Google on Monday said it is testing a new feature in Maps that enables people to ask about and share local information on availability of beds and medical oxygen in select locations.

This is part of the tech giant’s efforts to support the relief efforts amid the deadly second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“…we’re testing a new feature using the Q&A function in Maps that enables people to ask about and share local information on availability of beds and medical oxygen in select locations. As this will be user generated content and not provided by authorised sources, it may be required to verify the accuracy and freshness of the information before utilizing it,” it said.

As India reels under the impact of the second wave, hospitals in several states are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.

Social media timelines are filled with SOS calls with people looking for oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, plasma donors, and ventilators.

Google said its teams are focused on three priority areas – ensuring people can access the latest and most authoritative information; amplifying vital safety and vaccination messages; and providing financial backing for affected communities, health authorities and other organisations.

Searches on the COVID-19 vaccine displays key information around side effects, effectiveness, and registration details, while treatment-related queries surface guidance from ministry resources. On YouTube it is surfacing authoritative information in a set of playlists, about vaccines, preventing the spread of COVID-19, and facts from experts on COVID-19 care.

Read Complete Article

Facebook Inc. is starting the first test of its Live Audio Rooms product with public figures and creators in Taiwan, part of an expansion of the company’s audio services that will over time include podcast hosting and creation tools.

The social-media giant announced a sweeping set of updates to its audio services in April, with Live Audio Rooms being the Clubhouse-like centerpiece, allowing users to partake in group voice conversations. It intends to expand the trial’s availability over time and the service will eventually be accessible in the Facebook and Messenger apps. Taiwan is one of Menlo Park, California-based Facebook’s most vibrant markets, where celebrities and politicians constantly debate important issues and freely interact with their audiences.

For the initial rollout, Facebook is limiting the test to what it says is a handful of public figures while planning to bring Live Audio Rooms to Facebook Groups as well. The company is integrating its Stars feature into the audio chat product, letting fans buy tokens to support their favorites, much like they do on livestreaming platform Twitch.

Facebook has in the past quickly rolled out new products similar to competitors’, from the Snap-like Instagram Stories to Reels, akin to TikTok. Clubhouse exploded in popularity during a pandemic-stricken 2020, when major events and gatherings were canceled and people looked for new social outlets online. Its informal, unrecorded format appealed to many and it was propelled to prominence by drop-ins from notable figures like Elon Musk and Facebook’s own founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Clubhouse, which has been available on iOS for a year, is now opening the app to Android smartphone users.

Podcasts are another significant addition to the main Facebook app planned for the coming months. Having noticed the rise in popularity of Facebook pages for well-known podcasts, it’s integrating playback directly into its app. The social app will recommend new shows based on users’ interests and they’ll have the ability to comment on and recommend podcasts to others.

Also coming to the Facebook app are Soundbites, brief clips of shareable audio for capturing jokes, anecdotes and other momentary things.

Read Complete Article

Samsung Electronics will skip in-person exhibitions at the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2021 in Barcelona due to novel coronavirus concerns, the company said on Tuesday, although it plans to join the event online.

The world’s largest smartphone vendor will not showcase its products and technologies “offline” at the mobile technologies trade fair, to be held between June 28 and July 1 in Barcelona, Spain.

“The health and safety of our employees, partners and customers is our number one priority, so we have made the decision to withdraw from exhibiting in-person at this year’s MWC,” the company said in a statement. “We look forward to participating virtually and continuing to work with GSMA and industry partners to advance new mobile experiences.”

MWC is considered one of the top three tech events in the world, along with the Consumer Electronics Show in the United States and IFA in Germany. It has been held in Barcelona usually between end-February and early March each year, but the tech expo was canceled last year due to COVID-19, and this year, it was pushed back to June.

Major IT firms, including Sony, Nokia and Ericsson, have already announced their withdrawals from the event due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19, reports Yonhap news agency.

Among local firms, KT Corp last month decided not to take part in in-person exhibitions at the MWC 2021.

SK Telecom Co., the nation’s largest mobile carrier, has yet to confirm its participation but is expected to skip the offline exhibitions as well, according to industry sources.

