OPPO has officially launched its newest model OPPO A73 which will make its official debut exclusively on Shopee Malaysia. The sensually sleek design of the model is the latest entry into OPPO’s affordable A series which brings the company’s selfie and camera technologies to a more affordable price point.
The OPPO A73 has been designed with sleek curves to help with the ergonomics and grip of the phone. Coming in at only 152g and 7.5mm, the phone is one of the thinnest and lightest yet from OPPO’s A series. OPPO has also decided to add a touch of variety with a matte, leather-like finish for a more unique, premium finish. What’s more, the finish makes it fingerprint and scratch-resistant.
The guts of the OPPO A73 is an octa-core Snapdragon 662 processor capable of speeds of up to 2.5 GHz with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal memory. The phone will be launching with OPPO’s ColorOS 7.2 which runs on top of Android 10. It’s powered by a 4,105mAh battery with support for 30W VOOC Flash Charge promising a full charge in only 55 minutes. OPPO has also introduced safety features which include five independent thermistors to prevent the overheating while charging.
The OPPO A73 sports a 6.44-inch Full HD AMOLED display with a resolution of 2,4000×1080 pixels. The larger screen size provides users with a more immersive experience when it comes to consuming media and even gaming. It also comes with an under screen fingerprint sensor for quick unlock in addition to the face unlock features which come baked in to ColorOS.
A.I. Beauty Enabled Cameras
The main camera on the OPPO A73 is a quad camera setup OPPO calls a 16MP Ultra Wide-Angle quad-cam system. It consists of a 16MP main camera, a 119 degree 8MP wide-angle camera, a 2MP monochrome camera, and a 2MP retro camera. There are some optimized features which include filters and software enhancements to preserve skin tone. The cameras also come with OPPO’s now ubiquitous A.I. technology which it is calling A.I. Dazzle Color. This helps with advanced scene recognition and enhance captured pictures. For video recording, OPPO A73 come with a steady video feature to help stabilise your video recording for better quality with electronic image stabilization.
The front comes with a 16MP A.I. Beauty Beauty Camera to let you have the perfect selfie. Also, an ultra-sensitive f/2.0 aperture that offers you higher sensitivity and more clarity during low light conditions.
Pricing & Availability
The OPPO A73 will be available in three colours, Dynamic Orange, Navy Blue, and Classic Silver; priced at RM899 on the OPPO Official Online Store on Shopee and OPPO Official Website.
It will be available for pre-order from 3 to 10 November 2020. OPPO is offering free gift for the first 300 customers who purchase the OPPO A73. They will be entitled to a Weloop Neo Smartband worth RM389 and an OPPO Enco W11 that worth RM159. After this, the phone will be available for sale starting on 11 November, 2020 and will be available on the upcoming 11.11 sales.
11th November is around the corner, it’s time to start clearing out that shopping cart and taking things off your wish list! This year, Shopee’s 11.11 sale brings together over 1200 brands and retailers, as well as 800,000 sellers for some of the biggest bargains and best deals to Malaysians. What’s more the e-Commerce platform is getting a kick start by starting offers early on 3rd November 2020. Their big sale will end with a blast on 11th November 2020.
Shopee is sweetening the bucket this year with millions of products going on offer for as low as 11 sen with even more getting discounts of up to 99%. In addition, Shopee is lowering the minimum spending on an order to RM11 to qualify for free shipping. These offers are coming from brands such as Acer, Carlo Rino, Enfagrow, Netle, OPPO,P&G, Philips, realme, Sa Sa, Skechers, Tefal, Unilever, Watsons and many others. To top it off, many brands will also be giving out additional 50% off vouchers daily which can be used on top of their product discounts.
That’s not all! Shopee’s One Or Not is making a comeback! This round buyers can get items like a Samsung Galaxy Note20, sounds bars, watches, jewellery sets and more. You can even get a brand new Proton X50! All you have to do is pay RM1 for the items you’re interested in. Winners will be announced the following day, those that don’t get the item will have their money refundedto their account. Of course, like previous iterations, you will have to use the RM1 from your Shopee Wallet.
Shopee gamers aren’t being left behind either! Prizes such as a brand new Nintendo Switch as well as up to 11 million Shopee Coins are up for grabs if you can beat the competition. You simply have to play one or more of the many games: Shopee Shake, Shopee Farm, Shopee Bubble, Shopee Poly, Shopee Claw, Shopee Candy and Shopee Lucky Prize.
It’s not all about spending money. Users will also get to interact with local celebrities and win prizes while they shop with Shopee Live and the Shopee 11.11 Big Show. You definitely want to stay tuned to events and lives when you shop to stay entertained and even win some big ticket prizes.
