Electric scooter maker Ather Energy on Tuesday said it will offer its proprietary fast-charging connector to other EV two-wheeler manufacturers as well for faster adoption of these vehicles.

This will pave the way for an interoperable two-wheeler fast charging platform in the country, it said.

The move would also help in reducing range anxiety by allowing all scooters to access Ather Energy’s over 200 fast chargers.

At the same time, it will allow more original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to build products on a common standard, thereby, lowering infrastructure investments, the company said in a release.

Designed by Ather, the connector has a combo AC and DC charging with the same connector. Its size has been designed to be suitable for integration into two-wheelers and three-wheelers with the ability of CAN 2.0 communication with control and proximity pilot, as per the company.

Moreover, the proprietary connector has been designed for production at low costs, which allows it to be used in mass segment vehicles, Ather said.

Ather Energy has invested in building a fast-charging network, Ather Grid, and has been providing normal speed charge options to all electric two-wheelers and four-wheelers free of cost.

A robust charging infrastructure is one of the major drivers in accelerating faster adoption of electric two-wheelers, it said, adding that in order to maximise usage and efficiency of charging infrastructure, there needs to be common connectors that can be used across products, the Bengaluru-based EV maker said.

According to Ather Energy, while there are global standards for electric four-wheelers like the CHADEMO, CCS, among others, there are no connector standards available customised for two-wheeler fast charging, except in China.

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By Stephen Nellis and Joseph Menn

(Reuters) – Apple Inc on Monday said that iPhone users’ entire photo libraries will be checked for known child abuse images if they are stored in the online iCloud service.

The disclosure came in a series of media briefings in which Apple is seeking to dispel alarm over its announcement last week that it will scan users’ phones, tablets and computers for millions of illegal pictures.

While Google, Microsoft and other technology platforms check uploaded photos or emailed attachments against a database of identifiers provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other clearing houses, security experts faulted Apple’s plan as more invasive.

Some said they expected that governments would seek to force the iPhone maker to expand the system to peer into devices for other material.

In a posting to its website on Sunday, Apple said it would fight any such attempts, which can occur in secret courts.

“We have faced demands to build and deploy government-mandated changes that degrade the privacy of users before, and have steadfastly refused those demands,” Apple wrote. “We will continue to refuse them in the future.”

In the briefing on Monday, Apple officials said the company’s system, which will roll out this fall with the release of its iOS 15 operating system, will check existing files on a user’s device if users have those photos synched to the company’s storage servers.

Julie Cordua, chief executive of Thorn, a group that has developed technology to help law enforcement officials detect sex trafficking, said about half of child sexual abuse material is formatted as video.

Apple’s system does not check videos before they are uploaded to the company’s cloud, but the company said it plans to expand its system in unspecified ways in the future.

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Smartphone brand Vivo on Monday announced the launch of Y53s with 64MP rear camera and a 5,000mAh battery for Rs 19,490 in India.

Available in two colours — Deep Sea Blue and Fantastic Rainbow — the device can be purchased across online platforms and partner retail stores from August 9.

The 8GB+128GB storage (expandable upto 1TB) device offers 3GB extended RAM where users can download their favourite apps and run them all seamlessly.

“With this launch, we continue to add new devices to our portfolio across various price points to meet our customer’s expectations and provide them with unmatched immersive and premium experience,” said Nipun Marya, Director- Brand Strategy, Vivo India.

Y53s sports 16.71cm (6.58-inch) FHD+ display, a 64MP triple camera along with powerful 5000mAh battery. It also offers 18W fast charging capabilities.

The triple rear camera setup provides enhanced picture capabilities and is supported by a wide range of features that include Super Night Camera, Eye Auto Focus, Ultra Stable video and more.

The smartphone is powered by MediaTek Helio G80 processor and comes with the latest FunTouch OS 11.1 along with other innovative features.

The company claims that Y53s lasts more than 14.3 hours of online HD movie streaming and 7.05 hours of resource-intensive gameplay.

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Samsung Electronics was the world’s fourth-largest vendor of Android 5G smartphones in the second quarter of the year, a report showed on Tuesday, as Chinese makers aggressively expanded their presence.

Samsung had a market share of 16.5 percent in the April-June period after shipping 15.6 million units of 5G smartphones powered by the Android operating system, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics.

China’s Xiaomi led the market with a share of 25.7 percent after its shipments soared 452 percent on-year to 24.3 million units. Vivo was the runner-up with an 18.5 percent share followed by Oppo with a 17.9 percent share.

