Category: Technology

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

TikTok became the latest tech company to announce tighter protections for teenagers as social media platforms come under increased scrutiny over their privacy safeguards.

The short video-sharing app will roll out a number of features in the coming months, including a default curb for 16 and 17-year-olds on in-app messaging unless it is switched to a different setting. Under 16s will see a pop-up message when they publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch.

And users aged 16 and 17 will be able to receive a pop-up asking them to confirm who can download their videos. Downloads are already disabled on content posted by under 16s.

The Chinese-owned platform will also stop sending push notifications to users aged 13 to 16 from 9pm — and an hour later for 16 to 17-year-olds — with the aim of reducing their screen time at night.

The moves announced by head of child safety public policy Alexandra Evans and global head of privacy Aruna Sharma build on previous measures to protect young users from predators, bullies and other online dangers.

“It’s important to ensure even stronger proactive protections to help keep teens safe, and we’ve continually introduced changes to support age-appropriate experiences on our platform,” Evans and Sharma said.

“We want to help our younger teens in particular develop positive digital habits early on.”

Google, YouTube and Facebook-Instagram have all recently bolstered defenses for teen users, while critics have been urging Facebook to abandon plans for a children’s version of Instagram.

TikTok was the world’s most downloaded app last year, overtaking Facebook and its messaging platforms, according to market tracker App Annie. The video app surged in popularity, according to market tracker App Annie, despite efforts by former president Donald Trump to ban it or force a sale to US-based investors.

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

WhatsApp have introduced a new series of beautiful stickers depicting beautiful emotions as stickers are the new language well understood, loved and binge-used by social media users across all platforms, as they form one of the most creative ways to communicate.

A new sticker pack called ‘Friends Are Family’ has been released and can be downloaded for free. The Twitter handle releasing updates about WhatsApp, WABetaInfo, captioned the stickers pack image: “‘Friends Are Family’ is available now as new WhatsApp sticker pack, on WhatsApp for iOS and Android.”

Mexican graphic artist WOAO has produced the recently launched sticker pack. The WABetaInfo-shared image says: “A good friend can make a problem disappear or turn a good time into a great one! So, here’s a pack for you and the ‘family you choose’ – your besties!”

The ‘Friends Are Family’ stickers have been themed around love, memories, happiness, sadness, anger and celebration. Mexican artist WOAO has a name for drawing multicoloured 3D images with striking features.

He sparingly dabbles with select colours, including red, purple, pink and lilac. With a few colours from his palette, he paints his characters with exaggerated features and disproportionate body parts. His graphic style is remotely reminiscent of ‘The Escape from the Chickens’.

The sticker pack is free and available for download on iOS, Android and desktops, regardless of what version of WhatsApp you are using. After you download them, you may update the app to avoid bugs and other glitches.

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

TikTok was the world’s most downloaded app last year, overtaking Facebook and its messaging platforms, market tracker App Annie report yesterday. The Chinese-owned video app surged in popularity despite efforts by former president Donald Trump to ban it or force a sale to US-based investors, according to the research firm.

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, is believed to have one billion users worldwide including more than 100 million in the United States, and its short-form videos are especially popular with young smartphone users.

US President Joe Biden in June revoked executive orders from his predecessor seeking to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat from US markets on national security concerns but ordered a review of the potential risks of foreign-owned internet services.

While the political debate about the video-snippet sharing sensation roiled, TikTok climbed from the fourth most downloaded app in 2019 to the top spot last year, according to App Annie data.

On the way, TikTok stepped over Facebook and two of the US internet giants texting apps Messenger and WhatsApp, the market tracker determined. TikTok’s popularity has prompted Facebook-owned Instagram to add video features to ride the hot trend.

Meanwhile TikTok last month began letting users post videos up to three minutes in length, tripling the prior cap to stay ahead of competitors.

Facebook has argued that the surge in TikTok’s popularity undercuts claims from antitrust enforcers in the United States that the California group dominates social networking.

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

Google’s latest cellphone Pixel 5a will be released on August 26, according to the reliable sources of NUT. A new leak has revealed that the phone may get official later this month and has revealed the key specifications of the successor to the Pixel 4a. The features will include 6GB RAM and Snapdragon 765G processor. It comes with a 6.4-inch screen as well.

There will be no wireless charging feature.

Pixel 5a will be available for sale in the United States and Japan markets. It will have a price of $450. The report said that it will have the same camera as its predecessor, Pixel 5.

Lahore (NUT- Desk)

WhatsApp is improving its service by giving news features regularly and latest one is very elating. WhatsApp has submitted a new update through the Google Play Beta Program, bringing the Android version up to 2.21.16.10, WABetainfo.

The instant messaging app has added new emojis in the update, which Apple earlier released when it rolled out the iOS 14.5 update.

Finally, now Android users can also send and receive the same new emojis.

“These emojis are available today. Be sure to install this update to see them. Note that the recipient won’t see these new emojis if they aren’t on the latest beta update,” the platform said.

Lahore ( NUT- Desk)

South Korean technology giant Samsung is expected to unveil two new foldable smartphones and a new smartwatch on August 11 (Wednesday). This will be the its second big product launch of the year.

Samsung, which was first to introduce foldable technologies in smartphones in 2019, will launch two new devices in the category – Galaxy Z Fold3 and Galaxy Z Flip3, according to industry insiders.

The company is also expected to introduce the S Pen stylus, the signature feature of the premium Note series phones, to the new foldable devices to attract more niche professional users. Samsung, which holds nearly 75 per cent of the foldable smartphone industry, currently offers three foldable models.

