Google Launches ‘Read Along’ Globally to Help Kids Learn Reading Amidst the Pandemic

May 8, 2020

With many schools having shut down around the globe, families are looking for ways to help children enhance their skills. Google took note and launched its Read Along Android app globally to help children develop their reading skills. The app provides verbal and visual feedback as children read stories out loud.

Read Along is currently only available on the Play store and was first launched in India last year itself, where it is available as “Bolo”. Click here to download it. Google launched it globally after receiving encouraging feedback from parents. It is now available in 9 languages including English, Hindi, Spanish and Portuguese in over 180 countries. Google plans to improve the app and expand its selection of books as more families provide feedback.

The Tech Behind Read Along

Read Along features an in-app reading assistant named Diya. Diya uses Google’s text to speech and speech recognition technology to determine whether a student is reading the passage well or struggling with it. Children can also summon Diya at any time if they need help for pronouncing any word or even a full sentence. Just like a parent or teacher does, Diya then provides positive feedback and guidance along the way. “Read Along keeps young minds engaged with a collection of diverse and interesting stories from around the world, and games sprinkled into those stories. Kids can collect stars and badges as they learn, which motivates them to keep playing and reading”, said the tech giant in its blog post.

The app also features profile creation for multiple readers who can learn at their own pace and track the progress they make. The app also personalizes the experience by recommending the right difficulty level for stories and games based on past performance.

Privacy and Safety

Read along focusses heavily on safety and privacy, being a children-focussed application. The app has no ads in in-app purchases whatsoever and can work offline without internet connectivity. Parents can thus avoid giving unsupervised Internet to their children by periodically connecting to Wi-Fi for downloading additional stories. The app doesn’t even require signing in and all voice data is analyzed offline, locally. No data is sent back to its servers, says Google.

In these difficult times, modern resources like Read Along are certain to help parents juggle their work-life balance. This can be helpful by offloading the burden of teaching their kids to read. Read Along is one of the several platforms made available by Google to assist the masses. It also extended access to some advanced features to G Suite and Google Meet, eliminating the boundaries that work-from-home faces.

GIF Courtesy: Google Blog

Zomato Aims to Deliver Alcohol to Cash in on High Demand for Booze

Punkaj Kumar

May 8, 2020

Zomato Plans to Deliver Alcohol — Image courtesy: Zomato

In these challenging times of the coronavirus pandemic, the whole world is on standstill. India has also enacted lockdown since March and people have restricted access to essential commodities. After the ease of restrictions on essential commodities, many online businesses have started delivering daily essentials. India’s food delivery company Zomato also started delivering groceries and food orders. Now, according to a document seen by Reuters, the company wants to branch out into delivering alcohol amid countrywide lockdown.

Zomato has already started delivering groceries since April but the company seeks to cash in on high demand for booze. It is reportedly planning to branch out into delivering alcohol.

In India, there is currently no legal provision for home deliveries of alcoholic beverages. But Zomato aims to change this with its initiative of delivering alcohol. “We believe that a technology-enabled home delivery based solution can promote responsible consumption of alcohol“, wrote Mohit Gupta, Zomato’s CEO for food delivery, in a business proposal to ISWAI. This move is said to deter the unusual crowd in wine shops. Zomato plans to deliver alcohol targeting “areas that are relatively less affected by COVID-19.”

While responding to the proposal, ISWAI’s executive chairman Amrit Kiran positively said, “It is imperative they (states) reduce the load on the retail counter, by encouraging home delivery.” He said that states should allow alcohol deliveries to help boost state revenues hit by the lockdown.

Various states of the country has set different legal limits for the age to drink alcohol. It usually varies from 18 years to 25 years.

Actions of the State Governments

Alcohol stores were closed nationwide on March 25 when the country went into lockdown and were again allowed to re-open this week. This generated queues of hundreds of people outside some wine shops in some cities. To prevent the large crowds, authorities in Delhi introduced a “Special Corona Fee” of 70%. While in Mumbai, authorities revoked the sales of alcohol within two days of reopening them.

We, as a team at AndroidFist Media is extremely grateful to all the people who are in some way helping people. We pay our respects to all those who are doing their part to prevent the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Stay home, stay safe.

