Monthly Archives: March 2020

Business, Computers, Contributed, News

How blockchain technology is enabling new ways of doing business

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*This article is contributed by Myles Hosford, Head of Security Architecture, ASEAN, AWS*

As the world becomes more interconnected, opportunities for companies and individuals to interact and transact across borders, time zones, and channels grow quickly. To make sure that these transactions run smoothly, proactive management – specifically to ensure the minimization of cost, lowering of risk, and the elimination of inefficiencies – is needed.

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) such as blockchain helps simplify transactions and conduct efficient, secure interactions with multiple independent parties around the globe. All without the need for a third-party intermediary. These transactions can vary from sending anything from farm data, to banking and contract transactions.

Use case: Empowering farmers to sell field data transparently

Farmers collect large volumes of data with each step in the planting and harvesting process. Licensed data – data that qualifies as intellectual property of the farmer such as which crops to plant or how many seedlings – can be anonymized, sold to third parties and offer the agricultural industry with real-time insights on farms across the world. However, farmers are unsure how to monetize this crop data.

Photo by Tom Fisk from Pexels

As farmers are unsure how to monetize their crop data, Farmobile addresses these challenges through a blockchain-based exchange, built on AWS. The solution empowers farmers to licence data to approved buyers and includes account set up, creation, confirmation, execution of the offer, and delivery of the digital asset. They can seamlessly sell single-use licenses while keeping their farm’s identity completely anonymous. However, farmers have full visibility into the identities of potential data buyers, such as agronomists, equipment producers, and retailers, and are free to decline offers.

Use Case: Boosting financial inclusivity

Another case study for Blockchain technology is the financial sector in the Philippines. Here, rural banks lack the resources of larger banking institutions, making it nearly impossible for them to thrive or survive. This has left a large majority of rural-based Filipinos with little or no banking access.

Photo by David McBee from Pexels

UnionBank, a pioneer in its use of blockchain technology, joined forces with ConsenSys, an AWS Partner , to build a blockchain solution that would resolve this issue. The new, blockchain-based solution created a decentralized, cost-efficient, and near real-time network, allowing for the execution of domestic payments without relying on existing banking infrastructure and intermediaries.

The blockchain solution introduced means that rural banks no longer have to shoulder the burden of manually processing back-office transactions, freeing up staff to serve more customers. As such, the technology not only increased banking access and inclusivity but drove sustainable, future banking practices.

Use case: Limiting contract disputes in the oil and gas industry

Another example comes from the oil and gas industry. Moving resources through the oil and gas supply chain involves many stakeholders, including landowners, governments, oil and gas company operators, surveyors, and financial institutions. One critical step occurs between those mining the oil and royalty owners on whose land the oil is mined. Checking royalty transaction payments is a lengthy, manual process where stakeholders must agree to contract terms upfront. However, those terms are often interpreted differently on either side, often leading to disputes.

GuildOne, believed companies needed more efficient, secure, and cost-effective ways to execute a royalty contract transaction. They developed a solution through which contract terms are capable of being replicated, and consensus agreed using blockchain technology. By doing so, they mitigated the possibility of disputes and eliminated a large chunk of the expense of contract administration.

To build its royalty ledger and to meet the stringent privacy and security needs of its stakeholders, GuildOne chose to use R3’s Corda — a blockchain platform built for business and longevity — on AWS. Believing that the security capabilities gained would be vital in enabling rapid adoption of the royalty ledger solution in the oil and gas industry.

The future of blockchain technology solutions

Blockchain solutions are transforming the ways companies and individuals do business, locally and globally, by simplifying transactions and increasing their efficiency. Those looking to take advantage of the technology should partner with cloud providers capable of scaling up while delivering cybersecurity controls and standards to protect from external attacks. With Amazon Managed Blockchain, it eliminates the overhead required to create the network and automatically scales to meet the demands of thousands of applications running millions of transactions. Once a network is up and running, Managed Blockchain makes it easy to manage and maintain the blockchain network by managing its certificates and letting customers easily invite new members to join the network.

Mobile, News, Social Media

WhatsApp Dark is Here, and it is glorious!

