Tech Bites

Maundy Thursday is a part of the Holy Week and precedes Good Friday, the day when Christians remember the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is being observed on Thursday, 1 April this year. The term Maundy has Latin origins; it means mandatum which means commandment. The day commemorates the last supper of Jesus where he gave his disciples a new commandment which was to love one another. Here are some of the messages and quotes for WhatsApp status on Maundy Thursday 2021 which you can share with friends and family to observe the day: May we start this Maundy Thursday with Fasting and Prayers so that we can bring God’s mercy and forgiveness to all mankind. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, this is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me. Happy Holy Thursday. Today is Holy Thursday, we commemorate the Last Supper within hours Judas betrays Jesus. God bless you. When you face problems in life, don’t ask God to take them away. On this Ho

Global trade is set to grow by 8 percent in 2021, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said Wednesday, stressing that the route out of the COVID-19 crisis rested on the rapid rollout of vaccines. The predicted bounce-back in global merchandise trade by volume is slightly stronger than the WTO's previous 7.2 percent forecast issued in October. The organization said global trade shrank by 5.3 percent in 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic shocked the world economy. "The strong rebound in global trade since the middle of last year has helped soften the blow of the pandemic for people, businesses and economies," said the WTO's new boss Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The global trade body's assessment of COVID-19's impact on 2020 trade is nowhere near as bad as had been first predicted when the pandemic broke out. A year ago, the WTO had cautioned that global trade could plummet by a third in 2020 but gradually revised that estimate to an expected 9.2 percent drop. It said stron

Popular music-streaming platform Spotify has launched a few new mix playlists. The new Spotify mixes will be an extension to Daily Mix, which is Spotify’s popular personalised playlist feature. It includes three new mix categories: artist mix, genre mix, and decade mix. The core idea of the mixes is to provide you with a playlist that includes elements of what you love and what Spotify thinks you will love. The new Spotify mixes are now available for both free and premium users globally. The new mixes can be found in the ‘Made for You’ section. The new Spotify Mixes will be based on your listening habits and include songs from your favourite artists. Based on this, it will add songs that might be liked by you. The playlists will be updated frequently, which will allow you to get acquainted with new songs based on your liking or stay connected to the ones you have started listening to recently. Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s Chief R&D Officer said in a blog post : “There isn’t jus

The year 2020 was a difficult year for almost the entire world, and a year later, we are still fighting the pandemic. Just like last year, out of respect for the ones fighting COVID-19, Google has decided not to make any April Fool's Day pranks this year as well. Google’s VP of global marketing, Marvin Chow revealed in an internal mail that the company will continue the “pause” of April Fool's Day pranks this year as “much of the world” is still facing “serious challenges” during the ongoing pandemic, according to a report by Business Insider . "As you will remember, last year we made the decision to pause our longstanding Google tradition of celebrating April Fools’ Day, out of respect for all those fighting COVID-19. With much of the world still grappling with serious challenges, we feel we should again pause the jokes for April Fools’ Day this year. Like we did last year, we should continue to find appropriate ways to bring moments of joy to our users throughout the y

Disease-carrying mosquitoes, crop-ravaging rodents, forest-eating insects and even the domestic cat are all "exotic" intruders whose cost to humanity and the environment is vast and growing, according to a sweeping study published Wednesday. Researchers in France estimate that invasive species have cost nearly $1.3 trillion dollars to the global economy since 1970, an average of $26.8 billion per year. And they warn that this is likely an underestimate. In a study published in the journal Nature , scientists totted up the dizzying array of harmful effects from species carried between habitats, whether plants, insects, reptiles, birds, fish, molluscs, micro-organisms or mammals. Beyond the "phenomenal magnitude" of these costs, there is also sign of a steady upward trend since 1970, said lead author Christophe Diagne, of the Ecology, Systematics and Evolution laboratory at the University of Paris-Saclay. Most of the price tag is associated with the damage to ecosy

Netflix has reportedly forked over an eye-popping $450 million for the rights to Knives Out 2 and Knives Out 3, two Daniel Craig-led sequels to Rian Johnson's whodunit. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3dmqGa1

