Unvaccinated Samoans must identify themselves with red flags, officials say

Enlarge / Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi receiving a measles vaccine to support the Mass Vaccination Drive (credit: Samoan Government)

People who have not been vaccinated against the measles virus must mark their homes with red flags, Samoan officials announced Tuesday.

The decree comes amid a devastating outbreak of measles, which was declared in October. As of December 3, officials have recorded 4,052 cases, 171 of which were recorded within the 24 hours before the tally. Officials also reported 60 deaths, 52 of which were in children aged 0 to 4 years old.

The outbreak has flourished after the vaccination rate of infants plunged to an estimated 31 percent last year. Health officials linked the drop in vaccination to the tragic deaths of two infants, who were given measles vaccines tainted with fatal doses of muscle relaxant. Two nurses were convicted in the cases and sentenced to five years in prison. Despite the convictions, anti-vaccine advocates have used the cases to drum up fear of vaccines.

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The next Xbox is in the wild, connecting to current-gen Xbox One players

Enlarge / We'd prefer to use an official image of the console, but we won't have one of those until Xbox chief Phil Spencer invites us over to his house. And, ya know, Ars tech culture editor Sam Machkovech lives down the block in Seattle, so... (credit: Xbox)

A late Wednesday post from the leader of Microsoft's Xbox team, Phil Spencer, confirmed that the first "Project Scarlett" console is officially in the wild, ahead of its late 2020 launch window. And it appears that current Xbox One players have already unknowingly connected to it.

"And it's started," Spencer posted on his Twitter account on Tuesday. "This week, I brought my Project Scarlett console home and it's become my primary console, playing my games, connecting to the community and yes, using my Elite Series 2 controller, having a blast."

Without any extra posts or clarification as of press time, we can only surmise so much from this single statement. But it's admittedly dense. Primarily, it affirms a few details that Spencer and the Xbox team have previously announced about Project Scarlett, the current codename for the unnamed successor to the Xbox One console.

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Musk takes the stand in first day of “pedo guy” trial

Enlarge / Elon Musk arrives at federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019. (credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Elon Musk has never been someone to back down from a fight. On Tuesday, Musk's confrontational personality brought him to a Los Angeles federal courtroom to testify in a defamation lawsuit brought by British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth. Musk told the court that he didn't intend for people to take it literally when he labeled Unsworth a "pedo guy" on Twitter, a site where he had more than 20 million followers.

Musk's feud with Unsworth began in July 2018, when Unsworth and Musk were both trying to help a dozen boys trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. Unsworth, who had years of prior experience with the cave, advised authorities on the rescue effort. Meanwhile, Musk assembled a team of SpaceX engineers to construct a "miniature submarine" to aid in the rescue efforts.

The submarine was never used; rescuers had already rescued the boys by the time it arrived in Thailand. When Unsworth was asked about Musk's invention on CNN, he scoffed. The contraption had "absolutely no chance of working," Unsworth said, adding that Musk should "stick his submarine where it hurts."

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Mobikwik changes tack, to focus on digital credit

Mobikwik turned profitable in August and since last year it has recorded a positive contribution margin, which means the company’s incremental spending’s have been profitable. https://ift.tt/2YcERGs https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

ETtech Top 5: Startups bulk up their boards, Flipkart India cash infusion & more

A closer look at today's biggest tech and startup news and why they matter. https://ift.tt/363qGqe https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Firefox 71 arrives with Picture-in-Picture support on Windows for all video sites, Enhanced Tracking Protection and Lockwise password manager improvements, more (Emil Protalinski/VentureBeat)

Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Firefox 71 arrives with Picture-in-Picture support on Windows for all video sites, Enhanced Tracking Protection and Lockwise password manager improvements, more  —  Mozilla today launched Firefox 71 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.  Firefox 71 includes Lockwise password manager improvements …

Xiaomi Mi 10 With Snapdragon 865 SoC To Launch 'Very Soon'

Xiaomi Mi 10 is official and will be among the first phones to launch with a Snapdragon 865 next year. Meanwhile, the Redmi K30 will launch with a Snapdragon 765 next week. https://ift.tt/2YioOHs

OneConnect, a tech-as-a-service platform for financial SMBs, launches US IPO of up to $504M in a down round, after raising $650M last year from SoftBank and SBI (Julia Fioretti/Bloomberg)

Julia Fioretti / Bloomberg:
OneConnect, a tech-as-a-service platform for financial SMBs, launches US IPO of up to $504M in a down round, after raising $650M last year from SoftBank and SBI  —  Masayoshi Son, head of Japanese conglomerate Softbank, is facing another valuation cut in one of his investments.

