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Jio & Qualcomm Align Efforts, Promising Superfast 5G Network

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October 21, 2020

Jio & Qualcomm Align Efforts, Promising Superfast 5G Network

India all set to join the league of super fast 5G network product club.

The indigenous chipset and semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm Technologies and the youngest telecommunication expert Reliance Jio, come together with an idea to develop open and interoperable interface compliant 5G based architecture with a virtualized RAN.

In an effort to accelerate the development and surge the most awaited 5G network infrastructure and services in India, the powerful duo of Qualcomm Technologies and Reliance Jio has reported that the mutual consolidation was able to achieve over 1Gbps milestone. The result was output to the trials conducted on the Jio 5G NR solution, leveraging the Qualcomm 5G RAN Platforms. The companies jointly affirmed that this achievement will support Jio’s 5G credentials and mark the entry of Jio and India into the Gigabit 5G NR product portfolio.

With a design to provide a foundation for flexible, virtualised, scalable, and interoperable cellular network infrastructure, Qualcomm has a portfolio of 5G RAN Platforms. Consider reading this. These platforms offer scalable support for a wide range of infrastructure categories ranging from macro base stations with massive MIMO to small cells, thereby featuring support for all key frequency bands on sub-6 GHz and mmWave spectrum.

India's First 5G Video Call Demoed At IMC By Ericsson, Qualcomm

Durga Malladi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, 4G/5G, Qualcomm Technologies affirmed the achievement of the 1 Gbps milestone and said,” Ecosystem collaborations like this play a critical role in allowing operators and industry verticals to quickly and easily add 5G network coverage and capacity where and when it is needed most.”

Rajen Vagadia, vice president, Qualcomm India Private Limited and President, Qualcomm India, said as the need for “reliable, robust and powerful mobile experiences increases across India”, they anticipate a “new wave of demand for 5G services from both end-users and enterprises, such as manufacturing, health care, and retail”.

How is India going to benefit from the Qualcomm-Jio consolidation and the 5G network?

5G technology is assured to bring with it the benefits of higher data rates backed with low latency communications and enhanced digital experiences across a plethora of connected devices, ranging from 5G-enabled smartphones to enterprise laptops, and AR/VR products to vertical IoT solutions. Qualcomm has purposely-designed new platforms that are the world’s first solutions to support mobile operators deploying a new generation of converged, open, and virtualized RAN (vRAN) networks.

Mathew Oommen, President, Reliance Jio Infocomm said, “We are excited about working with Qualcomm Technologies in developing new generation cloud-native 5G RAN technology that is truly open and software-defined. The development of secure RAN solutions with Qualcomm Technologies combined with Jio Platforms and scale provides the ideal combination for local manufacturing and for accelerating the realization of Atmanirbhar Bharat for an inclusive 5G nation.”

This consolidation signifies the entry of Jio and India into the 5G product club. Currently, only countable nations, including the US, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland, and Germany are able to showcase 1 Gbps speeds for 5G customers. The trademark of 1 Gbps speed for 5G, was achieved by India, thanks to the ecosystem collaboration of Qualcomm and Jio.

Adobe Released New Photoshop 22.0 Featuring Advanced AI-Powered Filters

Archana Udayanan

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October 21, 2020

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Adobe Released New Photoshop 22.0 Featuring Advanced AI-Powered Filters

Adobe released an updated photoshop, version 22.0, with multiple advanced AI-powered features. Many of these features were already publicly shared, while a few new, augmented the list of tools. The ‘neural filters’ as Adobe call them, are the latest vogue Artificial Intelligent features like improved AI edge selection, sky replacement tool, Star of the show, etc. amongst other image-editing tools.

Huge Photoshop Update Adds Neural Filters, Sky Replacement and More — Credit: Adobe

Adobe Photoshop’s AI neural filters are capable of tweaking age and expressions with a few clicks. The new machine learning tools imbibed in Photoshop are expected to make big wonders. While the world is engrossed in the advancements, that AI is creating around, Adobe took to include the same AI in its app.

Photoshop’s new features allow deeper edits, especially to portraits. Smart Portrait Filter is one of the most striking beta filters among others, that enables a 2D photograph of a head tobe post-processed using AI to compute what the face would look like with alternate angles or facial expressions. simple overlays and effects included in the featured filters. Special sliders to alter the facial age, hair thickness, emotions aid in transforming a subject’s age, posture, expressions, and lighting effects, now in photoshop. The newly released filters that add up to 6 beta filters are targeted to future improvements by the company with the user feedbacks.