Realme 8 Pro was put through JerryRigEverything's durability tests and it passed without having any catastrophic damage. The smartphone is made of plastic and is prone to scratches. It survived the... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3cDHkCI

Samsung Galaxy F02s and Galaxy F12 India launch is set for April 5, Flipkart has revealed. The online marketplace has also provided details about the specifications and design of Galaxy F02s and... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3maQUAe

The best free Android apps for April 2021 include one of the best photo editors, a status bar modification app, and one that locks the touchscreen to prevent accidental inputs. Trying new apps can be... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3wjHuan

Realme Narzo 30 has been spotted on multiple certification sites including Indonesian Telecom and US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The phone is listed with the model number RMX2156 and it... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3ufr6pc

YouTube stars Alan and Alex Stokes, twins known for provocative video gags, have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from two fake bank robberies they staged in California, US, one of which led to... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3sIfr1Q

PlayStation Plus subscribers will get their hands on three free games in April - Days Gone, Zombie Army 4: Dead War, and Oddworld: Soulstorm. While the first two titles will be exclusively available... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3ubgxnd

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that ivermectin — touted by some on social media as a Covid-19 "miracle cure" — should not be used to treat coronavirus patients. In response to the swirl of claims around the cheap anti-parasite drug, the WHO issued guidelines saying ivermectin should only be used on Covid-19 patients in clinical trial settings. The UN health agency said there was a "very low certainty of evidence" on ivermectin's effects on mortality, hospital admission and getting rid of the virus from the body. Facebook posts and articles endorsing ivermectin have proliferated in Brazil, France, South Africa and South Korea as governments around the world struggle with vaccination programmes. The pandemic has prompted a surge in demand for the drug, particularly in Latin America. But in an update to its guidelines on Covid-19 therapeutics, the WHO said: "We recommend not to use ivermectin in patients with Covid-19 except in the context of

Microsoft has won a Pentagon contract for augmented reality (AR) headgear for soldiers worth $21.88 billion (Rs. 1,60,290 crores) over the next decade, the company and the US military announced. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3fvNfvv

Apple said that it will build a battery-based renewable energy storage facility in Central California near a solar energy installation that already provides energy for all of its facilities in the... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3dnBJzI

Russia announced Wednesday it had registered what it said was the world's first coronavirus vaccine for animals, describing the step as important for disrupting virus mutations. It said mass production of the vaccine could begin in April. The agriculture oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor said in a statement that the vaccine called Carnivak-Cov had been tested since October on dogs, cats, mink, foxes and other animals and was proven to be effective. "All test animals that were vaccinated developed antibodies to coronavirus in 100 percent of cases," said Konstantin Savenkov, deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor. "It is the world's first and only product for preventing Covid-19 in animals." Rosselkhoznadzor said the development of its shot would help prevent mutations in animals and cited Denmark's decision to cull 15 million mink last year after some were found to be carrying a mutated virus variant. "The use of the vaccine, according to Russian scien

An area of pristine rainforest the size of the Netherlands was burned or hacked down last year, as the destruction of the planet's tropical forests accelerated despite a global economic slowdown, according to research Wednesday. The worst losses were in Brazil, three times higher than the next highest country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a report from Global Forest Watch based on satellite data. Across the tropics, the study registered the destruction in 2020 of 4.2 million hectares (10.4 million acres) of primary forest — 12 percent higher than the year before. Ecosystems straddling the equator shelter abundant biodiversity and store vast amounts of carbon. In total, the tropics lost 12.2 million hectares of tree cover — including forests and plantations — last year, driven largely by agriculture. But researchers said extreme heat and drought also stoked huge fires that consumed swathes of forest across Australia, Siberia and deep into the Amazon. These los

Responding to creator feedback on "well-being and targeted dislike campaigns", YouTube says it is testing few new designs for the platform where the public dislike count would not show. The 'new designs' are still an experiment and will be visible to some creators and viewers over the coming weeks. Creators will still be able to see the total likes and dislike on a video in YouTube Studio. For viewers, the ones who are part of the experiment, there will be a dislike button, but it won't show the dislike counter. YouTube announced experimenting with the design on its official Twitter account. Creators, you'll still be able to see the exact number of likes and dislikes in YouTube Studio. For viewers, if you're in the experiment, you can still like or dislike a video to share feedback with creators and help tune the recommendations you see on YouTube. — YouTube (@YouTube) March 30, 2021 Last week, YouTube also announced  expanding the ‘Products in th

