Garena Free Fire Operation Chrono: Everything you need to know

Operation Chrono, the collaboration between Garena Free Fire and professional footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo was unveiled this weekend. This will see the popular footballer available as a character called Chrono in the game. As with most new events in Free Fire, there is lore behind Operation Chrono. During the unveiling, it was revealed that the entire world of Free Fire was transformed into a “futuristic slum universe” and Chrono will attempt to prevent things from becoming any worse. To do this, Chrono will enlist the help of Free Fire players. 

Details of Operation Chrono will be explained to players at the start of the game. They will also be greeted with a new main interface. Players will be able to take part in daily tasks to get various unlockables. Further, there will be a portal on the Spawn Island that will allow players to travel between classic free fire and the new futuristic world.

Here’s a quick look at what else players can expect with Operation Chrono.

New Character

Cristiano Ronaldo will be playable as Chrono from December 19 onwards.  The new character comes with a bunch of abilities, such as creating a force field and blocking damage, while still allowing him to attack. It also increases his movement speed when activated. 

New Operation Chrono-themed items

Obviously, you were going to get some Operation Chrono themed items during the event. This includes new S-class costumes, a new skin for the AUG weapon as well as a skin for the Katana.  

New Game Modes

There are two new game-modes being added to Free Fire, the first is called Cosmic racer and is a racing/action mode. The mdoe sees 15 teams of two players each battle it out with one team member acting as the driver, while the other is the gunner. The last team standing wins.

The other mode is called The Chosen One and will see two teams of four players each battle against each other. Points are awarded for every opponent eliminated, and the first team to reach 40 points wins the match. During the watch, two players will be randomly selected for head-to-head duels. The winners of the duel will earn Bonus Time (of 30 seconds) for their team during which each elimination during the time earns double the points. 

Operation Chrono on BOOYAH! 

Free Fire will also be hosting a four-day event on Operation Chrono on its streaming platform, BOOYAH!. The event will feature India’s top streamers alongside celebrity guests Suhani Shah, and Nishant Tanwar. They will also participate in fun versions of battle royale modes. Further, players will also be able to challenge participants and interact with streamers directly.

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The Google Home Max has officially been discontinued

The era of smart speakers begun about four years ago and the main emphasis was on the features it provided, while sound quality was not the priority at the time. Then came the Google Home Max, which supported high-end audio and had two 18mm tweeters with two 4.5-inch woofers for a great audio experience.

The speaker has a six microphone array for far-field listening and had great voice capturing capabilities. The Home Max still can do all the other things the latest Nest speakers can such as play music or control your home as a hub by just using your voice commands.

The retirement of the Google Home Max was kind of expected as these were ‘the’ speakers for sound quality back in the day and the new Google Nest speakers pack similar,  if not better sound quality in a smaller form factor, and it has been more than 3 years since these large speakers have launched. If you want to get a more modern Google speaker, the Nest Audio has been designed to provide higher quality audio in a small form factor.

Google also stated that, “Existing Google Home Max users shouldn’t worry as they won’t see any change in their service. We'll continue to offer software updates and security fixes to Google Home Max devices. We're committed to delivering great sound and whole home audio features across all of our Assistant-enabled products.”. 

The company also stated that the company has stopped production of the Google Home Max and has sold out the last remaining pieces on the Google store, stating that unless a few stores have some stock lying around you will not be able to get your hands on the Home Max. 

There are a lot of devices that Google has discontinued in recent years, here is a list of the following devices:

Google Home Max Nest Secure Google Daydream Focals By North Google Clips Chromecast Audio  Chromebook Pixel Project Ara Google Nexus Google Mini Nexus Q Revolv

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Vivo X60 series camera details, live images leaked ahead of December 29 launch

Vivo X60 series is officially set to launch on December 29 and camera details of the upcoming phones have been leaked in a new leak. Some new images have also revealed the design of the upcoming phone in different colourways. Vivo could have three phones in the X60 lineup, the X60, X60 Pro and X60 Pro+.

According to multiple posts by tipster Digital Chat Station, the X60 series has AG glass body and will be offered in three colours to choose from. The X60 is rumoured to feature triple cameras on the back while the X60 Pro and Pro+ get quad camera setup. This comes after Vivo announced its collaboration with Zeiss optics for fine-tuning the gimbal camera setup on the X60 Pro. This is why you will notice the Zeiss branding on the camera module.

