Ind vs Aus ODI: Protesters barge into SCG holding ‘No $1B Adani Loan’ signs

The first ODI between Australia and India on Friday suffered a brief disruption as a group of protesters invaded the pitch at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) holding placards saying ‘No $1B Adani Loan’.

Two people made their way into the centre fielding circle holding up cardboard signs before the start of the seventh over.

It took a while before the security guards reacted and escorted the protesters out of the field as players and umpires stood around wondering what was happening. The invaders were protesters against Adani Group and held ‘NO $1B ADANI LOAN’ sign.

The front of the protesters’ T-shirt read “#StopAdani”, while at the back, it said “Stop Coal. #StopAdani. Take Action.”

According to Fox Sports, a group named ‘Stop Adani’ on Friday issued a press release, urging the State Bank of India (SBI) not to approve a loan of $1 billion Australian dollars to Adani.

“Well that was possibly the oddest pitch invasion I’ve ever seen,” tweeted cricket journalist Melinda Farrell.

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One child or youth under 20 infected with HIV every 100 seconds: UNICEF

Approximately once every minute and 40 seconds, a child or young person under the age of 20 was infected with HIV last year, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday.

Prevention efforts and treatment for children remain some of the lowest amongst key affected populations, and in 2019, a little less than half of children worldwide did not have access to life-saving treatment, UNICEF said in a new report.

Nearly 3,20,000 children and adolescents were newly infected with HIV and 1,10,000 children died of AIDS last year, the Xinhua news agency reported.

“Children are still getting infected at alarming rates, and they are still dying from AIDS. This was even before Covid-19 interrupted vital HIV treatment and prevention services putting countless more lives at risk,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

According to UNICEF, the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened inequalities in access to life-saving HIV services for children, adolescents and pregnant mothers everywhere, and there are serious concerns that one-third of high HIV burden countries could face coronavirus-related disruptions.

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Amazon’s cloud service AWS sees widespread outage affecting services

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc’s widely used cloud service, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is experiencing a large-scale outage, the company said on Wednesday, affecting users ranging from websites to software providers.

It has also affected the ability to post updates to its service health dashboard, the company said.

“Kinesis has been experiencing increased error rates this morning in our US-East-1 Region that’s impacted some other AWS services. We are working toward resolution,” an AWS spokesperson said in a statement.

Amazon Kinesis, a part of its cloud offerings, collects, processes and analyzes real-time data and offers insights.

Video-streaming device maker Roku Inc, Adobe’s Spark platform, video-hosting website Flickr and the Baltimore Sun newspaper were among those hit by the outage, according to their recent posts on Twitter.

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Xiaomi announces Black Friday sale, offers discount on smartphones and more

Chinese electronics maker Xiaomi has announced its Black Friday sale in India. The sale starts from November 26 and will continue till November 29 on Xiaomi web portal, Amazon, Flipkart and offline stores. In the sale, the company is offering discounts on wide range of Mi and Redmi branded products, including smartphones, audio products, health and fitness products, and lifestyle products. Here are the details:Smartphones

Xiaomi is offering discounts on its budget and midrange line-up of Redmi branded smartphones. The Redmi 8A and Redmi Note 8 (4GB + 64GB) are available at a discounted price of Rs 6,999 and Rs 11,499, respectively.

The Redmi 9i, Redmi 9 Prime and Redmi Note 9 Pro’s 4GB + 128GB variant are available at a discounted price of Rs 8,999, Rs 10,999 and Rs 14,999, respectively.

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Smartphone shipments to return to growth in holiday quarter: IDC

As consumer spending shifts from travel, dining out and general leisure to consumer electronics during the pandemic, the global smartphone market is expected to return to growth during the holiday quarter this year amid strong push towards 5G, according to a new IDC report.

According to the IDC ‘Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker’, smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 2.4 per cent (on-year) in the fourth quarter of 2020, followed by 4.4 per cent growth in 2021.

The market rebound will be fuelled by an impressively quick supply chain recovery as well as significant incentives from both original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and channels on new 5G products.

“Despite concerns around weakness in 5G demand, smartphone volumes exceeded the forecast in 3Q20 and supply-side momentum headed into the holiday quarter and 2021 remains strong,” said Ryan Reith, programme vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers.

“Despite on-going lockdowns and economic concerns, consumers in many markets around the world have shifted their normal spending from things like travel, dining out, and general leisure to things like consumer electronics. Smartphones happen to be a benefactor of this transition,” Reith informed on Wednesday.

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Microsoft plans to bring Xbox gaming app direct on your smart TVs

Microsoft is planning to bring its gaming console Xbox app on Smart TVs over the next year, which means people can stream Xbox games directly from their TVs soon.

In an interview with The Verge, Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed this plan.

