India's Bharti Enterprises bid with UK's satellite tech firm Under Parliament Scrutiny

A UK parliamentary panel has launched an inquiry into the UK government's successful bid to acquire satellite technology firm One Web along with India's Bharti Enterprises earlier this month.

The winning bid hailed as reflective of the scale of Britain's ambitions on the global stage by UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma has come under the scanner of the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee as "troubling and concerning" after it was alerted by a civil servant in the government's business department over concerns around the investment.  

As part of the deal, Sharma had confirmed that the UK will invest $500 million and take a "significant" equity share in London-based OneWeb, which had declared bankruptcy earlier this year.  Another $500-million will come from Bharti Global Ltd, an entity of the Sunil Bharti Mittal led Indian telecom major. Now more than ever, the government needs to ensure that it's spending tax-

Garmin Fitness Tracking Suffers Global Outage Due to Suspected Ransomware Attack

Smartwatch maker Garmin is suffering widespread outages after it was reportedly targeted in a ransomware attack. 

The company announced temporary outages on multiple platforms - including its website, user data-syncing service Garmin Connect and customer service center - on Thursday, promising to get the problems resolved as soon as possible. 

Garmin did not disclose the cause of the issues, but multiple employees took to social media and revealed that a ransomware attack had encrypted its internal network and some production systems, according to ZDNet. 

The outlet reported that Garmin is now planning a multi-day maintenance window to deal with the aftermath of the attack - leaving thousands of users without the ability to sync their devices with the mobile app or the cloud.  Several customers flagged the issue on Twitter even after Garmin made its first announcement, in which it indicated that services would be back up and running soon. 

EU countries Need to diversify 5G suppliers, Commission

EU countries must take urgent action to diversify their 5G suppliers, the European Commission said, amid U.S. pressure on the bloc to follow Britain and ban China's Huawei from 5G networks.
Last year, the EU agreed to take a tough line on 5G suppliers to reduce cybersecurity risks to next-generation mobile networks, seen as key to boosting economic growth and competitiveness. strategy included reducing countries' and telecoms operators' dependency on one supplier. World No. 1 telecoms equipment maker Huawei competes with Finland's Nokia and Sweden's Ericsson.

MONEY SHOULD NOT BUY COVID-19 drugs: Bill Gates

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates called for Covid-19 drugs and an eventual vaccine to be made available to countries and people that need them most and not the “highest bidder”.

“If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of to the people and the places where they are most needed, we'll have a longer, more unjust, deadlier pandemic,” Mr Gates said on Saturday, during a virtual Covid-19 conference organised by the International AIDS Society.

DONT put a Camera Cover on your MAC before reading this

Apple has published a support page that warns MacBook owners not to close their laptop with a camera cover in place. Damage like a cracked display could result, according to the company, because “the space between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances.” Mac-Rumors also spotted the advisory, which Apple posted in Beginning of this month.

Those little plastic camera covers with a sliding mechanism are super common nowadays. But they could spell disaster for your laptop screen if you shut the laptop with the cover still on, and Apple’s laptop repairs are extremely costly. Even with AppleCare+ accidental coverage, the deductible isn’t cheap.

Israel launches military intelligence satellite

JERUSALEM: New Israeli spy satellite set to provide powerful intelligence edge over adversaries.
The “Ofek 16” spy satellite launched from central Israel at 4 a.m. on Monday morning is due to significantly upgrade Israel’s ability to monitor the dangerous activities of its adversaries throughout the Middle East, foremost among them Iran.

The satellite was launched successfully by the Defense Ministry and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) following years of research and development, and a working schedule that in recent months had to be adapted to restrictions created by the coronavirus pandemic. 


IAI officials said they viewed the satellite’s launch as a top priority. This is due to the fact that “Ofek 16” is designed to provide the Israeli defense establishment with a higher than ever resolution camera in space.


Amnon Harari, head of the Ministry’s Space and Satellite Administration, noted on Monday that the latest spy satellite joins a series of similar ones in orbit, including the “Ofek 5,” launched in 2002, which remains operational to this day. The first of the “Ofek” (the Hebrew word for “horizon”) series was launched in 1988.