LG Uplus Corp., the country’s No. 3 telecom firm, has been jointly exhibiting its products with LG Electronics Inc. at the MWC. But as LG Electronics recently decided to pull out from the smartphone business, it is unlikely that the mobile carrier will join the event, the sources said.

Read Complete Article

Production of the Apple iPhone 12 at a Foxconn factory in India has slumped by more than 50% because workers infected with COVID-19 have had to leave their posts, two sources told Reuters.

The Foxconn facility in the southern state of Tamil Nadu produces iPhones specifically for India, the world’s No.2 smartphone market.

Tamil Nadu is one of the worst hit states in the second coronavirus wave engulfing India. Officials imposed a full lockdown in the state from Monday, closing public transport and shuttering shops, to try slow surging infections.

More than 100 Foxconn employees in the state have tested positive for COVID-19 and the company has enforced a no-entry ban at its factory in the capital of Chennai until late May, one of the sources said.

“Employees are only allowed to leave but not to enter the facility since yesterday,” the person said. “Only a small part of output is being kept.”

More than 50% of the plant’s capacity had been cut, both sources said, declining to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

They did not specify the plant’s capacity and it was unclear how many workers were at the facility, which provides dormitory accommodation for employees.

Taipei-based Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker and a major supplier to Apple, said a small number of employees at one of its facilities in India tested positive for COVID-19 and the company was providing them with support, including medical assistance.

“Foxconn places the health and safety of our employees as our highest priority and that is why we have been working closely with local government and public health authorities in India to address the challenges that we and all companies are facing in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis,” it said in a statement to Reuters.

Foxconn declined to comment on factory output or specific staffing levels. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

India has benefited from Apple’s move to shift some areas of production from China to other markets as it navigates a trade war between Washington and Beijing, with Apple announcing in March it had started the assembly of the iPhone 12 in India.

While Apple’s share of the budget phone-dominated India market is small, CEO Tim Cook said in January that India business doubled in the December quarter compared to the previous year, helped by an online store launch.

Read Complete Article

Chromebooks with 12 million units and tablets with 39.7 million units led the PC revival in Q1 2021, posting 274.6 per cent and 51.8 per cent growth, respectively.

HP Inc topped the market yet again, with growth of 633.7 per cent propelling it past the four-million unit mark.

Lenovo took second place with 3.1 million units shipped, having ramped up production to help ease order backlogs from 2020. Acer, Samsung and Dell made up the rest of the top five, all shipping over 1 million units, according to latest data from market research firm Canalys.

The total worldwide PC market (including tablets) grew strongly for a fourth successive quarter in Q1 2021, with shipments up 53.1 per cent (year on year) at 122.1 million units.

“Chromebooks are well and truly a mainstream computing product now. While the education sector still accounts for the majority of shipments, their popularity with consumers and traditional commercial customers has reached new heights over the course of the last year,” said Brian Lynch, Canalys Research Analyst.

Google is now in a strong position to work with its OEM partners and the channel to cement a rosy future for Chromebooks, Lynch added.

In the tablet segment, almost all the top vendors enjoyed continued shipment growth in Q1 2021.

Apple extended its lead, growing 50.3 per cent and shipping 15.2 million units as the latest iteration of the iPad Air gained traction with consumers.

Read Complete Article

Facebook Inc.’s internal rules for banning content are a “shambles,” and the company needs to fix the process to have credibility in enforcing them, a member of the social media giant’s independent content oversight board said.

The comments by Michael McConnell, the panel’s co-chairman, follow its decision last week to leave in place a ban on former President Donald Trump for his posts surrounding the storming of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6.

“Their rules are a shambles,” McConnell said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They are not transparent. They are unclear. They are internally inconsistent.”

“We gave them a series of recommendations about how to make their rules clearer and more consistent,” McConnell said. “The hope is that they will use the next few months to do that and then, when they come back and look at this, they will be able to apply those rules in a straightforward way.”

Facebook upheld its ban on Trump for six months. The company suspended his account after Trump encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol in what became a deadly attempt to stop the counting of Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden. The ban was originally temporary, but was changed to an indefinite suspension the following day.

‘Egging On’

McConnell also said Trump’s posts were a “plain violation of Facebook’s rules” against praising dangerous individuals and organizations during a time of violence.