Lost your Aadhaar card? Here’s how to get a reprint through mAadhaar app

In case, you have lost your Aadhaar card or you haven’t received it physically yet, you can order a reprint from the mAadhaar app itself. Here’s how can do it. https://ift.tt/2OKxSBy

Qualcomm Unveils 5G-Ready Snapdragon 865, 765, 765G SoCs

Qualcomm announced its flagship Snapdragon 865 SoC and mid-range Snapdragon 765 and Snapdragon 765G SoCs with built-in 5G modems at its Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019. https://ift.tt/3616m8S

As AI tech proliferates, India should update its patent laws: CII-TCS report

Software is no longer limited to traditional rule-based systems and has increasingly turned heuristic, showing higher intelligence than rule-based systems, it said. https://ift.tt/3611EYI https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Highspot, makers of an AI-powered platform to optimize sales, raises $75M Series D extension, bringing Series D total to $135M and total raised to ~$200M (Taylor Soper/GeekWire)

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Highspot, makers of an AI-powered platform to optimize sales, raises $75M Series D extension, bringing Series D total to $135M and total raised to ~$200M  —  New funding: Seattle startup Highspot today announced a $75 million “Series D-1” investment round, bringing total funding for the 7-year-old company to more than $200 million.

Snapdragon 865, 765 and 765G 5G SoCs announced: These are the OEMs who are on board

5G will not just be restricted to premium smartphones in 2020. Qualcomm announced 5G-enabled Snapdragon 765 and 765G chipsets that will allow OEMs to bring affordable 5G smartphones next year. And in case you were wondering who all are on board, Xiaomi, Nokia, Oppo and Motorola already committed to launching Snapdragon 765-powered smartphones next year. Qualcomm also teased the Snapdragon 865, giving brief sneak-peaks into the features.

The Snapdragon 765 and 765G comes with a new Snapdragon X52 5G modem integrated into them allowing phones to deliver 3.5 gigabit internet speeds, theoretically. The new mid-tier chipset are also designed with AI in mind. They come with Qualcomm’s 5th-gen AI Engine which Qualcomm claimed to be 2X faster than the one on the Snapdragon 855 last year, capable of delivering 15 tera operations per second (TOPS).

As for the flagship Snapdragon 865, surprisingly enough, it won’t come with the 5G modem integrated. Instead, Qualcomm will continue to follow a modular approach to delivering 5G connectivity with the new Snapdragon X55 modem and the RF modules installed separately. In addition, the Snapdragon 865 will come with an ISP capable of crunching data at 2 gigapixels per second. This, Qualcomm claimed, will allow the chipset to deliver 8K video recording at 30 frames per second. Apart from that, Qualcomm claimed the SoC will be capable of longer sustained peak perofrmance and bring ‘desktop-class’ gaming.

The chipsets were unveiled by Alex Katouzian, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobile at Qualcomm. And then soon after, we saw senior execs from various OEMs come up on stage to announce smartphones powered by the new chipsets in 2020.

Xiaomi, Nokia, Oppo and Motorola will be launching smartphones with new chipsets

Xiaomi founder, Lin Bin announced the upcoming Redmi K30 and the Mi 10 will be powered by the Snapdragon 865 and will be 5G-enabled. In addition, Xiaomi will announce ten other 5G-capable smartphones powered by the flagship chipsets and the mid-range Snapdragon 765 and 765G. Bin also said Xiaomi will introduce new mobile form factors, particularly in the foldable space next year to take advantage of all the new use-cases 5G is poised to bring. He specifically talked about the Mi MIX Alpha and how the concept phone will become mainstream next year.

Motorola was also present and announced it will be launching 5G devices with the Snapdragon 865 and 765 next year.

Next up was Oppo’s Senior VP of Sales, Alan Wu who announced Oppo will launch a new flagship smartphone with the Snapdragon 865 in Q1 2020. He also announced the Reno 3 Pro will be powered by the Snapdragon 765G and will also be 5G-ready.

Juho Sarvikas, Chief Product Officer at HMD Global committed to launching Snapdragon 765-powered 5G smartphones. The unnamed Nokia phone will come with new Zeiss imaging technolgy, Nokia’s Pure Display tech and ‘Future Proof 5G’.

It will be interesting to see just how many of these devices will be made available in India considering the country is still quite far behind in deploying 5G connectivity. Note that that Snapdragon 765 and the 765G will not have a non-5G variant.

Qualcomm also announced the next-generatio optical in-display fingerprint sensor called 3D Sonic Max. It brings two-finger authentication with the authentication area now 17 times bigger. Qualcomm also said it’s far more secure and accurate, and is likely to be present in devices launching next year.

Further details on the chipsets will be announced at another keynote scheduled tomorrow.

Disclaimer: Qualcomm sponsored the author's travel and stay at Maui for the Snapdragon Tech Summit 2019.

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Redmi Note 8 Pro Set to Go on Sale in India Today

Redmi Note 8 Pro price in India is set at Rs. 14,999 for the 6GB RAM + 64GB storage variant, while its 6GB RAM + 128GB storage option is priced at Rs. 15,999. There is also the top-end 8GB RAM + 128GB... https://ift.tt/2RhZcss

Postmates shuts Mexico City office laying off employees; sources say at least several dozen have been laid off including people across its offices in the US (Salvador Rodriguez/CNBC)

Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Postmates shuts Mexico City office laying off employees; sources say at least several dozen have been laid off including people across its offices in the US  —  - Postmates has laid off dozens of employees and told employees in Mexico City that it's closing that office.