Photoshop,neural filter,New Photoshop 22.0 — Credits: Adobe

“With GANs, what we’re introducing for the first time, is the capability to generate new pixels,” said Alexandru Costin, VP of Engineering for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Adobe’s new features enhance the already existing filters in photo-editing, by an amalgam of face segmentation algorithms and generative adversarial networks (GANs) that reduce the time consumed while producing a more realistic output.

The new filters added to Photoshop are trained on tens of thousands of before and after images, indulging it to produce new pixels for various situations. Not only this, the neural filters can additionally evoke new gestures that may not be existing in original pictures, say, a smile that is generated from a GAN can be attached to a subject’s face.

Adobe has seemingly set up review teams and an AI ethics committee to rigorously test the algorithms every time a major update is made. According to Adobe, one of the biggest challenges and the most sensitive areas is to preserve the skin tone. A very thorough review of every ML feature added to the database is the only go to eradicate the bias issues that can presumably occur.

Some of the neural features that Adobe has instilled into Photoshop are quite not the first ones. They can be spotted on a handful of other platforms already. But it appears that Adobe has taken its time to deliver the best product feature in the arena. Like the Sky Replacement feature that offers at least 25 sky replacements with more personal add-on support, can automatically recognize the sky in the sponsored image and replace it with the desired color and pattern of the sky. As the color of the sky hugely affects the picture, the color of the rest of the image is also accordingly altered by the AI induced neural filter in Adobe.

Adobe has taken extra efforts to let the best results reach the users with the help of separate Adobe initiative. This is a new Discover panel delivering Quick Actions made exclusively to enable users to access a range of available image editing effects. This initiative will enable the users to instantly apply the effects with no further diving into Photoshop’s menus.

While the existing concerns regarding the authenticity of images are further augmented with the ever-easing process of photo editing, Adobe openly acknowledges that its software is enabling both artists and bad actors to create manipulated photos. However, Adobe will release a private beta of its Content Authenticity Initiative for Photoshop, addressing this concern. This authenticity initiative will allow creatives to opt into adding certification metadata for their images. This authenticity certification will imbibe all the requisite details to the output, like the producer’s name; a list of edits and activity; and links to original image/images used. The user will be prompted to include the cryptographically signed, permanently attached thumbnail.

Adobe affirmed on its collaboration with Nvidia on these Neural Filters. While they will work on all devices running Photoshop 22.0, there’s a real performance benefit to using them on machines with built-in graphics acceleration. Faster plug-ins, quick pattern creating tools, Roto brush 2 in after effects, Refine hair, object-aware refine mode, Speech-to-text, and Caption workflow, etc. are the added filters that enhance the speed and ease of development and quality of the final product.

Airtel & Hughes Concord Their VSAT Operations In India

Archana Udayanan

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October 21, 2020

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Airtel & Hughes Concord Their VSAT Operations In India

Bharti Airtel Limited or Airtel, one of the world’s leading telecommunication service providers along with the broadband satellite networks and services global leader, Hughes Communications India Ltd. (HCIL), a subsidiary of Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES) announced an agreement to combine their VSAT operations in India.

OneWeb: Hughes to invest $50 milion in Bharti-UK govt consortium for OneWeb, Telecom News, ET Telecom

The agreement states majority ownership to Hughes in the combined entity whereas Airtel will restrain a significant shareholding. The consolidated union is expected to benefit from an enhanced scale with improved operational efficiencies, and wider market reach. The estimated profit is to be well-positioned to leverage a high speed and secure connectivity in the present fast-paced economy.

Founded in 2012, OneWeb provides a comprehensive range of broadband networking technologies, solutions, and services for businesses and governments, by constructing low-Earth orbit satellites. The company has launched almost 74 satellites so far, and around 648 already planned. The Coco-cola company, Qualcomm Inc, Airbus Group, and Virgin Group are among other investors of OneWeb.

Airtel, however, did not share the investment details in the company but stated that it will become a distributor of its services across OneWeb’s operations in 20 countries in Asia and Africa.

“In India, which is on the cusp of a massive data revolution, hundreds of millions of consumers in rural areas will benefit from this initiative and it will boost the Government’s Digital India program and its vision of broadband access for all,” said Sunil Mittal, chairman, Bharti airtel.

