Swiggy Stores to deliver Home Essentials, Groceries and more from any store across your city

Swiggy has launched Swiggy Stores that lets you order Home Essentials, Groceries or anything you need from store across your city.  "Swiggy Stores also acts as a directory of popular stores and lists bestsellers to get items seamlessly delivered by Swiggy," said the company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZKKxi-52zE Once you choose a store and list items you want delivered, Swiggy will fulfil your order and facilitate payment. Swiggy Stores is launching in beta inside Swiggy app. The company is asking for feedback of consumers, merchants and delivery partners. Swiggy Stores will roll out starting from Gurgaon in phased manner and will deliver from over 3500 stores across the city. Swiggy says that it has partnered with over 200 stores in categories such as Fruits and Vegetables, Kiranas & Supermarkets, Paan Shops, Pet Care Stores, Florists, Baby Care Stores, Gourmet & Organic Stores and more. Some of the parters include Needs Super market, Health Kart, Apollo Pharmacy, Zappfresh and more.

Xiaomi dual-side foldable smartphone uses flexible folding screen co-developed with supply chain partner

It is a known fact that Xiaomi's foldable phone is under development, while it is not confirmed, but the company might showcase the first-gen foldable phone at the MWC 2019 event later this month and eventually roll out in the latter half of 2019. Lin Bin, co-founder and CEO of Xiaomi, has published a video showing a prototype of the bendable smartphone. Xiaomi's foldable display has a very unique design that can be folded twice. The display is on the outside and is folded around the housing. The company notes that the manufacturer has already overcome several technical problems, such as the flexible display, the folding mechanism, and the MIUI adjustment. The symmetric double folded design perfectly combines the experience of the tablet and a mobile phone, which is both practical and beautiful, according to the CEO. Xiaomi is considering two names of the prototype; Xiaomi Dual Flex and Xiaomi MIX Flex, however, it is still open for suggestions. Following the recent developments, Xiaomi has confirmed that the phone is currently being tested in the lab, and there are currently only a handful of prototypes available. The design, folding mechanism and the MIUI user interface adjustments have been developed by Xiaomi itself. While the flexible folding screen is developed in cooperation ...

5 reasons why the OnePlus 6T could be the ideal gift for your Valentine

In the recent past, especially with OnePlus 6T, the company has been pushing boundaries with equipping in-display fingerprint sensor, cutting-edge specifications, edge-to-edge displays and much more at a competitive price point. It's worth mentioning here that OnePlus 6T is the most accomplished and futuristic phone till now from the OnePlus stable. With new technology and worthwhile improvements, OnePlus 6T seems to the perfect little gift for your valentine this February 14th. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, here are 5 reasons why the OnePlus 6T could be the ideal gift for your loved one this season. Best-selling premium smartphone brand of 2018 As we all know, the OnePlus 6T has been the best-selling premium smartphone ever since its launch in November 2018. In fact, OnePlus has emerged as the best-selling premium smartphone brand in 2018 in India, according to Counterpoint Market Monitor Service. The momentum continues even after the festive season due to strong word of mouth and product feedback from the end users. Attractive Valentine’s Day Offers Right after the Republic day offer, OnePlus has announced a set of exciting new offers for Valentines Day for those who wish to buy its latest OnePlus 6T smartphone. Between 8 and 14 February, the OnePlus 6T comes with ...

Jio tops 4G availability in India, Airtel fastest network during Q3-Q4, 2018: Ookla

Ookla has released its new report on India’s 4G Availability and according to the findings, Reliance Jio ranked first with 98.8% 4G availability across the country. Jio is followed by Airtel at 90.0% and Vodafone and Idea with 84.6% and 82.8% respectively, across 15 largest cities of India.  However, 4G Availability does not mean the fastest service. To compare which of India’s largest mobile operators is fastest, Ookla used their proprietary Speed Score methodology, a combined measure of download and upload speed that incorporates several tiers of performance. As per the report, Airtel had the fastest 4G LTE speed in India during Q3-Q4 2018 with a Speed Score of 11.23 Mbps, followed by Vodafone in second with a 9.13 Mbps Speed Score and Jio and Idea at the third and fourth position respectively. As for the general availability, Jio's general availability is the best with users finding service in 99.3% of locations. Airtel was second at 99.1%, followed closely by Vodafone at 99.0% and Idea at 98.9%. The 'General Availability' and '4G Availability' was measured using the coverage data from 250,138,853 samples on 595,034 enabled devices during Q3-Q4 2018. 4G Availability is then the percentage of an operator’s known locations where a device has ...

Google app beta update hints at ‘NexusAmChips’ Assistant device ID, ‘Labs’ feature, more

Google app is finally getting a new beta update, there are two distinct beta versions of the Google app; 9.21 and 9.23. Both these versions reveal a new Assistant device ID named "nexus" for an upcoming feature or hardware category, as well as a "Labs" feature.  Despite the two new versions, the difference between them seems negligible. The “assistant_device_id” is usually a good indicator for new categories of Assistant devices. Google app 9.23 reveals “NexusAmChips.” Usually, features and hardware related to Assistant on phones are labeled with “nexus.” The “NexusAmChips” is likely a phone-related feature, with the “category” qualifier suggesting hardware. The “AmChips” could refer to “Amlogic Chips” used on the Google Home Hub and Android TV set-top boxes. It looks like the "NexusAmChips" could be the Assistant Connected platform that was announced at CES 2019. Google has not shared many public details about this new platform for building Assistant accessories, but this codename hints at a possible usage of Amlogic chips and there is some relation to Android, likely Android Things. The V9.21 further reveals its work on the “Labs” feature to let users “try new features that Google is working on.” This includes the ability for users to send feedback for any “unstable” functionality. One of ...