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App designs have come a long way. Heck, interface designs have come a long way. Your smartphones are now more interactive and intuitive than it could ever be. In the progression of the mobile interface, obviously there were some not-so-good stuff along the way from time to time. Still, the interface that we have today is so intuitive and simple that operating a smartphone can be done by babies even.

We remembered interface designs with bright colours, plenty of whites, with a screen busier than Tokyo’s famous intersection. Those days are quite far gone though. Users prefer simpler designs. They prefer cleaner looking screens, despite having a larger than life physical display. They want as little things as possible on the display but still communicate as much information as before.

Just about a year ago too, there has been another design element that has gotten plenty more popular. It was just a simple colour scheme change that changes the contrast and feel of the interface. That is what people call the Dark Mode.

Dark mode is mainly designed with the thought of using your device in dark conditions. The white colours of your super-bright smartphone displays will really hurt your eyes when you look at in dark conditions. That is simple biology really, so we are not going into that.

The idea of a dark mode stems from the use of e-books. The black backgrounds hurt your eyes less while the whites of the words stand out enough that you can clearly read it. This works when you are the type that reads at night, in your bedroom, before you sleep.

Everything from your Operating System (OS) to Facebook Messenger has a dark theme. Of course, every single person out there is begging for a dark theme for everything else too. One app that have not gone on dark theme yet was WhatsApp. That has changed with the latest WhatsApp app update from your Google Play Store and Apple App Store today.

Once you update the app, either the app just follows your OS theme settings and go on dark mode, if you are in dark mode already. If not, you might want to switch that to dark mode. Or, you can manually switch WhatsApp to dark mode in the app settings. All you need to do is open the app, get into the settings, got to ‘Chats’, and then click on ‘Theme’ to select ‘Dark’, and voila; your WhatsApp is now in ‘night reading’ mode.

What that does is change the white and light grey backdrop of WhatsApp to a near black and dark grey backdrop. That also completely changes the look and feel of WhatsApp. It looks even simpler than before. Mind you, there is no significant interface change except for the colour scheme. We also concur that the ‘Dark’ theme may not be for everyone. But at least this hurts my eyes less when I first open WhatsApp in the morning or at night. Keep in mind though that the ‘Dark’ theme only applies to the mobile app at this time.

Computers, Health, Mobile, News

COVID-19 Hits Google Hard – Google Next Cloud Goes Completely Online and I/O is Cancelled

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At this point of time, COVID-19 has claimed over 3,000 lives globally. These are known deaths caused by COVID-19 and there may be more than that. To be honest too, this is a very difficult write-up. Not because there is very little information to work with. It is just the fact that COVID-19 news are not getting any better. There is a glimmer of hope though; WHO claims that COVID-19 containment and treatment is very viable.

Source: MS Poweruser

Still, COVID-19, or more commonly known as Coronavirus at this point has claimed more than just lives. It is affecting communities and commerce as well. Of course it would, people run these businesses and communities, people are getting infected and therefore sick; conducting business activities then is difficult.

We saw Apple getting affected earlier on with their China stores temporarily closing. Foxconn, their manufacturing plant had also stopped operating at some point. Mobile World Congress 2020 has been cancelled; Geneva Motorshow is also being torn down as we speak because they cancelled the event at the very last minute. Even Formula 1 is being heavily affected; they lost China GP this year and who knows which other GP is being cancelled due to the global emergency that is COVID-19.

Plenty are hopeful that the disease will be contained and cured by June or July. That is why some events has been postponed to then. Even Computex 2020 seems to be happening still. The situation now is not very encouraging though.

This week alone we see more victims to COVID-19. On top of new confirmed deaths around the world we see Microsoft’s MVP physical event going completely digital. Facebook is also cancelling the F8 summit. Even Adobe is not spared; Adobe is having their Summit announcements completely online too. The hardest of all is Google having to cancel both their big conferences.

Source: Google

Google has cancelled their Cloud Next event earlier on this week. They announced thought that the conference will be a completely online affair. There was also a sort of expectation that some of the things that would be covered on Cloud Next would appear in Google’s I/O which was still reported to be happening. This morning proved our optimism wrong though. Google is cancelling the Google I/O conference; their biggest developer conference of the year has been cancelled.