Fact-Checking Chatbot a Bestowal from Whatsapp

Aniket Pawar

May 8, 2020

WhatsApp is one of the most popular applications when it comes to connecting people throughout the world by a simple text, call, or even with the option of video conferencing. But this app that has an active user coverage of 1.5 billion in over 180 countries and a daily registration of about 1 million people has certain drawbacks too. As there has been a lot of instances when the application has been used as a bearer of fake news causing the spread of a lot of misinformation among the people.

On Monday, to tackle this problem of falsehood, WhatsApp announced its partnership with Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and has introduced a feature of a chatbot to minimize this danger. For now, this tool is available only in the English language but the company is currently working on providing other language options too like Hindi and Telugu.

How to Use It

To use this tool, you can either just simply save this number +1 727-291-2606 on your phone or can click on this link from the device that has preinstalled WhatsApp. Once you save the number drop a text on the chat saying ‘hi’ to have access to various options provided by the feature.

How to Use Fact-Checking Chatbot — Image: Dainik Bhaskar

In the ‘Search for fact checks’ option, you can simply search for any information that you want, just by typing the key phrases or a short sentence. The chat even brings two recently fact-checked information backed by the link of the organization’s page that did the fact-checking. The user will also get answers in just true or false on the information provided. It also provides direct information searches by providing the latest fact checks and helps in finding fact-checkers near you.

IFCN is working hard towards optimizing this feature by accessing the database from over 80 fact-checking organizations from 74 countries. They’ve identified about 4000 false information related to the novel coronavirus which seems shocking.

Let’s promise ourselves not to be the bearer of false information that can cause serious discomfort to many.

Microsoft Launches Surface Book 3 With Faster SSDs, 32GB RAM and Much More

Punkaj Kumar

May 7, 2020

Microsoft Surface Book 3 — Image courtesy: Microsoft

Microsoft recently launched its Surface Book 3 with a claim of having a 50% faster performance than its predecessor. The Surface Book 3 hasn’t undergone design changes in its exteriors, but the interior specs have received enough boosts. For Surface fans who have high demanding work like designers, or are addict to gaming, this laptop is worth considering.

Features, Variants and Price

Surface Book 3 GIF — GIF Credits: Microsoft

Like its predecessor, the Surface Book 3 also comes with either a 13.5-inch or 15-inch screen. The laptop starts at the price of $1,599 and may climb up rapidly depending on your configuration.

The product will be available from May 21 and the 13.5-inch model will start at $1,599. This base model features a 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, Intel Iris Plus graphics, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.

On the other hand, the 15-inch model’s base specs take a significant leap. This model includes a 10th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce 1660 Ti Max-Q GPU, 16GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD storage. The 15-inch variant starts at $2,299.

Microsoft claims that it’s the fastest SSD that they have ever shipped, and has the best battery life among any Surface device. Like the new MacBook Pro from Apple, the Surface Book 3 can also be equipped with up to 32GB RAM. However, the storage is capped at 1TB for the 13-inch version and 2TB for the 15-inch variant as compared to 4TB on the MacBook Pro.

Battery Backup of Surface Book 3

In terms of battery, Microsoft claims to have increased the battery backups for both the variants. The 13.5-inch model claims the 15.5 hours of mixed usage time. On the other hand, the 15-inch version lasts for 17.5 hours of mixed usage.

This laptop is claimed to be the best for designers and gamers. According to Microsoft, this laptop is designed to target professionals working with tools like 3D objects or CAD design software that require the Quadro GPU power to render objects. With the 50% faster speed this time, the Surface Book 3 deals with such software effectively.

Mi 10 can beat the Oneplus 8 and iPhone SE, if it undercuts their pricing

Kirtik Singh

May 7, 2020

After having ruled Indian mobile sales in the budget segment with its Redmi lineup, Xiaomi is finally ready to enter India with its premium flagship, the Mi 10. It’s been long since they released a phone with the “Mi” branding. The Mi 10 could offer stiff competition to the iPhone SE and Oneplus 8 which were recently announced.

Launch date: 8 May

Xiaomi was expected to launch the device in India around the end of March this year but delayed their plans due to the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19. The new launch date of 8^th May was revealed by the brand via it’s official Twitter account. After the government relaxation in the lockdown policy, the launch will finally be taking place without further ado.

