In internal email lists Amazon corporate employees express dismay over the firing of Christian Smalls and a report that management discussed a plan to smear him — Leaked internal emails show employee dismay over how their company is handling escalating labor disputes during the coronavirus pandemic.
As the country heads into the final week of lockdown, companies are still extending a helping hand to people in need. Just last week, we reported that Reliance now allowed users to recharge their Jio number at ATMs. Not to be outdone, Airtel has now announced that it has started allowing its users to do the same but with added options such as pharmacies and grocery stores.
You can recharge your ATM at any HDFC or ICICI ATM as Airtel has partnered up with both banks to allow users to use the service. Airtel has also joined hands with Apollo pharmacies and Big Bazaar stores for the same. There are no details on how all of this will work, but the assumption is that it will function similar to the Reliance Jio scheme. As of now, you can still recharge your number through the Airtel app and other services such as Google Pay and Paytm but this just makes it easier for people who do not have access to those services to still recharge their numbers.
Airtel has said that its network will not face any surge issues and will run smoothly for the duration of the lockdown. As Airtel CEO Gopal Vittal said in a statement, “Our network operating centres and data centres are totally operational to ensure smooth functioning of the network. Our field staff is still on the road to ensure speedy provisioning of new connections and quick fixing of faults. Further, we have advanced investments and have added capacities to meet the surge in data demand.”
Airtel, Jio and others have also released a bunch of plans for people working from home. You can read more about it here. The company has also released a set of personal risk-assessment tools for COVID-19 which you can check out, here.
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Fewer than 3,000 A8s found homes in the US in 2019, because almost everyone who buys vehicles like this has switched to luxury SUVs instead. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]
The flagship sedan has been one of the more tragic victims of the SUV craze. Cars like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and the Audi A8 used to be considered the ultimate expression of a carmaker's craft. Advanced technologies like anti-lock brakes, airbags, and infotainment systems would show up in these expensive machines years before they trickled down to the rest of us. But two decades into the 21st century, sedans are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Much of the most interesting new car technology—to us at least—is now found in plug-in powertrains, and in the mass-market, like the Model 3, Polestar 2, or VW's ID family. So each year, fewer and fewer flagship sedans find homes, particularly as those same OEMs offer supersized luxury SUVs as well.
The A8 is a perfect example. Despite its Ronin connection, the biggest Audi has never been as popular as the S-Class, 7 Series, or Lexus LS. In 2019, the first full calendar year when the car was on sale in the United States, Audi sold 2,963 A8s. Over the same 12 months, the company sold 14,256 Q8s, the five-seat range-topping SUV that gets all the same gadgets but in much more on-trend packaging. You should be able to read Managing Editor Eric Bangeman's review of that SUV in the next few weeks, but having sampled both vehicles from the driver's seat and also riding as a passenger in the back, my take is that the sedan should come out ahead on both counts.
Despite its 17.3-foot (5.3m) length and 6.3-foot (1.9m) width, you only have to drive an A8 for a day or two before its bulk seems to shrink around you. And a curb weight of at least 4,773lbs (2,164kg) for the lightest variant (the $85,200 A8 55 TFSI, which uses a 3.0L V6 gasoline engine) makes it no featherweight, but it feels nimble nonetheless. And as long as you tick the $3,500 option for the rear-seat comfort package, the back seat of an A8 will outdo many business-class airline seats when it comes to comfort and adjustability, with heating, ventilation, and lumbar massages thrown in.
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Enlarge / The Palo Verde Nuclear generating plant, the nation's largest nuclear power plant. (credit: Jeff Topping / Getty)
Each spring, nearly 1,000 highly specialized technicians from around the US descend on the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station near Phoenix, Arizona, to refuel one of the plant’s three nuclear reactors. As America’s largest power plant—nuclear or otherwise—Palo Verde provides around-the-clock power to 4 million people in the Southwest. Even under normal circumstances, refueling one of its reactors is a laborious, month-long process. But now that the US is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, the plant operators have had to adapt their refueling plans.
