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Huawei & Other Chinese Companies Banned from Australia’s 5G network

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Huawei
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The national security is a critical issue and the Australian government has given this reason to ban the world’s third largest smartphone company Huawei from its 5G network project. The news of banning Huawei started hitting the headlines in the month of June this year, and finally, on the last Thursday, it was officially imposed on Huawei.

Noticeably, as a result of the friction between the US and China, U.S. had also banned Huawei in its lucrative market over national security concern. Now this time, Australian intelligence agencies have also raised the same matter by saying that Beijing can force the Chinese companies to share sensitive data with them.

According to the reports, Australia’s acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison said that the Government’s priority would “always be the safety and security of Australians”. Another government official stated, “Huawei owns political committees and they have to serve the Chinese intelligence agencies, under the Communist law if requested”.

Huawei Australia has denied all the connection with the political parties and has given an assurance that all the shares of Huawei are owned by its employees and the Chinese Government has nothing to do with its functioning. It also came on to twitter saying, ”This is an extremely disappointing result for consumers. Huawei is a world leader in 5G. Has safely & securely delivered wireless technology in Aust for close to 15 yrs”.

The ban on Huawei is only for Australian 5G network. It is already supplying equipment for the 4g network in Australia and will continue to do so. Along with Huawei, some other Chinese companies are also banned from the Australian 5G network, including ZTE.

Apple Pulls Out 25000 Illegal Apps From China’s App Store

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App Store
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The news of Google re-entering into China has already created many controversies, even within the company resulting in a mass protest by its employees. Now again Apple, an American company is facing some regularity issues in China.

Noticeably, the State media broadcaster CCTV had recently criticised Apple for allowing many illegal apps on the App Store. The media has been giving a negative feedback to Apple for its no control over such apps. Apple has removed over 25000 apps from its App Store and allegedly, 4000 of them, were based on gambling. With the removal of these illegal apps, Apple has also removed those developers that distribute them.

Gambling is not allowed in China and most of these apps had used Gambling as a keyword. China media had criticised Apple for not doing enough to stop this kind of illegal activities. Apple has even made guidelines for uploading Apps on to the App store and has restricted these type of apps.

“Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China,” Apple said in an emailed statement sent to Bloomberg on Monday. “We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store.”

It is a tough task for an American company to maintain a business in world’s largest economy and Apple is trying hard to fall in line with Chinese authorities. Last year Apple pulled out nearly 700 VPN apps from its App Store. Apple has been entangled in conflicts with China in the past. Also, the growing friction between Washington, D.C. and Beijing is also causing the American companies in China to follow all the rules carefully to keep China on their side.

Apple’s new “Low Cost” MacBook Launch after 4 Years

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MacBook Air 2018
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It has been more than three years when Apple had launched its last Mac Book laptop in 2014. Also, the MacBook Air was upgraded with a faster processor last year, remaining the cheapest laptop by Apple. The MacBook Air is the only laptop by Apple, without a high-resolution screen, costing about $1000.

Reportedly, Apple is about to launch a new upgraded version of its MacBook, or it can be the upgraded version of MacBook Air. The launch may be by the end of this year, with the launch of other Apple products including the new iPhones and iPad.

Last year the MacBook sale went down by a large scale as the upgraded MacBook cost higher and could not meet the professional needs of the consumers. Since 2010, it sold the fewest number of its MacBooks in a quarter this year. The other companies like Lenovo and Acer also launched high-end laptops that attracted the customers with their new features.

By looking at the reduced sale of the MacBooks and desktop computers, last year, MacBook was planning to launch the new MacBook at the beginning of the year but got delayed. Later, it was set for June and July of this year, but again due to some production issues, the launch is now delayed for October 2018.

The new Apple laptop is going to be similar to the MacBook Air, but, added with a high-resolution, Retina-version display. The screen will be about 13 inches and will include thinner bezels around it. It will including the 14nm Kaby lake processors from Intel. The new MacBook is expected to be cheaper, that may result in the reduced storage for the basic models, up to 128 GB SSD reduced from 256 GB.

Apple considers its laptop and computer lineup as an important part of their company and will continue its production and sale. For now, Apple has not declared anything officially. But the trusting the sources, we can expect the launch of new MacBook by the fall of this year.

Samsung’s $300 Bixby Smart Speaker to be Launched by the End of the Year

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Samsung Galaxy Home Speaker
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Following the lead of its rivals, Apple, Microsoft and Google, Samsung has announced the launch of its new smart speaker Galaxy Home powered by Bixby. Bixby was released by Samsung last year, which is a voice robot embedded in a few of the smartphones and home appliances of Samsung, which is similar to the Google assistant and Apple’s infamous Siri. The automated smart speaker by Samsung will provide a surround sound and can be controlled manually or by voice commands.