Specification Overview

Featuring a glass-sandwich design, the phone packs in a 6.67-inch Full-HD AMOLED display with a hole punch. It sports a 90Hz refresh rate with 180Hz touch sampling rate, which is expected to be a visual treat with native HDR10+ support, and the ultrafast in-display fingerprint scanner baked in.

It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865, having up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS3.0 storage. On the software side of things, the Mi 10 will run MIUI11 on top of Android 10. We expect to see no pesky ads or bloatware such as those found on midrange Xiaomi devices lately. The power-hungry device is also equipped with a massive 4,780mAh battery with 30W wired and wireless fast charging support. 10W reverse wireless charging is also supported.

Where the Mi 10 shines is camera performance. With a 108MP primary sensor with OIS, a 13MP ultra-wide with 123-degree FOV, a 2MP macro sensor, and a fourth depth sensor closing the pack, it even supports 8K video recording. This camera array is almost comparable to the S20 Ultra by Samsung, which is priced at 97,900 INR.

Pricing

Talking of price, this is where Xiaomi needs to do its magic. If Xiaomi can undercut the iPhone SE(42500 INR) and Oneplus 8(starting at 41999 INR), it will be really tough to recommend either of those devices to anyone looking for a device in this segment. What do you think the Mi 10’s base price would be? Share your guesses in the comments section down below.

The Lay-offs at Airbnb seems Ominous for the Future of Business

Aniket Pawar

May 6, 2020

The novel coronavirus has shaken the USA’s economy to its worst not only in terms of lives but business too. The travel industry is one of the most wrecked ones, which has directly impacted the hotels, housing, and rental business due to its negative impact on both people’s ability and willingness to travel.

What’s the Trouble?

Until now, the home rental start-up Airbnb listed among Silicon Valley’s one of the most financially sounded start-ups. As on Tuesday, Brian Chesky, the company’s founder, and CEO gave its employees the biggest shock during this tough time. He said in a memo to employees- “the company’s revenue is predicted to go down to half or even less than what we have earned in 2019”, which was reportedly $4.8 billion. He even added that the company would terminate about 1,900 of its employees out of the workforce of about 7,500 employees. Which is considered to be one of the biggest layoffs that Silicon Valley has witnessed during this time of the pandemic.

Fight to Survive

The company is trying too hard to curtail its losses by cutting down its costs, like transportation services and Airbnb studios, a venture to create TV shows about travel. They have even decided to put a halt on their investment projects like hotels and luxury rental services. Before this, in late March, they called off their marketing activities and saved about $800 million. And they also informed its employees that the founders will take no salary while the top executives would take 50% of their share.
Last month, Airbnb announced that it has secured $1 billion investment in debt and equity security from Silver Lake Partners and Sixth Street Partners. This rose its cash reserves to around $4 billion. It will act as a bolster to its financial stability during this harrowing time.

These last couple of days are quite eerily for Airbnb as there’s a lot of pressure coming from its current and former employees to go public as some of them have waited for more than a decade to cash in their stock options. According to the company, the laid-off employees including those who were there for less than a year will receive their equity but do not ordinarily qualify for vested shares.

Business officials at a meeting — Image: Business Insider

One of the Most Generous Lay-offs Ever

Brian Chesky said, “We are collectively living through the most harrowing crisis of our lifetime, and as it began to unfold, global travel came to a standstill”. He promised on the company’s behalf that the laid-off employees in the USA will get 14 weeks of base pay plus one additional week for every year at Airbnb. This means if an employee worked at Airbnb for 5 years that he/she will receive 19 weeks severance package. Also, the workers laid off will receive subsidized healthcare coverage for one year through COBRA. “In a global health crisis of unknown duration, we want to limit the burden of healthcare costs,” he wrote.

MI Commerce: Xiaomi’s New E-com Service in India Amid Lockdown

Punkaj Kumar

May 6, 2020

MI Commerce Launched by Xiaomi — Image courtesy: Xiaomi

Recently, Chinese electronics company Xiaomi has launched its new e-commerce platform dubbed MI Commerce in India. This new service from Xiaomi amid countrywide lockdown lets customers buy its products from local Xiaomi stores and partners. Customers will be able to locate the nearest Xiaomi stores or partners based on their GPS location. Next, customers can choose the store among the list to buy their favorite products.

Quite like last week’s Shop app from Shopify, MI Commerce, though available as a web app at local.mi.com, also lets the local retailers showcase their Xiaomi products available in their store. Buyers can browse smartphones, TVs, electric lamps, and a range of other products on the platform.

