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Nubia Red Magic 3 To Launch In India On June 17
Chinese telecommunication giant ZTE’s subsidiary Nubia launched its latest gaming smartphone; the Red Magic 3 in China back in the month of April. It was expected that the device will soon make its way into the Indian market but no announcement followed. Now, the company has listed the handset on its Indian website, revealing it will launch in India on the 17th of June.

Nubia Red Magic 3

To recall, the Red Magic 3 is the successor to the Red Magic Mars launched last year. The smartphone features a 6.65 inch FHD+ AMOLED display which also supports HDR playback. Owing to the presence of a 90Hz refresh rate in the display panel ( like the OnePlus 7 pro) , gamers are expected to experience less screen tearing and negligible lag issues. The front of the device also houses DTS:X surround sound. The rear panel of the Red Magic 3 houses the camera, an elongated fingerprint scanner and an LED strip which can be customized with a combination of 16.8 million colours.

Under the hood, the Nubia Red Magic 3 is kitted with the 7nm Snapdragon 855 SoC. The chipset is comprised of an Octa-core CPU and the Adreno 640 GPU. In terms of optics, the smartphone has a single f/1.7 aperture equipped 48MP sensor at the back. It is touted as the first device in the world to support 8K video recording via the main camera. For selfies, an f/1.6 aperture equipped 16MP front-facing camera. The Red Magic 3 may be available in the following memory and storage variants at the time of launch.
- 6GB RAM and 128GB ROM
- 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM
- 12GB RAM and 256GB ROM
The Nubia Red Magic 3 is powered by a massive 5000 mAh battery with support for 27W fast charging. For effectively cooling the smartphone while gaming, it has a liquid+air cooling system. The device also has remappable shoulder buttons to assist inside a game. The handset runs on Android 9 Pie out-of-the-box, with Nubia’s Redmagic OS 2.0 on top.

Pricing and Availablity

Also read: Nokia Reportedly Plans On Releasing Two 5G Smartphones In Q3 Of 2019

As mentioned above, the Nubia Red Magic 3 will be launched in India on June 17. While the pricing of the smartphone in the country hasn’t been announced yet, it is expected to start at Rs. 35,000 for the base variant.
June 10, 2019
Huawei Nova 5i Certified Via TENAA, To Launch Soon
Chinese telecom giant Huawei is expected to launch two new mid-range smartphones in China soon. These devices, purported to be the Nova 5i and the Nova 5 will be the successor to the Nova 4 series launched last year. While details about the latter are still bleak, the former has been certified by Chinese certification website TENAA, which reveals its key specifications.

Huawei Nova 5i

According to the listing on TENAA’s website, the Nova 5i from Huawei will be its mid-range offering. The smartphone will measure 159.1 x 75.9 x 8.3mm and weigh 178 grams. It will have a 6.3-inch display with a resolution of 2310 x 1080 px. The device will run on an Octa-core processor with a clock speed of 2.2GHz. While it is not specified which SoC will be used in the handset, it may be the 12nm Kirin 710, which is comprised of an Octa-core processor and the Mali G51 GPU. This processor is also found in devices like the Honor 8X and the Honor 20i.

Huawei P30 Pro

In terms of optics, the Nova 5i has been revealed to have a quad rear camera setup. This will be comprised of a 24MP primary sensor, an 8MP secondary sensor and two additional 2MP sensors. For selfies, a 24MP camera will be present on the front of the device. It will be launched in three colour variants, namely Red, Black and Blue. The smartphone will be available in the following two memory configurations.
- 6GB of RAM and 128GB ROM
- 8GB of RAM and 128GB ROM
Pricing and Availability

Huawei Nova 3

Also read: Nokia Reportedly Plans On Releasing Two 5G Smartphones In Q3 Of 2019

The Huawei Nova 5i is expected to make its debut in the last week of June alongside its elder sibling Nova 5. Unfortunately, the company has not revealed any information about the pricing of the smartphone, but it is expected to be a sub Rs. 20,000 device when it launches in India.
June 10, 2019
Cyberpunk 2077 Trailer Revealed At E3 2019

Among the many announcements at E3 2019, one of the biggest so far is the cinematic trailer and the release date of Cyberpunk 2077. The anticipation for the game has played a key role in building up the hype. Microsoft, the game’s publisher has revealed that the game will be released on April 16, 2020. And, the game trailer features Keanu Reeves.