Director and CEO, Airtel Business Ajay Chitkara announcing the partnership commented that they are pleased to combine VSAT operations with Hughes to serve the connectivity needs of Digital India. The partnership would bring amazing synergies to the forefront and combine the proven capabilities of both companies. He further added that the customers can anticipate highly secure and reliable connectivity solutions across the length and breadth of India.

Also Read: Guess What Happened After Start-Up Astra Launched Its Rocket In Alaska!

OneWeb missions to bring around 5 billion people online in partnership with tech giants like Samsung and Qualcomm. Users will be able to access high speed safe and secure internet from the small user terminals which transmit broadband access via WiFi, LTE, 3G, and 2G to the surrounding. These small user terminals will, in turn, be imbibed with high-speed connectivity by OneWeb Satellites.

OneWeb assured to provide complete coverage via the terminals that could be directly connected to devices either on partner operator frequencies or unlicensed frequencies. According to OneWeb, these terminals can be placed in any business or homes and like the cable modem, a cable can run in the houses to connect multiple devices.

Partho Banerjee, President, and Managing Director, Hughes Communications India Ltd also added his comments saying that they are very excited about the synergies and believe that this partnership would benefit the Indian ecosystem. He further said that these are exciting times for satellite broadband service providers, as VSAT becomes more mainstream, driven by growing demand from both, enterprise and government segments.

“Our vision is to make the Internet affordable for everyone. We believe that OneWeb, together with Virgin Galactic’s LauncherOne satellite launch system, has the capability to make this a reality,” affirmed Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group.

Muhtar Kent, Chairman & CEO, Coca-Cola Company also stated positively that the project will help spur local economic development where people are in the greatest need. The new merger will also contribute immensely to business by improving real-time access to all the areas.

Paul E Jacobs, Executive Chairman of Qualcomm Incorporated said, “Qualcomm is committed to working with the ecosystem to extend connectivity to everyone, everywhere, and everything around the world through our innovative technologies. Our investment with OneWeb along with our expertise and core technologies furthers this objective.”

This new cognate will be able to endeavour new VSAT and related technologies to deliver a wide range of quality products and services. Both entities- Hughes and Airtel, will continue to serve their existing customers.

Uber’s New Passenger Mask Verification Policy Augments Safety

Tech News

Archana Udayanan

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October 20, 2020

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Uber’s New Passenger Mask Verification Policy Augments Safety

Uber, the major ride-holler introduced a global set of rules pertaining to safety measures related to COVID-19 situations, as road travel is set to resume across the country. The new ‘passenger mask verification’ feature introduced on October 19 is an embodiment of the same comprehensive set of safety measures.

As per the passenger mask verification policy, any passenger, who would have been tagged for not wearing a mask in their previous ride, will have to attach a selfie showing them wearing a mask, for booking their next trip.

The passenger mask verification feature is to ensure that the next user receives an augmented safety in the Uber platform, said Uber. Earlier this year, Uber had designed technology to verify that the Uber drivers were wearing masks, during the rides, wherein the drivers were asked to click selfies and assure the riders.

Uber India & South Asia Head of Supply and Driver Operations Mr Pavan Vaish said, “At Uber, we believe accountability is a two-way street. Earlier this year, we designed innovative technology to ensure that drivers were actually wearing masks before accepting trips. Today, we’ve devised similar technology for riders who’ve previously been called out for not wearing a mask while on-trip,”

Pavan Vaish further added that the new policy will ensure a raised bar on safety and would make the platform safer for riders and the driver-partner.

More than 17.44 million verifications have already been carried out throughout India, ever since the policy was introduced by Uber in May 2020.

Mr. Sachin Kansal, Uber’s Senior Director of Product Management also commented stating that Uber definitely wanted to make sure that this feature targets the riders, who are maybe just coming back to the platform and least aware of the same.

A plethora of other safety measures like Go Online Checklist, mandatory driver education around Covid-19 related safety protocols, etc are administered alongside the pre-trip mask verification selfies for drivers and tagged passengers. Check: UBER Announces 100% “Electric Rides” by 2030!

As a part of this policy, Uber also announced that both the driver and the riders are eligible to cancel the rides with zero penalties if either of the persons is not wearing a mask. Uber further assured that it is distributing around 200,000 bottles of disinfectants and sanitizers and over three million masks to drivers, totally free for maintaining a safer drive.

