Apple is adding a new ‘Time to Walk’ feature for its Fitness+ subscribers, which is an audio experience in the Workout app where guests will share inspiring stories while walking.

According to MacRumors, Apple Fitness+ subscribers will be able to open the Workout app on an Apple Watch, select ‘Time to Walk’ and choose from one of the audio stories to listen to during their walk.

The feature is likely to be extended to wheelchair users too.

According to the report, the settings for ‘Time to Walk’ started showing up weeks ago in earlier betas of watchOS 7.3 and iOS 14.4, the stories are not yet accessible.

Fitness+ is designed to work with the Apple Watch, providing workouts that can be done on an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV, with the Apple Watch tracking fitness progress.

To use Fitness+, one must have an iPhone 6s or later updated to iOS 14.3 and an Apple Watch Series 3 or later updated to watchOS 7.2. It also works with an Apple TV HD or Apple TV 4K updated to tvOS 14.3 or an iPad Air 2 or later that is running iPadOS 14.3 and has the Fitness+ app installed.

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Serial entrepreneur Kunal Shah is backing the new venture of Carl Pei, the Swedish tech entrepreneur and co-founder of smartphone company OnePlus. Pei has received seed investment from Shah, who has added the London based venture into his portfolio. Pei is working on a stealth project that he plans to unveil this month.

“Kunal (Shah) is one of the sharpest people I know. I am proud and glad to have him as a friend, advisor and now also an investor,” said Carl Pei. “We are in advanced stages of our vision and are excited to introduce it to the world soon.”

Pei had already raised $7 million in a seed financing round for his new venture from friends and private investors including Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape and inventor of the iPod), Casey Neistat (YouTuber), Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch). The other investors include Steve Huffman (CEO of Reddit), Liam Casey (founder and CEO, PCH), Paddy Cosgrave (founder of Web Summit) and Josh Buckley (CEO of Product Hunt).

“Carl (Pei) is working on a new consumer electronics company that I am sure will be a disruptor in the tech-industry,” said Shah, who is also the founder of fintech firm CRED. “I am excited to be part of this journey.”

Shah has invested in multiple sectors through his career and this investment is in his personal capacity.

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The global refurbished smartphone market fell 9 per cent (on-year) in 2020 owing to Covid-19 lockdowns and related economic deterrents, according to a new report.

The market saw a dramatic 16 per cent decline in the first half of 2020 compared to the first half of 2019, said the latest Counterpoint Research’s ‘Refurbished Smartphone Market Update’.

“It rebounded slightly in the second half of 2020 due to increases in new device sales and a very strong Apple iPhone launch cycle which helped the supply of devices in the secondary market,” said the report.

All major countries and regions showed a decline for the full year of 2020, mainly due to Covid-19.

“The pandemic caused a significant number of smartphone owners to avoid or delay new purchases. Key secondary markets India and Latin America saw 20per cent and 24 per cent declines, respectively, during the first half of 2020 due to strict and extended lockdowns,” said senior Research Analyst Glen Cardoza.

China, the most important country in the refurbished market ecosystem, saw significant declines during 2020.

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Google has signed a deal with a group of French publishers paving the way for the internet giant to make digital copyright payments for online news content.

After months of talks, Google France and the Alliance de la Presse d’Information Generale said Thursday that they agreed to set up a framework under which the U.S. company will negotiate individual licensing deals with publishers.

Google has already negotiated a few individual payment deals with some French news publishers such as national daily paper Le Monde and weekly magazine l’Obs.

The company was forced to negotiate with publishers and news agencies for reusing their material online under a neighboring rights” law that took effect after France became the first country to adopt new European Union copyright rules.

Google had initially balked at paying for news, saying new companies benefited from the millions of readers it sends to their websites. But last year an appeals court ordered the company to open talks with publishers.

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Audio equipment maker JBL by HARMAN, owned by tech major Samsung, on Thursday launched its new JBL C115 true wireless earbuds in India for Rs 4,999.

According to the company, the earbuds come with access to voice assistance, autonomous connectivity and jumbo battery life making it the ultimate go-to headphones.

“Over its 75-year history, JBL has delivered the best sound experiences to different generations of audio enthusiasts cutting across demography and pocket size. Celebrating our milestone 75 year anniversary, we are excited to bring the new JBL C115 TWS to our aspiring youth who are discerning in their sound choices, without losing sight of the price tag,” said Vikram Kher, Vice-President, Lifestyle Audio, HARMAN India said in a statement.

It comes with ergonomic fit earbuds for comfort, autonomous connectivity and access to the phone’s voice assistants like Google Echo or Alexa directly from the earbuds.

