Redmi K20 Series Launch, Samsung M40 India Release Date, OnePlus 7, and More Tech News This Week

Redmi K20 and Redmi K20 Pro launch, Samsung M40 price in India details, Oppo Reno India release, and OnePlus 7 sale date were some of the biggest tech news stories this week.

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US visa forms now ask for social media account information

If you're planning to apply for a US visa, expect the application forms to ask you for your social media information starting today. According to a recent report by the Associated Press, the US State Department now requires nearly all US visa applicants to furnish their social media usernames, previous email addresses, and telephone numbers. This change in visa application policy, which was originally proposed in March last year, is expected to affect approximately 15 million foreign applicants who are either visiting or immigrating to the United States of America.

The new policy takes effect after the recent approval of the revised US visa application forms under Donald Trump's administration. According to the State Department, both immigrants and nonimmigrants will henceforth be required to provide additional personal information at the time of applying, including “social media identifiers”. The department is confident that this extra information will “will strengthen our process for vetting these applicants and confirming their identity.”

“National security is our top priority when adjudicating visa applications, and every prospective traveler and immigrant to the United States undergoes extensive security screening,” commented the State Department. “We are constantly working to find mechanisms to improve our screening processes to protect U.S. citizens, while supporting legitimate travel to the United States.” Previously, only those who had travelled to areas controlled by terrorist organisations were required to social media information. About 65,000 applicants annually had fallen in that category before.

When the US State Department originally proposed to implement this change in the US visa policy, it estimated that it would affect 7,10,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 millions nonimmigrant visa applicants, including those travelling to the US on business or for education. The only applicants who are exempted from this new requirement are those applying for certain diplomatic and official visa types.

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PlayStation Days of Play Sale: Here are the Deals on Games, Consoles, Accessories, and More

The Play Station Days of Play Sale kicks off on June 7. Here are the details and the offers that will be live during the sales fest.

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Alphabet’s DeepMind AI Beats Humans in Multiplayer Shooter

DeepMind, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet, has designed automated "agents" that taught themselves how to play a competitive first-person multiplayer video game shooter, and became so good they consistently beat human beings.

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Xbox Game Pass Subscription Service Headed to PC With Over 100 Titles

Microsoft is bringing the Xbox Game Pass subscription service over to the PC ecosystem. Xbox Game Pass for PC will offer access to more than 100 titles on Windows 10 for a monthly fee.

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Redmi 6 Pro, Redmi Note 5 Pro receiving Android Pie-based MIUI 103 update in India: Report

Redmi is reportedly pushing the Android 9 Pie update for its Redmi 6 Pro and the Redmi Note 5 Pro handsets. Several users have reported that they are receiving the update on Mi Forums and have posted screenshots of the changelog. We checked our own Redmi Note 5 Pro unit, but it has not yet received the update, however, the OTA update could be rolling out in batches. So, everyone who owns any one of the two phones should be receiving the new update soon. Going by users’ screenshots, the update for the Redmi 6 Pro sports the version MIUI 10.3.2.0.PDMMIXM whereas the Redmi Note 5 Pro gets MIUI 10.3.1.0.PEIMIXM. 

The two update packages bring new version of MIUI 10 that is based on Android 9 Pie and are about 1.6GB in size.  As per the changelog, the Android security patch of the Redmi 6 Pro and the Redmi Note 5 Pro will be updated to May 2019 after the update. There seem to be no changes to MIUI for the Redmi Note 5 Pro as only the Android version will be updated to Android 9 Pie. However, the update changelog for Redmi 6 Pro suggests that the updated address some bugs, like ending calls taking a long time, and adds new features as well. 

Redmi 6 Pro and Redmi Note 5 Pro users can check their phone Settings to check whether the update is available for their unit or not. They can do so by navigating to About Phone tab in their phone’s Settings and tapping on the System Update option.

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Microsoft urges those using older Windows PCs to update their devices

Microsoft is urging its those users with older versions of its operating system to update their operating system in order to thwart a Windows security exploit discovered in early May this year. Simon Pope, Director of Incident Response, Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) writes on the company’s official blog that the company has released a fix for a critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability CVE-2019-0708 in Remote Desktop Services. “nearly one million computers connected directly to the internet are still vulnerable to CVE-2019-0708,” writes Pope. The company notes that Windows 8 and Windows 10 are not affected by this vulnerability.

Microsoft has said that the CVE-2019-0708 vulnerability is ‘wormable’ and future malware that would exploit the vulnerability. This means that the malware might be able to propagate between computers in a manner similar to how the WannaCry malware spread a few years ago. 

“It's been only two weeks since the fix was released and there has been no sign of a worm yet. This does not mean that we’re out of the woods. If we look at the events leading up to the start of the WannaCry attacks, they serve to inform the risks of not applying fixes for this vulnerability in a timely manner,” Pope notes.

Vulnerable in-support systems include Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008, while Windows 2003 and Windows XP are vulnerable systems that are no longer supported by the company. 

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