If we are right, we are seeing Google’s latest Android 11 on the big stage of Google I/O. It looks like we are going to have to see it on an online stage instead; they show must go on, as they say. There is no final confirmation yet on the online streaming of Google I/O yet though. We are expecting them to go online because Google is completely equipped to livestream all their conferences, which they have done before anyway. Of course, it helps that they own YouTube anyway.

Google is not the first to be hit strongly by COVID-19. We highly doubt that Google will be the last one. We are expecting the Olympics committee to make an announcement soon regarding the Summer Olympics 2020 in Japan. For all you know, Japan might be the one that makes the announcement of a border containment. Still, these are just speculations; take it with a pinch of salt. Not Google’s cancellations though, those are confirmed.

Source: Google, Tech Crunch, 9to5 Google

Gaming, News

Final Fantasy VII Remake After the Demo – Is It Worth MYR 243?

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One of my favourite game franchise is coming on April 10th 2020. It is the Final Fantasy VII that came out in 1997. Before you get confused; no, the one coming on the 10th of April 2020 is not the original pixelated 8 bit thing that is the Final Fantasy VII of 1997. Rather, it is the remade version: re-imagined with new modern graphics, and new gameplay mechanics.

The Demo dropped on the 2nd of March 2020 and we downloaded it the very next day. The demo only gave us 20 minutes in gameplay. The demo only gave us the very first mission of the game. If you have not played Final Fantasy VII yet, I am not going to spoil it for you.

Before I go on about the game though, keep in mind that this is not a full review of the game, so you might not want to treat it as one. Keep in mind also that I only had a brief 20 minutes with the game, not 20 hours. While I cannot comment on the entirety of the game then, I can only come up with its first impression. That is what you are going to treat it as; first impression.

Visuals

First of all, you cannot compare graphics today to graphics over 20 years ago. You can, however, compare it with other modern games. You can compare it to the modern Final Fantasy XV.

Source: Square Enix

On initial visual inspection, it looks like both of the games use the same graphics engine. That is not to say that it is a bad thing though. Final Fantasy XV is a gorgeous game, same goes to Final Fantasy VII Remake.

While Final Fantasy XV focuses on bright colours, with complex colour schemes, and plenty of complex textures, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a stark contrast to that. Final Fantasy VII Remake focuses on hard, flat surfaces. At least on the demo itself, you see plenty of metallic environments. Cloud’s big sword is a big metal surface anyway.

Source: Square Enix

The colour tones are more flat compared to plenty of modern games understandably. While that might mean that the engine should easily cope with it, there are plenty of details still within the surfaces projected on the screen. The character models are plenty more complex than you can ever imagine Final Fantasy VII characters can be.

So far in the demo, we only saw Barret, Cloud, Aries, and a few supporting characters. Those characters really come alive with the remake. To think that 23 years ago, we only managed to see miniaturised character models unless you go into the turn based battle. Overall, that is a great experience, impressive at first impressions.

Gameplay

We spoke about turn based gameplay previously. That is the biggest difference between this new remake and the original game from 1997. Because of more complex processing power, battle is now in real-time like Final Fantasy XV. While that is the case, there are major differences in terms of look and feel though.

Source: Square Enix

The battle mechanics does not change that much from XV to VII Remake. They are both real-time and in Classic mode, Final Fantasy VII is a button masher game that looks good. It does not feel as messy and as complex as Final Fantasy XV though. That could also be because I was playing it in Classic Mode. Still, real-time melee battles can be quite jarring especially when you have no sense of control on your right joystick. It can get quite harrowing and frustrating in any other mode that Classic Mode.

Still, all the right visual cues are there. The other overlay graphics that tells you your health, MP, your action options, and others do help with the nostalgic feel of the game. They use the exact same colour palettes here. The also use the same sort of fonts in different sizes and sort of the same placements on your screen. Played out on a big screen though, I wish that those information HUD was slightly bigger.