“Mi Commerce is a specially designed platform to cater to the needs of our offline retail partners in the current Covid-19 scenario, and it is Xiaomi’s first step towards a longer-term omnichannel strategy,” Muralikrishnan B, chief operating officer of Xiaomi India, said in a statement.

MI Commerce aims to boost the Xiaomi’s sales in India which are hampered and suffering due to lockdown. India is the company’s biggest market outside of China and the world’s second-largest smartphone market. According to research firm Counterpoint, Xiaomi came across with zero sales of smartphones in April during a nationwide lockdown.

How to Use MI Commerce to Connect With Local Stores?

As said earlier, Xiaomi’s new e-commerce service is available as a web app at local.mi.com but they also have a WhatsApp Business account. You can make use of their web app to connect with local stores in your area or chat with them on WhatsApp at +91 8861826286 to explore Xiaomi products available in their stock. Once you place an order, the local store/shop will deliver it to you. The best thing is, the facility of cash on delivery is available to you. You can pay during the delivery of the product.

This initiative will be very helpful in maintaining social distancing amid this COVID-19 pandemic by skipping the process of standing in queues at MI Stores and shops.

Are you Aware of the Latest Buzz in the Tech Town?

Aniket Pawar

May 6, 2020

Reportedly, according to the leaked information from some sources, Apple Inc. is going to offer a whole new range of iPhones by the end of this year, which for now has been addressed as iPhone 12.

So, let’s look forward to what the company has to offer this time. The latest model offered by Apple Inc., i.e. iPhone 11, it is more concerned with its camera features plus the processor this time is quite powerful than the past models. So, in total, the up-gradation this time wasn’t a breakthrough with these small changes.

But the leaked information will surely be going to escalate your expectations from this upcoming phone. It is said that the iPhone 12 will be a 5G cellular network phone with a great camera, improved design, and a lot more. The customers will not have to wait for too long to witness this masterpiece. As it is expected that Apple Inc. may launch it around the second week of September 2020. But there can be a possibility of delay due to the ongoing situation due to COVID-19. As it has drastically impacted the outsourcing and manufacturing.

What is so Special this Time

Let’s talk elaborately about the offerings that we can expect from this new iPhone. As it has been mentioned, that the iPhone 12 is expected to be a 5G phone related to this there is intel that Apple may get its 5G chip supplied by either Samsung or Qualcomm. There are possibilities that the company can bring back the fingerprint scanning technology. That they dropped in their last iPhone to favor the Face ID, adding to that, the fingerprint sensor is said to be built in-screen.

The Main Features

Now talking about one of the most celebrated features of the iPhone, i.e. the camera. This time, it is even more ambitious, as this model has a 64MP laser-powered 3D quad-cam main camera. Among these, the first three camera lenses are similar to the iPhone 11 pro model, and the fourth lens has a LiDAR scanner which is one of the features of iPad Pro 2020. This will provide a better judgment of distance so as the depth, and will upgrade the portrait mode and augmented reality. The front camera this time is said to be embedded under the screen giving us a full-screen display. The iOS for this phone is said to be iOS 14. And the processor is said to be way ahead of the new Snapdragon 865, which is almost a part of all the flagship phones this year.

The phone’s battery life concerns the consumer a lot these days. But the last iPhone was the best in terms of battery life offered by far. The report says that iPhone 12’s battery life is better and much more powerful than any other iPhones before. And it has been hinted that Apple Inc. has decided to provide a compact phone. It is having a screen display of 5.4 inches which is smaller than the iPhone XS but greater than the iPhone 8.

There’s still time for the official confirmation to come from the company’s end. Still, folks get ready to surprise yourself with a phone like never before.

We at AndroidFist are extremely grateful to all the people helping directly and indirectly by doing their part to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Stay home, stay safe.

New 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard Announced

Punkaj Kumar

May 6, 2020

New 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard Announced

Apple Announces the New 13-inch MacBook Pro with Magic Keyboard

On Monday, Apple announced a new edition of the MacBook Pro with a 13-inch display and magic keyboard. According to the latest post from The Verge, this edition of MacBook Pro features optional Intel 10th Generation processors and its price starts at USD 1,299. This new upgrade represents the end of an era of laptops with butterfly keyboard mechanism, adds the post.

