Kartech Blog

-  While most of us have made wearing face masks and washing hands part of our routines, we often forget to sanitize the gadgets we're using, primarily smartphones, and a new study shows we should seriously consider sanitizing our devices. Source - Beboom

- Bharti Airtel has partnered with Aakash Educational Services Limited to launch what they claim to be India's first dedicated TV channels for medical and engineering entrance exams preparation. Called Aakash Edu TV, the service is available exclusively on Airtel's DTH platform and, promises to offer "high-quality coaching sessions to students across India who are preparing for entrance exams such as JEE/Advanced and NEET". Source - Beboom

- Since the COVID-19 cases in India are still on a steep rise, Xiaomi has decided to offer a new product to further the safety of the citizens. The company has launched the Mi KN95 protective mask in India. It joins the Mi AirPOP mask, which launched back in January last year. Source - Beboom

- Latest data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) shows that the total number of broadband users in the country now stands at over 700 million (70 crore). As of July 31st, India apparently had 705.4 million broadband connections. The milestone is believed to have been achieved in July, when ISPs added 7.17 million new subscribers nationwide. Source - Beboom

- Flipkart is reportedly looking to re-enter the Indian mobile phone market with new feature phones and smartphones under the MarQ brand. That's according to ET, which claims that the company has already received its approval from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for handsets made by two manufacturers - the Haryana-based Forme Communications Technology and the Delhi-based Advantage Computers. Source - Beboom

- India, video-conferencing app, Zoom, is now listing its plan prices in Rupees alongside other global currencies, including Dollar, Yen, Pound Sterling, and more. To see the plan charges in Rupees, users will have to choose India as their 'billing' and 'sold to' country. The company already accepted Indian credit cards, but there doesn't seem to be any new addition to the payment mode for now. Source - Beboom

- Even though Apple's co-founder and former CEO, the late Steve Jobs has had problems with Intel, he still, at some point in time, considered putting Intel chips inside the iPad lineup. This interesting tidbit recently surfaced from Walter Isaacson's biography of the Apple genius Steve Jobs. Source - Beboom

- Launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station is now targeted for no sooner than early-to-mid November, providing additional time for SpaceX to complete hardware testing and data reviews as the company evaluates off-nominal behavior of Falcon 9 first stage engine gas generators observed during a recent non-NASA mission launch attempt. Through the agency’s Commercial Crew and Launch Services Programs partnership with SpaceX, NASA has full insight into the company’s launch and testing data. Source - Nasa Blog

- A group of hackers has received 32 payments from Apple totaling $2,88,500 for discovering 55 vulnerabilities (11 critical) in the core systems as they hacked the tech giant for three months. The critical bugs allowed the group to take control of core Apple infrastructure and "from there steal private emails, iCloud data, and other private information". Apple promptly fixed the vulnerabilities. There were a total of 55 vulnerabilities discovered with 11 critical severity, 29 high severity, 13 medium severity and 2 low severity reports. Source - Business Insider India

- Uber recently made a significant commitment to transition its entire fleet to electric vehicles by 2040. As part of its efforts to achieve this sustainability goal, Uber has now partnered with Lithium Urban Technologies to add 1,000 electric cars to its fleet in India.

- We are just a few days away from Amazon's Great Indian Festival sale that will last an entire month this time around. And today, Amazon has given us another new update With this update, users will see two new tabs namely 'Live' and 'On Now' on Fire TV's home page. The former will show you live TV channels from SonyLIV, Voot, NextG TV, and Discovery+. This includes popular channels, including Sony SAB HD, Colors HD, SET HD, Nick HD+, Dangal, DD National, News18 India, MTV Beats HD, SONY BBC Earth HD, Mastii TV Music, and Discovery.

- National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM) is observed in the month of October every year. As part of Google's efforts to ensure the security and privacy of its users, the company is adding a guest mode on Google Assistant among other security features.

- Instagram has become the go-to app for messaging friends for many users. The image-sharing platform offers a fun experience that doesn't involve family groups and makes it easier to share photos, videos, and now Reels. Instagram then decided to offer close friends a safe space with the launch of the standalone Threads app earlier last year.

- Airtel is reportedly in talks with PUBG Corp to bring back PUBG Mobile to India. That's according to a report from Entrackr, which claims that the nation's second largest telecom operator entered the fray after PUBG Corp's negotiations with Reliance Jio fell through. According to an anonymous source cited by the report, "PUBG is in early conversation with Airtel for handing over distribution rights to the telecom giant. This desperation shows that PUBG has been trying hard to get back into the Indian market". Neither PUBG Corp, nor Airtel, has issued any official statement on the matter, but we should expect to hear more sooner rather than later.

- Looking to purchase a lot of new gadgets, clothes, and home decor items this festive season? Well, Amazon wants to be your go-to destination for shopping as its "Great Indian Festival" sale won't be a quick three-day affair this time around. Instead, the company has confirmed that its festive sale event will run for a whole month.  The Great Indian Festival, as we learned yesterday, will kick off 17th October and keep offering discounts, crazy deals, and new products up until Diwali, i.e. mid-November.

- Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips have always been the gold standard when it comes to flagship SoCs on Android smartphones. While the company is gearing up to announce its latest Snapdragon 875 chipset later this year in December, a new DigiTimes report hints that Qualcomm may diversify its portfolio to launch its own series of gaming phones. The report, citing industry sources, claims that Qualcomm will partner with Asus to make its new gaming phones lineup a reality. Moreover, the first smartphone through this partnership could launch by the end of this year.

- The package of services that include Google’s email, documents and video chat are now called Google Workspace Alphabet Inc.’s Google is renaming its bundle of productivity tools and adding more features, another effort to recruit corporate customers for the company’s cloud business.

- Google announced it is rebranding G Suite to “Workspace” with new features and major visual changes. This also means that Gmail is losing its iconic envelope logo for a more Google-like design. The new Gmail logo is now just the letter ‘M’ with Google’s trademark colours.

- Spotify now allow you to search song by its lyrics