Friday, April 17, 2020
Indians spent 4.3 hours a day on smartphones in March, up 24%
Microsoft adds five Indian languages to Microsoft Translator
Microsoft India has announced that Microsoft Translator will now offer real-time translation in five additional languages. The newly added languages include Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam, and Punjabi. This takes the total number of Indian languages supported to 10, including Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. With this, the service will now allow over 90% of Indians to access information and work in their native/preferred languages, making computing language-agnostic and more inclusive in the country.
According to Microsoft, “Language translation is a core part of Microsoft products and services. Users can avail the benefits of AI and Deep Neural Networks-enhanced, real-time translation in all these languages while using Bing and the Microsoft Translator website, as well as the Microsoft Translator App for Android, IOS and Windows. The Microsoft Translator app can recognize and translate languages from text, speech and even photos. Microsoft is also rolling out support for these languages in the Microsoft Office 365 and the Swiftkey keyboard”.
Sundar Srinivasan, General Manager, Microsoft India(R&D) Pvt. Ltd., said, “We’re committed to empower every Indian and every business in India by bringing the power of AI into their daily life. Microsoft celebrates the diversity of languages in India and wants to make the vast Internet even more accessible. We have supported Indian languages in computing for over two decades, and more recently have made significant strides on machine translation across languages. With this release, we are bringing in cutting edge machine learning tech to democratize access to information for everyone in India,”
Microsoft has been working to provide local language computing in Indian languages for over two decades since the launch of Project Bhasha in 1998, allowing users to input localized text easily and quickly using the Indian Language Input tool. Microsoft also announced support for email addresses in multiple Indian languages across most of its email apps and services. Through its global Local Language Program (LLP), Microsoft provides people access to technology in their native language.
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PlayStation 5 will be available in limited stocks at launch: Report
If information circulating the internet is to be believed, then Sony will produce fewer PS5 in its first fiscal year than the PS4. This is because the price of the console is expected to be higher than the launch price of the PS4 and may put off some customers to purchase the console at launch.
According to Bloomberg, “The PS5’s loftier price tag may also deter initial take-up. Game developers who’ve been creating titles for the next PlayStation anticipate its price to be in the region of $499 to $549, and Bloomberg Intelligence’s Matthew Kanterman points to increased component costs pushing up the price required for Sony to break even. Sony has struggled with its price-setting decision for the PS5 because of scarce components.”
To put things into perspective, the PS4 had a launch price of $399 and sold 7.5 million units in its first two quarters when it launched back in November 2013. Sony is looking to sell 5 to 6 million units of the PS5 in the fiscal year ending March 2021.
It is the price of the components and not the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused the price of the console to rise. The COVID-19 pandemic has however thrown a wrench in Sony’s promotional plans for the console. This also includes the reveal of the new DualSense controller that will come with the PS5. Sony took to a blog post to reveal the controller as it wanted to stay ahead of leaks that could possibly result as the company started shipping the new controller to developers.
The Bloomberg report goes on to say, “Sony’s strategy, according to several people familiar with its plans, will be to rely on incumbent PlayStation 4 models as a bridge to get new users onto the PlayStation platform’s network services while the PS5 remains in limited supply, the people said.”
It is possible that we will see a reduction in the price of the PS4 and PS4 Pro making them attractive propositions when the PS5 launches. In other PlayStation news, one of the consoles' most highly anticipated games of 2020, the Last of Us Part II has been delayed indefinitely due to the Coronavirus. You can read more about it here. If you own a PS4 and are looking to enjoy some games on it, then you can check out our list of the best PS4 games to play right now, here. You can also check out our comparison between the PS5 and Xbox Series X here.
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Cyberpunk 2077 themed Xbox One X to launch in June
Microsoft’s next-generation console, the Xbox Series X is launching towards the end of 2020, but that doesn't mean the company is giving up on its current flagship console. Throughout the life of the Xbox One, we have seen some interesting custom-designed consoles and now we have one based on Cyberpunk 2077. The console will come with 1TB built-in storage and a custom design that makes it resemble the Cyberpunk 2077 theme. The console comes with decals that glow in the dark along with laser etchings and a blue LED light at the front. It also has custom panels. The console is officially called the 1TB Xbox One X Cyberpunk 2077 Limited Edition Bundle.
From the reveal video, there is no denying that the console does look very attractive. Microsoft has had quite a few cool limited edition designs for its consoles some of which include the Gears 5 edition, the Battlefield V Gold Rush edition, and of course the Project Scorpio edition Xbox One X. There are of course many more. Microsoft also gives users in the US the ability to customize controllers online giving your gaming gear a custom look.