Biggest Attack Against iPhone Users Yet

Google Says Malicious Websites Have Been Quietly Hacking iPhones for Years In what may be one of the largest attacks against iPhone users ever, researchers at Google say they uncovered a series of hacked websites that were delivering attacks designed to hack iPhones. The websites delivered their malware indiscriminately were visited thousands of times a week, and were operational for years, Google said. "There was no target discrimination; simply visiting the hacked site was enough for the exploit server to attack your device, and if it was successful, install a monitoring implant. We estimate that these sites receive thousands of visitors per week," Ian Beer, from Google's Project Zero, wrote in a blog post published Thursday.

AMD dominating with its Ryzen 5 3600

AMD’s Ryzen success story continues, with a single Ryzen 3rd-gen processor coming close to selling as much as Intel’s entire CPU range, according to the latest statistics from one European retailer.

As highlighted on Reddit, German-based Mind factory declared that AMD’s processors took 78% of sales for August, almost as much as in July when the company managed to bag 79%. Naturally, that left Intel on 22% of units sold for August, and once again, AMD wasn’t far off equaling the sales of Intel’s entire range of CPUs with one single Ryzen product – except this time the chip which managed that feat was a different one.

Last month, AMD’s top performer was the Ryzen 7 3700X, but that’s now in second place in terms of individual CPU sales, with the Ryzen 5 3600 taking the top spot. Indeed, the latter actually sold more than all of Intel’s 9th-gen offerings put together.

Woman Finds Diamond While Learning How To Find Diamonds

A Texas woman found a 3.26 Caret diamond right where she was sitting and watching  a YouTube video on how to find diamonds.
Miranda Hollingshead, 27, was visiting the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas in a family outing.
They'd been at the park for about an hour, when she decided to take a break at the base of a hill. She fired up the YouTube video and started watching.
The park allows its visitors to search for diamonds in a designated 37.5-acre area.
For a second, she glanced over to check on her child before returning to the video. That's when she saw it: a yellow diamond, sticking out among the other rocks. "I shook my hand across it to make sure what it was, picked it up, and yelled across the field to my mom, 'I think I got one!'" she told park officials.
She was right.

Intel Shows Off First Artificial Intelligence Chip: Spring Hill

Intel launched an artificial intelligence processor called Nervana NNP-I or ‘Spring Hill’. According to reports, this processor has been designed for large computing centers.

Intel Nervana NNP-I is based on a 10 nanometer Ice Lake processor and is purpose-built specifically to accelerate deep learning deployment at scale, offering excellent performance for major data center workloads. Intel also said that this processor also offers a high degree of programmability without compromising performance to power efficiency. Dedicated accelerators like the Intel Nervana NNPs are built from the ground up, with a focus on AI to provide customers the right intelligence at the right time,” says Intel in an official blog post. These chips have been birthed at the company’s development facility in Haifa, Israel after Intel’s investment in AI startups such as Habana Labs and NeuroBlade.

Tesla's solar panels catch fire at Walmart stores, Sued

Walmart has sued Tesla after rooftop solar panels on Their multiple retailer's stores caught fire, allegedly due to poor safety practices. Tesla supposedly didn't ground its electrical and solar systems properly, according to Walmart, and regularly sent inspectors who "lacked basic solar training and knowledge." Walmart also asserted that Tesla's panels were rife with visible defects.
Wallmart accused Tesla of breach of contract, gross negligence, and failure to meet industry standards. It wanted Tesla to not only pay damages related to the first but to remove its panels from over 240 Walmart stores. There's a good possibility Tesla will fight back, though. The company has been struggling to revive its solar business, which installed a modest 29MW of solar power capacity in the second quarter compared to more than 200MW at the division's peak. The last thing it needs is to lose a major deployment and suffer the negative publicity that comes with that loss.

US airports are Scanning your Face by Facial recognition scanners.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been working with airlines to implement biometric face scanners in domestic airports to better streamline security. In fact, they're already in place in certain airports around the country.  But how does the process work? Which airlines and airports are involved right now?

