Motorola, a smartphone brand now owned by Chinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo, has unveiled the Motorola Razr (2019) – a bendable-screen smartphone based on the company’s iconic flip-phone, the Moto Razr (original). The reprise of the Moto Razr makes Motorola the third company among popular mobile phone makers, to bring a foldable smartphone with bendable screen. The other two are Samsung and Huawei. However, the Motorola Razr is the only device that makes no big claim of being a smartphone and a tablet. Instead, it works like a smartphone irrespective of how you use it – folded or unfolded – and that is what makes it different from its counterparts.

Motorola Razr India launch

The Motorola Razr was unveiled on Wednesday in a global event held in Los Angeles. Soon after the unveiling, the company’s India subsidiary posted the phone’s silhouette as a cover image on its official Twitter account. On Thursday, the company also updated its official web portal with Motorola Razr branding and a “coming soon” message, confirming that the phone will be launched in India. Though not confirmed, one can expect the India launch by early next year as the phone goes on sale in the US starting from January 9, 2020. Meanwhile, you can head to the company’s India web portal and sign up to get updates.

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Tougher emissions rules will hit Daimler’s profits in 2020 and 2021, prompting the German carmaker to seek more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in savings from cutting staff costs at its Mercedes-Benz business by the end of 2022, it said on Thursday.

Daimler shares were down 2.3% in early trading at 52.17 euros, the biggest decline on Germany’s DAX blue-chip index, which was down 0.3%.

Management positions will be cut by around 10%, and company said it would also seek more than 300 million euros from cutting personnel costs – plus another 250 million euros in fixed costs – at its trucks business.

Daimler said it needed to sell more electric vehicles to meet tougher European Union rules which force carmakers to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars by 37.5% by 2030 compared with 2021 levels, and following a 40% cut between 2007 and 2021. The company said it expected to achieve a return on sales from operating activities at Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans of at least 4% in 2020 and at least 6% in 2022. Read Complete Article

Apple on Wednesday unveiled an all-new 16-inch MacBook Pro with up to 80 per cent faster performance for Rs 199,900.

Featuring a 16-inch Retina Display, latest 8-core processors, up to 64GB of memory, next-generation graphics with up to 8GB of VRAM and a new advanced thermal design, MacBook Pro is available through Apple Authorised Resellers and will come soon to stores around the world, the company said in a statement.

“With its brilliant 16-inch Retina display, 8-core processors, next-gen pro graphics, even better thermal design, new Magic Keyboard, six-speaker sound system, 100Wh battery, up to 8TB of storage and 64GB of fast memory, the 16-inch MacBook Pro is the world’s best pro notebook,” said Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing.

The new MacBook Pro doubles the SSD storage to 512GB and 1TB on standard configurations. And for the first time, MacBook Pro can be configured with a staggering 8TB of storage — the largest SSD ever in a notebook.

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Tests of lung samples taken from 29 patients with vaping-related injuries suggest all contained Vitamin E acetate, a discovery US officials described on Friday as a “breakthrough” in the investigation of the nationwide outbreak that has topped 2,000 cases.

The discovery of Vitamin E acetate in lung samples offers the first direct evidence of a link with the substance and vaping-related lung injuries. The substance has also been identified in tests by US and state officials of product samples collected from patients with the vaping injury.

In a telephone briefing on Friday, Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), called Vitamin E acetate “a very strong culprit of concern” and referred to the discovery as “a breakthrough” in the investigation.

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Pneumonia is the world’s deadliest child killer, with a “forgotten epidemic” claiming one young life every 39 seconds, international health and children’s agencies warned Tuesday.

The disease is preventable but still kills more children — 800,000 under the age of five last year — than any other infection, they said in a statement to mark World Pneumonia Day.

“Every day, nearly 2,200 children under the age of five die from pneumonia, a curable and mostly preventable disease,” Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF, said in a joint statement.

“Strong global commitment and increased investments are critical to the fight against this disease… Only through cost-effective protective, preventative and treatment interventions delivered to where children are will we be able to truly save millions of lives.” The numbers make grim reading and compare with 437,000 under-fives dying last year due to diarrhoea and 272,000 to malaria.

