Airtels new prepaid plan at Rs 249 offers 4 lakh term insurance plan, 2GB daily data, free calling and more

The telecom sector in India is ever competitive, with the three major companies Vodafone-idea, Jio and Airtel vying for a bigger chunk of the market. Each of the three companies keeps releasing new plans and offers to entice customers. After updating its postpaid plans, Airtel has now teamed up with HDFC Life to announce a new prepaid plan priced at Rs 249. The plan comes with 2GB data per day, along with unlimited calling and 100 SMS per day. However, what’s unique is that the user recharging with the plan will get Rs 4 lakh life cover from HDFC Life. 

Users will need to opt-in for the insurance after their first recharge, which can be done via SMS, My Airtel App or from a retailer. The insurance will renew automatically for subsequent recharges and is available for Airtel subscribers users aged between 18 and 54. Enrolling in the insurance apparently doesn’t require any medical examination or paperwork and “the customer is only required to give a declaration of good health.” The policy will be delivered digitally to the user and a physical copy can be provided on request. Airtel says that this prepaid offer offers “sizeable insurance protection at under Rs 9 per day.”

“Insurance adoption is abysmally low in India, including in urban areas. Price, access and convenience of payments are barriers to adoption. With this innovation, Airtel is removing those barriers for providing basic insurance to a very large set of India’s population and making the process extremely simple – just recharge your phone and you are insured,” says Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel. 

As mentioned earlier, this new announcement comes soon after the telco revamped its postpaid plans. It seems like Airtel is not sitting idle since reportedly coming down to the third spot in the Indian telecom space in terms of subscriber count. Jio reportedly snatched the number two spot from the telco. You can read more about it here. 

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Tinder Lite app being prepped for launch in emerging markets: Report

It looks like Tinder may be planning to entice emerging markets. According to a report by Techcrunch, Match Group, the company behind Tinder, is planning to launch a ‘Lite’ version of the app. As per the report, the announcement was made during an earnings call with investors. While an exact launch date for the app wasn’t revealed, Match Group was quoted as saying that the app was “coming soon.”

The new ‘Tinder Lite’ app will be aimed at emerging markets such as those in Southeast Asia. During the investor call, Ginsberg reportedly noted that internet penetration in such countries had grown by nearly 15% over the past five years.

“We are excited about the Tinder Lite app that will be coming soon. It’s a big step forward addressing the needs of consumers there. Tinder Lite will be a smaller app to download. It will take less space on your phone, making Tinder more effective, even in more remote areas or regions. And keep in mind, these are regions where data usage still comes at a premium.” Ginsberg said.

The small app size as well as less data requirements should make the app ideal for low-end devices such as those powered by Android Go. In fact, many developers have launched ‘lite’ version of their app to keep them run smoothly on modest hardware. Some examples include Facebook Lite, Uber Lite, Twitter Lite and more. 

The standard version of Tinder is already available in India. But how well a ‘Lite’ version of the app does in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the country remains to be seen, especially considering the fact that most of these cities and towns tend to be quite conservative as compared to major metropolitan locales like Mumbai, Delhi or Bengaluru. 

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2W6bIyo

Google Pixel 3a included in list of Pixel devices slowed down by Digital Wellbeing

Screen time monitoring tools are quite important when it comes to understanding and regulation of the amount of screen-time one gets. Google made a push for improving its consumers digital life with the Digital Wellbeing feature that it announced during I/O 2018. However, it seems like the feature might be too much to bear for Pixel phones as it is apparently slowing them down. Pixel phone users have united in a Reddit thread to say that the feature was weighing too much on the phones and that disabling it significantly boosted the performance on some of the users’ units. 

Combing over the Reddit thread, we found that, while disabling the feature seems to have considerably boosted the performance on some Pixel devices, it did nothing for a few other users. The feature could be slowing down even the original Pixel units, the Pixel 2, Pixel 3 and the latest Pixel 3a series of handsets. One can disable it from the Usage Access settings in the phone and turn the usage access off in Digital Wellbeing from the three-dot menu under the upper-right corner of the display. However, TechRadar notes that disabling usage access doesn’t affect the ‘Wind Down’ feature, which enables users to schedule DND mode, night light and more to dissuade smartphone usage. 

If you own a Pixel smartphone, do give this a try and let us know if it significantly affects your phone’s performance. The Digital Wellbeing feature came out of beta and was made available for all Pixel devices back in November last year. The software comes with tools that are aimed at helping people better understand their phone usage and enabling them to monitor and manage the amount of time being spent on various apps. Along with the Wind Down feature, one can also manage notifications from different apps and choose the apps from which they want to receive notifications.

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2VzFN9K

Arch Linux now available on Windows 10 through Microsoft Store

Microsoft announced a list of changes it intends to make to its popular PC operating system Windows 10 last week at its Build 2019 developer conference. One of the changes mentioned was the inclusion of native support for Linux kernel. Just a week after the announcement, we see that Arch Linux, one of the many Linux distros out there, is now available for download on the Microsoft Store. Here’s how you can go about installing it.

Unlike other Linux distros available on the Microsoft Store, Arch Linux isn’t recommended for Linux beginners, notes Fossbytes, in its article on the subject. To begin installation of Arch Linux, you’ll first have to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) feature. To do that, open Run, type, “optionalfeatures.exe” and then hit OK. In the Windows Features dialog box that appears next, check the box that says “Windows Subsystem for Linux”. In some PCs the feature’s name may be suffixed with “Beta” in parentheses.

