Technology

San Francisco, Sep 20 (IANS) Tech giant Apple may rename the "Pro Max" lineup with "Ultra" that will arrive with 8K video and better battery life in 2023.

According to GSMArena, the iPhone 15 Ultra will have some exclusive hardware. 8K video recording is one possibility, though it is also possible that the iPhone 15 Pro will support it as well.

Analysts Ming-Chi Kuo also suggests that the Ultra will exclusively have a periscope lens (6x or 5x). Also, the Ultra will have improved battery life and last 3-4 hours longer.

With all these exclusive upgrades, the iPhone 15 Ultra is expected to go up in price compared to the 14 Pro Max, possibly starting at $1,200 (up from $1,100).

Meanwhile, all iPhone 15 models are expected to drop Lightning in favour of USB-C, the report said.

All four models are expected to adopt the Dynamic Island design.

However, the two pairs will still use different tiers of chipsets, with the Pro and Ultra models moving to a new Apple A17, while the vanilla iPhone 15 and the 15 Plus will most likely get the current A16.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS) YouTube is going to make its short-form video app Shorts part of its partner programme that will help millions of creators get a share of the ad money generated in Shorts.

YouTube is also making it easier for creators, who don't qualify for the partner programme, make money via tips, subscriptions and merchandise sales, reports The Verge.

The aim is to offer better monetisation options than its Chinese rival TikTok and bring more creators back on Shorts.

To date, YouTube has monetised Shorts via creator funds, shopping and tips.

YouTube last year announced a $100 million fund to begin paying creators who use Shorts.

YouTube Shorts is now being watched by over 1.5 billion signed-in users every month with more than 30 billion daily views.

In the era of TikTok, Google-owned YouTube Shorts is catching up fast and the company has seen encouraging results in its early monetisating efforts on the short-video making platform.

Philipp Schindler, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer at Alphabet (Google's parent company), said in July that consumers are increasing and consuming short-form videos obviously and they are seeing this across multiple platforms, including YouTube.

"We're continuing to see good user engagement on YouTube. Early results in Shorts' monetisation are also encouraging, and we're excited about the opportunities here," Schindler said during a call with analysts.

"We're excited about the opportunity," he added.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS) In order to meet the criteria for performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, 'Make in India' smartphone shipments grew 16 per cent year-on-year to reach 44 million units in the first quarter of this financial year, according to a new report.

The Indian government's push with multiple PLI schemes has been showing a positive impact and "we saw increased local manufacturing share in product segments like smartwatch, TWS, neckband and tablet", said Counterpoint Research.

OPPO led the 'Make in India' smartphone shipments with a 24 per cent share, followed by Samsung and Vivo.

Lava led the feature phone shipments with 21 per cent share.

"OPPO recently announced the Vihaan initiative under which it plans to invest $60 million in the next five years to empower the local supply chain. Samsung also increased its manufacturing with the premium segment smartphones, especially the Galaxy S series," said senior research analyst Prachir Singh.

In the smartphone segment, in-house manufacturing contributed to almost 66 per cent of the total 'Make in India' shipments in the June quarter, while the rest of the 34 per cent shipments came from third-party EMS (electronics manufacturing services) players.

Among the third-party EMS players, Bharat FIH, Dixon and DBG were the leading players during the quarter.

Padget Electronics (396 per cent YoY), Wistron (137 per cent YoY) and Lava (110 per cent YoY) were the fastest growing smartphone manufacturers during the quarter in terms of shipments.

"Also, we may see disbursement of PLI incentives during Q3 2022, which will further boost the local manufacturing sentiments," said the report.

Optiemus leads the Made in India shipments for smartwatches with more than 75 per cent share.

In the wearable segment, TWS led in terms of domestic manufacturing with a 16 per cent contribution, followed by neckbands and smartwatches.

In TWS, Optiemus, Bharat FIH and Padget are the top three manufacturers.

In the neckband category, VVDN and Mivi have a 90 per cent share in the 'Make in India' shipments.

In the tablet category, Wingtech, Samsung and Dixon are the top players while in the TV category, Dixon, Radiant, Samsung and LG have a 50 per cent share.