The Cyberpunk 2077 game trailer retains the original elements of the Cyberpunk universe, including neon billboards and a futuristic appearance. Set in the fictional metropolis called Night City, the game can be stated as a continuation of the Cyberpunk board game and Cyberpunk 2020 released in the year 1988 and 1990 respectively. Apparently, criminal activity is common in the city. The game’s protagonist is named V, and he is a customizable mercenary who fights for (and against) street gangs. A lot of sci-fi elements are sure to be unveiled with time.

Also Read: Cryptocurrency Transactions Are Now Punishable For Up To 10 Years In India

The game’s developer studio, CD Projekt Red previously released the Witcher 3 in the year 2015, which received overwhelmingly positive reviews, and went on to earn the title of the ‘Game of The Year 2015’. And on top of that, Keanu Reeves is a part of Cyberpunk 2077. The actor is known for his roles in movies like the John Wick series, Speed and the Matrix. He appeared on the stage during the announcement and discussed how the game developers approached him regarding the game. Hopefully, Cyberpunk 2077 will turn out to follow the same lines of the Witcher series, even though it is a huge shift from the ancient-fantasy setting of the aforementioned game.

June 10, 2019
Microsoft Xbox Project Scarlett Detailed

At the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 as it is generally called; American technology giant Microsoft has revealed key details about its next-generation Xbox gaming console. Codenamed Project Scarlett, the device will be the successor to the Xbox One X gaming console released in the year 2017. It will also go head to head with the upcoming PlayStation by Sony, details of which were released a while ago. The details about the new Xbox were unveiled via a video shared by the company.

Microsoft Project Scarlett

As mentioned above, the newest generation Xbox or Project Scarlett will be Microsoft’s flagship gaming console. This insinuates that a smaller device, likely to be a successor to the Xbox One S might also be released with Project Scarlett. According to the company, the upcoming device will have a custom designed CPU; based on the Zen 2 and Radeon RDNA architecture by AMD. Microsoft claims it will be up to four times more powerful than the Xbox One X, which is still the most powerful gaming console on the market. To improve the resolution and framerates while gaming, the console will use the latest GDDR6 RAM.

Also read: Nokia Reportedly Plans On Releasing Two 5G Smartphones In Q3 Of 2019

The upcoming Project Scarlett gaming console will also have support for 8K gaming, with framerates up to 120fps in games. Like the upcoming PlayStation 5, it will also feature ray tracing and have a variable refresh rate support. The upcoming device from Microsoft will also use an SSD as virtual RAM which is touted to reduce game load times and increased speeds. According to the company, all the aforementioned upgrades will increase performance by 40x over the current generation. While Microsoft has not announced a particular launch date for the Project Scarlet gaming console; but it has revealed the device will launch in the second half of 2020. For the beginning, the gaming title Halo: Infinite has been exhibited to be available for the console at launch.

June 10, 2019
Nokia Reportedly Plans On Releasing Two 5G Smartphones In Q3 Of 2019

A new report claims that HMD Global is planning to unveil two new Nokia smartphones with 5G capabilities. The handsets are currently being developed with the rumours of a Q3 launch in 2019. The announcement has Nokia follow every other major manufacturers and OEMs incorporating the 5G bandwidth networking in their lineups.

According to the new report that hints at the specifications of the devices, the first handset will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 alongside the X55 modem for 5G connections. The other smartphone will be aimed at a mid-range price bracket with the Snapdragon 735 processor (rumoured). The Qualcomm Snapdragon 735 SoC is reported to be a 7nm based octa-core chipset with the Adreno 620 for graphics, with optional 5G network connectivity and compatibility with sub-6GHz and millimetre wavelength spectrum.