Here's everything you need to know about the latest technological advances in airport screenings, from the government's work. Biometric airport screening is a fancy way of saying that the government is using facial recognition technology at the airport. Government agencies (in conjunction with airlines) are aiming to improve efficiency when it comes the way travelers enter and exit the U.S.
This is separate from the eye and fingertip scanning done by CLEAR, a secure identity company available at more than 60 airports, stadiums and other venues around the country.
Here's how the process of facial scanning at the airports works: Cameras take your photo, and then the CBP's Traveler Verification Service matches it to a photo the Department of Homeland Security has of you already. These could be images from sources like your passport or other travel documents.
 Should you need to be concerned about privacy?  Let us know in comments

Microsoft Chromium-Based Browser Released

Microsoft announced the third and final preview build of its Chromium-based Edge browser. Giving key insights into its development process, features expected in the stable build, as well as details on the beta program, Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Windows, wrote on the official Microsoft blog that the Edge browser betas for both Windows and Apple's macOS are now live. According to Belfiore's post, "the next version of Microsoft Edge is ready for everyday use". The key reason behind this is because fundamentally, the beta build is far more stable, secure and free of bugs in comparison to its alpha release in both Canary and Dev circles. In fact, to make security matters more assured for users, .Major updates to the Edge beta will be introduced every six weeks, while any security irregularities will see patch releases as per urgency.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy Note 10 Plus is here for $1100

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10 Plus have been launched. Both the Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy Note 10 Plus feature similar camera setups on the front and rear, and come with a near-full screen display that looks quite snazzy in photographs.  The Galaxy Note 10 smartphones are powered by the new Exynos 9825, which is fabricated using the new 7nm extreme ultraviolet lithography process to pack in more transistors for more performance firepower. This is in comparison to the 8nm-built Exynos 9820, which fell behind its competitors such as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855, Apple A12 and the HiSilicon Kirin 980. The processor gets an integrated neural processing unit (NPU), and graphics duties are taken care of ARM's semi-flagship, 12-core G76 MP12 GPU. As for variants, the Galaxy Note 10 features 8GB RAM and 256GB storage in the 4G storage, and 12GB RAM and 256GB storage in the 5G variant. The Galaxy Note 10 Plus, meanwhile, features 12GB RAM as standard, with storage options of 256GB and 512GB. Both the notes also feature an improved Samsung S-Pen, now with enhanced functionalities.

Why ancient people were Drilling holes through each other's skull

people around the world practiced a crude surgical procedure that involves forming a hole in the skull of a living person by  drilling/ cutting or scraping away layers of bone with a sharp implement.

Thousands of skulls bearing signs of trepanation have been unearthed at archaeological sites around the world. But scientists are still not completely agreed on why our ancestors performed trepanation.
Anthropological accounts of 20th-Century trepanations in Africa and Polynesia suggest that in these cases at least, trepanation was performed to treat pain – for instance, the pain caused by skull trauma or neurological disease. Trepanation may also have had a similar purpose in prehistory. Many trepanned skulls show signs of cranial injuries or neurological diseases, often in the same region of the skull where the trepanation hole was made. But as well as being used to treat medical conditions, researchers have long suspected that ancient humans performed trepanation for a quite different reason: ritual.

Bookings open for Samsung Galaxy Note 10 in the US

Samsung has opened reservations for pre-ordering its ‘next generation of Galaxy’ S10. The reservations will be accepted till August 7, when the company is expected to launch its Galaxy Note 10 series. bigger 5G supported Note 10+ alongside Galaxy Watch Active 2 will be unveiled as well.
Those who reserve for Samsung’s upcoming phone will need to fill up information such as their first and last name as well as email,  ZIP code, etc. The next step would be to either choose a carrier like T-Mobile, Sprint, A&T, Verizon, etc or simply go for the unlocked variant.

