YouTube has announced that it now supports UPI payments on the platform. YouTube says, “Aiming to bring added convenience to its users, YouTube has launched UPI as a new form of payment for both YouTube and YouTube Music. In addition to the earlier options of credit and debit cards, now YouTube users will be able to make easy payments through UPI, which is one of the most preferred forms of digital payments in India.” Before the addition of UPI, those looking to subscribe to YouTubes services or supporting their favourite YouTubers, users would have to resort to payment methods like a Debit or Credit Card.
According to YouTube, this is to help make transactions easier with banks and the customers alike. Users of all UPI apps can now use the UPI payment option on YouTube to purchase monthly or quarterly prepaid subscriptions for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium, buy and rent their favourite movies, as well as pay for features like SuperChat and Channel Memberships to engage with and support their favourite YouTube creators.
If you are looking to subscribe to YouTube to catch some YouTube originals, we say hold your horses. The service has made some of its originals free for users. You can learn more about them here. YouTube is also creating a feed of short videos posted by users. Called 'Shorts', the feature will rival popular short-video app TikTok. YouTube is planning for a late 2020 release for Shorts. You can learn more about it here. Since the nation is under lockdown a lot of users have started consuming content online. To ensure the smooth functioning of the internet and the fact that users shouldn’t finish their FUP in a day, YouTube has limited streaming to mobile devices to 480p in India. You can learn more about that here.
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Zoom account credentials of more than 500,000 users are being sold on the dark web as the video conferencing service has gained momentum in the past few months. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak in different parts of the world, people and businesses are forced to work from home and as such, video conferencing services are picking up more users with each passing day.
Zoom gained popularity as schools and corporates started using zoom’s video conferencing app, gaining as much as 2.22 million users by February. By March, the service clocked 200 million daily average users, but Zoom was also subjected to scrutiny after it was found lacking in several privacy and security norms that led to a blanket ban by the schools in New York City.
Now, according to the latest report by Bleeping Computer, more than 500,000 Zoom credentials are being sold online on forums and the dark web “for less than a penny each, and in some cases, given away for free.” The report states that the Zoom accounts started surfacing on hacker forums and communities to gain reputation points.
Zoom account details of colleges including the University of Vermont, University of Colorado, Dartmouth, Lafayette and the University of Florida have been posted for free on one of the forums. The leaked account details reveal a user’s email address, password, meeting URLs and HostKeys and is that alarming enough.
Cyble, a cybersecurity firm has been tracking the developments in this space and was able to purchase as many as 530,000 Zoom account details at around $0.0020 per account. The firm has revealed that the listing they have contains Zoom details of companies such as Citibank and more.
In a statement issued to Bleeping Computer, Zoom says that it is already working on strengthening its security measures in place and that this attack doesn’t affect its enterprise consumers because they use single sign-on systems. “We have already hired multiple intelligence firms to find these password dumps and the tools used to create them, as well as a firm that has shut down thousands of websites attempting to trick users into downloading malware or giving up their credentials,” the statement reads.
If you’re someone who’s used Zoom in recent months and this attack on the video conferencing service bothers you, in a personal capacity you can ensure the safety of your account details by charging the password. Another tip is to use a unique password for Zoom than all your other passwords, adding a second layer of security.
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Minecraft, the wildly popular community-based game that allows users to explore and build worlds, is getting the RTX treatment. The game that has popularized the 8-bit-blocky look in a time when computer game graphics are pushing towards hyper-realism, the RTX update is a very interesting feature to come to the game.
Nvidia has worked closely with Mojang, the developer of Minecraft rather closely to bring Ray Tracing and even Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling 2.0 to the game. Nvidia has brought RTX to Minecraft by implementing a number of interesting technologies. The first is bringing a physically-based material-system to the game. What this does is introduces textures, light reflectance properties, depth and even metallicity to the materials found in the Minecraft world. The other technique being implemented is path tracing, which is basically simulating the way rays of light would travel through a scene. When this is combined with the aforementioned physically based material system, you get a world of Minecraft that looks wildly different from what you’re used to.
