PAKISTAN NEWS:
PITB is developing Punjab labor app for small businesses:
The Punjab Labour & Human Resource Department (PL&HRD) is going to introduce a Mobile application for the registration of small businesses across the province. The app will be developed with the help of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB). This was announced during a recent meeting with PL&HRD Secretary Ahmed Javed Qazi in the chair. The participants were briefed on the salient features of the application by PITB Additional Director Saima Sheikh.
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Huawei watch GT2 Porsche design launched:
At the Huawei Mate 40 series launch, the Chinese Smartphone OEM Huawei launched a host of other products, including a Porsche design variant for the Huawei Watch GT2. Feature-wise, the smartwatch is based on the Watch GT2 Pro launched in September. However, it comes with a completely revamped design and a higher price tag. The Huawei Watch GT2 Porsche Design comes with an enhanced design and is built using more sophisticated materials as compared to other watches in the series. It is built with Titanium and a Sapphire glass screen allowing for high-temperature resistance, good thermal conductivity, high hardness, and infrared transmission. Moreover, according to Huawei, it is scratch resistant up to Mohs level 9.
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Jazz CEO wants overseas Pakistanis to support local startups:
In a message for budding entrepreneurs and investors, Jazz CEO, Aamir Ibrahim, has stated that Pakistan offers an abundance of opportunities that are linked to the national challenges. The Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs Silicon Valley (OPEN SV) featured Aamir Ibrahim as a guest speaker in its webinar titled ‘Realities of Investing in Pakistan’. The interactive session was moderated by Asif Alam, Managing Partner, Arbitrium Technology, with Silicon Valley representatives and young entrepreneurs from other parts of the world in the audience. Aamir spoke at length about the digital ecosystem, financial access, the art of investing in Pakistan, the country’s scorecard in terms of ease of doing business, and the need for integrated technology.
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Redmi k30s is launching on October 27:
Redmi K30S has been in the rumors for a while now. Reports have said that it will be a rebranded Xiaomi Mi 10T, but with a much lower price tag. While there is no official word on a launch date, some leaks are suggesting that it is going to debut on October 27. Redmi K30S will be yet another addition to the ever-expanding K30 lineup including the K30, K30 Pro, K30 Zoom Edition, K30 Racing Edition among others. A detailed leak from earlier said that the phone will have a 6.67″ LCD with 1080p resolution and a punch-hole front camera.
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Huawei mate 40 features the best NPU in smartphone market:
The Huawei Mate 40 debuted last week as the most powerful Android phone to date since it is the first one to feature a 5nm chip, namely the Kirin 9000. Not only that, but it may also have the best Android phone camera as well, but that will have to wait until detailed reviews come in. The Mate 40 Pro took the lead in the DxOMark Smartphone camera rankings, for both the primary and selfie cameras and it turns out that it’s obliterating the competition in terms of AI as well. This was, of course, thanks to the new 5nm Kirin 9000 chip.
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Samsung to introduce new S Pen for Galaxy Fold 3:
Rumors suggested that the Galaxy Z Fold 2 would feature the S Pen for the first time in the Fold lineup. Since that did not happen, the speculation has now moved on to the upcoming Z Fold 3 for 2021, though reports say that Samsung will need to switch to a different technology. The Galaxy Note series uses the Electro-Magnetic Resonance (EMR) technology for its S Pens that allows for low latency and high accuracy compared to the older Active Electrostatic Solution (AES) styluses. EMR is also generally cheaper.
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Galaxy S20 FE’s display problems solved:
Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition (FE) is the cheapest model in the flagship Galaxy S20 series that brings a few compromises in terms of specs but at a lower price. Some early adopters reported that they were facing display issues with the device, but fortunately, Samsung has now fixed those with a new software update. The display issues these devices were facing had to do with touch input. While some had to deal with ghost touches, others reported that their screens were unresponsive to taps or swipes or were not responding to any touch at all. Since the issue was diverse, no one was able to figure out the root cause of the problem.