A Mumbai court granted no relief to China's ByteDance in a case where the company challenged the local tax authority's decision to block its Indian bank accounts, dealing a blow to its operations. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3sSUoKp

Facebook said it was revamping its News Feed to give people more control over what they see on the leading social network, with less reliance on algorithms. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/2PhaXRG

Xiaomi, on Tuesday, 30 March, unveiled a brand new dynamic logo with a corporate visual identity. With the logo, the Chinese tech giant aims at improving the brand’s awareness. The new corporate identity, with the design concept of “Alive”, will help in strengthening the company's foothold in the market, stated the press release. Alive interprets the brand's philosophy giving it a visual image full of life: people are alive. Since people have created technology, thus, technology is also alive. New year. New look. New us. Together with @haraken_tokyo , we've changed our logo! How do you like our new logo? #XiaomiMegaLaunch pic.twitter.com/bqi33ZC3vE — Xiaomi (@Xiaomi) March 30, 2021 "The concept of Alive is Xiaomi’s thinking and response to the turning point in the era of intelligent interconnectivity. As a technology company, Xiaomi is committed to bringing more innovations around the world and it is essential for the brand to grow along with its users,"

Redmi Note 10 series debuted in India last week. The series includes three models Redmi Note 10 (Review) , Redmi Note 10 Pro and Redmi Note 10 Pro Max. The three models come with a Super AMOLED display, Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset and a quad rear camera setup. Redmi Note 10 Pro Max will go on sale today at 12 pm on Amazon and Mi.com. The smartphone comes with a 108 MP quad rear camera setup and a 5,020 mAh battery that comes with support for 33 W fast charging. (Also Read:  Redmi Note 10 Pro Max Vs Redmi Note 10 Pro Vs Redmi Note 10: What's the difference ) Redmi Note 10 Pro Max pricing, availability, sale offers Redmi Note 10 Pro Max will be available in three storage variants. The 6 GB RAM + 64 GB storage variant is priced at Rs 18,999, the 6 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant is priced at Rs 19,999 and 8 GB RAM + 128 GB storage variant will cost you Rs 21,999. Be a part of the #108MP REVOLUTION! Grab your #RedmiNote10ProMax from https://t.co/cwYEXdVQIo , Mi Home and @Amazo

One of biggest tech trends of 2021 was the skyrocketing popularity of the audio-only app Clubhouse . From 2,000 downloads in September 2020, the app’s monthly downloads jumped to 2.4 million in January 2021. In February 2021, Clubhouse crossed 10 million downloads globally on the Apple App Store . Unless you took social distancing a little too far and were living in a cave, you would know that Clubhouse is a social platform built around the “drop-in audio chat” model. It features ephemeral real-time voice conversations that any user can listen to and nobody can record. From Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah to Lindsay Lohan, Clubhouse has gathered a legion of high-profile users. What’s so attractive about audio-only conversation? For starters, the pandemic, the quarantine, the one-year of WFH, the hordes of people desperate for social connection, all of that together may have created the ideal conditions for the audio-only model to thrive. Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson, fo

It’s impossible to imagine everyday life without plastics. Lightweight, durable and cheap, these materials outperform many others in a diverse range of applications Plastics have brought about positive change in ways we often overlook. For example, the development of plastic components in electronic devices, such as the one you’re using to read this article, means we’ve never been more connected to the world around us. But our love of plastics has come at an environmental cost. It’s been estimated that of the 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic made between 1950 to 2015, over 75 percent is now waste, with 79 percent accumulating in either landfill or the natural environment. For scale, that’s more than all living things on Earth, and our oceans are drowning in plastic . Because of this, recent research efforts have focused on addressing these mounting environmental concerns. One of these is chemical recycling. The value of plastic To overcome the huge environmental concerns created