The IT and mobile communications arm at Samsung reported a 22.4 per cent quarterly decline in sales in the April-June period to 22.7 trillion Korean won ($20 billion), influenced by a “component supply shortage” in the industry as well as “production disruptions in its Vietnam factory”.

The company said it plans to achieve “solid revenue and profit by boosting the competitiveness of the product line-up with the launch of new foldable models and the expansion of mass market 5G phones”.

Samsung is unlikely to release its Galaxy Note series smartphones at the upcoming event to reduce production pressure on the company. Samsung usually issues its Note series, one of its best-selling models known for its stylus S Pen, in August every year.

The company is expected to launch its new smartwatch Galaxy Watch 4 that will come with a combined operating system from Google and Samsung. To challenge the dominance of Apple Watch, which has been the best-selling smartwatch for many years, Samsung has merged its Tizen OS with Wear OS.

Samsung will launch new Galaxy Buds 2 to compete with the likes of Apple’s AirPods and AirPods Pro. Being developed under the codename ‘berry’, the new buds will be able to connect to multiple devices at the same time, according to a report by TechRadar. They will be priced about $175, according to MySmartPrice.

New products will help the company to diversify its current portfolio and attract more customers while strengthening its premium line-up of electronic devices.

The IPO will be the largest since Interloop Ltd. raised about Rs5 billion in 2019.

Lahore (Nut-Desk)

Air Link Communication Ltd. plans to raise at least Rs5.85 billion ($36 million) through an initial public offering this month, which would be the largest from a non-state firm in Pakistan.

The Lahore-based company plans to sell new and existing shares at a price between 65-91 rupees each, Chief Executive Officer Muzzaffar Hayat Piracha said in a reply to queries. It will take investor orders on August 30 and 31 and then price the offering.

Pakistan has seen a record streak of IPOs this year. Air Link, which started operations about a decade ago and has since become one of the largest distributors of phones in the country, saw sales rise 50 percent to 3.6 million units in the year ended June.

The company plans to issue 60 million new shares and Piracha will sell 30 million from his holdings, said Kamran Nasir, CEO at JS Global Capital Ltd., consultant and bookrunner to the transaction.

Air Link, which has also recently expanded into mobile assembling, plans to use the funds to expand its distribution network. It aims to have 150 outlets by 2026 from 14 currently, which will boost margins together with the assembly business, said Nasir.

The company expects its revenue to triple to Rs129 billion rupees and net income surging 500 percent to 9.2 billion rupees by fiscal 2025 from 2020, according to Nasir.

Air Link has been in the distribution business for a decade working with top smartphone brands like Samsung, iPhone, Huawei, Xiaomi, Alcatel, TCL, Tecno & iTel. The production plant has the capacity to produce 6 million units per year.

It must be mentioned that the company has recently expanded into the mobile manufacturing facility in March.

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Lahore (NUT-Desk)

WhatsApp recently added a new feature that makes it easier for users to join group calls even after it’s started, solving a major problem for them.

Previously, if you drop off a group call someone has to add you back and it’s the same case with missing group calls in the messaging app owned by Facebook.

Now you won’t have to go through all that because the new WhatsApp feature lets you jump back into a call whenever, as long as the call is still active. The messaging app has also added a new calling UI which also improves the experience.

The new missed group call feature is available to all users on Android and iOS.

How to join WhatsApp missed group calls:

Open WhatsApp, and tap on the ‘Calls’ tab.

Here, you will find your WhatsApp call history.

If there’s an ongoing group call you will see the call highlighted.

Just tap on the call to join back.

You can do this if you’ve missed the group call or if you’ve dropped off a call.

Joining a group call on WhatsApp is also slightly different now. When you receive an incoming group call you can choose to ‘ignore’ or ‘open’ the group call.

If you tap on open the call screen will expand showing the list of participants and whether they have joined or not. You can also view the call participant list during the call.

Lahore (NUT-Desk- PR)

Google on Monday unveiled a new flagship Pixel smartphone powered by its first mobile chip to put artificial intelligence in people’s hands.  Pixel 6 models set for release later this year, with superfast 5G wireles capability, will debut Google’s own Tensor chip crafted along the lines of processors it made for data centers to enable computers to think more like people do.

“It’s basically a mobile system on a chip designed around artificial intelligence,” Google devices senior vice president Rick Osterloh said during a briefing at the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley.

“We’re really excited about it. We’re setting the stage to really grow the business.”

Google’s Pixel line has captured scant share in a global smartphone market dominated by Samsung, Apple and Chinese manufacturers. Pixel phones have been seen as a way for Google to showcase the capabilities of its free Android mobile operating system, setting a standard for other smartphone makers.

“We’ve always thought about our hardware products in the context of driving computing forward,” said Google chief executive Sundar Pichai.

“Our custom Google Tensor chip, which has been four years in the making and builds off of two decades of Google’s computing experience, does exactly that.”

The Pixel 6 hardware and software mix ramps up the smartphone’s ability to understand what people say in another step toward a future of “ambient computing,” according to Osterloh. The phrase refers to being able to access the internet or computing power conversationally at any time as portrayed in the 2013 science fiction romance film “Her.”

“It’s basically this notion that you should be able to naturally interact with computers all around you,” Osterloh said. “We see the mobile phone being the center of that for the foreseeable future.”

The smarter chip was also put to work improving photo and video capabilities in a nod to hot trends in sharing images and short-form snippets online, a demonstration showed. An array of sensors for photography are in a band on the back of the smartphone, with the Pixel 6 having a 6.4 inch, edge-to-edge screen and the Pro model being slightly larger.

The Pixel 6 release date and pricing were not disclosed.