分析一下vivo X60和X60 Pro的影像模组: 48mp主摄+13mp超广+13mp人像。 48mp主摄+13mp超广+13mp人像+8mp潜望。 主摄都采用第二代微云台并且有蔡司加持，虽然CIS硬件没升级，但Pro的光圈从f/1.6升级到f/1.48。Pro长焦还是5x光变/60x数字。我还是更期待超大杯的表现了，真旗舰规格[吃瓜] pic.twitter.com/GERQOiig3K

— Digital Chat Station (@StationChat) December 15, 2020

The X60 is also slated to be one of the thinnest 5G phones measuring 7.3 millimetres and is confirmed to be powered by the Exynos 1080 processor. Vivo X60 series follows the X50 lineup that was launched earlier this year and is also expected to arrive in India next year.

Vivo X60 series leaked specifications

The Vivo X60 series is expected to feature 120Hz AMOLED screens with the X60 and X60 Pro being powered by the Exynos 1080 and the X60 Pro+ by the Snapdragon 888 processor. The X60 is expected to have a flat-screen while the X60 Pro and X60 Pro+ could come with curved screens.

The X60 is rumoured to have three cameras on the back that consists of a primary 48MP camera with f/1.6 aperture, a 13MP ultra-wide-angle camera and a 13MP portrait camera. The X60 Pro has a quad-camera setup on the rear that has the same three cameras from the X60 in addition to an 8MP periscope camera that brings 5x optical zoom and upto 60X digital zoom. As for the X60 Pro+, it is expected to have a 48MP primary camera with f/1.48 aperture along with the other three cameras as on the X60. Both the X60 and X60 Pro+ are equipped with the 2nd gen. gimbal camera system that debuted with the X50 series.

Vivo X60 lineup is also expected to mark the debut of the company’s new OriginOS and will likely support 33W fast charging out-of-the-box. More details will be revealed as we near the launch date of the X60 series which is scheduled for December 29. 

 

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Amazon adds a Live Translation feature to Alexas multi-lingual skill set

Amazon has announced a feature that will live translate conversations between people who speak different languages. The feature is currently available on select devices running Amazon’s Echo assistant.

This feature is an addition to the multi-lingual skill set that was released in November this year, making the assistant well versed in non-English languages such as Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese. At the moment, the feature is only available in the US and might expand to other regions in the future.

The live translation can be initiated with a voice command, namely, Alexa translate Italian” and after a beep, you can start conversing normally with the other person. If you have an Echo Show, you can actually see the transcription play out in real-time on the display. Amazon says it had worked on the system to improve the feature by making the live translation sound more natural with the right integration of pauses and breaks to make it feel more natural in tone.

Amazon further explained, “The Live Translation feature leverages several existing Amazon systems, including Alexa’s automatic-speech-recognition (ASR) system, Amazon Translate, and Alexa’s text-to-speech system, with the overall architecture and machine learning models designed and optimized for conversational-speech translation.” You can read more in-depth about the working of this system here.

Last year, Google had tried something similar to this with the Google Assistant and called it Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode. Google’s Interpreter Mode can handle 29 languages currently, and works with all the devices that are Google Assistant-enabled, including phones and smart speakers. It will be interesting to see how Amazon catches up to Google as Amazon is seeing rapid growth in this segment and should be catching up sooner rather than later in the battle of smart services.

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Spotify Premium Mini subscription plans debut in India, starting Rs 7 per day

Spotify has rolled out a new subscription plan for India that brings down the price of the music streaming service to as low as Rs 7 per day. The new plan called Premium Mini was introduced by Spotify in India and offers access to its entire catalogue at Rs 7 for one-day or Rs 25 for one week. Spotify’s Premium Mini attempts to reach mobile phone users but does have some limitations when compared with other plans.

Under its Premium offering, users can listen to Spotify without any advertisements, can save music offline and more. The Premium Mini offers 30 songs to download on a single device as opposed to 10,000 per device for Individual accounts on upto 5 devices. It also offers high-quality 160Kbps audio and the plan has a duration of one day or one week.

The same benefits as provided with the Premium Mini plan would have cost around Rs 13/day and Rs 39/week previously. However, now Spotify users can enjoy some Premium features and try it out before actually subscribing to the Premium membership.

Spotify is also accepting Paytm and UPI payments for users to buy the Premium Mini subscription plan in an attempt to make the process simpler. Do note, however, the Premium Mini only offers 30 song downloads and 160kbps audio quality which is the same as offered in the Free plan. 