If you are looking to pick up an Xbox One X in 2020, it makes sense as Microsoft has said that all first-party exclusive games that launch for 1 year after the launch of the Series X will be playable on the Xbox One. This includes games like Halo Infinite, Hellblade Senua’s Saga and more. You can check out why we think it makes sense to pick up an Xbox One X in 2020 here.
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Sales of Raspberry Pi's single-board computers hit 640K in March, its second biggest month ever, as Pi evolves from hobbyist toy to general purpose computer (Owen Hughes/TechRepublic)
Sales of Raspberry Pi's single-board computers hit 640K in March, its second biggest month ever, as Pi evolves from hobbyist toy to general purpose computer — From ending battles over the only PC in the house to supporting 3D printing and ventilator projects, the tiny single-board computer is suddenly in great demand.
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London-based BenevolentAI, which uses drug industry data and research to discover new drug applications, highlights the promise of AI in fight against COVID-19 (Tom Simonite/Wired)
London-based BenevolentAI, which uses drug industry data and research to discover new drug applications, highlights the promise of AI in fight against COVID-19 — Software suggested an arthritis drug might quell an out-of-control immune response that damages the lungs. Now it's being tested in a clinical trial.
NBC marks Peacock “soft launch” with striking teaser for Brave New World
Alden Ehrenreich stars as antihero John the Savage in NBC Peacock's forthcoming series Brave New World, an adaptation of Aldous Huxley's seminal dystopian novel.
NBC's Peacock streaming service marked this week's "soft launch" with a short teaser trailer for one of its original programs: Brave New World, an adaptation of the ultimate dystopian science fiction novel by Aldous Huxley. It's short on details but visually striking, so while Peacock is relatively late to the streaming scene, the series looks like it could be a winner for the fledgling service.
Brave New World (the novel) was inspired by H.G. Wells' optimistic utopian novels. Huxley set out to write a parody of them, but eventually "got caught up in the excitement" of creating his own "negative utopia." He also cited D.H. Lawrence as an influence, although George Orwell noted strong similarities to a 1921 Russian science fiction novel, We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. (Huxley was openly accused of plagiarism by Polish author Mieczyslaw Smolarski, who believed the similarities to two of his novels were too strong to be "accidental analogy.") The fact that Huxley wrote Brave New World as the Great Depression spread from the US to the UK influenced its theme of achieving stability, even at the cost of individual freedoms.
Brave New World is set in the year 2540, in the World State city of London, where people are born in artificial wombs and indoctrinated through "sleep-learning" to fit into their assigned predetermined caste. Citizens regularly consume a drug called soma (part anti-depressant, part hallucinogen) to keep them docile and conform to the strict social laws. Promiscuity is encouraged, but pregnancy (for women) is a cause for shame. Needless to say, both art and science (albeit to a lesser extent) are viewed with suspicion. "Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive," Resident World Controller of Western Europe Mustapha Mond tells the novel's antihero protagonist, John the Savage. "Science is dangerous; we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled."
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In a setback to Amazon, a federal judge put the JEDI cloud contract lawsuit on hold, following a DOD report that dismissed objections to project (David Shepardson/Reuters)
In a setback to Amazon, a federal judge put the JEDI cloud contract lawsuit on hold, following a DOD report that dismissed objections to project — A U.S. judge on Friday put on hold a suit by Amazon.com Inc challenging the Pentagon's decision to award a $10 billion contract to Microsoft Corp.
How Trump's 2020 campaign is poised to replicate its 2016 success on Facebook, using FB's agnostic algorithmic ad tools as intended and expanding Trump's base (Ian Bogost/The Atlantic)
How Trump's 2020 campaign is poised to replicate its 2016 success on Facebook, using FB's agnostic algorithmic ad tools as intended and expanding Trump's base — Look at a thousand of the millions of Facebook ads Donald Trump has run, and it's hard to believe that they represent a winning strategy.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Zoom Meeting App Rolls Out New Measures as Security Fears Mount
MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's, as the mobile chip designer bets on AI demand for growth (Cheng Ting-Fang/Nikkei Asia)
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia : MediaTek says it has started to use Intel Foundry's advanced chip packaging in addition to TSMC's...
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Sohee Kim / Bloomberg : South Korean authorities are investigating a data leak at e-commerce giant Coupang that exposed ~33.7M accounts; ...
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The first project we remember working on together was drawing scenes from the picture books that our mom brought with her when she immigrate...
