Apple removes Telegram Messenger from App Store for ‘Inappropriate Content’

Apple has removed the popular messaging application "Telegram' from the App Store for 'Inappropriate Content.' Apple usually pulls the apps that violated Apple's developer guidelines for iOS apps.  The absence of Telegram was first noted by a Reddit user yesterday.  While the exact reasons for pulling out the app aren't clear,  Telegram founder Pavel Durov responded to a tweet on Thursday by saying that the company is alerted by Apple to "inappropriate content" flag made available to users of both apps, leading to the apps pull out. Apple's review guidelines state user safety that prohibits "upsetting or offensive content." [HTML1] On the other hand, the sub-section which covers user-generated content requires that the apps include a method to filter objectionable material from being posted to the app, auto report offensive content and timely responses to concerns and the ability to block offensive users from using the service. Since the reason for pulling out is unknown, the possible solution is to wait for the apps to come back again. We'll make sure to update the article once they do. Source

InFocus A2 with 5-inch HD display, 4G VoLTE launched in India for Rs. 5199

InFocus has launched A2, the company's latest budget smartphone with 4G VoLTE support. It packs a 5-inch HD 2.5D curved glass screen, is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat), has a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with face beauty, camera filters and pro mode.  [HTML1] InFocus A2 specifications 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS 2.5D curved glass display 1.3 GHz Quad-core Spreadtrum SC9832 processor with Mali-400 GPU 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD Android 7.0 (Nougat) Dual SIM 5MP rear camera with LED Flash 5MP front-facing camera 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio Dimensions: 71.1 x 143.9 x 8.9mm 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS 2400mAh battery The InFocus A2 comes in Champagne Gold and Black colors, is priced at Rs. 5,199 (MOP) and is available from offline stores. It also comes with Rs. 300 MobiKwik SuperCash and 30GB additional 4G data for Reliance Jio users. Wonder who would choose this over Redmi 5A.

ZAKK Twins Bluetooth Water resistant headphones launched for Rs. 2999

ZAKK today has launched the Twins wireless Bluetooth headphones in India. The headphones come with anti-drop ear hooks and water resistance. These come with true wireless Bluetooth technology along with a microphone for taking calls.  The ZAKK Twins come with Bluetooth Airoha of V4.1+EDR, a frequency range of 2.4-2.48GHz. It has Input DC of 5V/0.2-1.5A. The headphones come with 3.7v polymer Li-ion battery and the company is promising up to 6 hours of talk time, 4.5 hours of music time and 120 hours of standby time. It has a Bluetooth connectivity of up to 10 meters. The ZAKK Twins wireless Bluetooth headphones are currently available through Amazon.in priced at Rs. 2,999. Commenting on the launch Anuj Chokra, Founder & Business Director, ZAKK said: We are extremely elated with the consumer response in India and are constantly in the effort of surprising our customers with something fresh and new. The new ZAKK Twins are one of its kind device which is a perfect blend of true technology and upbeat design for the millennials.

Google Assistant Go for Android 8.1 phones with low RAM released

Android Go (Oreo Edition) is an Android operating system based on Oreo 8.1 designed for phones with low-RAM. The company started rolling Go edition apps one after the other. It recently rolled out the Gboard Go, YouTube Go, and Maps Go. Today is has released the Assistant Go app on the Google Play Store.  The Assistant Go will come pre-installed on Android (Go edition) devices. It is also supposed to do the same things that a regular Assistant does but will use lesser resources. However, talking about the things that it can't do which include setting up reminders, controls for smart home devices, Actions on Google, and Device Actions. For now, the Assistant Go will only support French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai, but the company promises to bring more languages soon. With Google Assistant Go you can find local info like weather, restaurants, business hours, navigations, make calls, send SMS, alarms, timers, calendar, play media, etc. The App is already available on the Play Store, since it is aimed at low-cost Android phones running on Android 8.1 Oreo, it isn't available for higher-specced phones. You can get the Google Assistant Go from Play Store here for supported phones. Source

Nokia 8 and Nokia 5 3GB RAM version get a cut in India, now available for Rs. 28999 and Rs. 12499

HMD Global launched its flagship Nokia 8 smartphone in India back in September last year for Rs. 36,999. Now the phone has received a Rs. 8000 price cut and is available for Rs. 28,999. The Nokia 5 3GB RAM version that was launched for Rs. 13,499 has received a Rs. 1000 price cut and is available for Rs. 12,499, but some offline retailers are selling it for as low as Rs. 11,299. After the price cut, the Nokia 8 will be one of the best smartphones in the range. It packs a 5.3-inch Quad HD display with sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with 4GB RAM, has 13-megapixel dual rear cameras, one with a color sensor and the other with a monochrome sensor for low light and dedicated black and white photography. It also has ZEISS optics, OIS and also Splashproof with IP54 ratings. The Nokia 8 got Android 8.0 (Oreo) update  back in November last year, and even got the Android 8.1 (Oreo) beta update recently.  Android Oreo update for the Nokia 5 smartphone started rolling out earlier this week. Nokia 8. Amazon has started selling the Nokia 8 the new rate, and Flipkart is expected to start selling the Nokia 5 at ...

