Fortnite v9.20 Debuts With Storm Flip Weapon and More; Epic Games Formally Partners YouFunnyB for Dance Move

Fortnite v9.20 brings Storm Flip that is a throwable item that explodes on impact and creates a sphere-shaped zone.

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Snapchat Gets a Battle Royale Game, in the Form of Zynga's Tiny Royale

It lets you battle with friends, collect new weapons along the way, and there’s also a new safe zone where you can rest it out and strategise gameplay.

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Amazon unveils Prime Air drone delivery service, previews cross-skill conversations for Alexa at re:MARS event

Amazon is currently hosting an event called re:MARS, which kicked off on June 4, and will go on till June 7. During the event, the talked about its developments in the fields of Machine Learning, automation, robotics and space, and even unveiled its new drone delivery service called Amazon Prime Air. The company is building new fully electric drones that are touted to have a range of up to 24 kilometers and are capable of delivering packages under 2.2 kgs to customers in less than 30 minutes. If everything goes well, Amazon expects to commence deliveries via drones to its customers within months. Additionally, the company also previewed new cross-skill conversations for Alexa, which enables the digital assistant to understand the flow of dialogue with a user and make use of multiple skills at once. 

Amazon Prime Air drone program

Amazon has stressed the importance of safety in its new Prime Air program. The new drones made by the company will feature a hybrid design. They will be capable of vertical takeoff and landing, similar to a helicopter, and is claimed to be efficient and aerodynamic like an airplane. The drones will also be able to shift between vertical-mode to airplane mode and then back to vertical mode when required. The machines are completely covered for safety with covering extending to the wings as well, which is said to help increase efficiency while in flight. 

The drone supports six degrees of freedom, against the slightly restrictive four DoF, and it employs AI to figure out static and moving objects when in transit. When the aircraft descends to deliver a product, it will require a small, clear area. Amazon will use stereo vision in tandem with trained AI algorithms to detect people and animals from above. Wire detection is a difficult problem to deal with and the company apparently used computer-vision techniques to recognise and avoid wires while descending and taking off from a customer’s yard. 

Cross-skill conversations for Alexa

Rohit Prasad, VP and head scientist of Alexa, announced new cross skill conversations for Alexa. Using a deep learning-based approach, the developers were able to create a recurrent neural network that models the dialogue flow. This basically means that Alexa will now get better at ascertaining a customer’s ‘true goal’ from their conversation and utilise multiple skills. “We envision a world where customers will converse more naturally with Alexa: seamlessly transitioning between skills, asking questions, making choices, and speaking the same way they would with a friend, family member, or co-worker,” says Prasad. “Our objective is to shift the cognitive burden from the customer to Alexa.”

Prasad also previewed a conversational 'night-out-planning experience' that is slated to be made available to consumers soon, starting with the US. He also said that by refining machine learning algorithms, Alexa is now 20 percent more accurate in the last 12 months.

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PUBG Mobile, Game For Peace Revenue Crosses $4.8 Million a Day: Sensor Tower

Tencent's revenue from PUBG Mobile and its new version, Game For Peace, crossed $4.8 million a day in May, Sensor Tower said.

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Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield Coming to Nintendo Switch in November 2019

The Direct also outlines the new Pokemon that will be seen in these games.

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Nokia 22 priced at Rs 6,999 is the cheapest Android One smartphone in India

HMD Global has a new Nokia phone in the market today. Called the Nokia 2.2, HMD claims it’s the fastest and cheapest ticket to the next Android update. The Nokia 2.2, like all Nokia phones, is Android One certified. The device has launched at ‘introductory’ prices of Rs 6,999 and Rs 7,999, effectively making it the cheapest Android One phone in India.

As a successor to the Nokia 2.1, there’s a big change. The Nokia 2.1 was powered by Android Oreo (Go Edition) while the Nokia 2.2 has the regular version of Android 9 Pie, in stock Android flavour. As part of Android One, the device will receive version updates for the next two years, including Android Q as well as security updates for the next three years.