The music streaming service is also offering a discount on its Premium membership that costs Rs 1,189 in India. Spotify is now offering the Premium subscription for Rs 999 and the offer is valid until December 31, 2020. Here’s what you get when you subscribe to Spotify Premium membership.

Spotify also has other plans that can be used between friends or family. These plans include Duo priced at Rs 149, Family priced at Rs 179 and Student for Rs 59 per month. The individual plan costs Rs 119 monthly and first-time subscribers get 30-day free trial.

Spotify was also recently spotted testing a new feature on the app that will soon allow users to play locally stored music files. You can read more about it here.

 

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Dell XPS 13 9310 with upto 11th gen Intel processor, Iris Xe graphics launched in India

The Dell XPS 13 (9310) has launched in India; powered by the 11th generation Intel processors and upgraded Iris Xe graphics. The new XPS 13 is one of the few laptops to be available with the latest Intel processors in the country and is the successor to the XPS 13 (9300) that launched in July in India. It also features the Intel Evo series that ensures a balanced performance, battery life and more. 

The XPS 13 (9310) has a large display with a 16:10 aspect ratio that allows a bigger screen estate for users to play around with and has narrow bezels on all sides. It is being offered in two variants in India and here is everything you should know about the pricing and features of the new Dell XPS 13.

Dell XPS 13 (9310) pricing and availability

The XPS 13 9310 is priced starting at Rs 1,50,990 for the Core i5 variant and is available to purchase from Amazon India and Dell Exclusive Stores. 

The Intel Core i7 variant of the XPS 13 is priced at Rs 2,15,498 and is set to arrive in January 2021 in India. 

Dell XPS 13 (9310) specifications and features

The XPS 13 9310 features a 13.4-inch Full HD (1920 x 1200 pixels) resolution anti-glare display with 91.5% screen-to-body-ratio and minimal bezels on four sides. The screen is topped with a layer of Gorilla Glass 6 for impact and scratch resistance. The laptop has a CNC-milled aluminium chassis and is offered in two colours-- platinum silver with carbon fibre palm rest and frost with arctic white glass fibre palm rest. It measures 14.8 millimetres thick and weighs 1.27 kilograms.

The new XPS 13 is powered by the 11th generation Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor and is paired with 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD storage. It also has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 while the I/O ports include two Thunderbolt 4 port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and a microSD card reader. 

With slim bezels, the XPS 13 features a 2.25 millimetres HD webcam that uses a 4-lens design and offers noise reduction features that help in improving the image quality of the webcam.

The new XPS 13 is powered by a 52 Whr 4-cell battery that supports 45W fast charging. Dell claims that the laptop is capable of providing upto 14 hours worth of battery life when streaming on Full HD SKU.

 

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Gamers are unlocking Cyberpunk 2077s full potential on PC

Cyberpunk 2077 has been having a tough go of it since its launch. The issue stems from performance issues, buggy physics, and glitches in the game, but modifying one config file could help some PC users have a better experience with the game.

Even PC gamers running the RTX 20 series graphic cards had seen abrupt frame drops and below 60 fps on medium settings. As it turns out the issue may appear to stem from the configuration files for the game. This is because the file allocates the same amount of VRAM and Memory as on the Xbox and PlayStation. 

After the modification, the Redditor ‘ThePheonixRoyal’ mentioned his game was loading much faster, and he could see more than 60 fps on the game on high settings. Other users have been commenting about the similar bump in frames as well as loading times for the game.

The Redditor has included a detailed guide and also posted a video on the same highlighting a step-by-step process to edit the configuration file as well as the respective values for the PC gamer. Do note that changing these values might abruptly crash the game or even Windows, so be a little careful before changing the configuration.

Here is a TLDR to editing the config file:

Head over to your installed location of the game

Steam

X:\...\Steam\steamapps\common\Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config\memory_pool_budgets.csv

GOG

Y:\...\GOG Galaxy\Games\Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config\memory_pool_budgets.csv

Epic Games

Z:\...\Epic Games\Cyberpunk 2077\engine\config\memory_pool_budgets.csv Use the following scheme to edit your PoolCPU

Note: Be sure to keep 4GB for Windows.

Now save the file and launch the game.

You may see some benefits, if not try tinkering with these values some more and try again.

If the game keeps on crashing or not loading, delete the file or replace the changed values with “0” and it should initialize the default values and the game should run as it originally did.

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