Shopee is also giving a little tip for everyone looking forward to the big 11.11 sale: make sure to put the items that you wish to purchase into the shopping cart to avoid sellouts at 12AM. Do remember to claim for free shipping vouchers as well as the other discount vouchers available. Last but not least, do make sure that there is sufficient amount in your ShopeePay wallet to avoid last-minute top-ups.
The annual 11.11 sale is back on Lazada. This year the sale will include hundreds of exclusive brands with up to 70 million items. Sounds really tempting right? Bet you can’t wait for the big 11.11 sale to happen. Lazada is promising some of the lowest prices ever in Malaysia this 11 November 2020.
“Following LazMall’s upgrade in September, we are excited that hundreds of international and local brands have chosen Lazada as their exclusive e-commerce partner this 11.11, offering amazing discounts across a variety of categories and products to satisfy a wide spectrum of our consumers’ wants and desires. This signifies a growing trust in our platform, and we are excited that we can bring some of the lowest price deals, ‘guaranteed’ this year, backed by our 11 times money-back guarantee. This year, especially during this challenging period, we want to ensure that we help our shoppers maximise their ringgit and get the best value for their money,”
Leo Chow, CEO of Lazada Malaysia
Customers can have the ultimate shopping experience on Lazada as the LazMall provides a variety of brands and products at a claimed unbeatably low price. LazMall brings together some of their largest partners such as OPPO, Lancome, Samsung, Dyson and more are prepared to give shoppers an unforgettable 11.11 experience with some of the lowest deals yet. For those looking for deals on tech, Lazada and their partners are gearing up to offer up to 50% discount on items such as Huawei Mate 30 8GB RAM + 128 ROM smartphone, Edifier X3 True Wireless Stereo Earphone, SUUNTO 9 Baro Copper, Asus 23 Eye Care Gaming Monitor! The deals aren’t ending there – there will be more offers across a large spectrum of categories available.
You don’t even have to wait that long to get your orders as Lazada is offerings a guaranteed 24 hours delivery for the first 50 thousand customers. This is made possible by Lazada’s data-driven logistics team running on Alibaba’s backbone which has helped ensure 50% more efficiency for the delivery time nationwide and particularly in the Klang Valley.
In an effort to keep shopping entertaining, Lazada is continuing their “Shoppertainment” programs filled with special surprises for shoppers. Shoppers will be able to be entertained while getting the best deals with The Lazada 11.11 Super Show and Lazada’s CDO Show. If that’s not enough, there will be multiple other activities in the app such as the Lazada Heartbeat Wallet Contest and LazGames while users can also get even more rebates and rewards with LazCoins.
Lazada is also launching an initiative for CSR programs with one of their brand partners, Colgate-Palmolive, to send smiles and support to those in need via The Lost Food Project. Upon payment, consumers will receive a special thank you note from Colgate, along with a Lazada voucher that can be used for their next purchase on the platform.
When it comes to DSLRs and cameras one of the first names that you’d think of is Nikon. The company has become a staple name in the industry and there is nothing more iconic than their “I AM” campaign when it comes to photography and cameras. However, it seems like all good things must come to an end.
In a statement posted to their Facebook page, Nikon Malaysia revealed the sad announcement that the company has decided to cease its operations. Effective 1 January 2021, Nikon will no longer have an official presence in Malaysia with 31 December, 2020 being the last day of operations. Moving forward, their sales, marketing and after sales services will be handled by appointed third parties.
Their appointed third parties are: Futuromic Photo AV Sdn Bhd and QES (Asia-Pacific) Sdn Bhd. These companies will now take over the distribution and sales of Nikon branded cameras in the country. Operations for the company will continue as usual in the transition phase with the final day set on 31 December, 2020.
Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Telegram – that’s the growing list of apps that are allowing users to send expiring or disappearing messages. The latest app to join is none other than WhatsApp. After what seems like an eternity behind other apps, it seems like the feature is now coming to WhatsApp.
Evidence first popped up in March showing options which allow users to send messages with an optional expiration time for the platform. If a user enables the feature, all message that sent individually or in groups will be automatically erased after seven days. Users can configure the setting for individual chat while only group admin able to turn on the feature for group chats.
The feature seems to also work with with media files. However, the media file will not disappear if the user turn on the auto download for receiving any files. This may be one of the more convenient implementations of the feature as not everyone wants media to be downloaded to their phones.