The new MacBook Pro comes with a 256GB base storage equipped with 8GB RAM. However this new model can be upgraded to 32GB RAM and 4TB storage. It is rated to deliver a higher performance of up to 80%. According to Apple, the 10th Gen Intel processors have a turbo boost up to 4.1Ghz. Also, the new Intel Iris graphics support the Pro Display XDR at the full 6K resolution.

13-inch MacBook Pro features:

The new MacBook Pro features the 13.3 inches LED-backlit IPS display. The display panel has a resolution of 2560×1600 pixels which brings a 227ppi pixel density with 500 nits brightness. The base configuration still uses 8th Gen Intel Core i5 CPU as in older versions. The CPU has a base clock speed of 1.4 GHz and boost up to 3.9 GHz along with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.

However, significant changes can be seen in premium variants. It is equipped with a quad-core 10th Gen Intel Core i5 processor with a turbo boost up to 3.8GHz. Powered by 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD, RAM upgradeable up to 32GB. Customers can upgrade to 16GB of RAM which is available for $100. The MacBook Pro 13-inch model has the Magic Keyboard instead of the old butterfly keyboard.

The new MacBook Pro is already available for order on Apple’s website and will arrive in “select Apple Stores and Apple Authorised Resellers later this week”. Education customers can avail the discount and save $100 on the base model’s price.

5G’s Dwindling Future in the Times Of the Pandemic

Aniket Pawar

May 4, 2020

The inception of the evolution of cellular network technology started in the 1980s. And now, the advancement in the field of technology has enabled us to broaden the spectrum of cellular network technology. The 5G cellular technology is now ready to hit the markets to set out a global impact, that would be a mark of commencement for the 4th Industrial Revolution.

The USA Giving a Tough Fight

The major countries to introduce this revolutionary up-gradational change are- South Korea, China, and the USA. Among these, China has emerged to be the largest 5G network. But slowly, the 5G adoption rate in the USA has started to boom. The figures are quite astounding because now, the USA has a higher adoption rate than China.

Graph that shows the weekly adoption rate of 5G handsets across China and US — Image: AndroidHeadlines

According to a recent study, when there are 10 5G models sold in the USA, it is 29 in China. So, as per the current pace of adoption in the USA, it is predictable that the numbers are surely going to rise with a robust thrust. But suddenly there was a bit drop in the sales while heading into April. The reason for this downfall was the lack of availability of 5G networks in the USA. The buyers felt that they were investing a huge amount on these gadgets for flagships, but they still aren’t in the position to access it.

Like, in the USA, the sale of the Samsung models- Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S10 were at peak with an average sale for the first ten weeks above 200000. At the same time, the new Galaxy S20 series didn’t perform comparatively as well as these models did. the reason being the same, lack of the 5G network in the USA. As a result, the sales were not able to hit the target like the other two models and remained below the mark of 100000 units.

Is 5G’s Future Bright?

In the current situation, customers want phones that are affordable and convenient to access. Thus, making the 5G model sales quite stagnant for now. With the global handset market rising towards 5G in the forthcoming years, it is expected that sales, acceptability, and affordability will upsurge.

Talking about India and its current cellular network status, it is far behind the USA and China to foster this technological up-gradation. The launching of the 5G model in the market can provide momentum to the handset market towards faster adoption of the 5G network. At the same time, may eventually lead to a probable downfall in the sales of 4G models.

The Condition of Distress – Coronavirus Impacting 5G Phone Markets

Due to the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, the last few months have turned out to be a doomsday for a lot of industries and markets, the handset market is one amongst them. China is one of the major manufacturers and suppliers of handset especially the 5G ones. Which has now started to drastically affect the market due to its ongoing battle with the pandemic. Due to the restriction of trade in most parts of China, it has resulted in the slowdown of the 5G model supply throughout Asia and the rest of the world. According to Counterpoint Research, China’s smartphone sales have declined by 22% in the first quarter due to weak demand and its inability to ship products.

Smartphones Sales Share % of Key OEMs in China — Image: Counterpoint

At this point, the market is too volatile and the world is trying to recover so are the markets. Let’s wait for the 5G trend to get back in business.

We at AndroidFist are extremely grateful to all the people helping directly and indirectly by doing their part to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Stay home, stay safe.

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