Technology

Montevideo, Sep 21 (IANS) Veteran striker Luis Suarez is in talks about a possible move to the U.S. Major League soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy, according to media reports in Uruguay.

The 35-year-old's contract with Montevideo outfit Nacional is due to expire in November, meaning he would be free to join the Californian side as a free agent the following month.

Media reports said the Galaxy viewed Suarez as an ideal replacement for Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, who is expected to leave the club in December, reports Xinhua.

Nacional president Jose Fuentes confirmed on Tuesday that the former Liverpool and Barcelona player would not extend his existing contract.

"When the (current) championship ends, Luis Suarez will leave Nacional. I am not going to generate false expectations," Fuentes told the Punto Penal television program.

Suarez has scored four goals and provided three assists in 10 matches since rejoining his original club as a free agent in July.

--IANS

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Seoul, Sep 21 (IANS) South Korean tech giant Samsung is likely to use the Exynos chipset for its upcoming flagship Galaxy S23 series, which is expected to launch in 2023.

According to GizmoChina, Samsung is apparently having internal conflicts about whether to use the in-house Exynos chip or Qualcomm's next-gen SoC in the upcoming Galaxy flagships.

Tipster Ice Universe revealed via Weibo that Samsung's MX (Mobile eXperience) division is not very happy with the performance of the company's Exynos chipset in the Galaxy S22 smartphones and "hopes" the upcoming Galaxy S23 smartphones will be equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.

However, Samsung's leadership wants to continue using the Exynos chipset in next year's flagships, the report said.

Several reports suggest Samsung's Exynos 2300 SoC, which is said to be on par with Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC, could power the Galaxy S23 series.

A recent report revealed that the S23 lineup will feature no upgrades in terms of display size. However, they may offer better specs, like supporting a higher peak brightness level, lower power consumption, and more.

The S23 series is said to have three models -- Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra. The high-end S23 Ultra could feature some serious upgrades.

As per a report, the device will feature a 200MP primary sensor on the back.

All the models in the series are expected to be powered by the upcoming Snapdragon 8+ Gen 2 SoC and Exynos chipset and will focus on battery efficiency.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Sep 20 (IANS) Twitter has rolled out a feature to help blind and visually-impaired people read images embedded with the tweets via its new image description reminder.

The new image description reminder will encourage more people on Twitter to add helpful descriptions to the images they tweet, the company said in a statement.

Alternative text, or alt text, is a written description of what's in an image that can be picked up by screen reader software used by the visually impaired.

Whenever you add a photo to a Tweet, you have the option to describe it using alt text, also known as a digital image description.

"Our new image description reminder is a feature that prompts you to make a good habit of adding alt text to every image you upload and share on Twitter," said the company.

Once enabled, the feature sends you a prompt on web and mobile reminding you to add alt text whenever you're about to Tweet an image.

"We're rolling out our new image description reminder globally, and most people on Twitter have access to it already (those who don't will have it very soon)," Twitter announced.

The descriptions are useful not only to people using screen readers, but to those in low-bandwidth areas, those with web phones, and anyone who wants to learn more about an image.

"Image descriptions help describe the image to people who aren't able to view it, so it's important to keep the text focused: capture what's important, be succinct, and be objective," informed Twitter.

Photos with descriptions will appear with an ALT badge in the lower left corner, making it clear that additional descriptive text is available for the image.

Twitter recently added an ALT badge, a Closed Captions toggle button, and captions for audio conversations on Spaces and Voice Tweets.

--IANS
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San Francisco, Sep 20 (IANS) After several iPhone 14 Pro users complained that it is producing blurry and shaking footage, tech giant Apple has confirmed that a fix is set to arrive next week for this issue.

The tech giant is aware of a bug that is causing the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max cameras to shake and vibrate, according to an Apple spokesperson that spoke to MacRumors.

Recently, several users discovered that the camera module was shaking when in use in apps, including Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok.

The issue was causing video recorded using the camera within the apps to be unpublishable, due to the constant erratic movement.

Posts on social media, including Reddit claim there to be a lot of jitters, believed to be a shaking of the optical image stabilisation (OIS) system.

In the case of the iPhone 14 Pro, the 48MP Main camera has Apple's second-generation Sensor-Shift OIS, which physically moves the sensor, while the other uses an older and more conventional OIS system.

Some users claimed that they could see and hear the shaking and mechanical movement when they used the third-party app's camera features.

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Ramallah, Sep 20 (IANS) Some 150 Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem have closed down to protest against attempts of the Israeli government to censor textbooks and impose the Israeli curriculum.

About 100,000 students on mOnday refrained from going to their schools in compliance with the strike, a warning step after the Israeli government began taking punitive measures against schools to force them to "drop the Palestinian narrative from the curricula they teach and to include the Israeli narrative only", official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Ziad al-Shamali, head of the Union of Parents in East Jerusalem, said that if Israel's efforts succeed, it "will have control over the education of 90 percent of our students in Jerusalem", reports Xinhua news agency citing WAFA

Some 115,000 students from kindergarten to grade 12 attend more than 280 Palestinian schools in Jerusalem, according to al-Shamali.

On Sunday night, videos went viral on social media platforms, in which residents of East Jerusalem hung up posters reading "general strike, yes to the Palestinian curriculum, no to the distorted curriculum".

In late July, Israel revoked the permanent licenses of six Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem, citing that their textbooks contain content deemed as "incitement" against Israel and its military.

For decades, disputes over the textbooks used by Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem have existed between the two sides.

The Palestinians slam Israel for interfering in their choice of textbooks and hindering them from receiving financial assistance for education from international organisations and Western countries.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, both claimed by the Palestinians, in the 1967 Middle East war, and has controlled them ever since.

--IANS
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San Francisco, Sep 20 (IANS) Google-owned streaming platform YouTube is rolling out a new video page that tweaks several elements and, most notably, unifies the design across Android, iOS, and the web.

According to 9To5Google, the highlight of this redesign is the use of pill-shaped buttons for key elements. For example, instead of being two distinct buttons, thumbs up/down and the like count are housed in one container.

Share, Create (Shorts), Download, and other things users frequently interact with get the same treatment, the report said.

Meanwhile, that carousel (on mobile) is now underneath channel details, with that information coming after the video title, view count, publish date, and hashtags.

This new design might also coincide with "Ambient Mode" that allows the bottom of a video to bleed into the description section and system status bar for a more immersive experience.

However, this can be optionally enabled/disabled from the overflow menu.

Another key change with this revamps places the top comment in a more prominent container that stands out on the screen. This technique might ultimately prove successful in getting people to engage more.

Things are slightly different on the desktop, with the video description getting the visual call out, something that Creators should benefit from, as per the report.

This revamp has been slowly appearing for more users in recent weeks but is not yet widely rolled out.

--IANS
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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.

--IANS
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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.

--IANS
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