Mi Notebook Pro 15 and Mi Notebook Pro 14 have debuted in China. They are powered by 11th Gen Intel Tiger Lake CPUs and Nvidia GeForce graphics. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/39wSFCO

Four Republican US lawmakers requested that Facebook, Google, and Twitter turn over any studies they have done on how their services affect children's mental health. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3ddSOfa

Brazil's central bank cleared the way for Facebook's WhatsApp messaging service to let its users send each other funds using the Visa and Mastercard card networks, months after vetoing WhatsApp's... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3ftQ4Ny

Virgin Galactic rolled out its newest spaceship Tuesday as the company looks to resume test flights in the coming months at its headquarters in the New Mexico desert. Company officials said it will likely be summer before the ship — designed and manufactured in California — undergoes glide flight testing at Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. That will coincide with the final round of testing for the current generation of spacecraft, which will be the one that takes British billionaire and Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson to the fringes of space later this year. CEO Michael Colglazier said the addition of the new ship marks the beginning of Virgin Galactic having a fleet that will one day be capable of ferrying paying customers and scientific payloads from spaceports around the globe. The company is still aiming for commercial operations to begin next year following testing and a few months of downtime for maintenance and other upgrades. Virgin Galactic has reached

The cost of global warming will far outweigh the cost of rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, more than 700 economists from around the world said on Tuesday in an unprecedented call to climate action. A major international survey found that nearly three-quarters of the economists responding believed that “immediate and drastic” action was needed to limit the climate change fallout, warning that the costs of failing to slash carbon pollution would rapidly balloon to reach trillions of dollars every year. Nearly nine out of 10 economists said they believed climate change would worsen global inequality, and they were nearly unanimous in believing that the benefits of net-zero emissions by mid-century would vastly outweigh the costs. “People who spend their careers studying our economy are in widespread agreement that climate change will be expensive, potentially devastatingly so,” said Peter Howard, economics director at the Institute for Policy Integrity at NYU School of Law, whic

Apple has announced that it will host an online-only  Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2021 from 7-11 June. According to the company, just like last year, the event will be free for all the developers. At WWDC 2021, Apple will "will offer unique insight into the future of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS". Apple has announced a Swiss Student Challenge for young developers. To participate in the challenge, students need to create an "interactive scene in Swift Playgrounds that can be experienced within three minutes". For the unversed, Swift Playgrounds is an app for iPad and Mac. This assignment needs to be submitted before 19 April. Apple WWDC 2021: What to expect At the event, Apple is likely to announce iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, macOS 12, and tvOS 15. This year, the company is also planning to announce hardware targeted for developers. As per a statement by Susan Prescott , Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations and Enterpri

Vaccine maker Bharat Biotech, Biovet and Sapigen Biologix on Monday signed a collaborative research agreement with CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) here to collaborate on the development of novel platform technologies for biotherapeutics and vaccines to support affordable healthcare solutions for humans and animals. The Master Collaborative Agreement (MCA) was signed here by Bharat Biotech International, Biovet, Sapigen Biologix with the IICT in the presence of Bharat Biotech CMD Krishna Ella, CSIR DG Shekhar C Mande, IICT Director S Chandrasekhar and others. The collaborators would identify mutually interesting projects to pursue under the agreement, a CSIR-IICT release said. As a part of the MCA, the Industry collaborators shall provide necessary financial support to CSIR-IICT for developing key raw materials required by the collaborators, and also perform "in-vitro and in vivo studies" for further development of potential vaccine candidates and bio-the

Epic Games submitted a complaint Tuesday about Apple’s alleged “monopolistic practices” to the UK competition watchdog, which is investigating the iPhone maker over concerns it has a dominant position in app distribution. The move by the maker of the popular video game Fortnite is the latest salvo in its bitter battle over Apple’s App Store. Epic Games has also filed legal challenges in the United States and Australia, and an antitrust complaint in the European Union against Apple. The game-maker’s complaint accuses Apple of anti-competitive behaviour and setting strict rules on app distribution and payments in alleged violation of UK rules. Apple said it wasn’t surprised by Epic’s UK complaint “as we have seen them use the same playbook around the world.” The Competition and Markets Authority confirmed it received the complaint and said it would be considered as part of its investigation opened last month into whether Apple’s practices result in higher prices or less choice for co

