Newly-formed consumer technology company Nothing, a brainchild of OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, on Tuesday announced it has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet which is the parent company of Google.

With new funds, the company aims to expand its operations in Europe with headquarters in London and release its first smart devices in the coming months, it said in a statement.

“We are grateful to have a venture capital firm of this calibre help in building Nothing together with us,” said Pei, CEO and co-founder of Nothing.

“We plan to aggressively grow the company, in particular our R&D and design capabilities, to realise our mission of removing barriers between people and technology,” Pei said.

London-based Nothing has so far raised over $22 million. In December, the company raised $7 million in seed financing in December that included tech leaders and investors such as Tony Fadell, Casey Neistat, Kevin Lin, Steve Huffman and Josh Buckley.

Kunal Shah, Founder, CRED, also invested in Nothing, although the amount has not been disclosed yet.

“Carl Pei is a seasoned entrepreneur with marketing, hardware, and distribution experience that is key to bringing new devices to market,” said Tom Hulme, General Partner at GV.

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Chinese conglomerate Huawei has reached a court in the US, demanding it to overturn the Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) decision to designate the company as a national security threat.

In 2019, the FCC voted to prevent US companies from doing business with Huawei and ZTE on national security concerns.

The FCC finalised the ban in December 2020, supported by former President Donald Trump.

“The order on review potentially impacts the financial interests of the telecommunications industry as a whole,” Huawei said in its court filing, reports The Verge.

An FCC spokesperson said: “Last year, the FCC issued a final designation identifying Huawei as a national security threat based on a substantial body of evidence developed by the FCC and numerous US national security agencies. We will continue to defend that decision”.

Trump’s Huawei ban was part of a bigger trade war with China, followed by attempts to ban mobile apps TikTok and WeChat.

President Joe Biden has not renewed the war on TikTok, but his administration has indicated that it will continue to crack down on Huawei.

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American multinational technology company Microsoft has started testing an update to Word that will color entire documents in a dark canvas. Currently, Word has a dark mode that modifies the ribbon and toolbars, but the canvas stays bright white.

According to The Verge, a future update to Word will include the ability to switch the canvas into the dark mode, too. A program manager on Microsoft’s Word team Ali Forelli said, “This has been a long-requested feature from many of Office Insiders and we’re excited to make it happen.”

He further added, “With Dark mode, you’ll notice that the previously white page colour is now a dark grey/black.”

While the canvas will change it will also adjust the colours in a document. Reds, blues, yellows, and other bright colours will be “shifted slightly to mute the overall effect of the colour palette” and match the dark background.

This new Word dark mode update looks similar to what currently exists in OneNote, which has options to switch between a dark and light canvas. There will be a Switch Modes button in the Word ribbon to change between a dark and light canvas, and options in Word to permanently disable the dark canvas, too.

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If early smartphone market trends are anything to go by, 2021 is going to be the year of 5G smartphones. In the midrange segment, Xiaomi and OPPO have already taken the early lead with the launch of the Mi 10i 5G (review) and the Reno 5 Pro 5G (review), respectively. Next in line is another Chinese smartphone brand, Realme, which has recently launched not one but two 5G smartphones under its X-series line-up. Named the Realme X7 and Realme X7 Pro, the former is price-wise more accessible and the latter a premium-midrange smartphone.

Business Standard took the Realme X7 Pro out for a spin to test the phone’s performance in real-life scenarios. Here is how it fared on key parameters:Design

The Realme X7 Pro looks similar to the Realme 7 Pro (review) in more ways than one. But it has new colour themes, including a special edition (review unit) named ‘Fantasy’ with ‘Dare to Leap’ subtly engraved on its reflective back cover. If not up to your liking, you can ditch the Fantasy colour variant for the regular version available in mystic black colour. Both colour variants feature a frosted finish on the back cover to aid the phone’s in-hand feel and protects it against scratches and smudges. The Realme X7 Pro is thin (8.5mm), lightweight (184g) and compact, something that Realme’s previous-generation premium midrange smartphones lacked. Even outside the Realme circles, there are only a handful of premium-midrange smartphones that match the comfortable ergonomics of the Realme X7 Pro. That said, the phone offers a good in-hand feel and it is easy to hold and operate.

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Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram on Monday launched a “Parents Guide” to help young people be safe on the platform.

The guide is aimed at helping young people to be safe, by informing parents about all the safety features that exist on the platform.

“As the Internet permeates into our lives, especially the lives of young people, parents want to be adequately equipped with the evolving digital landscape,” Tara Bedi, Public Policy and Community Outreach Manager for Instagram, India, said in a statement.

“They want to understand how a platform works and feel comfortable with their children leveraging its opportunities for creative expression while knowing the safety tools available to them that enable that expression in a supportive environment,” Bedi added.

 The guide is a resource from Instagram, available across many countries, to provide parents with a better understanding of the changing digital landscape.

It acts as a conversation starter with their children, as it provides information about tools that exist to keep their child safe on Instagram, the company said, ahead of “Safer Internet Day”, which is observed on February 9.

