Esports to be a medal sport at 2022 Asian Games

The Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) has confirmed that esports will be included in the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China as an official medal sport. This means that all medals that will be won under the esports category, will count towards the country’s overall medal tally. While esports were included in the 2018 edition of the Asian Games, the medals were not counted towards a country’s overall tally.  

Lokesh Suji, Director ESFIm VP-Asian Esports Federation stated, “what better news than this, for not only the Indian Esports Athletes/Fans but the whole of Asia. ESFI has been participating in all the esports events done under the banner of OCA since the beginning (other than Turkmenistan). It was in 2007 when OCA included esports in Asian Indoor Games held in Incheon who would have thought that esports will become such a big craze world over since.” He also added, “we are confident that this time we will win many medals including a couple of Golds. ESFI & AESF both are committed to develop, support and grow esports not only in India but the region.” 

The announcement was made at the 39th OCA (Olympic Council of Asia) assembly. The move should help esports become more legitimate in the eyes of the Olympic Committee and should help in its bid to be included in what is arguably the biggest sporting event in the world. It should be noted that Intel has initially planned to host the Intel World Open tournament just ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics that were supposed to be held in July this year. Following a qualifier at Katowice, Poland, the finals for the event were supposed to be held at Tokyo, Japan. However, as with pretty much every other sporting event, the Olympics were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Olympics will now be held next year. 

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Twitter lays down its plans to relaunch public verification program in January 2021

Twitter has revealed its plans to relaunch the public verification program in January 2021 after it asked users for feedback on the draft of its new verification policy. Twitter suspended the blue badge of honour back in 2017 over widespread criticism where it was found that many users had received verification badges even after having a single-digit follower count. Twitter released its draft for the new policy in November and received more than 22,000 survey responses in the two weeks since.

The new verification policy will be enforced on January 20, 2021, but the public verification system will go live at a later date. Twitter has listed some key feedback areas that they have worked upon in the new verification policy. The company has changed the criteria for an account to be deemed complete by removing the requirement for a profile bio or header image. An account is now deemed complete if it either has a verified email address or phone number, a profile image and a display name. It has also updated references to Wikipedia that is now in-line with the standards of the encyclopedia.

Moreover, Twitter has also clarified account category titles in a better way. The News category now includes News and Journalists while the Sports category will now include esports as well. There is another reference in the Entertainment category to clearly identify digital content creators. Twitter has also realized that the follower count requirement on a per-country basis “wasn’t always the right approach”, so it will now be on a per-region basis to make it fairer across countries.

Twitter says that to receive the blue badge, your account must be authentic, notable and active on the platform. It has identified six types of accounts as Notable accounts and these include government, companies, brands and non-profit organizations, news, entertainment, sports, activists, organizers and other influential individuals. The company has also revealed that starting January 20, it will also start removing verification badge from accounts that are found violating Twitter Rules. It will also remove the blue badge from inactive and incomplete accounts.

Twitter will launch the public verification in 2021 through a new application process that will be available on the Settings page. The applicant will be asked to choose a category for their account type and will identify the person with the help of reference links and other supporting documents. In 2021, Twitter also plans to introduce automated account labels for bots and memorialized accounts in the memory of someone who has passed.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 benchmark results indicate 25 uptick in performance

Qualcomm has released synthetic benchmark results of its new flagship Snapdragon 888 processor since reviewers were not able to get their hands on a reference device at the recently concluded Snapdragon Tech Summit 2020. The chip-maker announced the Snapdragon 888 on the first day of the summit as it gave a glimpse of what’s coming to the flagship smartphones of 2021.

Qualcomm conducted a series of synthetic benchmark tests on a reference design powered by the Snapdragon 888 chip and looks like we have yet another winner at our hands. However, Qualcomm reiterated its stand on using benchmark apps as it believes that “they only measure a subset of use cases and fail to capture the wide array of experiences enabled by Snapdragon, including connectivity, photography, videography, audio, battery life and charging speeds, and more.”