Rumours call the would-be flagship smartphone the successor of Nokia 9 Pureview, these are not confirmed as of yet by the company. The mid-range smartphone, on the other hand, will probably replace the Nokia 8.1. The upcoming rumoured smartphone might be dubbed the Nokia 8.2 and could be a budget 5G capable handset. These new Nokia 5G phones might be the starting point of the company’s shift in focus from lower-segment and mid-segment markets and to the higher priced regions.

The Nokia 9 Pureview’s had a lukewarm reception in the few countries that received it and ever since no other smartphone from the company has competed in the premium segment of smartphones. Nokia recently unveiled the Nokia 2.2 in India and hopefully would follow suit with the announcements of the two rumoured 5G smartphones.

Also Read: Samsung Galaxy Tab S5 Benchmark Scores Leaked Via Geekbench, Launch Imminent

Q3 2019 will have myriad of handsets from various OEMs and manufacturers (such as Apple) being launched with Nokia might being one of them. other rumours point to a year-end release owing to the company’s need for various stress tests before mass production.

June 8, 2019
Advanced Melanoma Can Be Treated With Three Drug Combination

Melanoma is a type of cancer that begins in melanocytes (cells that make the pigment melanin). It can also occur in the eye, the intestines, or other areas of the body with pigmented tissues. Advanced Melanoma, however, means the melanoma has spread from where it started to another part of the body. It is also called stage 4 melanoma, and needless to say, it is fatal, with the chance of survival being 23 percent when the disease metastasizes to distant organs. As per recent news, a research team from UCLA has discovered a three-drug combination that can help with therapy of people suffering from a certain type of melanoma.

The aforementioned ‘certain’ type of melanoma has to contain a potent gene mutation named BRAF-V600E. When the combination of drugs was tested on this mutation, it did not exhibit any side effects that normally occur. The research further implied that when the combination of two targeted inhibitors successfully blocked the BRAF mutation, the melanoma patient can be expected to survive significantly longer.

After the results of the phase one and phase two trials were published, it was found out that the patients had ‘Progression-free’ survival, which means that the disease did not worsen or progress over an average period of 16 months. Those patients who received the trio of trametinib, dabrafenib and a placebo were able to survive for an average duration of 10.3 months without the disease progressing any further.

Also Read: HTC To Launch A Mid Range Smartphone Called The U19e On The 11th Of June

Previously, one of the three drugs have been tried out on patients, and it has been deduced that it can reduce the size of the tumour to quite an extent. However, most people don’t respond to the treatments and tend to relapse in the later stages. Even two-drug treatments failed to be as effective as three-drug treatments. The head of the research team stated that the results of the triple drug therapy were more than encouraging for patients suffering from Advanced Melanoma. Listing an immune response to the cancer/tumour will help the body to develop an improved and durable response structure to the therapy.

June 8, 2019
HTC To Launch A Mid Range Smartphone Called The U19e On The 11th Of June

Taiwanese electronics giant HTC has seen better days. Once a force to be reckoned with, the company has seen its smartphones sales decline sharply over the last few years. Due to increasing competition by Chinese competitors such as Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus, the company has lost a major chunk of the market share. Now, latest reports claim that HTC is trying to make a comeback with a mid range smartphone; that it plans on launching on the 11th of June. This device is speculated to be called the U19e and will be a watered down version of the company’s flagship handset due later this year.

HTC U19e

As previously mentioned, the alleged HTC U19e will be a mid range offering from the company. Leaked schematics of the device reveal it will have a large display surrounded by minimal bezels. The images show that it will have a dual front facing camera setup, like present in the U12+ from last year. The smartphone has the volume rockers and the power button mounted on the right side. It is also insinuated that the device may also have the company’s active edge feature which acts as a shortcut to apps and commands inside the UI; by squeezing the sides of the handset.