Redmi will launch smartphone with 64 MP Samsung sensor soon

Redmi will be among the first to use 64 Mega Pixel camera in its smartphones. It is Redmi, as the company already posted somewhat of a camera sample on its Weibo profile. The Xiaomi subsidiary said the industry is officially entering the era of 64 megapixels, and we should expect a phone with the sensor soon. The image did not say specifically it will use the Samsung sensor. Even if smartphones were able to produce 64 MP images long back, this is the first time a sensor is able to yield photos with such detail. The sensor in the upcoming Redmi phone equipped with Tetracell binding technology, pushing out 16 MP photos in a low light environment.

Rent your property to Uber Eats and Amazon deliveries for millions

Its Big Business - and one of the world's most prolific tech investors are now on board
“If you think of parking garages, what they essentially are, they’re just concrete slabs or open-air lots with some white lines so that you know where to park your car,” Ojalvo said.

“What we do, is that first of all we rip out the existing parking system and we replace it with our system, which is cloud-based, and it’s got lots of different features. It’s got features like license-plate recognition, features like biometric recognition, etc. so that you can frictionlessly access the property.”
Once inside, the empty space can support everything from food preparation for meal-delivery services like Uber Eats (also known as dark kitchens, to use industry lingo) to staging areas for package deliveries to pop-up retail stores.

People No Longer loyal to iPhone. Switching to Android

Is Apple's era coming to an end? High-end smartphone makers like Apple and Samsung are both finding it tough going at the moment. we already knew that iPhone sales have been flattening, it is also interesting to learn that iPhone loyalty could also be on the wane. In Apple’s case, much of its pain is self-inflicted with large increases in prices for its iPhone X range, while Samsung is busy fending off hundreds of Chinese competitors offering similar features and even better quality for substantially less.
New data shows that around 40,000 customers that used its trade-in and upgrade service, more iPhone owners are trading in their device for Android phone than ever before. In fact, just over a quarter of iPhone X owners (26%), or 1-in-4, we're making the switch.

Conversely, Samsung loyalty was higher with reverse churn at just 7.7 percent switching to an iPhone while any remaining Samsung switchers stuck with another Android device. Samsung was the leading beneficiary with 18.1 of former iPhone X owners opting for a new Galaxy S or Galaxy Note smartphone.

Android 9 Pie Released With Gesture-Based Navigation System, Adaptive Battery: How to Download

Android 9 Pie, the next iteration in the Android family, has now been officially released. The latest Android version comes after the debut of five developer preview builds of Android P that are claimed to have been tested by more than 140,000 beta testers till date. Google also earlier this year announced its partnership with seven OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to bring the beta releases of Android Pie to their flagship devices. However, the new software package, which was previously speculated to debut as Pistachio Ice Cream, isn't designed for Nexus models, including the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, and Pixel C. This doesn't mean that the search giant isn't favouring its native hardware altogether. The fresh experience through Android Pie is certainly arriving first on Pixel handsets, including the original Pixeland Pixel XL as well as the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

India eyes ways to block Facebook, WhatsApp

New Delhi: Consider it as a step ahead towards the dictatorship of far right ruling party. The government has asked telecom operators and internet service providers to suggest ways to block social media apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp during emergencies, a move the industry says will be difficult to enforce and violate the fundamental right of speech and expression.
In an 18 July letter, the department of telecommunications (DoT) wrote to companies including Bharti Airtel Ltd, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, and industry associations, requesting them to “explore various possible options and confirm how Instagram/Facebook/WhatsApp/Telegram and such other mobile apps can be blocked on internet.” Mint has seen a copy of the letter.

WORMS THAT WERE FROZEN FOR 40,000 YEARS, WAKE UP AND STARTED EATING

Cryogenic freezing is considered to be more sci-fi than actual science, but now, worms that were trapped, frozen in ice since the late Pleistocene epoch — Ice Age — woke up from the longest nap and started looking for food and eating as if nothing had happened.

Ancient roundworms, also called nematodes were found in a chunk of Siberian permafrost that solidified about 42,000 years ago and remained frozen since then. Researchers who made the latest find discovered that as soon as they thawed, they started moving and looking for food. The team of researchers includes scientists from Princeton, reports RT.