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 benchmark results 

Before we check out how the Snapdragon 888 performed in the benchmarks, the reference design used for these tests features a 6.65-inch Full HD+ (2340 x 1080 pixels) resolution display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The phone is powered by the Qualcomm 888 5G processor with an octa-core CPU running at up to 2.84GHz and is paired with 12GB LPDDR5 RAM module and 512GB storage. The device was powered by a 3,780mAh battery and has a Type-C 3.1 Gen2 port.

Qualcomm ran each test three times so the scores shared are the average result from three iterations. The Snapdragon 888 powered device scored 735439 points on AnTuTu benchmark which is more than the score of the current leaderboard champion Huawei Mate 40 Pro with a score of 661059 points. The score of the Snapdragon 888 is around 21 percent more than the Snapdragon 865+ powered Asus ROG Phone 3 and 26% more than the Snapdragon 865 on the OnePlus 8T. 

On Geekbench single-core tests, the Snapdragon 888 was awarded 1135 points and 3794 points on multi-core tests. As per the leaderboard, OnePlus 8 currently leads the pack with 886 single-core points, 3201 multi-core score and Snapdragon 865 under the hood. In comparison to our Geekbench scores of the ROG Phone 3 and OnePlus 8T, the Snapdragon 888 has 18% increase in scores over the Snapdragon 865+ and 28% over the Snapdragon 865. Similarly, the Snapdragon 888 has registered a 17% and 24% increase in scores over the Snapdragon 865+ and 865, respectively.

What remains to be seen is how smartphone manufacturers utilize the power of the Snapdragon 888 and optimize it to drive performance and efficiency on smartphones in 2021. Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is manufactured using the 5nm process and is the first commercial SoC that is based on the Arm Cortex-X1 architecture as it features the Kryo 680 CPU running at up to 2.84GHz. There’s the Adreno 660 GPU for graphics rendering and is touted to deliver up to 35% faster graphics rendering over the Adreno 650 GPU. Together, the Kryo 680 CPU and Adreno 660 GPU offers sustained peak performance over time.

Many smartphone manufacturers including the likes of Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus and Oppo have already revealed their plans of launching a phone powered by the Snapdragon 888 in early 2021.

 

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Microsoft says its systems were exposed in a malicious SolarWinds hack

Microsoft on Thursday announced that it has detected malicious binaries of SolarWinds in their environment which have now been isolated and removed. The company also stated that Microsoft’s systems were used to hack others.

Microsoft uses Orion, which is a network management software by SolarWinds which was suspected to be hacked by Russian attackers during their raid on US agencies and others. The list of agencies and companies that have been infected is increasing day by day adding Microsoft as a tech giant that was affected by it.

"Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious Solar Winds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed," a Microsoft spokesperson said, adding that the company had found "no indications that our systems were used to attack others."

Some people familiar with the matter said that hackers made use of Microsoft Cloud services, thus avoiding Microsoft’s corporate infrastructure. The US Energy Department also has evidence that hackers gained access to its networks. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which manages the country's nuclear weapons stockpile, was also targeted in the attack.

The Department of Homeland and Security(DHS) also stated that the attackers used other techniques besides corrupting updates of network management software Orion by SolarWinds, which is used by hundreds of companies and government agencies.

As reported by CISA, almost 18,000 Orion customers have downloaded updates that had a backdoor included in the patch reported by SolarWinds. Attackers might have gained access to additional systems as reported by CISA which also calls this one of the biggest hacks in the decade.

Attackers have been careful to delete logs and digital footprints of files and systems that were assessed. What this does is make it much harder to identify what has been hacked. Some major companies report they have no evidence of the hack, but it might only be the case that evidence was eradicated.

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Among Us Coming to Xbox Consoles in 2021; Joins Xbox Game Pass for PC

Among Us will be available on Xbox consoles in 2021. The game has also joined Xbox Game Pass for PC. Among Us was launched in 2018 but rose to popularity only this year. The multiplayer game was launched for Nintendo Switch earlier this week as well.

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Garena Free Fire: Roadmap for December

The year is not yet over and Garena Free Fire still has a bunch of stuff in store for users. This includes new game modes, events and more. This also includes the introduction of a brand-new character that is the result of a pretty big partnership. So here’s a round up of all that’s in store for players in the remainder of December.