Also read: PUBG Lite Confirmed To Launch In India Soon

The HTC U19e has been revealed to have the model number 2Q7A100. Past leaks about the smartphone have revealed its key specifications. The HTC mid-range smartphone will run on the 10nm Snapdragon 710 SoC. It consists of an Octa-Core CPU and the Adreno 616 GPU. In terms of memory and storage, the device may have 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage; which might be further expandable via a microSD card. The device will have a display with an FHD+ resolution of 2160 x 1080 px. As mentioned above, the U19e will debut on the 11th of June at an expected price of Rs. 25,000.

June 8, 2019
HD Renders Of LG Stylo 5 Revealed Via Case Maker

Due to shrinking profit margins and fierce competition from Chinese smartphone makers, Korea based LG reduced it concentration of resources from the smartphone business. However, fresh renders renders of an unreleased LG handset suggest that the company is still trying to break into the heavily crowded industry which is rapidly booming. The said device is the LG Stylo 5 which will succeed the Stylo 4 from yesteryear. The HD renders of the device have been leaked on Twitter which were sourced from a case maker.

LG Stylo 5 Design

The LG Stylo 5 has an attractive design with a large display on the front which has considerable bezels on top and bottom. However, in comparison to other contemporary smartphones, its design looks a bit dated which is due to absence of a notch and the aforementioned bezels. The top bezel of the device houses the earpiece, front facing camera and a dual led flash whereas as the bottom bezel is free from any controls or markings.

Moving over to the bezels, the LG Stylo 5 has a right side mounted power button and left side mounted volume rockers. The rear of the smartphone has a single rear camera setup and a fingerprint sensor for biometric recognition. The bottom of the device is occupied by a USB Type C port, 3.5 mm audio jack, speaker grille and a pen stylus. Yes, the name Stylo 5 comes from the stylus which is staple to the lineup. Details about the specifications of the smartphone are yet to be revealed. Though, the Stylo 4 which was kitted with the Snapdragon 450 SoC suggests the upcoming device will be a budget to mid range offering from LG.

Also Read: PUBG Lite Confirmed To Launch In India Soon

The company is yet to authenticate the existence and features LG Stylo 5. Although, going by the price of its predecessor, this could be a sub US $ 250 smartphone if launched.

June 8, 2019
PUBG Lite Confirmed To Launch In India Soon

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) took the world by storm when it launched in March of 2017. The game brought the widely popular Battle Royale genre of gaming to the global mainstream audience. The game took inspirations from various games and mods like H1Z1 and Arma II mods. Now a Lite version of the original game that was tested in some countries will most likely see its debut in India by the end of June 2019.

PUBG wasn’t as successful in India due to its high cost of entry (Rs.1,000 then) and high system requirements to actually play it on PCs. However, where the company struck gold is the mobile platform with PUBG mobile. India is the second largest market for smartphones in the world; naturally, a large player base and fan following was gained in the southeastern country. Bluehole, the company behind the original PUBG seeking to lower the aforementioned barriers of entry for many of the Asian countries made a new free Lite version of the PC game.

PUBG Lite is a free-to-play entry in the BR franchise that carries, for the most part, the formula and gameplay of the original game along with watered down graphics for a broader PC units compatibility. The BR game is an online last-man-standing survival looter shooter that can be played solo, duo or in teams of four. The original game is notorious for its massive RAM and processing power remands that left out low-end PCs from even attempting to run the game. Only the higher-end PCs could deliver the complete full gameplay experience of visual fidelity and fast-paced action.

Also Read: Asus To Launch The ZenFone 6 In India As Asus 6Z On The 19th Of June

Bluehole Corporation launched PUBG Lite back in the month of January and so far has only been available in countries such as Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau. The game is now rumoured to release by the end of June 2019. Reports claim the date could be around June 25th, right about the time when the famous Steam sale hits the Valve store. Tencent, the company famously credited for porting the PC game to the mobile platform is also in the works of releasing PUBG Mobile Lite which starts its testing in India.