Nintendo announces Mario Kart Tour game is coming to smartphones

After the successful Super Mario Run game that was released back in 2016, Nintendo has announced that it will release a new Mario Kart Tour game for smartphones. The company said that the game is already in development and said that it will be released sometime before 2019. [HTML1] Mario Kart is one of the popular go-kart-style racing video games that was first released back in 1992 as Super Mario Kart on Super NES Console. The game evolved over the year, and the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the latest game that was released for Nintendo Switch last year, which is an enhanced version of Mario Kart 8 that was released back in 2014 on Wii U. Similar to the Super Mario Run, this is expected to be a free to play game so that users can try elements of the game for free and later purchase the game to unlock the remaining levels. The company usually releases the game on iOS devices first. It tied up with Apple to release the Super Mario Run on iOS devices at the end of 2016, while the Android version was released in March 2017. We still don't know any other details about the game, but we expect some details as there is progress in game development.

Union Budget 2018: Govt raises customs duty on mobile phones from 15% to 20%

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today announced the Union Budget 2018-19 in which he proposed to increase the customs duty on mobiles phones from 15% to 20%, 15% on some of their parts and accessories, and on certain parts of TVs to 15%. The import tax on mobile phones was at 6% back in 2014, later it was increased to 10% in July, and to 15% in December. This increase of 5% in import tax will seriously affect brands that are yet to establish their plants in India. With Apple is importing most iPhone models except for the SE, the prices are expected to go up as it did a couple of months back when the import duty was increased from 10% to 15%.  Arun Jaitley's motive behind the increase in import tax is to promote creation of more jobs in the country and according to him this will make the domestic items cheaper than imported ones and will generate more demand thus creating more employment at a large scale. Though Apple's Wistron Corp manufacturer is on the verge of closing a land deal, it will be while before everything takes shape. In the meantime, the new import tax is said to affect the current pricing. On ...

Microsoft revenue up 12% YoY in FYQ2 2018, cloud platform continues to grow

  Microsoft today has reported a 12% YoY increase in revenues in FYQ2 2018 in the latest earnings report for the quarter that ended December 31, 2017. The company's total estimated revenue is close to $28.9 billion and a net income of $7.5 billion with a solid 12% increase. Cloud platform still continues to grow and fuel the earnings. GAAP net loss was $6.3 billion and non-GAAP net income was $7.5 billion. Microsoft's Azure cloud platform revenue has increased by a massive 98 percent. The company's operating income is estimated at $8.7 billion with a 10% increase. On the other hand, the Surface revenue is up by just 1%, because of just 1 Surfacebook launch; the Surface Book 2 in November.  Microsoft has also returned $5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2018. The revenue in product and business processes combined came up to $9 billion which is a good 25% increase. The Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 10% and the Office 365 commercial revenue grew by 41% and the subscribers count increased to 29.2 million. LinkedIn in its 3rd full quarter inclusion has also posted a good $1.3 billion revenue contribution during the quarter. Windows ...

OPPO A71 (2018) with 5.2-inch display, Snapdragon 450, AI selfie tech announced

OPPO launched the A71 smartphone in India back in September last year, now the company has introduced the  A71 (2018) in Pakistan and Taiwan. This has similar specifications as the predecessor, including a 5.2-inch HD display,  Android 7.1 (Nougat) OS with ColorOS on top, 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 5-megapixel front-facing camera, but this is powered by Snapdragon 450 SoC instead of MediaTek MT6750 SoC. It also has only 2GB of RAM compared to 3GB of RAM in the predecessor. It also has A.I. Beauty Recognition technology that uses artificial intelligence to recognize skin tone and type, the gender and age of all subjects within an image and analyze environment lighting conditions by referencing other facial images from a massive global photo database, to beautify a selfie shot. It has an unibody metal design with dedicated dual nano SIM slots and a separate microSD expansion slot and packs a 3000mAh battery. It doesn't have a fingerprint sensor. OPPO A71 (2018) specifications 5.2-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display 1.8GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 450 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 506 GPU 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 256GB with microSD Android 7.1 (Nougat) with ColorOS 3.2 Dual SIM 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF, f/2.2 aperture 5MP front-facing ...

Apple confirms US govt inquiries over throttling aged iPhones

Apple today confirmed that it had received inquiries from U.S govt agencies over a software update that is slowed down aged iPhones' performance and also clarified that it is responding to them. According to the sources, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are said to be investigating Apple to see whether it has violated any securities laws concerning its disclosures. Since the inquiry is in early stages, it is too soon to conclude the outcome or if any enforcement will follow. Sources say that the Govt agencies are investigating the Apple's public statements on the situation. The major concern here is to see if Apple may have misled investors about the performance of older phones. On the other hand, there were reports yesterday saying that Apple might have postponed key software features like home screen redesign, etc. to focus on reliability and performance for iOS 12. Regarding the iPhone throttling issue, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook back in January told ABC News that  "we did say what it was, but I don’t think a lot of people were paying attention. And maybe we should have been clearer." Apple has apologized for not being transparent enough with the issue and has also ...