US telecommunications giant T-Mobile has suffered a security breach that may have exposed call records and phone numbers for some of its customers.

According to T-Mobile, the data breach did not expose account holders’ names, physical addresses, email addresses, financial data, credit card information, social security numbers, tax IDs, passwords or PINs.

First reported by Bleeping Computer, T-Mobile said the breach exposed customers’ proprietary network information (CPNI), including phone numbers and call records.

“Customer proprietary network information (CPNI) as defined by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules was accessed,” the company said in a security update.

“The CPNI accessed may have included phone number, number of lines subscribed to on your account and, in some cases, call-related information collected as part of the normal operation of your wireless service”, it added.

Earlier breaches at T-Mobile exposed customers’ information in 2018, prepaid customers’ information in 2019 and exposed customer and financial data in March last year, the report mentioned.

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Samsung Electronics on Monday confirmed that new models of its flagship smartphone lineup will be unveiled next week as the South Korean tech giant tries to fend off challenges from Apple and Chinese brands.

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 smartphone series will be introduced at the Galaxy Unpacked online event at 10 am (Eastern Standard Time) on January 14 under the theme of “Welcome to the Everyday Epic.”

“Over the past year, mobile technology has taken center stage in everyday life as people are working remotely and spending more time at home,” Samsung said in its invitation to the event.

“The accelerated transition to a mobile-first world brings with it the need for devices that can transform everyday life into an extraordinary experience.”

Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone vendor, has been holding the event every February to unveil its new smartphones for the first half of the year, but the company decided to introduce them early this time to better cope with challenging market situations.

Samsung has yet to confirm any specifications on its Galaxy S21 family, but industry sources said it will come with three models — the S21 with a 6.2-inch display, S21 Plus with a 6.7-inch screen and S21 Ultra with a 6.8-inch panel.

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Tech giant Google recently added a new section on its online store which gives all the information one needs about all the different subscriptions that the tech giant offers at one place.

Mashable quoted a reported by XDA Developers stating that the navigation bar on the Google Store now features a Subscription landing page where users get all the deets and updates about its different offerings including YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Stadia Pro, Google One, and Google Fi.

The section features a short description of each service, which is followed by a “Learn more” link.

If a user clicks on the link, they will be redirected to a signup page for that particular service. The new section on the Google online store is broken down as follows – Shows & Music: YouTube TV, YouTube Premium, YouTube Music Premium, Gaming: Stadia Pro, Google Play Pass, Storage & Security: Google One, Nest Aware, Phone Plan: Google Fi.

In another Google-related news, it has been reported that Google is testing a new feature that will aggregate videos from Instagram and TikTok in a separate carousel format within the Google app. The feature will allow users to watch all the videos from these popular platforms in one separate place. It will also allow Google to retain users on its page.

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Sony has announced that its gaming subscription service ‘PlayStation Plus’ users will get a new lineup of free games next month.

“PlayStation Plus starts 2021 with a bang. PlayStation Plus members will receive two PS4 titles – action-adventure Shadow of the Tomb Raider and action RPG GreedFall on January 5,” the company said in a statement.

On the same day, PlayStation 5 owners with a PlayStation Plus membership can play a terrifying apex predator in the open-world RPG Maneater.

Maneater is an open-world RPG where players take control of a shark, which PlayStation Plus refers to as a SkaRkPG.

The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 22, 2020, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 in November 2020, and will be released for the Nintendo Switch in the first half of 2021.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos-Montreal and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2015 game Rise of the Tomb Raider.

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is set to launch Amazonia-1, the first satellite to have been developed completely in Brazil by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Latin American nation’s apex space research body.

Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of Emirates airline, has executed a cargo charter to transport Amazonia-1 from Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil to Chennai. This is the first time that Emirates SkyCargo has transported a space satellite from South America.

The earth Observation has been designed, assembled and tested in Brazil and took eight years to be developed. Once launched into space, it will help monitor the ecosystem of the Amazon rainforest, the world’s largest tropical rainforest. The satellite is due to be sent to space in February 2021 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the East coast of India.

The Amazonia series satellites are composed of two independent modules: a Service Module, which is the Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), and a Payload Module, which houses image cameras and equipment for recording and transmitting image data.

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I thought it would not be easy to like any other smart television after my experience with Sony’s flagship A8H OLED TV (review). Now it seems I might have been wrong. Xiaomi’s debutant 55-inch QLED TV is quite a competent smart television. Though not as technology-rich as Sony’s OLED, it delivers a comprehensive experience that few premium smart TVs can match. Important to note that the Xiaomi Mi QLED TV 4K is priced at Rs 54,999 which makes it an entry-level smart TV in the QLED segment. The Mi QLED TV 4K does carry an accessible price tag, but make no mistake: It barely cuts corners on any major features, technology or otherwise.