The global Android 5G smartphone market grew 104 percent on-year to 94.6 million units in the second quarter, Strategy Analytics data showed.

When tallying cumulative Android 5G smartphone shipments since the first quarter of 2019, Samsung came in second behind Huawei.

Samsung, the world’s first supplier of 5G smartphones, has shipped 76.5 million Android 5G smartphones since the first quarter of 2019, while Huawei’s shipments reached 95.2 million units over the period.

Xiaomi came in third in terms of cumulative shipments with 70.4 million units, the data showed.

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LG Electronics on Tuesday said it will expand its streaming service on smart TVs as the tech giant tries to increase its presence amid the pandemic-driven stay-at-home trend.

The South Korean company said LG Channels will be launched in an additional 11 European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands, within this year.

LG Channels, LG’s free content streaming service set up in 2015, is currently available in 14 countries providing some 1,600 channels, but that will be expanded to 25 countries with 1,900 channels, it added. In South Korea, users can watch 144 channels for free.

To show more content from the Korean Wave, referring to the global popularity of Korean culture, the company said YG TV, which offers exclusive content from YG Entertainment, and New K. Movies, a channel dedicated to Korean movies, have recently become available on LG Channels in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Mexico, in addition to four other European countries.

In Europe and Latin America, LG will bring popular content providers, including Pluto TV and Rakuten TV, to LG Channels, reports Yonhap news agency.

LG said it also plans to have a software update so that its streaming service can be available on any smart TV that uses its webOS platform. Earlier, LG said some 20 TV manufacturers, including RCA, Konka and Ayonz, will release TVs installed with its webOS platform.

The world’s largest OLED TV vendor said it will also apply a new user interface to LG Channels that enhances content recommendation features. The UI update for its old smart TVs released after 2016 will start next month, the company added.

LG said the number of users and their viewing time on LG Channels doubled from a year earlier, saying its efforts to expand its free content service is gaining popularity amid the stay-at-home trend.

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Samsung Group, the country’s largest conglomerate, is likely to ramp up its investment in chip plants amid the global shortage and merger and acquisition (M&A) with the parole of its leader despite controversy over the legitimacy, industry insiders said on Monday.

The parole board under the justice ministry approved Lee Jae-yong’s release from jail after hours of review, making him free from Friday.

The Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman has been behind bars since January after he was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by the Seoul High Court in a retrial of a bribery case involving former President Park Geun-hye.

Lee’s parole comes at a time when Samsung is reviewing its investment and M&A plans. With the tech giant’s top decision maker soon to be released, industry observers expect that Samsung will speed up its major business plans in the near future, reports Yonhap news agency.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chip and smartphone vendor, is currently looking to build a $17 billion foundry fab in the US, but has yet to decide its location.

Sites in Texas, Arizona and New York have been mentioned as candidates, but the company is reportedly still negotiating with municipal authorities over incentives for a new chip facility.

The decision on the US chip plant is critical as Samsung’s rival companies are moving ahead to expand their production capacities amid global chip shortages.

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Neeraj Chopra unleashes a spear that soars into the Tokyo sky, stops himself before the foul line by gripping the turf for a split second, and springs back in one swift motion. Next, he nonchalantly turns his back on the javelin — still in its flight path — and holds his arms aloft.

In a matter of seconds on August 7, the 23-year-old not only sealed an astonishing win to end a country’s century-old drought in track and field at the Olympics but he also announced — with power, poise, panache and a photogenic face — the arrival of India’s brand new sporting superstar.

The floodgates are now open. Within a day of his Olympics feat, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra promised to gift an SUV to the javelin thrower; edtech major Byju’s declared a cash reward of Rs 2 crore; and IndiGo offered him free air travel for a year.

According to brand experts, Chopra has vaulted himself into the elite club of Indian athletes whose brand values can rake in endorsements by the dozens. They add that the man with the golden arm could even surpass some, if not all, top cricketers — the demigods who stand well above athletes from other disciplines in India.

Chopra has been brand ambassador for British electronics firm Amstrad, among others. But, post-Tokyo, his brand value will shoot through the roof, says image guru Dilip Cherian. “People with track and field gold are rare. So the choice set of the number of people available for this branding market is very small,” he adds.

In Chopra’s case, the fact that he serves in the Indian Army (as a junior commissioned officer) adds to his being an exception and works to his advantage in the prevailing atmosphere of hypernationalism.