Palo Verde is expected to begin refueling one of its reactors in early April—a spokesperson for Arizona Public Service, the utility that operates the plant, declined to give an exact start date—but the preparations began months in advance. The uranium fuel started arriving at the plant last autumn, delivered in the cargo bay of an unmarked semi truck. The fuel arrives ready for the reactor as 1,000-pound rectangular bundles of uranium rods that are 12 feet tall and about 6 inches on each side.
The latest shipment of fuel arrived at the plant well before the coronavirus pandemicbrought the world to a standstill, says Greg Cameron, the nuclear communications director at Palo Verde. The biggest change with this refueling cycle, he says, is the scope of the operation. “We’ve tried to trim down the amount of work to just what is necessary to ensure that we run for the next 18 months without impacting the reliability of the plant,” Cameron says.
Each of Palo Verde’s three nuclear reactors are ensconced in their own bulbous concrete sarcophagus and operate almost entirely independent of one another. This allows plant operators to periodically take one of the reactors offline for refueling and maintenance without totally disrupting the flow of energy to the grid. Each reactor is partially refueled every year and a half, with about one-third of the fuel in the reactor core being swapped out for a fresh batch.
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Some independent movie theaters are launching “virtual cinemas” to let patrons stream first-tier films from home as a temporary revenue source amid the pandemic — Greg Laemmle never thought he'd recommend anyone to stream a movie at home. The best way to watch a film …
Finding flaws in upcoming devices or software always comes with some kind of rewards. As such, a hacker who discovered a number of security flaws in Safari was rewarded handsomely for his work. These flaws ould have led to the iPhone camera actually being hacked. Once the flaws were discovered, Apple reward the hacker, Ryan Pickren about $75,000 (Rs 57.3 lakh approx) for figuring out the security flaws. As reported by Forbes, Ryan Pickern is an ethical hacker who broke down Safari and actually discovered around seven issues with the device on Apple’s very own browser. In fact, three of those seven problems could have actually led to the iPhone camera being hacked.
These flaws could have been broken into by hackers who could access the device’s camera and microphone permissions. Ryan Pickren was responsible for finding these issues back in December 2019 and promptly reported the issues to Apple. The San Cupertino company then fixed the issues with the January Safari update and then further patched out further flaws with the 13.0.5 update on Safari and then further improved upon with the March 2020, 13.1 Safari update.
Pickren said, “I really enjoyed working with the Apple product security team when reporting these issues. The new bounty program is absolutely going to help secure products and protect customers. I’m really excited that Apple embraced the help of the security research community.”
So, if you’re some mad genius who breaks down devices, then you should definitely try giving it a shot. Who knows? You could win $75,000 from Apple for your effort.
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Xiaomi has unveiled a new wearable under its Redmi brand. Called the Redmi Band, the device is currently priced at CNY 95 (approximately Rs 1,000), but that is only an introductory price and will change to CNY 99.
The Redmi Band packs a relatively large 1.08-inch colour OLED display, which is larger than the 0.95-inch display found on the Mi Band 4. Further, the new band does not come with a charging cradle. It uses a standard USB Type-A port to charge. This a system similar to the one used by other fitness trackers like the Lenovo HX03F Spectra. It should be noted that while the Mi band 4 has a slight curve, the Redmi Band is completely flat. The company claims that the device takes about two hours to completely charge, and can be used for 14 days at a stretch,
As far as tracking goes, the device packs an optical heart rate sensor for tracking heart rate. The company notes that the device can track up to five different sports. It also offers sleep tracking. Another notable feature of the device is that it is waterproof up to five ATM, so users can take it swimming with them. The Redmi Band can show notifications and weather forecast. It also supports Alipay offline scanning. It is not yet known if or when the Redmi Band will make its way to India. However, if the company does launch the fitness tracker in India, it should be priced less than the Mi Band 4.
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India's Unified Payments Interface eliminated most of the fees apps like Paytm charged for transactions, forcing them to search for other sources of income — After signing up hundreds of millions of users, startups switch to lending and lean on merchants in search of revenues
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