A billionaire’s private SpaceX flight filled its two remaining seats Tuesday with a scientist-teacher and a data engineer whose college friend actually won a spot but gave him the prize. The new passengers: Sian Proctor, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona, and Chris Sembroski, a former Air Force missile man from Everett, Washington. They will join flight sponsor Jared Isaacman and another passenger for three days in orbit this fall. Isaacman also revealed some details about his Inspiration4 mission, as the four gathered Tuesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. He’s head of Shift4 Payments, a credit card processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and is paying for what would be SpaceX’s first private flight while raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Their SpaceX Dragon capsule — currently parked at the International Space Station for NASA — will launch no earlier than mid-September, aiming for an altitude of 540 kilometres. Tha

Spotify said it has purchased Betty Labs, the company behind sports-focussed social audio app Locker Room, to accelerate its move into live audio. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3dnjBGc

Christopher Nolan's Tenet is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video in India in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. That's a month before it arrives on HBO Max in the US. You can watch Tenet online with... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/2PeSZ2a

PayPal will announce that it has started allowing US consumers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to pay at millions of its online merchants globally, a move that could significantly boost use of... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3mdXt51

Indian authorities have blocked at least two of ByteDance's bank accounts for alleged tax evasion, prompting it to ask a court to quash the directive that it fears will hit its operations, two sources... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/39swXzR

An uncrewed SpaceX Starship prototype rocket failed to land safely after a test launch from Boca Chica, Texas, US and engineers were investigating, SpaceX said. from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/3frrrkL

Apple said it would host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in an online-only format for the second year in a row. The event will take place from June 7 to June 11, as COVID-19 cases... from NDTV Gadgets - Latest https://ift.tt/31AGf8k

A newly observed interstellar comet is the most pristine visitor from outer space ever seen in our Solar System, according to a pair of studies released Tuesday detailing its unique characteristics. Pristine, in astronomical terms, describes a comet that has never passed close enough to a star to be transformed by its searing heat. 2I/Borisov was discovered in 2019 by Ukrainian astrophysicist Gennady Borisov at the MARGO Observatory in Crimea and is only the second interstellar object detected in our planetary system. The first — the asteroid known as Oumaumua, which roughly means "Scout" in the Hawaiian language — baffled scientists for its unprecedented properties. Both objects had trajectories unbound by the Sun, suggesting they came our way through the emptiness of deep space from another Solar System. Writing in the journal Nature Communications , an international team describe how 2I/Borisov's coma — the nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet — polarise

The 2021 Volkswagen Taigun SUV has made its world premiere today, giving the world its first look at Volkswagen’s brand-new midsize SUV for the Indian market. It was previewed in concept form as at the Volkswagen Group Night in Delhi last year, and is the group’s second model to roll out under VW’s ambitious India 2.0 plan after the Skoda Kushaq. Underpinning the Volkswagen Taigun is a tailored-for-India platform, and the midsize SUV is set to go up against formidable rivals such as the Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos when it is launched in the coming months. 2021 Volkswagen Taigun design and platform details Volkswagen Taigun images confirm the production-spec SUV remains largely identical to the concept showcased in 2020. It retains almost all of the design and styling cues of the concept, with the only changes being the addition of chrome strips for the door handles, smaller alloy wheels and the deletion of the C-pillar decals. Other notable design elements include black trim-encased

World leaders pushed Tuesday for a new international treaty to prepare for the next global pandemic -- and avoid the unseemly scramble for vaccines hampering the Covid-19 response. Leaders from 25 countries, the European Union and the World Health Organization (WHO) sought to get the ground rules down in writing to streamline and speed up the reaction to future global outbreaks. The treaty would aim to ensure that information, virus pathogens, technology to tackle the pandemic and products such as vaccines are shared swiftly and equitably among nations. "The time to act is now. The world cannot afford to wait until the pandemic is over to start planning for the next one," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference. Without an internationally-coordinated pandemic response plan, "we remain vulnerable", he warned. The call came in a joint article published in international newspapers on Tuesday, penned by leaders from five continents. The