Supplies of smartphones, tablets, laptops hit due to lower production & distribution workforce

Brands like Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme are facing supply issues with operational plants running at 30-35% capacity and several warehouses are not able to operate normally. https://ift.tt/2Xnanl2 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Realme X3 SuperZoom Launching Today: How to Watch Livestream

Realme X3 SuperZoom is set to launch today. The Chinese company is hosting a livestream to announce the launch of the new smartphone in Europe. https://ift.tt/2ZzVezB

Chicago-based game studio Level Ex is updating two titles, widely-used by medical professionals to hone their skills, to include COVID-19 content (Elise Favis/Washington Post)

Elise Favis / Washington Post:
Chicago-based game studio Level Ex is updating two titles, widely-used by medical professionals to hone their skills, to include COVID-19 content  —  For the last five years, Chicago-based studio Level Ex has been making mobile games to help medical professionals hone their skills.

Rebel Foods brews a new food kits plan

The food company speculated to be valued at about $1billion, said growth in India is increasing by 10% every week, but it is still slow compared to international markets https://ift.tt/3ekbsBi https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Double whammy for TikTok as downloads slow amid ratings fall

Data shared with ET by app intelligence firm Sensor Tower show that downloads of the Chinese ByteDance-owned social media platform fel https://ift.tt/2XoixK8 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

OnePlus' First TWS Earbuds to Be Called 'OnePlus Buds,' Tipster Claims

OnePlus' truly wireless earbuds are back in the news and a tipster has now indicated that the company will call its first TWS device 'OnePlus Buds.' Earlier this month, the same tipster had suggested... https://ift.tt/3ea8nDA

Huawei Enjoy Z 5G With 48-Megapixel Triple Cameras Launched

Huawei Enjoy Z 5G is priced in China at CNY 1,699 for the 6GB RAM + 64GB storage option, CNY 1,899 for the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage option and CNY 2,199 for the 8GB RAM + 128gB storage option. https://ift.tt/2LVJcIX

Computer scientist Ben Shneiderman argues against the move towards full robotic automation, arguing such moves absolve humans of ethical responsibilities (John Markoff/New York Times)

John Markoff / New York Times:
Computer scientist Ben Shneiderman argues against the move towards full robotic automation, arguing such moves absolve humans of ethical responsibilities  —  A computer scientist argues that the quest for fully automated robots is misguided, perhaps even dangerous.  His decades of warnings are gaining more attention.

IAF officer loses Rs 75,000 to fraudster using UPI: What you must know such scams

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Oppo Reno 4 Series With 5G, Triple Rear Cameras Confirmed

Oppo Reno 4 and Reno 4 Pro phones with 5G connectivity support and triple rear cameras have been revealed by Oppo on Weibo. A tipster on Weibo has claimed that the Oppo Reno 4 series will be powered... https://ift.tt/2Xxz3aW

Realme X3 SuperZoom Will Feature 120Hz Display, Snapdragon 855+ SoC

Realme X3 SuperZoom will come with a 120Hz display and the Snapdragon 855+ SoC as per the company's European Twitter account. It will be unveiled alongside a smart band and truly wireless (TWS)... https://ift.tt/3eerexq

Netflix Offers Free Plan Upgrades for First 30 Days

Netflix is offering free one-tier upgrades for the first 30 days of your subscription, in what is another new promo. That means if you pick "Basic", you'll be upgraded to "Standard". And if... https://ift.tt/2TCxOWB

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Plus High-Res Renders Leak Online

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Plus renders have been leaked online showing off the design of the phone from all angles. The phone is tipped to be larger than the Galaxy Note 20. https://ift.tt/3egMAKx

Samsung Galaxy A31 to Launch in India Next Week

Samsung Galaxy A31 is said to launch in India in the first week of June. The Samsung phone was unveiled globally in March. https://ift.tt/2zrKt7W

Work collaboration unicorn Notion is blocked in China

Notion, the fast-growing work collaboration tool that recently hit a $2 billion valuation, said on Twitter Monday that its service is blocked in China.

The productivity app has attracted waves of startups and tech workers around the world — including those in China — to adopt its all-in-one platform that blends notes, wikis, to-dos, and team collaboration. The four-year-old San Francisco-based app is widely seen as a serious rival to Evernote, which started out in 2004.

Notion said it is “monitoring the situation and will continue to post updates,” but the timing of the ban noticeably coincides with China’s annual parliament meeting, which began last week after a two-month delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Internet regulation and censorship normally toughen around key political meetings in the country.

Notion could not be immediately reached for comment.

For Notion and other apps that have entered the public eye in China but remained beyond the arm of local laws, a looming crackdown is almost certain. The country’s cybersecurity watchdog could find Notion’s free flow of note-sharing problematic. Some users have even conveniently turned the tool’s friendly desktop version into personal websites. If Notion were to keep its China presence, it would have to bow to the same set of regulations that rule all content creation platforms in China.

Its predecessor Evernote, for example, established a Chinese joint venture in 2018 and released a local edition under the brand Yinxiang Biji, which comes with compromised features and stores user data within China.

Rivalry in work collaboration

Just before its ban in China, Notion surged on May 21 to become the most-downloaded productivity app in the domestic Android stores, according to third-party data from App Annie. The sudden rise appears to be linked to its Chinese copycat Hanzhou (寒舟), which stirred up controversy within the developer community over its striking resemblance to Notion.

In an apologetic post published on May 22, Xu Haihao, the brain behind Hanzhou and a former employee of ByteDance-backed document collaboration app Shimo, admitted to “developing the project based on Notion.”

“We are wrong from the beginning,” wrote Xu. “But I intended to offend nobody. My intention was to learn from [Notion’s] technology.” As a resolution, the developer said he would suspend Hanzou’s development and user registration.

Some of the largest tech firms in China are gunning for the workplace productivity industry, which received a recent boost during the coronavirus crisis. Alibaba’s Dingtalk claimed last August that more than 10 million enterprises and over 200 million individual users had registered on its platform. By comparison, Tencent’s WeChat Work said it had logged more than 2.5 million enterprises and some 60 million active users by December.