The controls feels as simple as it can be though. That also means that you get to enjoy the gameplay more than you think. You also get to play the game more than getting frustrated over the controls, that is nice. The only difference with Final Fantasy VII from 1997, is that you can manipulate your camera angles on your own now. No more fixed camera angle from the late 90s to mid 2000s.

Is It Worth MYR 243?

I guess? To be fair, I am a cheapskate. I tend to buy games only during massive sales. The last game that I bought at full price was Death Stranding, that is after thinking about it hard for three whole days.

This is one of those games that actually shaped my childhood though. It is, I think, also the game that got me into gaming. The Final Fantasy VII from 1997 was my favourite Final Fantasy game. It was not my first, that has to go to the Final Fantasy VIII.

The Remake demo has brought back plenty of memories of that old PlayStation that I shared with my brother. It introduced a whole facet of world to me and I wanted to get lost in that world. The Remake, although just a demo, brought back some of those memories.

In that sense then, the heart that so loves the Final Fantasy VII really wants to spend that MYR 243 on this game; a physical copy with the disc and everything. My logical mind though disagrees. Logically, the gameplay is nothing new. While it looks good, there are plenty of games that might be better in terms of enjoyment out there too. Take the Star Wars: Fallen Jedi game for example. Logically then, it might be better for me to wait for the game to drop in price before spending my hard earned money on it.

Source: Square Enix

In truth then, I really cannot tell you whether or not to buy it. 20 minutes, to be very honest, is too short to judge a game. MYR 243 is not a small amount of money for a game, really. If you are feeling nostalgic and you have that much extra money to play with, I say; go ahead. If not, maybe you want to hold it off first. For me? This is the third time I’m asking myself; “am I willing to spend MYR 243 on a game?” I still do not know the answer to that.

Android, Mobile, News

realme C3 With MediaTek Helio G70 in Malaysia for MYR 499

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realme has made a name for itself when it comes to budget friendly smartphones. While they mostly play at the budget, entry-level smartphone range, it does not mean that their products are in any way bad products though. Their C series has proven to the market that cheap products does not mean cheap quality and cheap experience. They have a proven track record in the segment is what we are trying to say.

Their latest addition to their C family has just landed in Malaysia today. What a follow up though. As expected, it is sold at less than MYR 1,000; way lower. It will set you back MYR 499. Who says you cannot own a smartphone below MYR 500?

Source: realme

 You are not paying for less features too. It is powered by MediaTek’s latest Helio G70 System on a Chip (SoC). While some may perceive MediaTek’s processors to be slower or inferior to the Qualcomm’s that is just not the case. They may not perform as well as the Qualcomm chipsets, but that does not mean that they do not pack a punch.

The MediaTek Helio G70 SoC is effectively an Octa-core processor with two high powered ARM Cortex-A75 cores and six low powered Cortex A-55 cores. It clocks at a maximum of 2.0GHz, which is powerful enough to plenty of today’s flagships, technically. The only thing it might lack at this point is a 5G modem. While that seems like a bad thing, trust me, it is not as bad as you think.

While you do not get 5G, you still get dual 4G LTE connection on the realme C3. Yes, a you get to push in two SIM cards into this device. Then again, dual-SIM standby is quite expected these days. Nothing to shout about then.

Having the MediaTek Helio G70 however, is something that they can shout about a little bit. The realme C3 is currently the only device that packs the MediaTek SoC in Malaysia.

Source: realme

The big power from the MediaTek SoC is matched to three cameras at the back. Yes, it is effectively a triple camera set-up. We did say that it packs quite a lot for MYR 499.

Its main camera is a 12-Megapixel shooter paired to 12-Megapixel telephoto lens with 4x zoom, and a 2-Megapixel macro lens for that extra close, extra detailed photo. At the front is a 5-Megapixel shooter with the expected AI beauty function, HDR, and what not. That front-facing camera is housed in a small notch on top of the 6.5-inch 720p HD+ LCD display.

Small compromise on the display, a Full HD+ display on a small budget smartphone at this price is quite impossible, you know. You still can record at Full HD 1080p on your rear camera though, no problem with that.