1. Design: Since the announcement of the Galaxy Home speaker there has been a chaos about the look of the speakers. Some have compared it with a witch’s cauldron, a fondue pot and also with a backyard grill. It has a three-legged stand and is equipped with eight far-field microphones, to take the commands from the user. It has full-range speakers and an onboard subwoofer for surround sound, with a sound steering and audio tuning by AKG. The size of the Galaxy Home is considerably space-age and larger than Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa.

2. Cost: As Galaxy Home is competing with its contemporaries Google, Apple and Amazon, that are already are at the higher end of the prices ranging from $250 to $400. The price of Samsung Galaxy Home is yet be announced but is expected to be around $300. Before galaxy Home, Samsung has launched the Alexa-powered Samsung VL350 that cost $250.

Samsung is ready to give a tough competition to its competitors now in the music and speaker industry. Also, it has announced a partnership with Spotify and will add the live music streaming to Galaxy Home. The other features, launch date and the price of the Galaxy Home smart speakers will be announced in its Developer’s conference in the November month of this year, until then we can only guess what it will bring different from other smart speakers.

New Xbox Avatars Rolling Out to Windows 10 Testers

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Xbox Avatars
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Microsoft has been working on its Xbox avatars for more than a year now and, had announced its launch the last fall. The plan did not work out and the launch got postponed. Also, in the mid of April 2018, the promotional video of the Avatars was leaked that faded away all the suspense.

In June 2018, Microsoft started testing Xbox Avatars. The Avatars were unveiled for the insiders for testing on the Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead rings. Now, after two months of the unveiling for the insiders, on 16 August, Microsoft has made it available for the Windows 10 testers as well. The testing for the Avatars is done through an app named as Xbox Avatar Editor that is available for download from the Microsoft Store. Also, the Windows 10 testers must be a part of Microsoft’s Xbox Insider program, so that, they can have the full access to all the functions of the Avatars.

The Xbox Avatar Editor is fledged with various new Avatar customization features, like body type options, clothing, props and even fingernails, to customize your Avatar accordingly. By the launch of these new live-Avatars Microsoft is going to add some more dynamic features to make the Avatars look more realistic.

Using the new Xbox Avatars, the users will be able to create a unique representation of themselves through the different options of clothing, appearance, colour, mood etc., according to their personalities, or otherwise. The new Avatars will be integrated into the Xbox One Dashboard and will be displayed on the Gamertag Profiles.

The testing of these Avatars has been going on for two months now, and there has been no announcement of any fixed date on which the Avatars will be launched officially. But according to the sources, the month has been decided and the Avatars will be available for the Xbox users by the October this year.

Google One Launched : Replacing Google Drive?

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Google One
Image Source: techcrunch.com

In May 2018, Google had announced its new cloud storage product Google One and had been working on it for past few months. Finally, it has launched Google One, on the 15 August of this year. The ones, who have already used Google Drive, might know that Google provides you with 15 GB of free storage on Google Drive and after 15 GB, you have to pay for more storage.

Google One is similar to Google Drive and is a paid cloud storage provided for the users all over the world. No! It is not replacing Google Drive, but, Google Drive will be upgraded to Google One after its 15 GB free plan with some added perks for its Consumer.

1) Increased Data Storage: Google has been working on its newly launched Google One for a quite some time now and, has already been updating the Google Drive’s paid user’s subscriptions for the last few months. Google has come with many subscription plans, according to the user’s requirements and, that too at a good price.

The monthly plan of Google One starts with 100 GB of storage for $1.99, followed by 200 GB tier for $2.99, a 2 TB option for $9.99 and the plan ends at 30 TB of storage that will cost $299.99. Interestingly, Google has reduced the price of 2 TB storage by $10, i.e. $9.99 that was the previous price of 1 TB storage. The consumers can subscribe to any of the plans according to their need. Also, the subscription can be shared with five of the family members without paying any extra money and equal storage for all of them.

2) Customer Support: This time Google has also come with a one-tap help button, that is for the live-customer support. Meaning that the Google users can connect with the real experts, for their queries related to any Google product, instead of any AI chatbots. The customer-support will be available 24/7 and, you can contact them via a phone call or through an e-mail.

Right now, Google One is only available in the US. But, it will soon be rolling out for the consumers across other countries too. Also, the G-Suite users with the business account will get no additional benefits and their plans will remain as it is.

Google has come with some other perks for its subscribers and, will offer credits on their purchase on Google Play and Google Express. Also, if the user will search and book the Hotels through Google maps, they can earn good deals on the bookings.

So, now you can share more data like high-resolution pictures, 4K videos, documents with your family and friends with any of the above-mentioned subscription plans. And, if you are not a US citizen, you have to wait for sometime. Google is also working on launching an app for the users, to help them choose for their easy subscription to the different plans. So, hopefully, the app and Google One will be launched together in the other countries soon.