YouTube streaming limited to 480p in India by Google

As the world grapples with social distancing, and India goes into what feels like its nth day of lockdown, YouTube has announced that they’re going to be changing the playback quality of the video playback to standard definition (SD) or more commonly known as 480p. The decision comes after Google observed a major uptake in the number of people streaming YouTube videos throughout the day.

The move comes in the wake of the fact that more people are now stuck at home, whether working or not and hence, streaming more content as a means of passing the time. Across Europe, all streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime had reduced the default streaming quality as the infrastructure came under heavy load. Google says that the kind of uptake in traffic they’re seeing on YouTube “won't break the internet,” but the company is limiting the stream quality anyway to reduce the strain on ISP and telcos.

In India, YouTube streaming has been capped at 480p, but only for mobile devices. Even if you’re connected to a home Wi-Fi network, your mobile device will not stream YouTube content in quality higher than 480p. This is strange because you can stream YouTube content in up to 4K (content willing) if you’re on a computer. In fact, if you choose to forego the YouTube app and use the browser on your phone instead, you can get a slightly higher quality stream at 720p.

According to a report by Bloomberg, there’s been a steady rise of 20 percent in online streaming since the Coronavirus outbreak. This has started to put a strain on many countries’ internet infrastructure, which has led to this move by Google.

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Heres how you can play Pokemon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite from home

While all of Niantic’s games on smartphones encourage gamers to go outdoors and explore their world, the lockdown imposed upon various countries because of the coronavirus epidemic has made the game developer take a U-turn and introduce features that allow players to stay at home and play Niantic games.

The game developer is behind two popular AR-based gaming titles — Pokemon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Both these titles are being adapted to support stay-at-home gaming since it’s no longer safe to venture outside and play these games.

Some of the new features introduced to ensure you stay at home while playing includes the following —

- Niantic’s Adventure Sync function will now track indoor steps like running on a treadmill, cleaning the house or making other indoor movements. - Niantic games will encourage in-game virtual meetups and let players stay in touch without having to meet in real life. - You can soon be able to team up with friends and take on raid battles in Pokemon GO from your home. - Apart from that, Niantic is also reimagining live events (remember the Pokemon GO Fest which ended in a disaster?) to let players feel the excitement from their homes. More details will be revealed about this in the coming weeks. - Lastly, Niantic is encouraging people to virtually visit and share their memories of their favourite real-world places until they can go and visit them in person.

What's new in Pokemon GO?

That’s not all. Pokemon GO has received a bunch of new features that shouldn’t encourage you to head outdoors. That includes a new form of gameplay called Go Battle which can be played from anywhere in the world without having to go outdoors. Walking requirements have been reduced from 3KM to zero. There are deeply discounted incense and Poke Balls to let people catch more of them without travelling too far. Niantic has also increased storage to let people send and receive more gifts.

What's new in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite?

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite has not been left alone either. You will now see more content around you on the map. So expect more Spell Energy, rare potions ingredients and other iconic Harry Potter content near you to help you make progress. Potion tuning has also been adjusted to have Foundables spawn directly at their house. Gifts will offer more helpful resources and you can open more gifts each day.

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Leaked images show the Oppo Reno Ace 2 sporting a quad rear camera setup

A leaked image has appeared online which shows the Oppo Reno Ace 2 sporting a quad-camera setup at the back. The rear cameras are aligned in a square (two on top and two below) but they are housed in a circular unit. If information circulating the internet is to be believed, then the smartphone will have a 48MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP rear camera setup. For the selfie camera, it will have a punch-hole camera with a 16MP sensor. 

Coming to the specifications of the Oppo Reno Ace 2, the smartphone is speculated to have a 6.5-inch AMOLED display with an FHD+ resolution and 20:9 aspect ratio. Under the hood, the smartphone is speculated to have a Snapdragon 865 SoC coupled with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. 

The smartphone is speculated to have a 4000mAh battery and it seems the device will come with support for 40W wireless fast-charging and 65W fast charging when connected to the charger via a cable. The smartphone is expected to come in three colour options - Black, Blue, and Purple.

In other Oppo news, the Oppo Reno3 Pro recently went on sale in India. The smartphone features a reflective glass-finish on the back with Gorilla Glass 5 protection. On the front, it has a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with a 20:9 aspect ratio. It also sports an in-display fingerprint scanner. Oppo claims that the Reno3’s display has a maximum brightness of 800 nits and a peak brightness of 1200 nits. Under the hood, the Reno3 is powered by a MediaTek P95 SoC coupled with 8GB RAM. It is available in two storage options - 128GB and 256GB.

Moving to the camera, the Oppo Reno3 Pro has a quad-camera setup at the back.It has a 64MP primary camera + an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens + a 13MP telephoto sensor + a 2MP monochrome sensor. On the front, it has dual selfie shooters - 44MP + 2MP.

The smartphone is available in Aurora Blue, Midnight Black, and Sky White colour options and packs a 4025mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging.

Source

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Honor 30S launched with the new Kirin 820 SoC: Specs, price and more

After the launch of Huawei’s P40 series, it is the company’s sub-brand Honor’s turn to announce its upper mid-range device. Honor has announced the launch of the Honor 30S in China. The device is the first smartphone to use Huawei’s Kirin 820 chipset. The SoC out-performed the Snapdragon 855 in single-core tests on Geekbench 4. It also beats the Kirin 980 in both single-thread and multi-thread performance.

Honor 30S features a  6.5-inch LCD display that supports 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution at 405 PPI. It offers an oleophobic layer on top of the screen. There’s no high refresh rate on this one though. It is powered by the newly-announced Huawei Kirin 820 5G chipset, paired with ARM Mali-G57MP6 GPU, 1 x NPU (Neural-network Processing Unit). The Kirin 820 5G has also visited the AnTuTu benchmark listing. It scored  375270 points. 

