revealed it received an NSL in 2017 but never published the document. In its latest transparency report, the company finally published the letter — along with four others from 2018 which had the gag order lifted in April and May 2019.

The first national security letter Apple disclosed but never released — until now. (Image: Apple)

As for the rest of the report, most of the government demands went down during the six-month period compared to the previous reporting period.

Apple said it received 29,183 demands from governments — down almost 10 percent on the last reporting period — to access 213,737 devices in the second half of last year.

Germany issued the most legal demands for the six-month period ending December 2018 with 12,343 requests for 19,380 devices. Apple said the large number of requests were primarily due to police investigating stolen devices.

The U.S. was in a distant second place with 4,680 demands for 19,318 devices.

Apple also received 4,875 requests for account data, such as information stored in iCloud — up by 16 percent on the previous reporting period — affecting 22,503 accounts.

The tech giant also saw a rise in the number of government requests to preserve data for up to three months. Apple said it received 1,823 requests, up by 15 percent, affecting 5,553 accounts, during which law enforcement sought to obtain the appropriate orders to access the data.

In revamped transparency report, Apple reveals uptick in demands for user data

Rise of merchant payments as companies burn cash on P2P txns

The share of merchant payments on UPI has grown to 31% in June from around 16% of total UPI transactions in April last year https://ift.tt/2YtLHqy https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In a letter to Senator Chris Coons, Amazon says it keeps Alexa transcripts and voice recordings indefinitely, only removing them if manually deleted by users (Alfred Ng/CNET)

Alfred Ng / CNET:
In a letter to Senator Chris Coons, Amazon says it keeps Alexa transcripts and voice recordings indefinitely, only removing them if manually deleted by users — If you have hangups about Amazon and privacy on its smart assistant, Alexa, you're not alone. Even after Amazon sent answers …

Facebook open sources DLRM, a deep learning recommendation model that can be used for benchmarking the speed and accuracy performance of recommendation engines (Khari Johnson/VentureBeat)

Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
Facebook open sources DLRM, a deep learning recommendation model that can be used for benchmarking the speed and accuracy performance of recommendation engines — Facebook today announced the open source release of Deep Learning Recommendation Model (DLRM), a state-of-the-art AI model …

Sources: PE firm KKR acquires Canadian software company Corel, which bought virtualization software company Parallels in Dec., in a deal reportedly worth $1B+ (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Sources: PE firm KKR acquires Canadian software company Corel, which bought virtualization software company Parallels in Dec., in a deal reportedly worth $1B+ — Only six months after snapping up virtualization specialist Parallels, Canadian software company Corel is itself getting acquired.

Monday, July 1, 2019

BSNL revises eight ADSL, two Bharat Fiber internet plans to offer better benefits

BSNL has been gearing up to take on the upcoming JioFiber service and has been making some new changes to its broadband and internet offerings. The state-run telecom operator recently announced some new plans that offer up to 8Mbps speeds, along with daily data. Now, it has revised a total of ten internet plans out of which, eight are ADSL broadband packs while the remaining two are Bharat Fiber broadband plans. All the new revised internet plans offer additional data per day, more free voice call benefits, faster speeds after FUP with a “minimum increase in the Fixed Monthly Charges.”

The internet plans refreshed by BSNL under ADSL broadband plans include the BB BSNL CUL plan, which is now called the 2 GB BSNL CUL. Under this plan, users will get to now avail 2GB of daily data, along with Rs 600 worth off-net calls and the plan is now priced at Rs 349. Previously, one would get 1.5GB data per day and off-net calls worth Rs 300 for Rs 299. Similarly, the 3GB Plan is now renamed to 4GB CUL and it offers up to 10Mbps speeds till 4GB data per day and 2Mbps post exhaustion of daily data. This plan is now priced at Rs 599, up from Rs 549.

The price of the 5GB plan is now increased to Rs 699 but there are no increased benefits like additional data or increased speeds. Coming to the 10GB Plan and the 20GB Plan, they are renamed to 12GB CUL and 22GB CUL respectively one will get to avail up to 10Mbps speeds till 12GB and 22GB per day with the packs. The 12GB CUL plan is priced at Rs 899 and the 22GB CUL Plan costs Rs 1,299. Coming to the 25GB Plan and 30GB and 35GB Plans, they are now renamed to 25GB CUL, 30GB CUL and 35GB CUL. The only change is that they are now priced at Rs 1,599, Rs 1,849 and Rs 2,349 respectively and offer speeds of up to 4Mbps once the allocated daily data is exhausted.

As for the two revised Bharat Fiber broadband plans, the 500GB plan is now the 600GB CUL that is priced at Rs 849, up from Rs 777. It still offers 50Mbps speeds but the data cap is now increased from 500GB to 600GB, with 2Mbps speeds beyond the allotted data. As for the 50GB plan, it is now renamed to 55GB CUL and is priced at Rs 4,499 instead of Rs 3,999. The fiber plan offers 55GB data per day at up to 100mbps speeds and 4mbps beyond that.

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Realme X to be launched in India soon, country CEO announces on Twitter

Relame India CEO has confirmed that the Realme X is coming to India ‘soon.’ Madhav Sheth has shared an image on Twitter, saying that the company would release the special Onion and Garlic editions of the phones in India as well. The phone has already been launched in China, and in a span of 10 days after its unveiling, Sheth confirmed that the handset would make its way to India in the second half of the year. Technically, July 1 marks the first day of the second half of 2019. Earlier it was thought that the phone would be unveiled sometime around Diwali, but it now seems that Indian users will be able to get their hands on the device in upcoming weeks.