June 8, 2019
Mi LED TV 4 Pro Will Be Available Offline Via Vijay Sales

Apart from smartphones, Chinese technology company Xiaomi also has a strong foothold in the Television market. As per latest reports, the company has finally launched its Mi LED TV 4 Pro in the offline Indian market in partnership with Vijay Sales, which is one of India’s leading electronic retail chains. First launched in India in the month of September 2018, the LED TV packs an interesting set of features that can give leading electronics manufacturers a run for their money.

Mi LED TV 4 Pro Features And Specifications

The LED TV features a 55-inch 4K+ HDR frameless display. Xiaomi claims that the Mi LED TV 4 Pro is just 4.9mm thick (top part) , making it the thinnest LED television in the world. The unit weighs in at 17.2 kg with the base adding an extra 600 grams to the total weight. It supports a viewing angle of 178 degrees and an 8ms response time alongside a 60Hz refresh rate.

The LED TV features 2 8W Dolby Audio speakers with DTS-HD support for audio finesse. In terms of connectivity, it features 2 USB 2.0 ports, 3 HDMI ports, 1 AV port, 1 Ethernet Port and one PDIF out port. Wireless connectivity options include WiFi 2.4GHz/5GHz and Bluetooth v4.2. The Mi LED TV 4 Pro runs on a 64 bit Quad-Core chipset, which consists of the Cortex A53 processor and the Mali-450 MP GPU. It is paired with 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage.

The LED TV runs on PatchWall OS on top of the Android TV OS. The company claims that Patchwall provides the user with more than 700,000+ hours of curated content. Content providers such as HooQ, VIU, hotter, Voot, Republic, Zee5 and hungama will have their shows and movies on PatchWall. Furthermore, Google voice search lets the users search for movies and TV shows via voice commands.

Also Read: Asus To Launch The ZenFone 6 In India As Asus 6Z On The 19th Of June

The Mi LED TV 4 Pro (55) is available across 80 Vijay Sales stores across the country. It is now purchasable via stores in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat and Delhi NCR. It is priced at INR 47,999. The LED TV will go up against televisions such as the Samsung NU7470 Smart 4K UHD TV.

June 8, 2019
Cryptocurrency Transactions Are Now Punishable For Up To 10 Years In India

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency format in which a number of encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of the same. As per latest news, any person in India found dealing in cryptocurrencies is liable to serve 10 years in prison. This penalty will be applicable to all those who “generate, mine, store, sell, transfer, dispose and issue” any forms of cryptocurrencies, directly or indirectly. Also, besides making it completely illegal, the bill associated with the proposal will make the holding of cryptocurrency a non-bailable offence.

The statement was published in a proposal in the draft of Banning of Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019. This is an extremely bashing news for those who were expecting the legalization of Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Moreover, a lot of cryptocurrency trading platforms in the country will face a huge setback from this proposal, since they have been waiting for a favoured decision from the government’s side.

The panel drafting the bill is being led by the Secretary of Economic Affairs, Subhash Chandra Garg. Furthermore, the panel consists of members from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), in addition to representatives from investigative agencies and Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). Reports state that strict laws would soon be implemented to deal with people involved in the trade of cryptocurrency. Also, sources reported that India is likely to have its own digital currency.

Also Read: Asus To Launch The ZenFone 6 In India As Asus 6Z On The 19th Of June

The article quotes that “If any conduct is punishable under any other law, this Act will be in addition to, and not in derogation of such law”. Currently, Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency in the world. As mentioned before, the introduction of a new cryptocurrency, speculated to be called the “Digital Rupee” will drastically change the way cryptocurrency dealings are made in the country. Only the future can guarantee the viability of this decision.

June 8, 2019
Asus To Launch The ZenFone 6 In India As Asus 6Z On The 19th Of June
Asus launched its latest flagship smartphone, the ZenFone 6 at an event in Valencia, Spain on the 16th of May. The device features top tier specifications at a more affordable price than similarly specced handsets available currently. It has been long speculated that the company will launch the latest smartphone in India soon, but no announcements regarding it were made. Now, it has been revealed the ZenFone 6 will be launched in India with the name Asus 6Z on the 19th of June. The change of name is allegedly due to a legal battle in the Delhi High Court against the ZenFone branding.