Starting with the design, the Mi QLED TV 4K boasts a metallic frame with a 55-inch screen covering almost the entire front. The edge-to-edge stretched screen leaves negligible borders and the otherwise prominent bottom bezel is also reasonably thin. The TV’s metallic frame has a glossy finish with diamond-cut edges for a smooth profile, and laser cut engraving on the right side accentuates the premium stance of the television.

Design details aside, the Mi QLED TV 4K’s strength lies in its 55-inch QLED screen of 4K UHD resolution. From HDR to HDR10+, Dolby Vision and HLG – the screen supports a wide range of available high dynamic range (HDR) formats. Moreover, there is a dedicated chip for motion smoothing and reducing motion blurs. In terms of performance, the screen is bright and vivid. It handles UHD content well and manages to upscale 1080p to 4K without losing much detail. The screen’s contrast is good, if not exceptional due to the absence of a controlled backlight system. It adjusts and improves contrast for deeper blacks and brighter whites based on on-screen content requirements. On a side note, there is an auto-dimming feature which reduces the back light intensity based on the ambient environment. However, it affects the screen legibility sometimes, especially when the screen’s backlight is reduced, as the entire frame becomes dim-lit, affecting the whites and blacks equally.

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With 2020 coming to a close, most of us would be eager to leave behind the dark memories of the past year and hope for a better 2021. And what could be better than starting the New Year by grabbing your favourite bike.

But if you are confused which one to buy, we have prepared a list of the 10 upcoming models in 2021 in India that you may like.

Honda CB650R

Honda CBR650R has already been launched overseas. The new Honda offering will be BSVI compliant. It will be powered by an updated 649cc liquid-cooled, in-line-four engine which will produce 95PS, at 1,200rpm and 64Nm at 8,500rpm. The electronics will have multi-stage traction control. It will also have new twin LED headlamps and digital instrument console.

• Expected price: Rs 7.5 lakh

• Expected launch date: March 2021

• Competition: Kawasaki Z650, Benelli TNT 600i

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Although 2020 hit Bollywood real hard, millennials were not short of entertainment, thanks to the vibrant OTT scene. From Paatal Lok on Amazon Prime Video to Season 2 of Criminal Justice, which released a week ago, viewers had enough choices to spoil themselves.

Yet, if you need encouragement to move through the pandemic with a few more months of working from home, here are five Indian web series to binge-watch in 2021:

1. The Family Man: Season 2

After the success of season 1 in 2019, creators Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. will most probably be back with season 2 of the action-thriller on Amazon Prime Video in 2021. Starring Manoj Bajpayee and Priyamani, it’s a story of a middle-class man secretly working as an intelligence officer in a fictitious branch of the National Investigation Agency.

2. Nail Polish

Directed by Bugs Bhargava Krishna, Nail Polish is a new Hindi courtroom-drama series to be aired on Zee5, starring Arjun Rampal, Anand Tiwary, and Manav Kaul in prominent roles. The series will be released on January 1, 2021. The makers have released the teaser, which seems to have created a good buzz around the show.

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Infrastructure company Larsen & Toubro (L&T) on Thursday said its construction arm has received orders in the overseas and domestic market.

The company did not provide the value of the contracts, but said the orders fall under the ‘significant’ category, which ranges between Rs 1,000 crore and Rs 2,500 crore, according to the classification of contracts.

“The construction arm of L&T has secured orders from prestigious clients for two of its businesses,” L&T said in a regulatory filing.

L&T said its power transmission and distribution business has won two transmission line packages in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These lines are expected to strengthen the grid in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia and facilitate power evacuation.

Its water and effluent treatment business has secured an EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) order in Gujarat to execute a package in the SAUNI Yojna Link 3.

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Samsung is reportedly planning to launch three foldable smartphones in the market next year, including Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, and an affordable model which could be named Galaxy Z Flip Lite.

To keep the phone’s price low, the company has decided to make this affordable mode an LTE-only smartphone, which means it won’t have support for the latest 5G communication technology, reports news portal Gizbot.

A new Samsung foldable smartphone with the model number SM-F720F was spotted and is expected to draw power from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, which is the currently available 4G chipset.

Apart from this, there’s not much information about the rumoured Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Lite.

Earlier, the company filed a patent for three foldable smartphone designs with cutouts for inner cameras.

The patent includes three different designs — two with an outward folding screen like the Huawei Mate Xs and one with an inward folding screen like the Galaxy Z Fold 2. All three of them have a cutout on the front display so that the cameras present inside can be used even when the phone is closed.

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