“I think you’re going to see that in the next 12 months. I don’t think anything is going to stop us from doing that,” said Spencer when asked about turning the Xbox into a TV app.

While Microsoft is pushing its xCloud gaming service, the company has no plans to abandon consoles or hardware.

The Xbox Series X and Series S gaming consoles went on sale on November 10 internationally.

Despite launching the middle of a global pandemic, Xbox has beaten all previous console launch records with its new systems, Spencer had said earlier.

Microsoft announced the release of Xbox Series X and S as its biggest Xbox launch ever, though it did not provide any specific sales figures.

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Microsoft plans to bring Xbox gaming app direct on your smart TVs

Microsoft is planning to bring its gaming console Xbox app on Smart TVs over the next year, which means people can stream Xbox games directly from their TVs soon.

In an interview with The Verge, Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed this plan.

“I think you’re going to see that in the next 12 months. I don’t think anything is going to stop us from doing that,” said Spencer when asked about turning the Xbox into a TV app.

While Microsoft is pushing its xCloud gaming service, the company has no plans to abandon consoles or hardware.

The Xbox Series X and Series S gaming consoles went on sale on November 10 internationally.

Despite launching the middle of a global pandemic, Xbox has beaten all previous console launch records with its new systems, Spencer had said earlier.

Microsoft announced the release of Xbox Series X and S as its biggest Xbox launch ever, though it did not provide any specific sales figures.

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Lenovo ThinkBook Plus review: Regular laptop with useful e-ink cover screen

The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus is a one-of-its-kind notebook with dual displays – a 13.3-inch primary screen complemented by a secondary 10.8-inch e-Ink screen. It may not be the only notebook with a dual-screen design, but it is indeed the only that lets you use the secondary screen without lifting the display lid. That is because the e-Ink display is available on the cover, and it is always active – unless the notebook runs out of battery. Therefore, you neither have to open the lid nor wake the laptop to use the secondary screen. Moreover, the e-Ink display is touch-enabled and supports Lenovo’s digital pen tool (an in-box accessory).

The e-Ink display is supplementary, and so is its usage. Besides showing notifications, the e-Ink display can be used as an e-reader (through the Windows Kindle app) and PDF viewer with annotate and review functionality. Moreover, you can use it to sketch and take notes. Thankfully, Lenovo has integrated Microsoft OneNote – not something of its own – with the e-Ink display. This makes it easy to sync your work (sketches and notes) across devices linked through your Microsoft account. Though supplementary, the e-Ink display on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus is useful. But being an e-Ink display, it is not responsive and takes time to refresh. This is standard e-Ink display property and one must not see it as a downside.

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Lenovo ThinkBook Plus review: Regular laptop with useful e-ink cover screen

The Lenovo ThinkBook Plus is a one-of-its-kind notebook with dual displays – a 13.3-inch primary screen complemented by a secondary 10.8-inch e-Ink screen. It may not be the only notebook with a dual-screen design, but it is indeed the only that lets you use the secondary screen without lifting the display lid. That is because the e-Ink display is available on the cover, and it is always active – unless the notebook runs out of battery. Therefore, you neither have to open the lid nor wake the laptop to use the secondary screen. Moreover, the e-Ink display is touch-enabled and supports Lenovo’s digital pen tool (an in-box accessory).

The e-Ink display is supplementary, and so is its usage. Besides showing notifications, the e-Ink display can be used as an e-reader (through the Windows Kindle app) and PDF viewer with annotate and review functionality. Moreover, you can use it to sketch and take notes. Thankfully, Lenovo has integrated Microsoft OneNote – not something of its own – with the e-Ink display. This makes it easy to sync your work (sketches and notes) across devices linked through your Microsoft account. Though supplementary, the e-Ink display on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus is useful. But being an e-Ink display, it is not responsive and takes time to refresh. This is standard e-Ink display property and one must not see it as a downside.

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400 new games set to arrive on Google Stadia game streaming service

Google has announced that around 400 new games are on the way for its Stadia Cloud game streaming service.

In an interview with MobileSyrup on Tuesday, Jack Buser, Stadia Director of Games, said most of these games would be arriving in 2021 and beyond.

The number of games on Stadia’s roadmap gives evidence that Google is intended to run the service for a long period of time.

“We are looking many years out into the future. Gaming is one of the biggest businesses at Google, which is why you see us investing so much time and energy to support all these hundreds of developers building all these games. We have a very exciting year ahead of us. And, in fact, we have very exciting many years ahead of us,” Buser was quoted as saying.

Having 400 games from so many different developers on the Stadia roadmap shows both how much Google is pushing the platform.

The company has made some big hires as part of its first-party development efforts, including ex-Ubisoft and EA producer Jade Raymond and ex-Sony Santa Monica studio head Shannon Studstill.

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