Xiaomi Announced Its New 80W Fast Wireless Chargers

Archana Udayanan

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October 19, 2020

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Xiaomi Announced Its New 80W Fast Wireless Chargers

Xiaomi, the Chinese multinational electronics company, released its 80W fast wireless chargers and the technology behind the invention through a post on Weibo. Xiaomi acclaims that this new wireless charger beats all their wireless chargers. This 80W solution is able to charge a 4,000mAh battery up to 50 per cent full in 8 minutes. And charge it to full 100 per cent in just 19 minutes. The company has been working on this technology for quite some time and is pretty sure that this new innovation of wireless chargers is soon going to replace the wired charging technology. With every new iteration, the company has augmented the speed of charging and this 80W wireless charger is the best acclaimed in the series.

A modified Mi 10 Pro is asserted to be used in this 80W fast charging technology to demonstrate speedy charging. It trots out the phone charging from 0 to 10% in just 1 min. The next 10 to 50 % charging is displayed to be done in 8 minutes making it 100% in just 19 minutes.

Also check: Samsung Galaxy S21 Series, Articulated To Be Launched In January 2021

Xiaomi also publicized the 80W wireless charging in action backed with a modified Mi 10 Pro in a video on its YouTube channel.

Weibo, the Chinese micro-blogging website did not mention anything specific about the phones to be supporting this 80W wireless charger. Xiaomi’s 3rd breakthrough in the line of wireless chargers is expected to bring a renaissance in the world of chargers. The post also showcased the modified Mi 10 Pro is placed on a stand with wireless charging.

Xiaomi had released its 40W wireless charging technology in March, this year. Further in May 2020, it launched the Mi 30W wireless chargers.

August brought in the Mi 10 Ultra model backed with 50W wireless chargers by Xiaomi. Mi 10 Ultra also supported 120W fast wired charging. Xiaomi also introduced its 55W wireless charging stand, in the same month. A similar design is said to be imbibed in the 80W fast chargers too. In September, Xiaomi added its new member 30W in the wireless charging power bank.

The above video takes you to a tour to the various wireless chargers in the line of Xiaomi’s fast wireless chargers. Find the top models for your convenient charging here.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Series, Articulated To Be Launched In January 2021

Archana Udayanan

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October 19, 2020

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Samsung Galaxy S21 Series, Articulated To Be Launched In January 2021

Samsung, the South Korean giant is expected to release its next-generation flagship Samsung Galaxy S21 series to the earliest, in 2021. As against the predecessor Galaxy S20, which saw its launch on March 6 this year, the debut of Galaxy S21 is reportedly said to begin before the usual Feb-March Samsung traditional launch. The early release in January may also give Samsung ample time to prepare to arrange a separate launch for its new foldable phone, later. The Huawei’s absence is also speculated to be one of the reasons for this predicted early release, which is likely to be covered up by the release of the new S family.

The production of the Samsung Galaxy S21 is also to be pulled to December this year, unlike the usual production of other Samsung series, preponing the release eventually. Galaxy Buds that are codenamed as Attic are also expected to be launched alongside Samsung S21. These new wireless earbuds would showcase an upgraded water resistance and is acclaimed to be better in performance than the forerunner Galaxy buds.

Also check: Apple Watch Series 6 unveiled: Check out the prices, features, and a lot more.

Approximated Specification of Samsung Galaxy S21 series:

According to TheElec, the Galaxy S21 series is predicted to exhibit 3 models, which are internally being labelled as O1, P3, and T2.

The new family is said to be supported with S Pen and see an overall up-gradation with the names likely to be the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and the Galaxy S21 Ultra

Five distinct colour options – Grey, Pink, Silver, Violet, and White, to the new series will augment the choice options in the Vogue S family.

Samsung’s new S family is said to flaunt up to 25W fast charging support.

The featured Optical Image Stabilisation(OIS) support is supposed to trot out an under-display selfie camera, in at least one of the models in the Galaxy21 series.

The above video exhibits the complete detailing of the new releases and showcases the vivacious model to be launched by Samsung.

Although no exact dates of release are announced, barring any unforeseen circumstances, an early January- February 2021 launch is estimated for the next flagship lineup.