"The government aims to make India an electronics manufacturing hub in the next four to five years. To help drive more initiatives under the themes of 'Make in India' and 'Digital India', the government, in its last budget, pushed the total allocation to $936.2 million," said research analyst Priya Joseph.

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New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS) Google has rolled out the ability to send multiple photos and videos simultaneously via its Chat.

You can now select more than one image or video at a time when sending a message in Google Chat.

This feature is now available across iOS devices and is rolling out on Android devices.

"You can attach files up to 200 MB from your computer, mobile device, or Google Drive directly to Google Chat messages," said the tech company in its update.

The Google Chat media picker will let users pick up to 20 photos and videos to send at one go.

Tech giant has already announced that it is now starting the process of migrating free, personal Hangouts users to Chat.

The company mentioned that users who wish to keep a copy of their Hangouts data to use Google Takeout -- to download their data before Hangouts is no longer available in November this year.

Google said that moving to Google Chat will let users edit Docs, Slides or Sheets with side-by-side editing, making it easier to collaborate while continuing the conversation. It also includes Spaces, a dedicated place for topic-based collaboration.

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New Delhi, Sep 17 (IANS) Chip-maker Intel has bid goodbye to Pentium and Celeron processors and has introduced a new chip for upcoming essential segment or budget computers.

The company has introduced 'Intel Processor' that will replace Pentium and Celeron branding in the 2023 notebook product stack.

"The new Intel Processor branding will simplify our offerings so users can focus on choosing the right processor for their needs," said Josh Newman, Intel vice president and interim GM of Mobile Client Platforms.

Intel said that with this new brand architecture, it will continue to sharpen its focus on its flagship brands: Intel Core, Intel Evo and Intel vPro.

In addition, this update streamlines brand offerings across PC segments to enable and enhance Intel customer communication on each product's value proposition, while simplifying the purchasing experience for customers, the company said in a statement late on Friday.

Introduced in 1993, Pentium chips were first introduced in high-end desktop machines, and later to laptops.

Intel introduced Celeron for low-cost PCs in 1998. The first Celeron chip was based on a Pentium II processor.

The company said that the new 'Intel Processor' will serve as the brand name for multiple processor families, helping to simplify the product purchase experience for consumers.

"Intel will continue to deliver the same products and benefits within segments. The brand leaves unchanged Intel's current product offerings and Intel's product roadmap," it added.

The rebranding came as the company is geared up to launch its flagship 13th Gen desktop processors.

"Intel is committed to driving innovation to benefit users, and our entry-level processor families have been crucial for raising the PC standard across all price points,a said Newman.

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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) Contrary to earlier reports of supply chain issues affecting Apple, an analysis by global investment bank Morgan Stanley has said that the iPhone 14 series production cycle is more robust than expected.

Using data from lead times and preorders, the Morgan Stanley note said that there is strong demand in the US and China for the iPhone 14 Pro models, reports AppleInsider.

Apple fans in China placed over two million orders for the Pro line-up in the first 24 hours, while India also saw a strong pre-order rush for the new Apple devices.

"The iPhone 14 has early lead times of six days, indicating lower interest in this model from consumers," the note claimed.

The iPhone 14 Plus has no lead time as it will only arrive on October 7.

Lead times throw light on Apple's supply chain and how it's affected by inflation and other global macro-economic factors.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said last month that the supply chain of the iPhone 14 series will remain unaffected by current geopolitical tensions.

On Twitter, Kuo said his survey showed "no impact on the supply chain of the iPhone 14 models".

"Although some investors have recently worried that the mass production and shipment schedule of the iPhone 14 models may be affected by geopolitics, my latest survey indicates that there are currently no impacts on the supply chain of the iPhone 14 models," Kuo said in a tweet.

Earlier, reports claimed that the iPhone 14 series will likely be delayed due to growing tension between China and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Kuo also claimed that the next iPhone 15 is likely to be manufactured at the same time in India and China next year.

"The iPhone 14's mass production schedule in India this year is about six weeks behind China, but the gap has improved significantly. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that India and China will be able to produce the new iPhone 15 at the same time next year," Kuo said.

Apple first started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 with iPhone SE.A

The tech giant manufactures some of its most advanced iPhones in the country, including iPhone 11, iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, at the Foxconn facility, while iPhone SE and iPhone 12 are being assembled at the Wistron factory in the country.