Read Complete Article

The popular invite-only audio chat app Clubhouse has finally arrived on Android after spending a year on the Apple iOS platform.

Clubhouse for Android has started rolling out in beta from Monday, beginning with the US, followed by other English-speaking countries and then the rest of the world.

“Our plan over the next few weeks is to collect feedback from the community, fix any issues we see and work to add a few final features like payments and club creation before rolling it out more broadly,” the company said in a statement.

Clubhouse for Android will remain an invite-only platform, ensuring that each new community member can bring along a few close friends.

“As we head into the summer and continue to scale out the backend, we plan to begin opening up even further, welcoming millions more people in from the iOS waitlist, expanding language support, and adding more accessibility features, so that people worldwide can experience Clubhouse in a way that feels native to them,” the company explained.

As tech giants like Twitter, Spotify, Facebook, Telegram, Discord and LinkedIn go after it, Clubhouse last month raised fresh funding in the Series C round, taking its valuation to $4 billion.

Clubhouse has gained immense popularity and has a reported 10 million weekly active users.

Read Complete Article

India’s premium smartphone market has bolstered with offerings from brands that were not there in the competition until last year. Among many other things, imaging yet again taking the centre stage and each of the new offering in the segment has something novel to offer. Of the many new entrants in the segment, Vivo seems to a promising one, thanks to its recent partnership with German lens maker Zeiss. One of the first products to come from this partnership is the Vivo X60 Pro, a camera-first premium smartphone with Zeiss optics.

Vivo calls the X60 Pro “camera in a phone”. Is the phone all about its cameras, or does it utility goes beyond imaging? Let us find out:

Design and display

The Vivo X60 Pro looks premium, and its visual appeal is second to none, considering the bulky and heavy smartphones of the present time. It takes design cue from its predecessor, the Vivo X50 Pro, but sheds some weight and dimensions to look even better and feel right in hands. With its clean and sleek profile, it tempted me to use it without back cover and eventually I fell for the temptations. It is tough to recall if I have seen any smartphone designed so beautifully in recent time.

As for its display, the phone sports a 6.56-inch fullHD+ resolution AMOLED screen of 120Hz refresh rate. It is a two-side curved screen with fine contrast, ample brightness and smooth touch response. The display and the rear panel are protected by Gorilla Glass 6. The rear has AG glass with a frosted glass finish and anti-fingerprint coating prevents it from picking fingerprint and smudges.Read Complete Article

The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought response of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on the appeals of Facebook and WhatsApp against a single judge order dismissing their pleas against a probe ordered into the messaging app’s new privacy policy.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notice to the CCI that had ordered the probe and sought its response by May 21, the next date of hearing.

The single judge on April 22 had said though it would have been “prudent” for the CCI to await the outcome of petitions in the Supreme Court and the Delhi HC against WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, but not doing so would not make the regulator’s order “perverse” or “wanting of jurisdiction”.

Read Complete Article

SK Corp., the holding company of SK Group, has decided to invest tens of billions of won worth of shares in Monolith, an American hydrogen company, and plans to sign a contract within this month.

SK is expanding its steps in the field of hydrogen energy, which is attracting attention as a key area for investment in the environment, society and governance (ESG) field.

According to related industries on Tuesday, SK Co., Ltd. is planning to participate as a major strategic investor (SI) in the Monolith funding program being developed by the US local energy company NeXtra. It is known that the specific share ratio and investment amount are being adjusted.

Established in 2012, Monolith is a company with its own technology to extract hydrogen through carbon processing with carbon dioxide generated in this process processed into solid carbon black, which is a material for rubber or ink. It is a technology classified as “green hydrogen”, made through 100 per cent water decomposition, and carbon processing that reduces greenhouse gas emissions with “hydrogen cyanide” as an intermediate step of the “blue hydrogen”.

Monolith is known as a highly profitable company, not only producing carbon black by applying cyanohydrogen technology, but also producing agricultural fertilizers by mixing nitrogen gas with extracted hydrogen. Currently, it is constructing a pilot plant in Hallum, Nebraska, with a cost of about 100 billion won, and has recently announced an investment plan for the second plant worth an additional one trillion won. SK is expected to continue technical alliances and production investments with Monolith by participating in this funding as an SI.

Read Complete Article