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TAIYUAN, China (Reuters) – Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei said on Tuesday he was confident of the company’s ability to survive and that it had more means to overcome difficulties, even as its mobile business remains under pressure.

Ren, in his first media appearance since March last year, said the company achieved positive growth for both 2020 revenue and net profit, and that it continued to see significant levels of confidence from its customers.

He was speaking in the northern mining city of Taiyuan, as the company launched a 5G mining project with state-owned companies and the provincial government. Read Complete Article

The upcoming Apple iOS update will let users select a third-party default music service like Spotify when they ask to play a song using Siri.

When you ask Siri to play a song on the upcoming iOS 14.5, you would be prompted to select which app you want to use to play it, reports MacRumors.

Apple last week released beta versions of upcoming iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 updates to developers and public beta testers.

Apple has now added the ability to set a default music streaming service when using Siri to play songs.

First spotted by users on online discussion platform Reddit, Apple will let you ask ?Siri? to play a song in iOS 14.5 from installed third-party music streaming apps in addition to Apple Music.

Apple Siri? will also set a music streaming service as the default if you ask it to play from that particular app for the first time.

The iOS 14.5 is packed with several such exciting features.

You will soon be able to unlock your iPhone with Face ID even when with a Covid-19 mask on, but only if you are wearing an Apple Watch.

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Twitter Inc. is building a subscription product as a way to ease its dependence on advertising – a plan the social network has considered for years, and one that has taken on a heightened priority given the pandemic and pressure from activist investors to accelerate growth.

The majority of Twitter’s revenue comes from targeted advertising, which serves up promoted posts aimed at specific groups of users. That business has grown in recent years at a slower pace than competitors like Facebook Inc. and Snap Inc., and Twitter’s slice of the digital ad market globally remains at at a lackluster 0.8%, according to EMarketer.

Twitter, the thinking goes, would benefit from a separate revenue stream that isn’t as reliant on brand advertising. The company’s user base in the U.S., its most valuable market, has also started to plateau, meaning it can’t rely on simply adding users to juice revenue.

To explore potential options outside ad sales, a number of Twitter teams are researching subscription offerings, including one using the code name “Rogue One,” according to people familiar with the effort. At least one idea being considered is related to “tipping,” or the ability for users to pay the people they follow for exclusive content, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are internal. Other possible ways to generate recurring revenue include charging for the use of services like Tweetdeck or advanced user features like “undo send” or profile-customization options.

Subscriptions have always offered a tantalizing alternative to advertising, but social networks have traditionally stayed free as a way to encourage user growth and engagement, which is then subsidized with paid marketing posts. Still, Twitter Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal said on a call with investors last year that a subscription option of some kind would offer sales “durability,” and recurring revenue is more consistent than advertising spending. Segal cautioned in July that Twitter was not only “very, very early” in exploring a subscription service, but also planned to be picky about how it goes forward. “We have a really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter,” he said.

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Asian chipmakers are rushing to expand their production capacity to meet a global shortage that has been acutely felt by carmakers, but the firms warn that the supply gap may take many months to plug as they struggle to keep up with strong demand.

Automakers from General Motors to Stellantis and Honda Motor are shutting assembly lines due to the shortages, which in some cases have been exacerbated by the former U.S. administration’s sanctions against Chinese chip factories. Some firms have also furloughed staff.

Eight-inch chip manufacturing plants owned mostly by Asian firms, which tend to make older, less sophisticated chips, are particularly under strain primarily due to under-investment in recent years. The majority of such factories are used to make auto chips.

Consumer demand in China, especially for cars, has snapped back unexpectedly quickly from the coronavirus crisis, and orders for products such as laptops and mobile phones in regions still struggling with pandemic restrictions, such as Europe and the United States, have also picked up.

The global concerns about the chip shortage were underscored at recent quarterly earnings calls held by companies from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) to South Korea’s SK Hynix.

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Sony India on Saturday said that as pre-order date for PlayStation 5 comes closer, potential customers should avoid visiting the retails stores and first connect with them if the devices are available.

The company announced earlier this month that it will launch PlayStation 5 in India on February 2 and will start taking pre-order requests for the new gaming console from January 12.

“PS5 will be available for pre-order on various online and offline channels (until stock lasts at respective retailer) such as Amazon, Flipkart, Croma, Reliance Digital, Games The Shop, Shop at Sony Center, Vijay Sales and select other authorised retailers taking pre-orders,” Sony India said in a fresh statement.

“Keeping the current situation in mind, Sony India urges all customers to keep their health and safety in mind before physically visiting any store for pre-order and advise them to call the local retailer before visiting,” the company advised.

For contact details and address of the local retailers taking pre-orders, customers can also call the toll-free number 1800-103-7799.

The PlayStation 5 will cost Rs 49,990 for the normal edition while the digital edition will come for Rs 39,990.

The DualSense Wireless Controller will cost you Rs 5,990, the HD camera comes for Rs 5,190, the Pulse 3D Wireless Headset is for Rs 8,590, the media remote is for Rs 2,590 and the DualSense Charging Station is for Rs 2,590.

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