The new RTX beta launches on the 16th of April, with the final version expected to roll out before the year’s end. On April 16, existing owners of Minecraft will be able to download 6 worlds that have ray-tracing built-in. During the beta, the experience will be single-player only, but when the final version is rolled out, it would incorporate the multi-player experience. Users will also be able to build their own ray-traced worlds or convert their existing Java based creations to the Windows 10 Bedrock format.
The full path tracing implementation in Minecraft is the same that was used to remaster QuakeII with RTX, so we know it is intensely demanding on PC hardware. Nvidia says that with the new DLSS 2.0 implementation, users can expect 1.7 times the better performance. Given that Minecraft isn’t a shooter, getting even 60fps should be a good enough experience, with higher refresh rates not really leading to anything very meaningful.
If you own Minecraft, you can get the beta on April 16th. If not, you can buy yourself a copy of the game here.
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It looks like Call of Duty: Mobile players will soon get a new map to play on. The game’s official Twitter handle teased the release of a new map and players will quick to recognise it as Rust thanks to its easily recognisable tower. The map was originally released for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and was included in the Season 2 update for the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare game.
If the mobile version of the map is anything like its PC or console version then expect a lot of close-quarters battle. The map heavily favours close-quarters combat, but those proficient with medium or long-range weapons can find areas that favour their gameplay style. The map itself is also quite small, so expect a lot of action here.
Call of Duty: Mobile has been releasing maps at a fairly regular pace. The first new map to come to the game was Scrapyard, a map first introduced in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This was followed by Cage, a new map that was exclusive to mobile. The last map that was released for the game was Meltdown, which was first seen in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
Of course, the game’s competitor, PUBG Mobile, is also doing its bit to attract gamers bored at home during this lockdown period. The developers have announced the introduction of a new mode called ‘Arctic Mode’. This mode challenges players to maintain their body temperature, while still being on the lookout for enemies. The game also adds a remote control drone to the mix, adding a new level of tactics and strategy.
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MediaTek was mired in a benchmark cheating controversy last week after AnandTech did an expose revealing MediaTek’s practices of unethically whitelisting benchmark apps to eke out higher scores using a so-called ‘Sports Mode’ hidden deep inside the firmware code.
The Taiwan-based chip designer was quick to retort with its own side of the story wherein it justified the practice by claiming it’s not alone in doing so. According to MediaTek, it’s key rivals regularly indulge in such practices as well and it’s a common industry practice. The key competitor the company was most likely referring to is the only other big chipset maker for Android smartphones — Qualcomm.
Now, Qualcomm has issued a statement to Digit.in categorically denying using whitelisting techniques to improve benchmark performance. Here’s what Qualcomm said —
Qualcomm’s statement on MediaTek’s insinuation of benchmark cheating as a industry practice
“Whitelisting refers to the technique of using the app name to determine whether to put the device into performance enhancement mode. The action of whitelisting a benchmark app is generally considered by the industry as cheating since it defeats the purpose of a benchmark, which is to reflect user experience for day to day use. Qualcomm does not whitelist," a Qualcomm spokesperson told Digit.in.
The statement is in contradiction to MediaTek’s justification that its key rivals also whitelist benchmark apps to boost performance scores. However, Qualcomm’s statement does fall in line with the results of our testing. MediaTek’s answer, interestingly enough, does not.
Does Qualcomm whitelist benchmark apps?
In our follow-up story diving deep into the performance of the MediaTek Helio G90T on the Redmi Note 8 and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G of the Redmi Note 9 Pro, we observed that the MediaTek chipset is whitelisting the benchmark app without any intimation while the Snapdragon 720G whitelists games like PUBG Mobile, that too by notifying the user by activating a Game Mode. Therein lies the fundamental difference between the two approaches. Both try to portray the chipsets as fast and powerful, but MediaTek focuses on benchmark apps which are only used by a small subset of smartphone influencers like reviewers and product testers who rely on benchmark numbers to recommend devices or optimise apps. However, Qualcomm’s approach is more user-friendly. It leaves benchmarks alone to offer the rightful numbers, but boosts performance of popular apps and games which a lot of smartphone users enjoy.