About the case

The aforementioned lawsuit against Asus was filed by Telecare, which owns the trademark for the Zen and Zen Mobiles name. To not cause confusion between products of the two companies, the Delhi High Court ordered Asus not to sell any product which is identical or deceptively similar to the trademark “Zen” and “Zen Mobile”. Notably, this decision will affect the company’s product lineup only in India at the moment. Interestingly, Telecare alleges that it started selling products under the registered name in the year 2008; while Asus began the sales of its ZenFone lineup starting in year 2014.

Asus 6Z

The Asus 6Z is the latest flagship offering by the company as mentioned above and will succeed the ZenFone 5Z. It measures 159.1 x 75.44 x 8.4mm and weighs 190g. The smartphone has a glass design on the front and back with a metal chassis for reinforcement. It has a 6.4 inch LCD display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 px. The screen to body ratio of the device stands in at an impressive 92 percent which is achieved by implementing a flip up camera mechanism. Like the Samsung Galaxy A80, the Asus 6Z has a rotating camera setup which can be used to take pictures from the rear as well as the front. For biometric security and rapidly unlocking the handset, it has a rear mounted fingerprint scanner and supports face unlock.

Under the hood, the Asus 6Z is kitted with the 7nm Snapdragon 855 SoC which is comprised of an Octa-core CPU and the Adreno 640 GPU. In terms of optics, the smartphone has a dual camera setup which consists of an f/1.8 aperture equipped 48MP primary sensor and a secondary f/2.4 aperture equipped 13MP Ultra wide angle sensor. As mentioned before, the device uses a flip camera mechanism to click pictures at different angles. For memory and storage, the handset may be launched in the following variants.
- 6GB RAM and 64GB ROM
- 8GB RAM and 128GB ROM
- 8GB RAM and 256GB ROM
The Asus 6Z is powered by a massive 5000 mAh battery which supports 18W fast charging. It has a unique Google Assistant button on the top right which can also be configured to open any application based on the user’s choice. In terms of connectivity, the handset supports Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0 and NFC, 3.5 mm jack and bottom mounted USB Type C port. It is available in two colours, namely Twilight Silver and Midnight Black.

Pricing & Availability

Also read: Microsoft Takes Down Online Facial Recognition Database Over Accusations

As mentioned above, the Asus 6Z will be introduced on the 19th of June in the Indian market. It will be exclusively available online on Flipkart and offline in select retail stores across the country. While the company has not revealed its Indian pricing yet, it is expected to cost starting at Rs. 40,000 for the variant with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB of onboard memory may cost Rs. 44,000; while buyers may have to shell Rs. 47,000 for the version with 8GB RAM and 256GB Internal storage.
June 8, 2019
Amazon Alexa Receiving Improvements On Indian Speech Patterns

Amazon had unveiled a new category of skill dubbed Cleo for its Indian markets back in 2018. The idea behind Cleo was to improve Alexa’s language model for its Indian users by learning from the customers themselves. The southeastern country is a key region for Amazon Alexa’s global team that is working on drastically improving the user interface.

The company identifying the potential in the market, worked on various regional languages to grow the linguistic capabilities of Amazon Alexa. The voice-based assistant has received a warm welcome in Indian homes with its Echo line up and is still gaining traction in the country. The Indian smart speakers market is currently dominated by Amazon Echo at 59 per cent of the market share while Google Home only has about 39 per cent, as reported by IDC (International Data Corporation).

With such a large user base it is inevitable that the company will seek to expand on its existing language parameters. The Amazon team dedicated to the Indian market have promised robust support on the upcoming regional languages capabilities of Alexa. The voice assistant in its current state is only capable of understanding Hinglish (Hindi-English) commands to a very limited degree.

Amazon is focusing on the content relayed by Alexa along with its contextual and cultural impacts. The company stated that Alexa must sound Indian when it comes to speaking Hindi. Several dialects and accents are being taken into account to give an actual life-like conversational experience with Amazon Alexa in real-world scenarios. Users can respond to Alexa’s English replies with Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati and certain other regional languages.