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Xiaomi crowdfunds smart electric bed with voice controls:
Xiaomi, under its crowdfunding platform Youpin, has launched the 8H Milan Smart Electric Bed Pro as a successor to last year’s 8H Milan smart electric bed. Design-wise, the smart bed a high leg design and is bundled with an innovative spring mattress constructed using solid materials that match users’ sleeping habits. Xiaomi claims that the mattress has a memory foam like effect. It provides additional support for different parts of the body.
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Lenovo Legion slim 7 is an ultra portable gaming laptop:
Lenovo’s Legion series is quite famous in the global gaming community. Expanding its gaming laptop portfolio, the company has just launched its new gaming laptop — Lenovo Legion Slim 7, featuring a reasonable display, good internals, and long battery life. As the moniker suggests, the laptop comes with a slim construction. According to the company, the laptop is made from aerospace-grade aluminum for extreme lightness and less bulk. It measures 17.9mm in width and weighs 1.86 kilograms.
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Tecno launches new ‘photography’ phone Camon 16:
Smartphone maker Tecno has introduced its ‘photography’ phone Camon 16 which will be launched in Pakistan soon. The company has also announced actor Mehwish Hayat as Camon 16’s brand ambassador. Camon 16 comes with Tecno’s trademark TAIVOS technology that supports multiple smart photography functions. Some of the core TAIVOS photography functions include AI wide-angle selfie dual camera for wider group selfies, night portrait mode for clearer low-light pictures, and anti-shake mode to deliver steady pictures.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
Why AI live fact-checked the 2020 us presidential debates:
Many news organisations, including the BBC, have dedicated fact-checking services to help audiences make sense of the world and spot lies and misinformation. Normally this is done manually and may take the humans behind service several hours to confirm the answers. But one company, which has been monitoring the recent US election debates, has been using an artificial intelligence algorithm to see if it can help speed up the time it takes to verify a claim.
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Rashford’s free meal tweets made into google map:
Footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to provide free meals for children over half term has been turned into an interactive Google Map. Joe Freeman has so far been manually inputting each individual venue offering to help provide food. He is using tweets by Rashford, who is sharing messages from local businesses which have pledged to support his campaign. Ministers have ruled out extending free meals beyond term time. “I was eating my lunch, reading Marcus Rashford’s tweets and thinking, ‘This is amazing, wouldn’t it be great if we could see them all in one place,'” Mr Freeman said. “It was easy to do – I started off just by searching by each restaurant and the place they were from.”
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French covid app relaunches to bumpy start:
France has launched a new version of its troubled Covid-tracing app to a rough start plagued by server issues. Renamed as “TousAntiCovid” – Everyone Against Covid – it is an update to the StopCovid app, which was never widely adopted among the population. The new version was downloaded more than 500,000 times in the hours following its launch. But that surge in popularity led to stability issues, with many unable to activate the app. Only about 2.5 million people have downloaded the app since its initial launch in June – with even Prime Minister Jean Castex admitting he had not done so. The relative boom in download numbers remains smaller than other countries’ apps. The NHS Covid-19 app for England and Wales, for example, was downloaded more than one million times in its first 24 hours.
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Covid-19 app users can’t get isolation payment:
People who are told to go into isolation in an alert from the NHS Covid-19 app in England and Wales will not be eligible for government support. Anyone on low income who is instructed to self-isolate in a phone call from NHS Test and Trace can claim a £500 payment from their local authority.
Now the Department of Health has said the payments will not be available to app users, as reported by Media. However, the government is exploring ways of changing that.
A spokesperson said: “The NHS Covid-19 app is voluntary with users of it remaining anonymous, which means that currently people are not eligible for the support payment if they are advised by the app to self-isolate.” When the app was rolled out a month ago, there was at first some confusion about whether its alerts to users who had been in close contact with an infected person, would be legally enforceable.
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Tech and the US election:
Last month, it was Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee who issued a report calling for this kind of action against big tech firms – but it was Attorney General William Barr, along with Republican law officers from 11 states, who launched a broadside against Google’s alleged anti-competitive practices. One of the leading experts on competition economics, Prof Fiona Scott Morton of Yale University, tells Tech Tent the mood has shifted against the tech firms on both sides of the political divide. “I think the good times for Silicon Valley are over,” she says. “I think we are headed toward some more oversight and regulation.” She pinpoints two things that have changed: the public has become more aware of the damage caused by social media firms, and politicians have understood that platforms like Google may actually harm local businesses.