Google said to have hired microchip engineers to expand Bengaluru hub

Google has hired more than a dozen of microchip engineers in Bengaluru, India, in recent months and plans to rapidly add more, according to LinkedIn profiles, job postings, and two industry executives. This move comes in an effort to expand its program to design the chips of its devices internally. The Bengaluru site makes Google the first among the big internet platform companies developing their own chips and to establish a team for those efforts in what has become a leading hub for a semiconductor design over the last two decades. Since 2014, Google has designed computer server chips for its data centers and an image processing chip for its Pixel smartphones. The company's main motive is to create more powerful and efficient devices by customizing key components that traditionally come from Intel. Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc, and Facebook Inc each have launched similar chip design efforts, which could help them cut costs,  and also reduce the dependency on vendors. Google in its Bengaluru hub has hired at least 16 engineering veterans and four talent recruiters for its “gChips” team from traditional chipmakers such as Intel, Qualcomm Inc, Broadcom Inc, and Nvidia Corp. Google had 13 job postings for roles related to chips in ...

Vivo announces new iQOO sub-brand for mobile phones

Vivo has announced iQOO, the company's latest mobile phone sub-brand in China. The company has posted a teaser without saying when we can expect new mobiles under the sub-brand or what the iQOO means. Some reports from China say that the new brand will focus on premium mobile phones, while few reports say Vivo is getting into to gaming phone segment to take on Xiaomi, Nubia and others. Xiaomi recently announced that Redmi will be a separate sub-brand with Lu Weibing heading it, after it announced POCO / POCOPHONE brand. It also has Black Shark brand for gaming phones. Started off as OPPO's sub-brand, Realme was later formed as a separate company with a separate CEO. It is not clear if Vivo plans to launch iQOO phones outside China since this is not a global announcement. We should know more details about iQOO soon, and probably a new mobile phone sometime by the end of Q1 or early Q2 2019. Source

Gmail for web gets right-click context menu with reply, forward, mute and more

Gmail's new Web UI rolled out almost a year ago and the platform ever since has been constantly gaining new features including snoozing for emails and much more. The company today is adding a new context menu for the right click with twelve commonly-used actions.  The current situation allows users to right-click to move email between tabs, archive, mark as unread, and delete the email. With this new inclusion, it will be getting a lot more options including replying, forwarding, muting, search for all emails from a sender, search for all emails with the same subject, easily add a label or move an email, and open in a new window. The roll-out for this update begins starting from today, and G Suite users will be getting it first. As for the regular Gmail users, they should get the update in the weeks to come. To evoke the right-click context menu, users can also ctrl+click on the Mac keyboard and menu key on the Windows keyboard. Source

Amazon acquires home mesh WiFi systems start-up Eero

Amazon and Eero have announced that both the companies entered into a definitive merger agreement under which Amazon will acquire eero. The home mesh WiFi systems set up in minutes and blanket every room. Eero products are already available on Amazon and have over 4.6-star product rating on Amazon.com. Eero uses multiple access points that work together as a system to blanket a home in high-performing, reliable, and simple home WiFi. Thanks to the Eero app, users can set up the system in under 10 minutes, share their network, program parental controls, and run speed tests on demand. Additionally, eero communicates with the cloud to receive instructions and updates. This means eero systems are self-updating, and self-fixing. However, the completion of this transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Dave Limp, SVP of Amazon Devices and Services said: We are incredibly impressed with the eero team and how quickly they invented a WiFi solution that makes connected devices just work,“We have a shared vision that the smart home experience can get even easier, and we’re committed to continue innovating on behalf of customers. Nick Weaver, Co-Founder, and CEO of eero said: From the beginning, eero’s mission has been to make the technology in homes just work. We started with ...

Indian smartphone shipments up 14.5% YoY in 2018; Xiaomi continues to lead with 28.9% share: IDC

As per IDC’s Quarterly mobile phone tracker, the Indian smartphone market has shipped 142.3 million units in 2018, registering a healthy 14.5% year-on-year (YoY) growth as compared to 2017. Though the Q3 2018 has been the strongest quarter, the market saw a sequential decline of 15.1% in Q4 2018 owing to high channel inventory. The healthy annual growth of 19.5% was driven primarily by multiple sales by e-tailers beyond the festive Diwali period lasting into December. However, the offline channel had a muted year with a modest 6.7% annual growth in 2018 and growing 5% sequentially in Q4 2018. With the government initiative to push local manufacturing in India, 2018 witnessed further duty hikes on mobile phone components, coupled with weakened rupee further added to the challenges of the long tail of brands outside the Top 5. The overall smartphone average selling price remained flat in 2018 at Rs. 11,000 approx, with high shipments in the mass segment of Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 14,000, it accounted for more than half of the smartphone market in India. The feature phone market, which makes up 56.0% of the total mobile phone market clocked 181.3 million-unit shipments in 2018, with 10.6% YoY growth. This was primarily driven ...