Tech Bites

Pros: – Top-notch performance of the Intel Core i7 CPU – Great OLED display with wonder colours – Stylus/Pen Support. Stylus and carrying sleeve included – Great styling thanks to an all-metal design – Loud and great sounding speakers, no matter how you set it up – Extra function keys are a nice touch – Familiar keyboard Cons: – Battery life could have been better – Extra function keys could have been customisable – No easy way to stow or store the pen Price: Rs 1,74,990 (for the tested 16GB+1TB variant) Rating: 4.25/5 The 2-in-1 convertible form factor among laptops isn’t exactly a new concept, but, the space has heated up as more and more manufacturers are trying to get a piece of that market. Lenovo and their Yoga series of laptops have always been at the top of the charts in this segment, and perhaps rightfully so. They have always given users the best possible specs, in a form factor that is more versatile than it actually lets on. This year’s Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 8

X owner Elon Musk and Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino will both oversee the trust and safety team at the company formerly known as Twitter, the social media concern said on Monday. X's product and engineering team will report to Musk, while Yaccarino will oversee all other divisions, including human resources, legal, finance, sales and operations, X said. The trust and safety team, which is responsible for content moderation, has been the focus of some criticism of the platform after Musk acquired the company last October. Researchers have accused X of relaxing content guard rails, leading to a spike in harmful posts. The company has said the majority of content views are of "healthy" posts. In an email to X employees on Monday, which was shared with Reuters, Yaccarino said the company is searching for a new leader for brand safety and suitability. The previous head of brand safety, A.J. Brown, who worked on efforts to prevent advertisements from appearing next to

San Francisco residents are saying goodbye to the flashing “X” sign that was situated on top of the X’s headquarters. The sign was taken down today after the city initiated an investigation into the bothersome eyesore. The hastily erected sign, which was supported in part by sandbags, had already sparked complaints from residents living near the building. Shoddily erected sign As stated in the city’s complaint, X consistently refused entry to inspectors who were attempting to access the roof, providing the explanation that the X logo was a “temporary lighted sign for an event.” Patrick Hannan, the communications director for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection and City Planning, told reporters that a notice of violation was issued to the building’s owner, where X’s headquarters are located. Additionally, over the weekend, the Department of Building Inspection and City Planning received 24 complaints about the unpermitted structure. These complaints included concerns

Walmart has paid $1.4 billion (roughly Rs. 11,520 crore) to buy out hedge fund Tiger Global's investment in e-commerce firm Flipkart , the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a letter by the hedge-fund to its investors. A Walmart spokesperson confirmed the transaction in an emailed response to Reuters but did not comment on financial details of the deal. The transaction will value the e-commerce firm at $35 billion (roughly Rs. 2,88,010 crore), the WSJ report said. "We remain confident in the future of Flipkart and are even more positive about the opportunity in India today than when we first invested," the Walmart spokesperson said. Tiger Global did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment. Earlier this year, the Economics Times reported that private equity firms Accel and Tiger Global, two early backers of Flipkart, were in talks to sell their remaining stake in the company to Walmart. Tiger Global held about 4 percent of the compan

Our list of smartphones under Rs 20,000 this month has quite a few new faces as compared to our previous list of the same denomination. As always we have handpicked the best options for you that offer a good mix of features and performance. All phones have decent processing power, at least 128 GB internal storage, good cameras and a couple even with optical image stabilisation (OIS). Add to that high refresh rate displays, fast charging, 5G compliance and more. Time to meet our top 5 phones under 20K this month. Best phones to buy under Rs 20,000 in India Samsung Galaxy M34 5G Rarely do we get to start a sub-20K phones list with a Samsung handset. The Samsung Galaxy M34 5G totally deserves a place in this list thanks to its impressive features. At the top of the feature list is a 6.5-inch Full HD+ Super AMOLED display with 120 Hz refresh rate and 1000 nits peak brightness. It is protected against scratches by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The phone runs the latest Android 13 w

The city of San Francisco has launched an investigation into a large “X” sign that was installed on top of the former Twitter headquarters, now owned by Elon Musk as part of his rebranding of the social media platform. City officials have raised concerns about the installation, stating that any alterations to building signage require a permit for design and safety considerations. The appearance of the “X” sign came after workers were prevented from removing Twitter’s iconic bird and logo from the building earlier in the week due to safety issues. Replacement letters or symbols on the building’s facade would also need a permit to ensure they are in line with the building’s historic character and are securely attached. Patrick Hannan, a spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection, emphasized that erecting a sign atop a building necessitates a permit, along with planning review and approval. Consequently, the city has opened a complaint and is initiating an investigation. El