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San Francisco, Sep 16 (IANS) Popular video-conferencing app Zoom is now back online after it went down for around an hour on Thursday.

Zoom's status page revealed there was a "major outage" for around an hour, preventing many people from attending meetings. Zoom eventually addressed the outage at 11.37 a.m. ET, according to The Verge.

"We have resolved the issue causing users to be unable to start and join Zoom Meetings," Zoom later said in a status message.

Users saw plenty of "an error occurred" messages, and most weren't able to launch meetings. Zoom's main website, zoom.us, even displayed a 502 gateway error for the majority of the outage.

Most reports showed trouble joining a conference and geographically, outage reports were streaming in from across the US and Europe on DownDetector, media reports said.

While the Zoom outage affected most users, some Zoom accounts were still able to connect using personal logins, but work and school accounts were heavily affected.

Zoom last experienced a major outage for two hours in 2020, with users unable to join meetings and webinars. Zoom eventually deployed a fix and got video calls up and running once again, the report said.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) Samsung India on Friday kicked off the seventh edition of its pan-India campus programme -- Samsung E.D.G.E -- inviting students from the top colleges of the country to work on real-life problem statements.

The company said it will also let them interact with Samsung's top leaders and provide unique solutions to the problem statement at hand.

"At Samsung, innovation is at the heart of everything we do. Over the years, Samsung E.D.G.E. has proved to be an enabler wherein students have the platform to showcase their creative solutions to real life problems," Ken Kang, President and CEO, Samsung SWA, said in a statement.

"As we enter the seventh edition of the program, we are confident that the young talent participating in the program will bring in even more insightful solutions and display their problem-solving skills," Kang added.

This year, students from 27 campuses that include top B-Schools, engineering colleges and design schools will participate in the event, which will be held physically at campuses spread across the country.

The programme consists of three rounds. The first round, which is the campus round, is about ideation, where the team members come together and put up an executive case summary based on their research and analysis.

The top teams that are shortlisted in campus round work on a case study, submit and present their detailed solutions at the regional round.

At the end of the regional round, top 8 teams are selected and mentored by Samsung leaders on their respective solutions. The final eight teams battle it out in the National Round to arrive at the three winning teams.

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San Francisco, Sep 16 (IANS) Popular instant messaging platform Snapchat has rolled out new features, including iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets for iPhone users.

The company said it is introducing new features to help keep conversations with friends easy to find.

"Our new Lock Screen Widgets, available now with iOS 16, keeps conversations with your bestie saved right to your lock screen so you can start chats with one tap," the company said in a blogpost.

"With this new tool, you can save yourself the scrolling when you want to start Snapping, keeping visual conversations with the Snapchat Camera right at your fingertips," it added.

Snap chat mentioned that its New Chat Shortcuts at the top of the chat tab will make it easy to do things like spot unread Snaps and Chats from friends, see missed calls, and reply to stories.

"Our Shortcuts will also remind you if you owe a reply and show you when birthdays are coming up, so you never miss someone's special day or leave a friend on read," the company said.

Snapchat is also introducing new tools like Question Stickers.

Last month, the platform introduced a dual camera feature for Snapchatters to capture multiple perspectives and themes at the same time.

The dual camera feature has four layouts, including a vertical, horizontal, picture-in-picture, and cutout.

--IANS
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San Francisco, Sep 16 (IANS) Tech giant Apple is reportedly researching how a future iPhone can save power by automatically pausing playback when you're not paying attention to the media.

Just about every Apple device bar the Apple Pencil can play music or some kind of audio, and most of them have microphones, reports AppleInsider.

The tech giant wants to use those microphones, and very many other sensors, to determine whether you are paying attention.

Newly-revealed patent application, "Proactive Actions Based on Audio and Body Movement," could be applied to any Apple device, but it is specifically about stopping audio.

And that's specifically about stopping it in order to conserve battery power instead of wasting it on something you are no longer interested in, the report said.

There are other possibilities, such as displaying information about an artist when you are detected as being interested.

But as with most patent applications, this one is focused most on determining your lack of attention and less on precisely what actions could follow.

Apple even said "various actions may be performed proactively based on the identifying the interest in the content" of the music or other audio being played.

--IANS
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