Also Read: Microsoft Takes Down Online Facial Recognition Database Over Accusations

Amazon Alexa is being pushed by the company to stay relevant and practical in every home with near human-like natural conversations facilitated by Machine Learning. The company has heavily invested in India for developing skills for Alexa by hiring various scientists and engineers. Available in over 80 countries and compatible with 14 languages, the Indian variant would add a lot more languages to the existing list.

June 8, 2019
Microsoft Takes Down Online Facial Recognition Database Over Accusations

As a consequence to yet another accusation, American technology giant Microsoft quietly removed an online database that contained a whopping 10 million images of almost 1,00,000 people. As per reports, the images were derived from a multitude of search engines and were published in a dataset called MS Celeb in the year 2016. Accusations stated that many people in the dataset were not aware that their images were being used and that their consent wasn’t asked for while capturing the images.

The images in the Microsoft dataset were being used to train AI based facial recognition systems around the world. For instance, Chinese firms SenseTime and Megvii were using the images in the set to develop their software. Moreover, military researchers were also making use of the images to train recognition-based applications. The same dataset was previously used in an AI project to identify various celebrities. Sources state that the database has been directly linked to China’s efforts to crack down on ethnic minorities in the country.

The images of people included in Microsoft’s database were scraped from the web under the Creative Commons License. As per the License, people can academically reuse the images, provided that permission has been granted by the copyright holder of the image, not the subject of the image. Previously, in April 2019, the Chinese government used facial recognition software to keep tabs on 11 million Uighurs (Muslim Minority).

Also Read: NASA Opens Commercial Opportunities For The International Space Station

This may be an alarming wake-up call for conglomerates in the light of the fact that consent is absolutely compulsory. If a check is not kept on the method which is being implemented to capture facial-recognition data, the same data can be used in unethical ways. Law enforcement agencies these days rely heavily on technology to ease investigations, but any software isn’t without its flaws. Further developments will expectedly shine more light on the case, but as of now, Microsoft has not stated anything regarding the matter.

June 8, 2019
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5 Benchmark Scores Leaked Via Geekbench, Launch Imminent

Korean electronics giant Samsung is one of the few brands that still makes Android tablets. Despite the sharp decline in the sales of Android tablets over the past few years, devices from the company have seen a positive response from the market. Samsung launched its current flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4 last year, which has since been overdue for an upgrade. Now, the successor to the device, purportedly called the Galaxy Tab S5 has been leaked on benchmarking platform Geekbench. It features top tier specifications and is expected to be marketed as a full fledged computing device.

Galaxy Tab S5

The model number of Samsung’s upcoming tablet mentioned on the benchmarking platform Geekbench is SM-T865. This coincides with that of its predecessor, the Galaxy Tab S4 with the model number SM-T835. It is thus believed that the listing is of the latest offering in the company’s flagship tablet lineup, allegedly called the Galaxy Tab S5. The listing reveals it will run on the 7nm Snapdragon 855 SoC; which is comprised of an Octa-core CPU and the Adreno 640 GPU. For memory, it will have 6GB of RAM, but more variants with high RAM capacity are expected. The Galaxy Tab S5 will run on the current generation Android 9 Pie OS which may be skinned with Samsung’s latest OneUI.

Galaxy Tab S4

Also read: OnePlus 7 Pro Almond Colour Variant To Launch In India On June 14

With a base clock speed of 1.78GHz, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5 managed to receive a single core score of 3506 on Geekbench. The multi core score of the device has been revealed to be 9788; both the scores falls in line to the ones obtained by other smartphones sporting the Snapdragon 855 SoC, like the OnePlus 7, Xiaomi Mi 9, and the Redmi K20 Pro. Unfortunately, other specifications and the launch date of the tablet are not known yet; but it is expected that Samsung will launch it alongside the Galaxy Note 10 in the month of August.

You can check out our impressions on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S4 below.

June 8, 2019