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India’s contract electronics manufacturer Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL) recently announced brand licensing partnership with Blaupunkt to manufacture, market, sell and service the German audio tech company’s smart television in India. Among the first products to be launched under the partnership is the Blaupunkt Cybersound 55 TV. Priced at Rs 40,999, this Android 10 TV platform-based smart television boasts a bezel-less design, a quad-speaker set-up of 60W combined output, supported by Dolby Digital Plus, DTS TruSurround, and Dolby MS12 sound technology. On paper, the Blaupunkt Cybersound 55 TV seems to be a good value proposition in the smart LED TV segment. But is it? Let’s find out:

Design

The Blaupunkt Cybersound 55 TV is a regular-looking unit with simple design without any fancy bells and whistles. It is neither thin nor bulky and looks similar to most budget LED smart TVs you get at this price. However, the TV’s thin display bezels accentuate the front profile, and the tall silver-painted legs for a table top installation add some zing to the otherwise boring design. The TV also supports wall-mount installation, but that makes accessing ports difficult.

Speaking of ports, the TV has three HDMI ports and two USB ports, both available at the back. It also has Ethernet port for wired internet connectivity and an optical port for wired audio system connectivity. Connectivity is covered by Bluetooth v5 for wireless internet connectivity, Chromecast for screen casting (mobile and laptop), and dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz).

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Cleaning your home is not easy, especially with conventional tools like brooms and dry mops, as they are not efficient in picking the dust and dirt from the surface, and accidentally push the visible and invisible clutter into hard-to-reach corners. There has been some modification to the design of brooms lately, such as swivel cleaning heads, long arms, etc, but none of these innovations makes them any better. Then there are vacuum cleaners, but their wired operations and hefty design limit their utility. A product with the efficiency of a vacuum cleaner and flexibility of conventional cleaning tools, therefore, was long in waiting. And that is exactly what the Dyson Omniglide vacuum cleaner offers.

The Omniglide is an in-line format cordless vacuum cleaner, which takes its strength from Dyson’s newly designed omnidirectional Fluffy cleaner head. Starting with the cleaner head, it has two counter-rotating rollers, which allows the vacuum cleaner to move and pick up dust both when moving forward and backward. Besides, there are four stabilising castor wheels on the cleaner head for 360-degree movements. The omnidirectional cleaning head gives the Dyson Omniglide maneuverability around obstacles and tight spaces.

Complementing the cleaner head, capable of moving in all directions, is the Omniglide’s in-line design. From the suction hose to bin, motor, handle, and battery, every component of the Omniglide is arranged in a line. Therefore, you can use it just like the conventional cleaning tools to vacuum-clean the surface. While the in-line design makes the vacuum cleaner reach the otherwise difficult to reach areas, the omnidirectional Fluffy cleaner head makes the cleaning job effortless as it moves in all directions.

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Realme may have hived off a new brand to attract ultra-low-cost customers, but the design elements of the new product haven’t changed much. While Realme has two offerings in the wireless earphone range, some of the design aspects and functionality have been carried on from one to the other. Besides, with a host of new entrants, there is enough competition for Dizo to distinguish itself.

Design

If you have looked at Realme earphones, Dizo won’t look much different. With the same plasticky neckband, a bit oversized earphones, and control over one side, Dizo might seem like a replica, but there is some difference. The new buds carry thicker band support and a more matte finish. The neckband is comfortable until you start sweating, from which point it starts getting a bit problematic and sticky. The magnetic clasp on the earphones works perfectly and has an excellent clack sound to it. But like the Realme earphones, the neckband is too thick and very conspicuous. It can be noticeable from afar and poses a bit of an issue compared to others in the same price range. But the buds are made for long-term wear. Although the buttons on the band are easy to operate, I would have preferred a distinguishing mark. Also, changing the ear tips is a problem like the other product categories.

Sound quality and battery life

Realme is known for its loud pitch and extra bass, and that gets carried forward here. Much like the Dizo wireless buds, there is not much to desire in terms of depth. At high levels, even the bass gets too garbled. The best sound range to run the earphones is at 60-70 per cent volume. The Realme app offers very little in this regard. Again, the company will have to upgrade its app to make a serious foray into the space. The lack of EQ control is disappointing. Although the earphones fit properly, sound leakage is an issue, and if you put the speakers on blast, expect others to hear the song. The lower tone signature is disappointing with most of these phones, but at that price point, most require them to be loud and clear. That these earphones are, up to a certain level at least.

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