Samsung will launch its next mid-segment smartphone Galaxy F62 on February 15, according to details posted on the ecommerce platform Flipkart.

Galaxy F62 will come with Samsung’s flagship Exynos 9825 processor manufactured using a 7-nanometer process technology, making it the fastest Galaxy device in the under Rs 25,000 price segment with this flagship mobile chip.

The Geekbench 5 score of the flagship Exynos 9825 processor is 2400, while the GFXBench 5 score is 68.

Flipkart has also created a microsite on Galaxy F62, with details such as the presence of a quad camera and Infinity O display on Galaxy F62.

Galaxy F62 will be Samsung’s second smartphone in the F Series. The F Series launched in India last year.

It will house a huge 7000mAh battery.

With the launch of Galaxy F62, Samsung will strengthen its play in the mid-segment, which is currently dominated by Samsung’s own Galaxy M51 and One Plus Nord in the online channel.

Samsung introduced ‘Galaxy F41’ as the first model in the company’s Galaxy F series in the festive quarter of 2020, hoping to further make inroads into the competitive mid-price smartphone segment.

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The LG Tone Free FN7 is a one-of-its-kind pair of true wireless earbuds that comes with a charging cradle powered by UVnano technology – that’s a fancy name derived from the words ultraviolet and its unit nanometer. The technology is touted to kill 99.9 per cent bacteria on the speaker mesh of the earbuds in 10 minutes while charging. The UVnano tech is not the only interesting pitch in these earbuds; they also boast active noise cancellation and Spatial audio, tuned by British high-performance audio tech maker Meridian. Priced at Rs 18,990, the LG Tone Free FN7 seems to be tech-rich true wireless earbuds. How does it perform in real life? Let’s find out:Design

The LG Tone Free FN7 is a pair of in-ear earbuds with a tiny stem protruding downwards from the body. Made of plastic, these earbuds have a glossy finish which makes it a little difficult to take them out of the case. Moreover, the glossy finish makes them susceptible to accidental slips from your hand in the absence of a proper grip. Thanks to soft and comfortable ear gels, the earbuds have a snug fit and the grip is not an issue when they are plugged into your ears for use. These are medical-grade ear gels made from non-toxic hypoallergenic silicone, something not many earbuds offer. Besides, these earbuds have a spiral design with vortex ribs for even distribution of pressure. That allows them to adapt to the ear shape and aid the earbuds’ passive and active noise cancelling capabilities.

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Popular social media app Snapchat that launched in-app Spotlight in November last year to take on Chinese short-video making app Tiktok, has seen the platform growing to over 100 million monthly active users in January.

Spotlight is a dedicated place within Snapchat where users can watch short, entertaining videos backed by music in a vertically scroll, TikTok-like feed.

“We are seeing over 175,000 video submissions per day on average, in part, due to our incentive program for creators, where we distribute over $1 million per day to the top performing videos,” Snap CEO Spiegel.

“Our product and ranking teams have been able to quickly improve our ability to match Spotlight viewers with the right content and we are now working on a broader rollout of Spotlight to our entire community,” he said on a call with investors on Thursday.

Spotlight combines a simple submission flow that allows people to submit their best Snaps in just one tap with a rigorous review and ranking process that allows us to filter out content that is inconsistent with our guidelines.

The result is a fun and safe product experience that services, the best of Snapchat, all in one place.

“Our primary goal in launching Spotlight was to build critical mass, both in terms of video submissions and audience in a select set of countries, so that we could begin to rapidly iterate on content ranking and the overall product experience,” Spiegel noted.

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Expanding its wide range of Gen 5 smartwatches, US-based fashion brand Fossil on Thursday unveiled a new smartwatch — Gen 5E — in India at Rs 18,495.

The smartwatch features an always-on 1.19-inch OLED display and options for personalisation including various interchangeable straps and watch faces.

“The new Fossil Gen 5E is testament to our teams’ effort in creating technology that will not only look fashionable but also help augment the user’s lifestyle,” Johnson Verghese, Managing Director, Fossil Group, India, said in a statement.

“With all the essential features of our Gen 5 smartwatch, the Gen 5E is keenly priced and will be available online for purchase on Myntra and Flipkart,” Verghese added.

Equipped with the new wellness enhancements that allow users to track sleep history, monitor restfulness, set activity goals and much more, its advanced sensors provide promising data to power all the health and fitness apps, the company said.

Additionally, with various smart battery modes inclusive of daily mode, extended mode, time only mode and custom mode, users can always stay connected with notifications for calls, texts and apps among others.

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The Finnish telecommunications networks provider Nokia on Thursday reported a smaller than expected drop in profit in the fourth-quarter while it acknowledged it was facing some challenges in the race for 5G networks, particularly in the North American market.

The company based in Espoo, Finland, saw net profit for the October-December period drop 1 per cent to 811 million euros (USD 973 million). Sales were down 5 per cent to 6.6 billion euros.

CEO Pekka Lundmark, who took over the role in August, described the fourth quarter result as solid but warned that the current year wouldn’t be easy for Nokia.

We expect 2021 to be challenging, a year of transition, with meaningful headwinds due to market share loss and price erosion in North America, Lundmark said.

Under Lundmark’s lead Nokia has revamped its business strategy. He has said that Nokia aims to become the leader in 5G – the new generation of broadband technology – in a tight global race with main competitors China’s Huawei and Sweden’s Ericsson.