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 was launched at the company's Galaxy Unpacked held in July. The smartphone, successor to last year's Galaxy Z Flip 4, is powered by a custom Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. It is backed by a 3,700mAh battery. The South Korean tech giant hosted another Galaxy Unpacked event in February this year, where it announced the launch of the Galaxy S23 series. The lineup included Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphones. The top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra is also equipped with a customised version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. Both smartphones comes with some similarities and differences, in terms of their price and specifications. Here, we have compared the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra: Price in India The recently launched Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 comes in two variants. The base 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant is priced at Rs. 99,999, whereas the 8GB RAM +

The deadline to file ITR (Income Tax Return)  without any late fee is approaching closer. The last date to file ITR for assessment year 2023-24 is July 31. So far, the Income Tax Department has not announced any extension in the last date for filing ITR. One can easily file ITR online using a few simple steps. Once the ITR is filed, all taxpayers await the tax returns to be credited into their bank accounts. If you have already filed ITR, but are awaiting the amount to be refunded, we are providing here some simple steps to check the ITR status online.  The Income Tax Department has announced July 31 to be last date to file ITR. Once the process is done, and e-verification, taxpayers will receive the refund that they are eligible for in their bank accounts. To check the status of refund status, the Income Tax Department provides on online tracking facility. To check ITR refund status for individuals, one needs PAN number and the Assessment Year. Generally, it takes around 7 to 120 d

Micron Technology Chief Sanjay Mehrotra called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and discussed plans to bolster the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem within India. The Micron Technology Chief met the Prime Minister in Gujarat's Gandhinagar.  He is in India to attend the three-day ' SemiconIndia 2023 ' conference, which kicked off here on Friday. The conference, its second edition, organised by India Semiconductor Mission in partnership with industry and industry associations, is aimed to make India a global hub for semiconductor design, manufacturing and technology development. SemiconIndia was held in Bengaluru last year. The theme of the Conference is ‘Catalysing India's Semiconductor Ecosystem'. Regarding the meeting between the Micron Technology CEO and PM Modi, the Prime Minister's Office tweeted , “Mr. Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of @MicronTech, met PM @narendramodi in Gandhinagar. They discussed Micron Technology's plans to b

US President Joe Biden is planning to sign an executive order to limit critical US technology investments in China by mid-August, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations. The order focuses on semiconductors , artificial intelligence and quantum computing . It won't affect any existing investments and will only prohibit certain transactions. Other deals will have to be disclosed to the government. The timing for the order, slated for the second week of August, has slipped many times before, and there is no guarantee it won't be delayed again. But internal discussions have already shifted from the substance of the measures to rolling out the order and accompanying rule, said the people familiar who spoke on condition of anonymity. The restrictions won't take effect until next year, and their scope will be laid out in a rulemaking process, involving a comment period so stakeholders can weigh in on the final version. A spokeswoman for the National Sec

Elon Musk said on Friday that monthly users of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter , reached a "new high" and shared a graph that showed the latest count as over 540 million. Musk's post on X about the user figures comes as the company goes through organisational changes and looks to boost advertising revenue which has dropped in the recent month. It is also the latest in a series of comments from X's executives claiming strong traction in usage, after Meta Platforms launched a direct competing platform called Threads on July 5. Twitter had 229 million monthly active users in May 2022, according to a statement made before Musk's purchase of the firm in October. Musk posted in November that X had 259.4 million daily active users. Since taking over, Musk has swiftly moved through a number of product and organizational changes. The company rolled out the verified blue tick as a paid service and has started sharing a cut of the ad sales with sele