Source: realme

No, you do not get in-display fingerprint sensor on this device too. Again, expecting those kinds of things in a smartphone less than MYR 500 is a little unrealistic. Still, it has a fingerprint sensor recess at the back of the device. The back is not really glass but has a nice beaming texture and pattern to it.

What it lacks in those features though, it makes up in battery size. It packs a 5,000mAh battery within its small body. That should be good for a whole day of battery and even more. You can even use this device as your friend’s power banks so they owe you their lives. The Android 10 with realme UI overlay device is charged at a maximum of 10W via a MicroUSB port; a little old school, but hey it works. Also you may reuse all the old MicroUSB cables you might already have.

  • Source: realme
  • Source: realme
  • Source: realme
  • Source: realme
  • Source: realme
  • Source: realme
  • Source: realme

The realme C3 is now available via Shopee for MYR499. If you get the device today itself, you will get a 6-month extended warranty for free. You can get your hands on one to feel and touch from the 7th of March 2020 though if you really want to. If you missed the extended warranty promotion on Shopee, you can also get the same promotion when you get your device in realme stores on the 7th of March 2020. The realme C3 is available in Blazing Red and Frozen Blue colour options.

Computers, Gaming, News

Acer Announces New Nitro 5 with AMD and NVIDIA

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Acer’s Nitro 5 series has always been a compelling option when it comes to an entry level gaming laptop. It’s also one of the most affordable gaming laptops in market right now. Acer Malaysia has just announced a refresh of its casual gaming laptop which sees the price come to about MYR 2,999.

The new Nitro 5 comes equipped with a quad core AMD Ryzen 7 processor and is complemented with an NVIDIA GTX1650 discreet graphics card. The new setup also comes with 512GB of storage. This isn’t just your regular spinning hard disk either. It’s a PCIe NVMe solid state drive (SSD) which promises quick performance and load times. It comes with 4GB of RAM but can be upgraded to 32GB should you see the need to. There is also an additional m.2 slot if you need even more performance memory. Acer is also touting that the Nitro 5 comes with an HDD upgrade Kit which allows users to upgrade the storage on the laptop.

The AMD touting Nitro 5 comes with a 15.6-inch Full HD IPS display with 120Hz refresh rate. The screen itself covers a whopping 80% of the face of the laptop thanks to it’s slim 7.18mm bezels. The new laptop also comes with Waves MaxxAudio advanced sound optimization technology with Acer’s own TrueHarmony technology for better, more immersive sound.

The Acer Nitro 5 comes with dual fans and dual exhausts which have been design with the company’s CoolBoost technology. This increases the fan speed by 10% allowing better cooling performance. In addition to this, the cooling of the GPU and CPU is also increased by 9% thanks to CoolBoost. With online gaming, your connection stability is increasingly important; the Nitro 5 comes with Killer Ethernet E2500 and Acer’s Network optimizer to help keep you up to speed. This gives you the option to manually tweak your network performance or you can simply leave it to the computer on Auto mode.

Acer’s NitroSense will allow you to keep an eye on the happenings of your Nitro 5. The software allows you to manage component temperature, loading performance, power usage among others with the hit of a dedicated Nitro Hot-Key. It also comes with HDMI 2.0 ports as well a USB Type-C and more to allow you supe up your gaming.

Pricing and Availability

The new Nitro 5 with AMD’s Ryzen 7 and NVIDIA GTX1650 is immediately available in Malaysia. Prices start at MYR2,999.

Editorial, News, Podcast

Tech & Tonic Episode 3 feat. Isa Rodriguez – Camera or Smartphone Cameras?

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In this episode of Tech & Tonic, we have Isa Rodriguez of Isa Does Tech, her very own YouTube channel. As a tech reviewer, she is one of the more unique ones. She does not just review the tech, but also how it pairs with the lifestyle side of things. In that sense, it is a very unique and interesting approach to tech.

We spoke at length about the many smartphone launches that happened over the past week including the very anticipated and expensive HUAWEI Mate Xs. That is one eye catching device, since it is a foldable device and approaches the foldable device concept differently.

We also discussed about the Sony Xperia 1 Mk. II that really caught our eyes. We think that it is one heck of a device for creators. It is really Sony’s premium smartphone reloaded.