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Realme on Thursday launched in India the Realme X7 Pro and Realme X7 smartphones with 5G network support. Powered by MediaTek processors, the smartphones comes with up to 8GB RAM and 128GB on-board storage. The Realme X7 Pro comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB on-board storage, priced at Rs 29,999. It will be available on Flipkart, Realme online store and select offline stores from February 10. The Realme X7 is priced at Rs 19,999 and Rs 21,999 for 6GB/128GB and 8GB/128GB variants, respectively. It will be available from February 12, online on Flipkart and Realme online store, and select offline stores. The Realme X7 Pro comes in fantasy and mystic black colours, whereas, the Realme X7 comes in space silver and nebula colour options.Realme X7 Pro: Specifications

The top-end model in the Realme X7 series, the Realme X7 Pro sports a 6.55-inch super AMOLED fullHD+ resolution screen of 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate. The screen is touted to have 1200 nits peak brightness level, 100 per cent DCI-P3 and 103 per cent NTSC colour gamut. Protecting the screen is a Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The smartphone weighs 184g and boasts 8.5mm thick profile.

Powering the Realme X7 Pro is a 5G network ready MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ system-on-chip, paired with up to 8GB LPDDR4x (four-channel) RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1 (Turbo write) on-board storage. The phone ships with Android 10 operating system based Realme UI. It will receive Android 11 OS based Realme UI 2.0 in near future.

Imaging is covered by a quad-camera array on the back, featuring a 64-megapixel primary sensor (Sony IMX 686) of an f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle sensor of an f/2.25 aperture and 119-degree field of view, a 2MP monochrome sensor and a 2MP macro sensor.

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Realme is set to launch in India the Realme X7 Pro and Realme X7 smartphones in its X series lineup. The virtual launch event will start at 12:30 pm on Thursday at 12:30 pm, and the event will livestream on Chinese smartphone maker’s official YouTube channel and social media accounts. Launched in China last year in September, the smartphones will be powered by MediaTek mobile platforms with 5G network support.Realme X7 series launch event livestream

Part of the Realme X7 series, the Realme X7 Pro and Realme X7 will be launched on February 4 at 12:30 pm. The launch will livestream on company’s India YouTube channel. Live updates from the launch will also be available on the Realme India’s social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, etc. You can also watch the Realme X7 series launch event livestream through the video embedded below.Realme X7 Pro: Expected specifications

The Realme X7 Pro will sport a super AMOLED screen of 120Hz refresh rate. It will be powered by MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ system-on-chip, which is the same chip that powers OPPO’s recently launched 5G smartphone the Reno 5 Pro.

The Realme X7 Pro will sport a quad-camera array on the back, featuring a 64-megapixel primary sensor, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle sensor, a 2MP macro sensor and a 2MP portrait sensor. The phone is touted to be a thin-and-light smartphone. According to the phone’s details on e-commerce platform Flipkart, the phone will be 8.5mm thick and weighs 184g. Powering the smartphone will be a dual-cell battery, supported by 65W fast charger.

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Bengaluru-based game studio nCore Games on January 26 launched the much anticipated FAU-G (Fearless and United – Guards) for Google Android devices on January 26. The indigenous mobile game has been downloaded by millions in the country and emerged as one of the top gaming apps on the Google Play Store. Touted by many as home-grown alternative to PUBG, which was among the Chinese apps blocked by government over security concerns, is it as good or the praises are hyperbole? Let’s find out:

FAU-G is currently available only for Android devices. It is not available for Apple iPhones and iPads. The game is available to download but its full version is still under development. For now, there is only a single-player mode, and the Battle Royale and Team Deathmatch modes might be added later by the developer.

The gameplay is simple and based on real-life events at Galwan Valley, where the clash took place between Indian and Chinese soldiers on June 15, 2020. While the PUBG is all about guns, Chicken Dinner, Loot, Team management, etc. the FAU-G is more about sticks, rods, besides punches and kicks. To get a weapon in FAU-G, you will have to kill the enemies and pick whatever they drops. You can only pick two weapons at a time that stay with you only for a few seconds (and limited strikes) and you get resorted to kicks and punches before you pick another weapon.

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Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is conducting a test which stops some users from sharing feed posts within their Stories.

The new experiment is to see how it changes engagement with the popular feature.

The company announced the change in a notification banner sent to users in “select countries” where the test is being conducted, The Verge reported on late Tuesday.

“We hear from our community that they want to see fewer posts in Stories. During this test, you won’t be able to add a feed post to your Story,” the notification reads.

Resharing posts to stories is a fairly common practice, though it does create situations where you’ll see a post in your feed and then immediately see that post duplicated in your friend’s stories, the report said.

Taking away the ability to reshare is responding to a behaviour Facebook and Instagram encouraged in the first place by placing stories so prominently in the app and offering the ability to share them, it added.

For now, disabling reshares remains a test, much like the changes to likes the company considered and the variety of new app layouts it has prototyped.

Twitter is also currently testing the ability to share tweets to Instagram stories as stickers.

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Wikipedia has introduced a first-of-its-kind Universal Code of Conduct that expands on the project’s existing policies to create a global set of community standards for addressing negative behaviour and harassment on the site.

Launched by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that administers Wikipedia, the code’s standards include clearly defining acceptable behaviour; delinating harassment on and off the projects for all Wikipedia participants; preventing the abuse of power and influence to intimidate others; and combating deliberate introduction of false or inaccurate content.

“Our work is built around a radical premise that everyone should be able to participate in knowledge,” said Katherine Maher, CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation.

“Our new universal code of conduct creates binding standards to elevate conduct on the Wikimedia projects, and empower our communities to address harassment and negative behaviour across the Wikimedia movement,” she said in a statement on Tuesday.

More than 50 per cent of the global population has access to the internet, an increase that has been linked to polarisation, and rising violence from online speech against marginalised groups and ethnic communities according to a report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Given these trends, it is more important than ever for the Foundation and the volunteer community to strengthen accountability for content on Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia, the world’s largest online encyclopedia, as well as the policies that govern user behaviour”.

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