On the optics front, the smartphone sports a quad rear camera setup: a 64MP camera with f/1.8 aperture + an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera with an f/2.4 aperture and 120-degree field of view + an 8MP telephoto camera with f/2.4 aperture and 3x optical zoom + a 2MP 4cm macro camera with f/2.4 aperture. On the front lies a 16MP selfie shooter. 

It comes with 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB / 256GB of UFS 2.1 internal storage. Further, it runs Android 10 with Magic UI 3.1.1 and packs a 4000mAh battery that supports 40W fast charging. It measures 162.31 x 75.0 x 8.58mm and weighs 190 grams. The phone also sports a 3.5mm audio jack and a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.

The Honor 30S comes in four colours: Black, Blue, Green, and a new Feather Red gradient model. The 8GB RAM + 128GB storage model costs 2399 yuan (~$338).

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OnePlus 8 Pro, OnePlus 8 to be launched on April 14: All you need to know

OnePlus will be launching its next smartphone, the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro on April 14. The launch event will be live-streamed through the OnePlus official website and YouTube. It will commence at 8:30 PM on April 14.

However, ahead of the launch, a bunch of information about the two devices has leaked online. While there are still two weeks to go. we already know a lot about the duo. Here’s all we know about the two phones as of now.

OnePlus 8 Pro specifications

According to the tipster, OnePlus 8 Pro will sport a 6.78-inch Super AMOLED display with support for a 120Hz refresh rate. It will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC. Further, the smartphone is likely to come with 8GB/12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB/256GB of UFS 3.0 internal storage. 

As per previous leaks, OnePlus 8 Pro will feature a 48MP Sony IMX 689 primary sensor with an f/1.78 aperture + a 48MP Sony IMX ultra-wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture and 120-degree field of view + an 8MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom and 30x digital zoom + a 5MP colour filter. The camera is said to pack new features like new night portrait mode, “3-HDR” video, cinematic effects and better OIS.

On the front will lie a 16MP selfie shooter. The smartphone will pack a 4510mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging. This time around OnePlus is likely to add 30W wireless fast charging support as well as 3W reverse wireless charging. The phone will be IP68 rated and come in blue, black and green colour options.

OnePlus 8 specifications

According to the latest development, OnePlus 8 will come equipped with a 6.55-inch Super AMOLED display. Interestingly, it is said to support a 90Hz refresh rate, instead of 120Hz on the OnePlus 8 Pro. Further, the phone will be powered by the Snapdragon 865 chipset. It will come with 8GB/12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB/256GB of UFS 3.0 internal storage. 

As for the optics, it is said to sport a triple rear camera setup of 48MP + 16MP + 2MP with a 16MP selfie shooter. It is likely to pack a 4300mAh battery with support for 30W fast charging. Further, there’s no IP rating or wireless charging here. It will be made available in three colour options. The three colour variants are - Glacial Green, Onyx Black and Interstellar Glow gradient.

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How to recharge your Reliance Jio number using an ATM

Reliance Jio has taken to Twitter to announce that Jio users can recharge their numbers from the nearest ATM. The telecom giant has tied up with nine banks for the same. The banks include State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citi Bank, DCB Bank, AUF Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank. The following are the steps one can take to recharge their Jio number via an ATM. 

Step 1: Insert your card in the machine. Step 2: Choose the “Recharge” option from the menu. Step 3: Enter the mobile number you want to recharge. Remember, it must be a Jio number. Step 4: Enter your ATM pin. Step 5: Enter the recharge amount.  Step 6: Confirm Step 7: You will see the confirmation message on the screen and the relevant amount will be deducted from your account.  Step 8: you will receive the message from Jio that your recharge is successful.

The ability to recharge your Jio number via an ATM is another method to add convenience to users that want to recharge their smartphones. What isn’t clear is whether other banks will also join the effort or whether other telecom operators will add the facility as an option to let users recharge their devices. According to telecom talk, “the market data suggests that the combined number of ATMs across the nine banks is over 90,000 and thus offering customers several points for them to recharge their mobile number. State Bank of India offers the largest ATM networks in India and has over 50,000 ATMs across the country while ICICI Bank has over 15,589 ATMs. Similarly, HDFC Bank has over 14, 533 ATMs and Axis Bank has over 11,800 ATMs”.

Reliance Jio has been doing its part along with other telecom operators in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Jio is offering new customers broadband connections at 10Mbps wherever possible without charging any service charge while existing customers get double the data. You can read more about it here. Other broadband providers are also doing their part. You can learn more about it here.

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Coronavirus effect: TRAI asks Jio, Airtel, BSNL and Vodafone Idea to extend validity of prepaid plans

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked telecom service providers including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and BSNL to extend the validity of prepaid plans amidst the Coronavirus lockdown in India.

TRAI has asked telcos to ensure uninterrupted voice and data services for all users by increasing prepaid plan validity. In a letter dated March 29 to telecom companies, the telecom authority asked companies to take every measure to allow prepaid subscribers to continue enjoying unlimited services during the period of lockdown.

TRAI has also asked for details from telecom providers on the measures they are taking to ensure service availability to customers on priority. More than 90 per cent of all subscribers in India use prepaid services. There are over 800 million active prepaid users.

“Though the telecommunication services have been considered as essential services and thus granted an exception from closing down. However, lockdown may adversely affect the working of customer service centres/point of sale locations,” TRAI said in a notification.

TRAI reasoned that because of the lockdown, subscribers who wish to top up their balances or wish to extend their plans may be unable to do so because of disruption in services. Extending validity until the lockdown lifts can help provide relief.

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