The war between proper cameras and smartphones continues though. Is it better to buy a super high-end smartphone, or is it better to spend some of that money to buy a camera, an interchangeable lens camera maybe. We all agreed that it really depends on what we are looking for in our smartphones or even cameras. Which is superior? Find out with Tech & Tonic Podcast.

Editorial, News, techENT Download, Video

techENT Download |AMD Feels the Heat, Sony Ups the Ante with Xperia 1 II, HUAWEI Mate Xs & more

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Here’s the TechENT Download for the week of 24th February. Boy was it an eventful one for tech! Here’s run down of some of the most pertinent tech news of the week!

AMD Feels the heat from ASUS as the Strix RX 5700 overheats after the company’s recommended settings didn’t cut it for cooling.

Sony releases a slew of devices spearheaded by the Xperia 1 II to usher in a new age of mobile with a focus on Content Creators. Together with the Xperia 1 II, they also announced a new Xperia 10 II and Xperia L4 completing their offerings for the mobile segment.

HUAWEI showed the world how to fold with its Mate Xs. The new foldable spearheaded a whole line up of MateBook D and the new MateBook X Pro laptops and the new MatePad Pro. While HTC is making a come back with its new Wildfire.

More updates as we’re hearing more developments around the COVID-19 impact on the tech industry. This time, it looks like it’s Microsoft saying that its being affected.

We’ve started a new Podcast, techENT’s Tech & Tonic! The new podcast will see us talk about some of the most interesting news and topics in tech with some of our friends in the industry. It is available on Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, Breaker, and other podcasting host channels! If we are not yet on your favourite channel yet, let us know in the comments so that we can work our way there!

iOS, Mobile, News, Social Media

New Facebook Messenger for iOS is LightSpeed

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Facebook has internally started this thing they call Project LightSpeed. It is exactly what it sounds like. Its aim is to simply make everything move faster. Faster for the users that is. Then again, the world today revolves plenty on user experience.

While the world in 2019 and 2020 has been putting plenty of emphasis on user security and privacy (Facebook just had a Data Privacy brief with us two weeks ago), it does not mean that user experience in terms of the User Interface (UI) design, speed, and intuitiveness can be ignored. They are supposed to be developed hand-in-hand; they are supposed to move forward together.

Source: Facebook

Facebook understands that completely, and that is why they are introducing a new faster, lighter Facebook Messenger specifically for iOS. Before we go on, we did ask on the reason for the exclusivity. If you go on Google’s Play Store on your Android smartphone now and search for Facebook Messenger, you will notice two types of Facebook Messenger apps on the device. One of them is the normal blue pop-up coloured Facebook Messenger, and the other one is a white-faced pop-up called Facebook Messenger Lite. We can explain the differences in that further in the future (comment if you want that!). For now though, that also means that Android users get to choose between using the full beans and might of the regular Facebook Messenger app or choose to keep their devices running nice and quick with Facebook Messenger Lite app.

Let us get back to Facebook Messenger app for iOS. It will be available as an app update in the App Store, so if you already have the Facebook Messenger app there is no reason you need to download another one. It should be an update anyway, who are we kidding.

In layman terms, Facebook says that the new Messenger is supposed to load up or start up faster. While you may not notice too big of a difference at first, Facebook says that the benefit is plenty more visible over time. Thanks to simplified mechanics of the app, it is also a smaller app than before. That also means it consumes less storage space in your smartphone, which also means you get to take more photos. It is not just simplified mechanics though. Apparently, the engineers in Facebook has also simplified the experience within the app to not only ensure a lighter load on the device, but for its users too.

Now for the technical bits. It is actually simpler than you think, not as scary or overly complex. The headline figures are 1.7 million to 360,000. That is the amount of codes that were in the previous iteration of the Facebook Messenger for iOS app, and the amount that it is reduced to with the current iteration. That also means that they managed to shrink the amount of codes contained within the app by 84%. Less codes means less processing needed, and so you get faster load times. It also means reduced complexities and less maintenance needed from Facebook’s side.