To ensure an easy full day’s use, the JBL C115 offers 21 hours (6 hours in the earbud + 15 hours in the charging case) of combined playback time with their matching charging case.

The earbuds come with a 5.88mm dynamic driver featuring JBL Pure Bass sound which is portable and pocket-friendly.

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A day after India asked it to withdraw changes to its privacy policy, WhatsApp on Wednesday said the proposed change does not expand its ability to share user data with Facebook and that it is open to answering questions on the issue.

The Indian government on Tuesday posed 14 questions to WhatsApp on its “invasive” changes in Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

“We wish to reinforce that this update does not expand our ability to share data with Facebook. Our aim is to provide transparency and new options available to engage with businesses so they can serve their customers and grow,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that WhatsApp will always protect personal messages with end-to-end encryption, so that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can see them.

“We are working to address misinformation and remain available to answer any questions,” the spokesperson further stated.

In a strongly worded letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has said the proposed changes to the WhatsApp Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, without giving users an option to opt-out, “raise grave concerns regarding the implications for the choice and autonomy of Indian citizens”.

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Vivo on Wednesday expanded its youthful Y series with the launch of Vivo Y31 in India at Rs 16,490 for 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM variant.

The smartphone is available for purchase in two attractive colour options- racing black and ocean blue on Vivo India E-store, Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm, as well as across all partner retail stores.

“Like all vivo devices, the Y31 follows Vivo’s commitment to ‘Make in India’ and is manufactured at Vivo’s Greater Noida facility,” the company said in a statement.

The smartphone features 48MP AI Triple Rear Camera setup with photo processing algorithms. The device also has a 2MP Bokeh camera and a Super Night Mode for the rear camera which uses the multi-frame noise reduction algorithm to reduce the noise in your photos.

The smartphone also uses Electronic Image Stabilisation (EIS) technology in the rear camera which crops and aligns individual frames, which is further supported by an algorithm that automatically corrects for unstable movements delivering Ultra Stable Videos.

On the front, the smartphone has a 16MP camera.

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Samsung Electronics on Wednesday launched a new consumer solid state drive (SSD) product, boasting upgraded performance and reliability.

Samsung said its 870 EVO SSD series comes in five models — 250 gigabyte (GB), 500GB, 1 terabyte (TB), 2TB, and 4TB — and will go on sale in around 40 countries starting with South Korea and the US.

The new SSD can be used with all devices that have 2.5-inch serial ATA (SATA) interface connection, it added.

The 870 EVO delivers 38 percent higher rand read performance compared to its previous 860 model, offering a better storage solution for both general and professional users, reports Yonhap news agency.

“Representing the culmination of our SATA SSD line, the new 870 EVO delivers a compelling mix of performance, reliability and compatibility for casual laptop and desktop PC users as well as Network Attached Storage users,” said Lee Kyu-Young, vice president of the memory brand product business at Samsung.

The latest SSD features Samsung’s latest V-NAND chip and controller and supports the maximum SATA sequential read and write speeds of 560 and 530 megabyte per second.

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Google has released Chrome 88 as the latest stable version of their cross-platform web browser without any support for Adobe Flash Player.

Flash reached its official end of life on December 31, when Adobe officially stopped supporting the software. On January 12, Adobe also began blocking content from playing inside Flash.

Apple and Mozilla have also stopped supporting Flash, and Microsoft is scheduled to end support later this month, reports ZDNet.

According to web technology survey site W3Techs, only 2.2 per cent of today’s websites use Flash code, a number that has plummeted from a 28.5 per cent figure recorded at the start of 2011.

First announced in July 2017, Adobe had said to stop updating and distributing Flash Player after December 31, 2020 due to the diminished usage of the technology and the availability of better, more secure options such as HTML5, WebGL and WebAssembly.

Microsoft has announced to end support for Adobe Flash Player on Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 at the end of the year.

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Homegrown instant messaging app Hike Messenger, later known as Hike Sticker Chat, has been officially shut down.

The company’s chief executive officer Kavin Bharti Mittal announced the shutdown of its operations recently.

“Today we are announcing that we will be sunsetting StickerChat in Jan’21. We thank you all for giving us your trust. We wouldn’t be here without you. All your data will be available to download in the app,” Mittal tweeted.

Kavin Mittal is the son of India’s second largest telco Bharti Airtel’s founder and chairman Sunil Mittal.

The app has been removed from Playstore and Apple’s App store.

Users can download their data inside the application. However, the announcement does not mean an end to other apps in development by the company.

The end of Hike’s messenger service comes at a time when Signal and Telegram have added tens of millions of users in recent weeks.

Launched in December 2012, Hike was once regarded as a competition to global messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Viber.

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