5 Different Payment Solutions to Greatly Help Your Online Business

Internet

Guest Contributor

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October 19, 2020

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5 Different Payment Solutions to Greatly Help Your Online Business

As the world continuously evolves, systems have now gone online, and man’s day-to-day activities have significantly been controlled by technology. Everything and anything you need is now accessible within a click of your finger – from shopping to booking for food or travel, and even paying bills.

With this, eCommerce allows business transactions to be more accessible over the Internet. Along with this comes online payment and the rise of third-party merchants and online payment gateways or entities, which have been inevitable by-products of the steady increase of emerging online businesses.

In learning about these business technological developments, you as a consumer should be more or less familiar with these terms:

Payment system – this serves as a monetary exchange system, in which when a sale or business transaction is perfected, payment is given in exchange for goods and services facilitated over different platforms that are regularly used in commerce. One good example is over-the-counter payments through bank systems.

Third-party merchants – companies often employed to accept payments from debit and credit cards on behalf of a business. Not all businesses online are capable or have their system of receiving payments through online credit and debit card payments. Third-party merchants allow these businesses to use their platform in managing monetary transactions.

Payment gateway – also one payment service provider that assists eCommerce entities when it comes to online business transactions. Payment gateways often manage credit card payments and ensure the security of the customer’s information.

Which is more preferable, third-party merchants or payment gateways?

So, do you need both third-party merchants and payment gateways to have seamless monetary transactions? Most often, companies end up availing both. However, how these systems work, although useful, can also be very costly.

Hence, for small businesses, choosing whether or not they go for both or just choose one – it is essential to know which payment solution options are more practicable and cost-effective for their business transactions. Here are some of the five best online payment solutions to help you in your online business:

Paypal

Established in 1998, Paypal is considered the world’s leading payment gateway for millions of users and business enterprises worldwide.

It is an online payment service that allows you to use your credit card in paying orders online through a secure account. Upon checkout, you are provided the option to choose which kind of payment you would prefer, and then you are requested to fill in your credit card information. If you have different cards on hand, you may choose a default account to use in transactions.

This is all protected through high encryption and security. Therefore, you shouldn’t worry about your credit card information being captured by third-party entities.

As a vendor, Paypal can also assist in receiving payments through customers and keeping such payments secured in your account until you want to use such money for your spending. The best part about Paypal, though (aside from it being the leading payment gateway worldwide), is that it’s free!

Amazon Pay

Amazon.com launched Amazon Pay as its payment gateway, allowing users to make payments for goods, services, or donations even to websites other than Amazon itself.

To make a payment, you can choose any of the methods enlisted under the checkout menu, which includes putting in your credit card information and stored under your Amazon.com account. Credits under your account in the website can also be considered as payment for purchases.

One good thing about Amazon Pay is that there are no hidden charges upon using its service for payment transactions as it is free for Amazon.com account holders. These hidden charges might be in the form of transaction fees, membership fee, currency conversion fee or foreign transaction fee – but is not charged when you use Amazon Pay.

Stripe

This is considered one unique payment platform. Among its extensive developer tools, it has an API (application programming interface) that integrates your business’s website into its platform.

Ideal for online retail businesses, you as an owner can customize how you would want your checkout process, including the payment options, to turn out. It is a platform that is also embedded within the website and is accessible through your gadgets other than your desktop – be it on your phone or tablet.

Apple Pay

Apple users extensively utilize this through the App Store. This serves as a counterpart of the company Apple to Google Wallet and Paypal. Instead of availing a third-party merchant or payment gateway’s services, the company decided to create its own payment platform.

With the continuous releases of new models for all Apple products – Macbook, iPhone, iPad, Apple Pay is custom-fit for Apple users, specifically iPhone handlers, for easy transactions and purchases in the App Store.

Google Wallet

Last but not the least worthy contender is Google Wallet. Launched in 2011, it allows customers to make online purchases by credit or debit cards linked to their account.

Merchants on their checkout pages often integrate Google Wallet by incorporating, as a payment option, a “Buy with Google” button. On top of this, the service is free for users and can store credit, debit, loyalty, and other card information.

Takeaway

Given these various payment solution options, it is no wonder that mobile payments utilized by an online business can greatly improve their business sales and revenue by simply making it easier for customers to check out the items they wish to order, minus all the hassle.

It is best to choose an online payment solution that matches your business needs and people who would like to make use and avail of the goods and services you offer.