So as a matter of fact, Qualcomm’s statement denying whitelisting benchmark apps stands true in our tests, while MediaTek’s insinuation that this is an industry practice doesn’t.
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The Realme 6 was launched earlier in March and offers a lot for the price, especially for gamers. The Helio G90T is a proven performer when it comes to games like PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile. On top of that, there’s up to 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. Clearly, there’s a lot more it can do than meets the eye, and Realme opened it up to better graphics on PUBG Mobile. The company rolled out an update that makes PUBG Mobile run at HDR graphics with Ultra frame rates on the 6GB and 8GB RAM variants of the Realme 6. The 4GB RAM variant still has not received the update, and may never, considering the memory constraints it may pose. Interestingly, the Xiaomi Note 8 Pro also can run PUBG Mobile at HDR graphics at Ultra frame rates. How does the game work at the HDR + Ultra settings? We played a few quick rounds of in the new high graphics settings and old default settings to see if there’s a significant difference.
Running PUBG Mobile at HDR + Ultra graphics on Realme 6
The game will update and restart once before you can play in HDR + Ultra Settings. You can change the Graphics Settings by tapping on the gear icon and then tapping on graphics. Change the graphics to HDR and frame rate to Ultra and you are all set to go.
PUBG Mobile at HDR + Ultra settings
PUBG Mobile at HD + Ultra settings
We clocked our gameplay with GameBench and straight off, we saw the frame rate climb to 40 FPS with 93 percent stability. On the other hand, playing the game at the normal graphics settings also run it at 40 FPS but at 99 percent stability. So if you were expecting a significant improvement in frame rates, that’s not happening. What did happen though was that the quality of in-game elements like the buildings, trees, and even the characters looked much more realistic and dare I say, richer? Note that the Realme 6 doesn’t come with an HDR panel and the game is likely pushing the brightness levels higher than normal to achieve the effect.
Temperature after a three minute session of PUBG Mobile hit a whopping 73.1 degrees Celsius
Perhaps because of that, just a three-minute session of PUBG Mobile at HDR + Ultra settings was enough for the Realme 6 to issue an overheating warning. And for good reason. We check the CPU temperature after our small session, and it was steaming at 73 degrees Celsius. That’s how much we see an Intel Core i7 heat up on a desktop when running Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 2K resolution with everything maxed out. Just for comparison’s sake.
CPU frequency distribution when playing PUBG Mobile at HDR + Ultra settings
CPU frequency distribution when playing PUBG Mobile at HD + Ultra settings
The reasons for the higher temperatures were also clear after studying the CPU frequency distribution. When the game was running at the higher HDR + Ultra settings, all eight CPU cores were running nearly at their peak (the performance cores were maxed out for the entire duration), while the default graphics settings make it run less intensive with the CPU cores running slower and hence, cooler. Noticeably, the peak CPU usage while playing on HDR was around 61%, a good 20 percent more than when we played in the default settings.
Should you play PUBG Mobile at HDR + Ultra graphics on the Realme 6?
We tried out the new graphics settings and while it does leave a lasting impression in the form of better graphics, your device may not forgive you for it. Sustained periods of overheating may fry the internals and lead to an accident. The HDR setting is simply increasing the colour saturation and pushing the brightness past its defined peak to achieve an HDR-like feeling. It’s not like your gameplay will see a big improvement and you will get that elusive Chicken Dinner after a long time. It’s a matter of what looks better, and if it comes at the cost of the device degrading faster, it’s better left unused. Are you also facing heating issues while running PUBG Mobile in higher graphics? Let us know.
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