You can then head to the Microsoft Store to download WSL Arch Linux. According to the app’s description, Arch Linux won’t work on PCs running Windows 10 in S Mode. You’ll have to exit S Mode to proceed with the installation, which is a one-time move. “When your system is ready simply start "archlinux" in cmd.exe or launch Arch Linux from the start menu,” reads the last line of instruction in the app’s description.

Originally released in early 2002, Arch Linux is a general purpose Linux distro designed to run on 32-bit and 64-bit PCs. Unlike many other Linux distros (like Ubuntu), which use a scheduled release model, Arch Linux uses a “rolling release” model. That means new packages are installed on a daily basis to keep the system and bundled applications updated. However, the distro gets monthly update ISO images too. You can read more about Arch Linux here.

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2Ypq1LD

Reliance JioPrime membership reportedly being auto-renewed for all users

Reliance Jio established itself in the telecom segment by offering more data and lower pricing than the competition. Then, it introduced additional benefits to its users who are under the Prime membership plan like free premium access to the company’s suite of apps, and more. It seems like the company is renewing the JioPrime Membership for its users, free of cost, as per a TelecomTalk report. One can check if their membership has been renewed in the MyJio app, under the My Plans section. Since Jio has not officially announced this, one is advised to take the info with a pinch of salt. 

If the information is true, this is the second time Jio is extending the JioPrime membership for its customers. The news comes soon after a report that Jio dethroned Airtel from the second spot in terms of subscriber count, with over 30 million customers. The competition in the telecom sector is heating up and the different players are coming up with their own ways to attract new customers and to woo the existing ones. Airtel recently announced new data-centric prepaid plans priced at Rs 48 and Rs 98 prepaid plans. 

The new plans are priced at Rs 48 and Rs 98 and are aimed at customers who want more data over a period of one month. The Rs 48 recharge plan from Airtel offers 3GB of 3G/4G data daily for 28 days, while the Rs 98 plan from Airtel offers 6GB of 4G/3G data for 28 days. Subscribers will only get data with these recharge plans, since there is no calling benefit. However, the telco also offers 10 free SMSes with the Rs 98 prepaid recharge. 

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2WHsPn2

Redmis upcoming flagship to be gaming-centric, new report suggests two variants in the making

Redmi confirmed it will soon launch a Snapdragon 855 powered smartphone, which is expected to be its first flagship device. We already know about the upcoming phones from the bits and pieces of information the company’s GM Lu Weibing keeps sharing. Now, the executive says that the Redmi flagship will be optimised for gaming. In a Weibo post, the Weibing lists the three ‘pain points’ currently associated with gaming smartphones, which are said to be addressed with the company’s upcoming device. Additionally, an out-of-the-blue report by the tipster Ishan Agarwal suggests that the company is readying not one, but two phones. The report also doles out some additional information about the two devices. 

Let’s start with the official information we have from Weibing. The company executive says that the Redmi phone will address three main problems that are said to be common with smartphone gaming. These issues are said to be break or game delay, frequency reduction and battery. While there’s no additional information on what this means, rumours suggest that reducing game delay might be a nod at the Snapdragon 855 SoC, which is expected to handle all gaming needs smoothly. On the other hand, a screen with higher refresh rate could also be included, along with a bigger battery, which has already been teased. 

As for the other report, Redmi might be preparing to launch not one but two Redmi phones. As per the tipster, one of the phones is a flagship that the company is teasing while the other one could be a midranger. If true, this info wouldn’t be too surprising since Realme is also speculated to announce two phones in China, the Realme X with Snapdragon 855 and the Realme X Lite with a Snapdragon 710 SoC. The report also tips at the various storage and colour versions the upcoming Redmi phone might be made available in. It will reportedly be announced in 6GB RAM model with options to select from 64GB or 128GB of storage and 8GB RAM model with 128GB and 256GB storage options. The handset might be made available in Red, Carbon Fiber and Blue colour models. 

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2VWe7LP

OnePlus 7 Pro to feature 200 percent more powerful vibration motor, official cases leaked ahed of May 14 launch

OnePlus will launch its OnePlus 7 series of handsets on May 14. While there are a couple of days for the launch, details about the OnePlus 7 and the OnePlus 7 Pro keep surfacing online, either from an official source or from an unofficial one. The latest round of news comes from the OnePlus CEO Pete Lau, who revealed that the upcoming OnePlus 7 Pro will feature an improved vibration motor, which will address the problem OnePlus devices have not so great vibration. In addition to this official information, some leaked images of the phone’s alleged official cases give a look at the device’s design.

Lau confirmed the new hardware feature to CNET. “ We are constantly listening to feedback from the community on what features and characteristics they would like to see implemented on OnePlus phones. Their feedback helps us focus on certain feature,” said Lau. "Our goal with the OnePlus 7 Pro was to create the best phone possible in not just the premium tier, but the ultrapremium tier. We really aimed to making the haptic experience excellent." This comes after users complained of weak vibration on the previous OnePlus handsets, because of which people would miss notifications. The new vibration motor is said to be larger and 200 percent more powerful than the one used on previous models. 

Coming to the leaked case renders of the OnePlus devices, the OnePlus 7 Pro’s case provides a new look at the triple rear camera setup on the phone. The OnePlus 7 case has a cutout to accommodate two cameras and an LED flash. The power button placement is on the right edge of the device, along with the alert slider. The volume rocker sits on the right edge. In-line with the previous rumours, the case suggests that there might not be much of a difference between the OnePlus 6T and the OnePlus 7. The OnePlus 7 cases are said to come in Nylon, Sandstone, and Silicone Red models, while the one for the OnePlus 7 Pro could be Karbon Gray, Karbon Black, and Sandstone. 

 

from Latest Technology News http://bit.ly/2VhKOz4