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The AI that spots alzheimer’s from cookie drawing:
A dated line drawing of two children stealing cookies behind their mother’s back is being used by an artificial intelligence system to detect the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. The system uses voice samples of people describing the scene to predict whether healthy people may get the disease.
It could predict onset seven years earlier than human doctors with 70% accuracy. The UK’s Alzheimer’s Society said the research was encouraging. Fiona Carragher, director of Research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Getting a dementia diagnosis in good time is critical to living well with the condition. “Sadly, it’s often a long road that delays access for people with dementia to the right treatment, support and guidance – yet existing treatments are more effective the earlier people receive them, and potential new treatments could also be more effective in the early stages or even before symptoms appear.”
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Covid: ‘zoom boom’ sees rise in cosmetic treatment calls:
Demand for cosmetic treatment has shot up since lockdown in March, according to those in the industry. Save Face, which represents practitioners, said there had been a jump in email and web inquiries from Wales. Phone inquiries for neck and face work have leapt from 500 a year to almost 800 – up 57%. It’s been dubbed the “Zoom boom” in the sector because people are using video calls more for work and socialising. Catherine Dudley-Bacon decided to get treatment to “feel more confident”.
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Huawei ‘forging forward’ despite Trump sanctions:
Chinese phone maker Huawei said it was doing its best “to survive and forge forward” despite US sanctions. Huawei is one of a handful of Chinese tech firms targeted by Donald Trump on the grounds of national security. The phone maker had been busy stockpiling its supply of microchips before a US trade ban came into effect in September. On Friday, it said revenues for the first three quarters of 2020 were 9.9% higher than the same period last year. But Huawei said its ability to find component parts such as microchips has been “put under intense pressure and its production and operations saw increasing difficulties”.
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Spotify, apple music, deezer and youtube found recently hosting racist music:
An excerpt of a Hitler speech, calls for “Aryans” to make a brand new start and references to white power have all been found in songs on major music streaming services. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Deezer have now removed racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic content from their services, following a media investigation. Many of the examples we found on the platforms were linked to white supremacy. It comes three years after Spotify tried to crackdown on a similar issue and updated its hate content policy. Spotify said the content flagged by the BBC clearly violated that policy. YouTube said there was no place for hate on its platform while Apple Music has now hidden the majority of the tracks.
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‘The most wholesome thing on the internet’:
Scrolling down the front page of Reddit in 2020 has looked a lot like this: Anti-maskers, dangerous driving, racism, a little green sprout with a wooden sword, terrible politicians. Among the horror and the misery of this year, one tiny round hero has emerged to give thousands of people brief moments of joy. That hero is Quest Sprout. All Quest Sprout wants to do is go on a quest. All Quest Sprout ever says is “Quest”. He’s the creation of New Zealand video games tester and comic artist Matthew Wills, who’s been making fantasy/comedy webcomics since March 2018.
Matthew’s had some success with his Swords series, but the response to Quest Sprout, when the character appeared in May this year, was unlike anything he’d seen before. The most recent episode got around 80,000 upvotes (Reddit’s version of ‘likes’), when it was posted in the Wholesome Memes subreddit, where some users were calling it “the most wholesome thing on the internet”. Quest Sprout is part of a world Matthew created to parody things like Lord of The Rings, anime and the “fantasy tropes” he saw in them.
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Huawei seeks to get its own version of NHS Covid-19 app:
The NHS Covid-19 app has been submitted to Huawei’s app store. The move will initially mean that users of Huawei’s older handsets will be able to download it from the firm’s App Gallery as an alternative to the Google Play store. But it potentially paves the way for the contact-tracing software to come to the Chinese firm’s newer handsets too. Huawei indicated that this might happen as soon as November. But others have stressed there are hurdles to overcome. The app – which is designed for use in England and Wales – has already been downloaded more than 18 million times from Apple and Google’s own stores. All of Huawei’s existing phones are powered by Android.