Corning Gorilla Glass 6 will let your phone survive 15X

Corning just announced the release of Gorilla Glass 6, emphasizing that it’s more durable than previous models. The company says that the glass will survive up to 15 drops from a one meter height and can be “up to two times better” than Gorilla Glass 5.
“Corning Gorilla Glass 6 improves upon Gorilla Glass 5 by surviving drops from higher heights, but, more importantly, has been engineered to survive multiple drops,” said Corning Gorilla Glass vice president and general manager John Bayne in a statement.
As phones get slimmer and have ever sleeker glass displays, reports have appeared that the slimness may actually cancel out the improvements in new iterations of Gorilla Glass, since thinner glass is weaker glass, even if it’s become stronger. Still Corning argues that sleek edge-

Samsung Bixby smart speaker launching in August. will be cheaper than Google Home

Samsung expected to release a premium Bixby-powered smart speaker alongside the Galaxy Note 9.
The Wall Street Journal says the speaker will be bowl-shaped with legs on the bottom and lights on top (hope those lights are shaped like eyes for the proper Batteries Not Included experience). It will also apparently have a sound shifting feature that will be able to play audio in the direction of the person talking to it. It might work something like the S-Ray concept Samsung demoed at CES earlier this year; see the trailer for the tech below.The speaker will

Diamonds Can Be Cheaper Than Copper In Future?

There may be more than a quadrillion tons of diamond hidden in the Earth’s interior, according to a new study from MIT and other universities. But the new results are unlikely to set off a diamond rush. The scientists estimate the precious minerals are buried more than 100 miles below the surface, far deeper than any drilling expedition has ever reached.

The ultradeep cache may be scattered within cratonic roots — the oldest and most immovable sections of rock that lie beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates. Shaped like inverted mountains, cratons can stretch as deep as 200 miles through the Earth’s crust and into its mantle; geologists refer to their deepest sections as “roots.”

Skype getting call recording feature on Android and other platforms

Skype has been on the way out for a long time now. There are much better alternatives on most platforms, such as Google Hangouts and Discord. According to a report from The Verge, Skype will soon be getting a call recording feature on Android along with other platforms. It’s a cloud-based feature, so you can do it pretty much

anywhere that you can use Skype. It combines all screens shared in the call, along with webcams and, of course, audio.

While technically Skype supported call recording 15 years ago, this is its first true introduction. Users looking to record their Skype calls had to look towards alternatives. On Android, that proved somewhat of a difficult task years ago when screen recording

how to DIY Extreme Luxury look under 10$ - Painted Glass

Indian TV anchor reads out breaking news of her husband’s death in car accident

Her job is to read news on TV and Supreet Kaur did just that by reading the breaking news of her husband’s death in a road accident, leaving her shell-shocked colleagues speechless by her exemplary commitment.

A news reader at India’s local private IBC-24 channel, Kaur kept her composure during Saturday morning’s live news bulletin as a reporter phoned in details of a fatal accident involving a Renault Duster at Pithara in Mahasamund district earlier in the day.

YouTube will no longer allow creators to make money until they reach 10,000 views

Alphabet Inc’s YouTube said on Thursday it would place ads on channels only if they reach 10,000 views as it tries to weed out people who make money on the site by stealing content from other sources.
The video streaming service also said once a video channel crosses the threshold, it would review the content to see if it qualifies for the placement of ads.

“By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators,” Ariel Bardin, YouTube’s vice president of product management, said in a blog post.YouTube has come under intense scrutiny for ads appearing alongside videos carrying homophobic or anti-Semitic messages, prompting a number of companies to suspend their digital ads on the video streaming service.

United States Launches Attack on Syria with tomahawk missiles

The U.S. military attacked a Syria-government airfield with 59 tomahawk missiles on Thursday evening.

The missiles targeted the Shayrat Airfield near Homs, and were in response to a Tuesday chemical weapons attack. Officially announcing the strike, President Donald Trump said that the targeted airfield had launched the chemical attack on a rebel-held area, and he called on other nations to oppose Syria's embattled leader.

"On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack," Trump said during a Thursday address.