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US-based search engine giant Google has announced its plan to identify and label websites that typically load slowly by way of clear badging.

“Badging is intended to identify when sites are authored in a way that makes them slow generally, looking at historical load latencies. Further along, we may expand this to include identifying when a page is likely to be slow for a user based on their device and network conditions,” Google’s Chrome team said in a blog post on Monday.

The labelling of sites would take into account historical load latencies and would use badges to highlight when a site is authoured to be slow.

Additionally, the Chrome team is also exploring how to identify sites that will load slowly based on device hardware or network connectivity. The company is also considering “context menu,” which would involve Google offering a link showing the typical speeds for the site before a user choose to visit it. Read Complete Article

Alexa and Fire TV devices are constantly improving over time and now on Monday the company announced that a user can connect their Echo devices with their Fire TV.

This allows a user to build a variety of immersive, wireless speaker configurations for living room set-up, including 1.0 and 2.0 configurations and, for owners of Echo Sub, 1.1 and 2.1 configurations as well, the company said in a statement.

To use the new update a user need to tap on the devices icon in the Alexa app on the lower right-hand side and then tap the “+” icon on the upper right hand side.

Tap “Set Up Audio System” from the popup and then tap “Home Theatre” on the next screen. Select Fire TV device and then “Next” to name your new Home Theatre system.

Select the Echo devices like to use as speakers – one can set-up two speakers, plus an optional Echo Sub. Read Complete Article

The Galaxy Fold is a new breed of smartphones under Samsung’s new product category of foldable devices. After its global unveiling earlier this year, the smartphone was launched in India on October 1 at a high — but seemingly justified — price of Rs 1,64,999. The device is a special offering, with one-of-its-kind dual-screen design, with the display folding inwards like a book. There are many other things that give the device a unique user experience.

Considering that the Galaxy Fold is unlike any other smartphone that we have seen so far, it requires special care and the company has mentioned some of them on the plastic film in which the phone comes wrapped. While the device’s build seems sturdy and durable in its natural folded state, one needs to be careful while unfolding the phone and using its bendable screen. That is because the phone’s bendable screen is made of a plastic-like polymer material without any protection. Similarly, the phone’s hinge has mechanical components that enable the folding mechanism and bring a sync between the phone’s primary and bendable screens. Therefore, any external element, however small, could cause a big damage to the hinge, rendering the phone unusable.

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Amazon’s Black Friday can be a bit like going to the grocery store while hungry and without a list: You end up with a full shopping cart of things you don’t really want or need. So lest you end up regretting overpaying for that bubblegum-pink ice cream maker, create a list beforehand and log on with a game plan.

To help you prep, I consulted my colleague, Wirecutter Deals editor Nathan Burrow. Based on his years of experience scouring sites for the lowest prices in November for the Wirecutter Deals page, he’s found that you can’t go wrong in these categories.

Small kitchen appliances

Kitchen appliancesKitchen Appliances, Microwave oven, oven, gadgets, appliances

Great news for home cooks: There is likely no better time of year to buy kitchen appliances than on Black Friday and during Cyber Week, with the best deals curated in Wirecutter’s guide to the Best Kitchen and Household Deals. No matter the appliance, it would be rare to find it at a lower price than you will in November. You can find everything from stand mixers to pressure cookers to blenders to waffle makers. Read Complete Article

Chinese electronics manufacturer maker recently launched the Redmi Note 8 Pro, a midrange smartphone, in India. This device marks several firsts for the company — a 64-megapixel sensor-based quad-camera set-up on the back, HDR display, built-in Alexa and a gaming-centric MediaTek Helio G90T mobile processor. From versatile imaging to unmatched gaming experience, the Redmi Note 8 Pro has all the makings of an all-round smartphone. But is it really one? Let’s find out:

Design

Quite different in looks from its predecessors, the Redmi Note 8 Pro has a new design theme inspired by Xiaomi’s Android One platform-based Mi A3 smartphone. The phone has a glass build with Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the front and back, and a polycarbonate chassis painted in the same colour (we reviewed a gamma-green unit) as the phone. The glass on the back is curved on the sides and has a subtle reflective gradient design that looks premium. Here you can read about Redmi Note 8 Pro