Faded Wheel: Cyber Bounty Hunter Bundle + AUG: December 16 to December 22

The Faded Wheel will now give players the chance to win the Cyber Bounty Hunter Bundle that includes a bunch of new clothing options for players. It also includes the Cyber Bounty Hunter AUG, which is the signature weapon for the bundle.

Hailstone Fist + The Weekend Runner Bundle: December 18 to December 25  

A new Hailstone Fist will be available to players for a week. The new item looks pretty snazzy and should make for a decent addition to any player’s arsenal. Besides his, there is also the Weekend Runner Bundle that also contains a bunch of stuff including outfits. 

Chosen One Game Mode: December 19 to December 25

Aside from Cosmic Racer, Garena Free Fire will also bring with it another new gameplay mode called the Chosen One. The gameplay and rules of the new mode are pretty similar to traditional team deathmatch. However, everywhere or so, one player from each time will be selected for a 1v1 duel. The winner’s team will then enter a few minutes of bonus time, during which each kill that the team makes will net them double the points. 

Chrono character launch: December 19

December 19 will finally see the introduction of the highly teased character that is based on Cristiano Ronaldo. Called Chrono, the character will come with an ability called Time Warp that creates a force field around the player. This field absorbs damage, while also giving the player and their teammates a movement boost. You can learn more about the character here.

The next few weeks will also see the addition a few more things including the return of the Mystery Shop and a new Incubator called Time Traveller. You can learn more about everything that is coming here.

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Amazfit GTS 2 up for pre-orders in India at Rs 12,999, goes on sale from December 21

Amazfit GTS 2 has officially launched in India starting at Rs 12,999 after the company announced the GTR 2 that went on sale on December 17. The price of the GTS 2 has also been revealed with the smartwatch currently up for pre-orders on Amazfit India website and Amazon India. The GTR 2 is expected to be followed by the GTS 2 mini that is also supposed to launch in India by the end of the year. 

Amazfit GTS 2- #TheFashionEssential is available for pre-booking now! Check out the link below and let us know your favourite feature of GTS 2 https://t.co/0zLsotR8Mq

— Amazfit India (@AmazfitIndia) December 18, 2020

Like the GTR 2, the Amazfit GTS 2 also features a SpO2 monitor for measuring the user’s blood-oxygens saturation levels and offers a 7-day battery life. The GTS 2 is a part of Amazfit’s GT 2 lineup that includes the GTR 2, GTS 2 and GTS 2 mini trio of smart wearables. Here’s everything you should know about buying the Amazfit GTS 2 in India.

Amazfit GTS 2 price and availability

Amazfit GTS 2 is currently listed in a single black colour option on the Amazfit India website which is likely the Midnight Black version. However, globally it is offered in two more colours, Urban Grey and Desert Gold. There is currently no word whether Amazfit will offer the other two colour options in India.

The GTS 2 is up for pre-orders on Amazfit website and will go on sale from December 21 in India. The smartwatch will also be available to purchase from Amazon India.

Amazfit GTS 2 features

The Amazfit GTS 2 has an aluminium alloy build with the plastic bottom cover measuring 9.7 millimetres in thickness and weighs 24.7 grams. The GTS 2 has a square dial with rounded corners and is covered in curved 3D Gorilla Glass for added protection. It also has a diamond-like carbon coating that improves the scratch-resistance of the glass.

Amazfit GTS 2 features a 1.65-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 348x442 pixels and it curves on the edges seamlessly. The watch has a single button and is 5ATM certified meaning that the GTS 2 can survive upto a depth of 50 meters in water. The straps are made of silicone and are replaceable.

The GTS 2 uses a magnetic charging base to fill its 246mAh battery that offers around 7 days worth of battery life on efficient use and upto 20 days on basic use. Moreover, the smartwatch takes close to 2 hours to fully charge from 0-100%.

The Amazfit GTS 2 features a proprietary BioTracker 2 PPG data sensor that is capable of measuring the wearer’s SpO2 levels, heart rate and more. It connects to an Android or iOS phone over Bluetooth 5.0 and Zepp companion App.

 

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