From Intel to Samsung , global chipmakers are celebrating the beginning of the end of a semiconductor supply glut, but the outlook for demand from customers outside the artificial intelligence (AI) industry remains gloomy. All the major markets for chips — smartphones , PCs and data centres — have shrunk this year, as both corporate customers and consumers scale back spending amid a weak global economy, high inflation and rising interest rates. This has created an unprecedented oversupply of commodity chips, causing a record combined KRW 15.2 trillion (nearly Rs. 98,650 crore) first-half operating loss for the world's two largest memory chipmakers, Samsung and SK Hynix .  This glut, however, has started to ease largely due to production cuts and as a decline in PC shipments eased to 11 percent in the June quarter compared to a 30 percent slump in each of the previous two quarters, data from tech analysts Canalys showed. The smartphone market is also improving, with cellphon

iPhone 15 Pro — Apple's flagship smartphone that is expected to make its debut this year — could be equipped with a new Action button, after features related to the physical button were reportedly spotted on the latest iOS 17 beta. Previous leaks suggest that the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will feature a new physical button in place of the mute switch, and a new report now suggests that Apple's next Pro smartphone models could support at least nine functions that are customisable. Apple recently rolled out iOS 17 beta 4 to developers, with various bug fixes and tweaks to the interface. The latest beta also includes code that point to the existence of the rumoured Action button, according to a MacRumors report . The code also suggests that the button could support a range of features, from toggling accessibility settings to enabling and disabling Focus modes. In addition to offering the functionality of the mute switch it is expected to replace, the Action button

Under Elon Musk’s charge of Twitter, now X, the platform’s advertising business encountered some unprecedented difficulties Because of this, Musk has been forced is currently taking proactive measures to revive its performance. However, since advertisers aren’t coming back on their own accord, it seems that Musk is adamant about arm-twisting brands on X to advertise on the platform More than two months ago, Elon Musk announced that the majority of his advertisers had come back to Twitter, and he showed optimism that all issues had been addressed. To revitalize X’s advertising division, he appointed Linda Yaccarino, a well-respected advertising executive, as the new CEO. Recent reports suggest that Elon Musk is planning to introduce a new approach regarding X’s gold verification badge. Under this strategy, brands will be required to spend a minimum of USD 1,000 per month on Twitter ads to maintain their gold verification badge. The purpose behind this move is to incentivize brands to

iPhone 15 family— including the vanilla iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max — could be unveiled sometime in September. This year, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models are anticipated to be more expensive than the previous Pro models, and a new claim by a Barclays analyst corroborates this rumour. The vanilla iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will have the same price tag as the outgoing models. The iPhone 15 Pro is said to get new cameras and a faster chipset compared to the non-Pro models.  As reported by MacRumors, Barclays analyst Tim Long mentioned in an investor note that iPhone 15 Pro models will come with a higher price tag than the ongoing iPhone 14 Pro models this year. The iPhone 15 Pro will reportedly cost up to $100 (roughly Rs. 8,000) more than the iPhone 14 Pro , whereas the iPhone 15 Pro Max could see a price hike of $100 to $200 (roughly Rs. 16,000) more than the iPhone 14 Pro Max . The analyst states that the pricing would remain similar for

Reels , Meta Platforms' answer to viral short-form video app TikTok, elicited eyerolls when it launched in 2020 and was regarded as yet another example of Meta copying a popular rival. But on Wednesday, Meta revealed numbers that show Reels videos are growing rapidly among both users and advertisers and are quickly catching up to the ByteDance-owned TikTok app that is beloved by young users and has reshaped the social media landscape. Meta says the rags-to-riches growth of Reels, which are viewable on both Facebook and Instagram , speaks in part to the company's improving recommendation software, long the Chinese-owned rival's strong point. "We can show Reels that we think you're interested in based on our discovery engines," Justin Osofsky, Meta's head of online sales, operations and partnerships, said in an interview on Thursday. The number of Reels video plays on Facebook and Instagram now top 200 billion per day, up from 140 billion last fall. T

As great and diverse as the four-wheeler EV market is in India, the two-wheeler EV market is where the real action is taking place. To say that this segment of the Indian automotive scene is cutthroat, would be a gross understatement. In a market that is dominated by startups like Ola and Ather, as well as legacy automakers like TVS and Hero, it is very difficult to launch a whole new EV brand and find your footing. However, the two-wheeler EV maker, Simple Energy has managed to do just that. Clearly, Suhas Rajkumar, CEO and Founder of one of India’s most rapidly growing two-wheeler EV brand has an idea and the know-how of creating a space for themselves in an already saturated market. We sat down for a chat with the EV maker to gauge what EV startups have to go through in India, and just how difficult it is to go up against established startups like Ola and Ather, as well as legacy automakers like TVS and Hero. What kind of product cycle will Simple Energy have in India? How many E