Source: Facebook

What happened to the other codes that was not used in the current iteration? Cloud happened. To be specific, SQLite happened. What they did with SQLite, like plenty of modern mobile apps is to simplify processes and start putting plenty of the database on SQL’s database instead of storing every command on the device. That also means that instead of loading everything on your smartphone, whatever interaction you have with the app is happening on SQLite instantly. That also means that everything on the database is stored and worked on in a server farm somewhere. Again, less load on the device.

You are not losing the experience of a feature packed app like the Messenger with the new update though. In fact, you might be getting more. With the changes, you are not completely using a completely redesigned UI. It is just a small improved UI with better response time. The key here is to not make any major UI changes to the new Messenger build. Instead, Facebook still wanted that familiarity with their users. Like previously mentioned though, instead of storing each interaction as a unique interaction within the device, they moved that to a server with SQLite.

There is more to that though. Instead of storing or processing each interaction as unique interactions, they group them together, combine them and make them mere reactions from the database instead of completely recoating the app whenever something changes. That also means that instead of storing multiple different screens as unique screens, you are now only getting elements of screens popping up as you go along your Facebook Messenger app. Yes, you never noticed the transition. But imagine having to keep loading new screens whenever you scroll through the app and layering them over the previous screen.

The new Facebook Messenger app for iOS with LightSpeed is available for free on Apple’s ever-growing Apple App Store platform. For existing Facebook Messenger app for iOS users, the fourth major iteration is available to users as a simple app update via the Apple App Store as well. LightSpeed is also coming to Android’s Facebook apps in time. For more information on Facebook Messenger’s update and Project LightSpeed, you can visit Facebook’s news release and their engineering blog.

Android, Mobile, News

Realme X50 Pro 5G Announced In India!

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Realme has been announced its very first smartphone that will be using Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 865 in India. It is one of other eleven phones that has been announced by other smartphone manufacturers that will also be running Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 processor. 

Let’s get straight to the specifications, shall we? Let’s start with the display. It has a Super AMOLED display which is 6.44 inches wide. The display also has a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels in a 20:9 screen. This calculates a density of 409ppi, which is not top of the charts but it is already more than enough. 

The display is going to have a protection glass of Corning Gorilla Glass 5. It is also going to come have a 90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch-sensing, and also HDR10+ to give you a fantastic gaming and streaming experience.

As for the cameras, it will run as a quad-camera setup. Having a 64-Megapixel as a main camera. Followed by a 12-Megapixel telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom, an ultra-wide with angle of 119° from an 8-megapixel camera, and finally a 2-Megapixel monochrome depth sensor. You will be able to record videos in 4K resolution at 30 fps or 1080p at 60 fps. 

The front is where it gets a little interesting, as the phone will be coming with a punch-hole design dual camera. Yes, there were some rumours before and now we are finally confirming it on the actual phone! The front-facing camera will be a 32-megapixel sensor paired with an 8-Megapixel 105° ultra-wide sensor. The front camera is capable of capturing videos at 1080p at either 30 fps or 120 fps.

Other notable features would be the new dual stereo speakers and the discontinuation of the 3.5mm headphone jack. This is also only Realme’s fourth phone with NFC. Like most smartphones these days it uses a USB Type-C connector to charge its 4,200mAh battery. Unfortunately the Realme X50 Pro does not come with wireless charging capabilities, so you are going to have to still depend on a wire to charge the phone. 

Last but not least, the brains of the phone. As mentioned above the phone will have a Snapdragon 865 chipset, which also means it is 5G ready. There will be three different variants for RAM and two different internal storage variations. It starts with a minimum of 6GB of RAM paired to a 128GB of storage or an 8GB RAM with also 128GB of storage, and lastly, the maximum RAM and storage you can get is 12GBs of RAM paired to 256GB of storage. 

There are two different colours to choose from that is Moss Green and Rust Red. the prices of the phones starts from Rs 37,999 (MYR 2,204) for the 6GB + 128GB, Rs 39,999 (MYR 2,320) for the 8GB + 128GB and Rs 44,999 (MYR 2,610) for the range-topping 12GB + 256GB.