Tech Nuggets with the Technology

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Twitter Tests Vanishing Tweets to Keep Up With Facebook, Snapchat

Twitter is starting to test tweets that disappear after 24 hours, although initially only in Brazil. https://ift.tt/39q3Uea

Realme X50 Pro 5G goes on sale in India today at 12 noon: Price, sale offers and more

Realme X50 Pro 5G was launched by the company in late February. Now, the handset is all set to be made available for purchase in the country. The first sale took place on the launch date itself. It will be made available today, at 12 noon via Flipkart and Realme.com. The 5G-capable phone comes in Rust Red and Moss Green colour options.

The Realme X50 Pro 5G features a 6.44-inch Super AMOLED Full-HD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate and an in-display fingerprint sensor. The display has HDR10 support as well. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset. It comes with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.0 internal storage. It packs a 4200mAh battery that supports 65W fast charging. The 65W charger, which ships in the box, is claimed to charge the battery from 0 to 100 percent in under 35 minutes.

As for the optics, the Realme X50 Pro 5G sports a quad rear camera setup: a 64MP main sensor + a 12MP telephoto lens + an 8MP ultra-wide-angle shooter that doubles as a macro lens + a portrait lens. On the front lies a dual selfie shooter combo of 32MP + 8MP. This smartphone supports up to 20x hybrid zoom on this device.

The handset supports Wi-Fi 6. It runs Android 10 out of the box. Further, it has features like dual-mode music share that allows you to connect a wired pair of headphones and a wireless pair at the same time and listen to music or audio on both at the same time.

Realme X50 Pro 5G price in India starts at Rs 37,999 for the 6GB + 128GB variant. The 8GB + 128GB costs Rs 39,999 and the top-spec 12GB + 256GB model costs Rs 44,999.

Sale offers include 5 percent cashback on Flipkart Axis Bank credit card and Axis Bank Buzz credit card. The Realme website is offering MobiKwik SuperCash worth Rs 500 and an equivalent cashback in the form of Cashify Exchange, no-cost EMI, and Jio benefits worth Rs 11,500.

https://ift.tt/2x6xuHa

Top French Court Deals Blow to Uber by Giving Driver 'Employee' Status

France's top court has recognised the right of an Uber driver to be considered an employee, a ruling that could upend the US firm's business model and potentially require it to pay more taxes and... https://ift.tt/38k3wfH

Microsoft Asks Staff in Seattle Area, Silicon Valley to Work From Home

Microsoft on Wednesday joined the growing number of US companies asking employees to work from home in order to limit exposure to the spreading coronavirus outbreak, as it responded to cases near its... https://ift.tt/2PNi1Cs

UPI doubles limit for credit card, mutual fund payments

This will further increase the usage and adoption of UPI among consumers who want to make these payments that are large in size https://ift.tt/38uLms0 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

HPE partners with AMD to use its chips in HPE's $600M US DOE supercomputer contract announced last August to optimize AI and ML for nuclear weapons support (Stephanie Condon/ZDNet)

Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:
HPE partners with AMD to use its chips in HPE's $600M US DOE supercomputer contract announced last August to optimize AI and ML for nuclear weapons support — The system, which will help protect the US nuclear stockpile, will deliver performance greater than two exaflops, HPE now says …

Sanitisers, masks sold out, prices peak

Some retailers and mask manufacturers are cashing in on Covid-19 virus terror by jacking up prices by 2-3 times https://ift.tt/2x9gCj3 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Coronavirus likely to hit Uber ride-hailing, boost food delivery: Uber CEO

Dara Khosrowshahi said that given the diversity of Uber's business and lack of dependence on supply chains, the company is well-positioned to handle the spread of the virus and should bounce back quickly. https://ift.tt/32OreQg https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Neil Gaiman narrates teaser for forthcoming Sandman audio drama

Neil Gaiman narrates the teaser for The Sandman audio drama coming this summer from Audible and DC Comics.

Last summer, we reported that a TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman's seminal graphic novel series, The Sandman, was in development at Netflix. Now comes news that we'll be getting a multi-part audio drama adaptation of the series in the interim, via Audible Original. Audio adaptations of beloved properties used to be a rare occurrence—NPR's 1981 radio drama of the original Star Wars trilogy springs to mind. But in an era where we're all plugging into podcasts on a regular basis, such adaptations make a new kind of sense.

The audio drama is being directed by Dirk Maggs, who also directed the audio drama adaptations of Good Omens—which Gaiman co-authored with the late Terry Pratchett, and Amazon adapted into a miniseries last year—and Gaiman's novel, Anansi Boys. The author himself will narrate, as well as serving as creative director and executive producer. No voice cast has been announced yet, but given Gaiman's bona fides, expect to see (erm, hear) a lot of big names in the mix. Here's Gaiman's official statement (via Nerdist) about the project:

“Almost 30 years ago, Dirk Maggs approached DC about adapting The Sandman into audio form. It didn’t happen (although it was how Dirk and I first crossed paths) and I’m glad it didn’t happen, because we are in a Golden Age of audio drama right now, and Dirk and I are much better at what we are doing.

This is a rich audio adaptation of The Sandman graphic novels, brilliantly crafted by Dirk Maggs, with an all-star cast. I’ve loved being there to talk casting, there to read the scripts and offer occasional advice, and there in the studios, watching magic get made and recording the narration. I can’t wait until the world hears what we’ve done.”

For the uninitiated, the titular "sandman" is Dream, also called Morpheus, among other names. He is one of seven entities known as the Endless, and he is seeking to set right his past mistakes. The other Endless are Destiny, Destruction, Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Death, portrayed as a perky punk/goth young woman—they became almost as popular as Dream himself and were featured in several spinoff comics.

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https://arstechnica.com

HPE partners with AMD to use its chips in HPE's $600M US DOE supercomputer contract announced last August to optimize AI and ML for nuclear weapons support (Natalie Gagliordi/ZDNet)

Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
HPE partners with AMD to use its chips in HPE's $600M US DOE supercomputer contract announced last August to optimize AI and ML for nuclear weapons support — This is the third US exascale win for Cray, which was recently acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise for $1.3 billion.

Facebook says it is testing its Messenger app for macOS, which was first announced last April, in several non-US markets, including France, Mexico, and Poland (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Facebook says it is testing its Messenger app for macOS, which was first announced last April, in several non-US markets, including France, Mexico, and Poland — At Facebook's 2019 F8 developer conference, the company announced plans to introduce desktop apps for its popular communications app Messenger.