This is perhaps the only thing separating the Nokia 2.2 from the barrage of other budget phones available in this same price segment. The rest of the device has entry-level hardware but with some interesting add-ons. For instance, the the phone is housed in a removable polycarbonate shell. The back panel can be removed to snap on a different colour. These are the same Xpress-on covers that were available for the Nokia 1 last year. This time, the Xpress-on covers come in three new colours — Forest Green, Pink Sand and Icy Blue. Otherwise, the device itself is available in two different colours — Steel and Tungsten Black. There’s also a dedicated Google Assistant button on the sides.

Inside, there’s a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC coupled with 2GB and 3GB RAM options, and 16GB and 32GB storage options, along with a 3,000mAh battery which is removable. On the front, there’s a larger 5.71-inch LCD display with 400 nits of brightness. The extra real estate was managed by introducing a waterdrop notch that houses the front camera, allowing the display to stretch to the edges. The MediaTek Helio A22 isn’t really the fastest chipset in that price range though. It’s a quad-core SoC with four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2GHz.

As for the camera, the Nokia 2.2 offers a single 13MP camera on the back with f/2.2 aperture and a 1/3” sensor. On the front is another 5MP camera. Nokia spent most of the presentation showcasing the camera. It comes with Nokia’s proprietary AI imaging algorithm called “AI powered low light image fusion”. A heady name that, but what it primarily does is take multiple photos across a range of exposure and apply noise reduction algorithms on it. The same AI imaging feature helps in making HDR photos come out better and it’s also present in the front camera along with a beauty mode. The front camera also assists in face unlock.

The Nokia 2.2 will be available for purchase in India starting June 11, while pre-orders will begin from today. The phone also launched in Europe with a global average retail price of 99 Euros. In India, the Nokia 2.2 will be available on Nokia.com, Flipkart and leading offline retail stores. The phone will retail at Rs 6,999 for the 2GB RAM 16GB storage variant and Rs 7,999 for 3GB RAM and 32GB storage for a limited period. Post that, the ‘recommended’ price will be set at Rs 7,699 for the base variant and Rs 8,699 for the top variant. Reliance Jio subscribers can get an instant cashback of Rs 2,200 along with 100GB additional data.

The instant cashback will be credited in the form of 44 discount coupons of Rs 50 each and can be availed when recharging using the MyJio app. Furthermore, 5 people who pre-book the device stand a chance to get 100 percent cashback on the Nokia 2.2.

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LG W-Series phone with triple rear cameras teased on Amazon

LG has lost its ground when it comes to smartphones. It has been trying hard to get into the market with its G-Series and V-Series of phones but it seems that the move isn’t doing any good for them. The South Korean company is now looking to compete again with a W-Series affordable smartphone and has teased it on Amazon. On paper, the phone is offering everything that is already being offered in other phones. And it’s just a matter of time that we’ll learn more about the handset.

According to the teasers posted on Amazon India’s website, the device will sport a triple camera setup on the back. The vertically-aligned cameras are located on the top left corner on the back panel. There is a single front camera sensor. “AI-enabled triple rear cameras bring to you the Power of 3 lense to maximise your photography experience with normal, Front Camera Selfie, Night Mode, Portrait, Bokeh and Wide Angle image capabilities,” LG says in its teaser. The back panel also has a fingerprint sensor.

Another striking feature of the phone is giving the ability to change the notch type on the display. As per the images teased on the e-commerce platform, users have an option to choose from a u-shaped notch, v-shaped notch or no notch at all. It is likely a software-based feature that other smartphone makers had incorporated to give users an option to hide the notch.

LG has also teased that the phone will come in three colours, however, it hasn’t revealed the name of the colours. It looks like the colours are shades of blue, pink and black. Lastly, the company mentions that the phone will have “pocket-worthy price tag.” With statements like “Finally a smartphone you won't have to break your bank for” and “Never before prices,” it seems that the company is going to keep the price the phone very competitive.

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