Realme X Specifications

Realme X Onion and Garlic Edition

The Realme X sports a 6.53-inch AMOLED Samsung display, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 5. There is no notch on the display and Realme claims that the phone has a 91.2-percent screen-to-body ratio. The display features a sixth-generation optical in-display fingerprint sensor, which is claimed to be 65-percent faster than the previous generation. It was launched in China in two colours: white and blue, along with two special edition designs inspired by onion and garlic.

Get ready to experience the most practical premium smartphone. Say hi to #realmeX! Good news for the design lovers we will have the onion and garlic design master editions. RT to show your love. pic.twitter.com/EdGbLTxc6U

— Madhav X (@MadhavSheth1) 1 July 2019

Under the hood, the phone comes equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor, along with a copper-pipe cooling that is claimed to reduce the temperature by 15.2 percent while gaming. In China, it was made available in three variants: 4GB RAM + 64GB storage, 6GB RAM and 64GB storage and 8GB RAM + 128GB storage variant. The special edition variants come with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. The phone draws power from a 3765mAh battery with VOOC 3.0 support.

In the camera department, the Realme X is equipped with a 48MP Sony IMX 586 sensor supported by a 6P lens with an aperture of f/1.7. There is a 5MP secondary sensor accompanied by an LED flash. Realme says that the phone can shoot 960fps slo-mo videos. On the front is a pop-up 16MP Sony IMX471 sensor with the corresponding lens having an aperture of f/2.0.

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Lenovo Z6 with 120Hz HDR10 display to be launched on July 4 in China

Lenovo Vice President Chang Cheng, who has been intermittently releasing details about the upcoming Lenovo Z6 smartphones, has now confirmed that the handset would be launched at 11:30 am local time (9:00 am India time) on July 4 in China. Along with the announcement, the executive also outed the rest of the specs that weren’t known till now. The phone will sport a 6.39-inch OLED display with HDR10 support and a 120Hz refresh rate. The Lenovo Z6 will add to the list of Z-Series phones - the Z6 Pro and Z6 Youth Edition - which have already been launched in the country.

Lenovo Z6 Specifications:

As mentioned, the Lenovo Z6 will feature a 6.39-inch OLED display. It will have a waterdrop notch that will house the front camera, and deliver a claimed screen-to-body ratio of 93.1 percent. The display will come with HDR10 support and a 120Hz refresh rate. Till now, only Razer Phone and Razer Phone 2 have displays with 120Hz sampling rate, and Asus will be bringing the same in the ROG Phone 2.

Under the hood, the phone will come equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 chipset. The CPU will be clocked at 2.2GHz and is touted to deliver 35 percent improved performance over its predecessor. However, the executive did not give any details about the RAM and storage variants. The phone is confirmed to come equipped with Game Turbo tech, which is a tool claimed to deliver an ‘enhanced’ gaming performance by clearing background processes.

When it comes to optics, the phone will sport a triple camera setup on the back. The primary camera will have a 24MP Sony IMX576 sensor with f/1.8 aperture lens. It is combined with an 8MP telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom and 8x hybrid zoom support. The third is a 5MP depth sensor. The phone will pack a 4000 mAh battery with support for 15W fast charging. Lenovo has claimed that the Z6 will be the lightest phone to feature a 4000mAh battery.

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Facebook Evacuates Four Buildings After Possible Sarin Exposure

Facebook evacuated four buildings and two people were being evaluated for possible exposure to the nerve agent sarin on Monday. https://ift.tt/2NsMBTf

Equinix and Singapore’s GIC will launch a $1 billion joint venture to build hyperscale data centers in Europe

Equinix, one of the world’s largest data center companies, announced that it will form a $1 billion joint venture with GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. The partnership will focus on building xScale data centers in Europe. Instead of targeting the wholesale market, Equinix is developing xScale data centers to handle the demands of of the biggest cloud service providers in the world. Equinix’s clients have already included Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Google Cloud and other hyperscale cloud providers.

Under the agreement, expected to be finalized in the third quarter, GIC will own an 80 percent stake in the joint venture, with Equinix owning the remaining 20 percent. Equinix will also sell its London LD10 and Paris PA8 International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers to the joint venture for new xScale centers. xScale centers will also be built in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London, bringing the total to six centers that will provide a combined capacity of 155 megawatts once completed.

Equinix says global deployments from hyperscale cloud providers currently exceed about $500 million in annual revenue. The new xScale data centers will be located on or near Equinix’s IBX campuses, to enable providers to handle more customer access points and rapidly-scaling workloads. Equinix currently has more than 200 IBX campuses, covering more than 50 metro areas around the world. xScale data centers will also offer interconnection and edge services to increase connection speeds for cloud service customers and be engineered specifically to meet the needs of hyperscale companies.

In a press statement, Charles Meyers, president and CEO of Equinix, said, “The JV structure will enable us to extend our cloud leadership while providing significant value to a critical set of hyperscale customers. We look forward to launching similar JVs in other operating regions and believe that these efforts will continue to further differentiate Equinix as the trusted center of a cloud-first world.”