WhatsApp has recently updated their FAQs to include a new answer regarding the new feature. In their response about the feature they clarify, ” Once enabled, messages sent in the individual or group chat will disappear after seven days. The most recent selection controls all messages in the chat. This setting won’t affect messages you previously sent or received in the chat. In an individual chat, either user can turn disappearing messages on or off. In a group chat, only group admins can turn disappearing messages on or off.”
With the FAQ is live on the WhatsApp website, it seems like the feature will be making its way to users in the coming weeks. The features will be available to users on Android, iOS and KaiOS.
WhatsApp has also published tutorials for enabling and disabling the features on their website.
The COVID-19 Pandemic doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. The virus continues to spread drastically and have a devastating effect in areas where outbreaks have occurred. However, since the early days of the pandemic, there have been reports of asymptomatic carriers; these carriers are able to spread the virus without showing any outwardly recognisable signs of infection. This also makes them one of the largest unsolved problems of the current COVID-19 pandemic. This group of individuals are less likely to seek testing and, in turn, be diagnosed and treated.
However, that’s about to change. A group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an AI model that has been able to accurately identify asymptomatic carriers based on the way they cough. The AI model has been able to accurately discern and identify 98.5% of coughs from confirmed COVID-19 patients and 100% of asymptomatic carriers.
Using A.I. to Identify Unique Markers in Coughs
The team at MIT, consisting of Jodi Laguarta, Ferran Hueto, and Brian Subirana, developed the mode on a neural network called ResNet50. ResNet50 is a type of neural network that is able to discern and identify differences and similarities in data. Until now, ResNet50 was used primarily in visual discernment. However, the team at MIT has applied it in identifying markers when people cough.
Their model was initially developed to help detect early signs of Alzheimer’s which can present in the way people cough. This include the person’s emotional state, changes in lung and respiratory performance and vocal chord strength. These are known markers for someone who could be experiencing early onset Alzheimer’s.
Using the three criteria, three independent machine learning algorithms were train and then layered on each other. The team also included an algorithm for muscular degeneration on top of the model. In tandem, these machine learning layers made it possible for the team to detect and identify samples from Alzheimer’s patients.
Detecting the Indiscernible
In April, the team looked into applying the AI model to help identify COVID-19 patients. To do this, they established a website where people could record a series of coughs with their mobile phone or any other web enabled device. In addition to their submissions, participants had to fill up a survey of their symptoms, COVID-19 status, and if their method of diagnosis. Other factors such as their native language, geographical location and gender were also collected. They have, to date, collected over 70,000 recordings which amounts to about 200,000 forced cough samples. This is the largest known cough dataset that has been collected so far according to Brian Subirana.
The model proves a long known fact that COVID-19 does in fact affect respiratory function. However, it also draws similarities between the presentation of temporary respiratory degeneration to the neurodegeneration present in Alzheimer’s patients. That said, it also shows that there are sub-clinical presentations of the disease in asymptomatic individuals. The AI algorithm is able to detect and identify individuals with these presentations, providing a much needed boost to potential diagnoses of these individuals.
More significantly, the team has developed a method in which pre-screening can be done to help curb the spread of COVID-19. What’s more, their research could be the foundation of future diagnosis when it comes to sub-clinical presentations of diseases. That said, Brian Subirana highlights that the strengths of the tool lies in its ability to differentiate coughs from asymptomatic carriers from healthy individuals. He also stresses that it is not meant to be used as a definitive test for COVID-19.
Huawei’s status as the world’s largest smartphone maker might be jeopardy soon, as the company scrambles to get key parts for its popular phones. Issues began slightly over two years ago with the U.S. trade ban which prevented Huawei from trading with U.S. companies. More recently, the trade ban was expanded to include every company in the supply chain. This led to further complications as it meant that not only couldn’t Huawei get access to Google services for it’s Android based smartphones, it couldn’t trade with any company including chip-makers Qualcomm and Broadcom and even non-U.S. companies intending to trade in the country.
However, things are taking a turn as Samsung Display has received a license from the U.S. government to supply its panels to Huawei Technologies. The company is the first company outside the U.S. known to have been given a license to trade with Huawei.
While the news is definitely a turn of events in Huawei’s favour, it could be the least of the company’s concerns as it has still able to source displays from BOE, a new Chinese display manufacturer. That said, Samsung Display is definitely a welcomed supplier as the company is one of the largest manufacturers is renown for its display quality.
Unfortunately, Huawei’s outlook is still bleak as the company is running low on supply for its Kirin SoCs. The U.S. ban is still affecting the company’s supply chain when it comes to working with fabricators which are able to collaborate and create their chips.
Sony recently teased the PlayStation Plus Collection in the September PlayStation 5 showcase. The list of games and mechanics have officially been detailed in a post on the PS Blog. The service will launch together with the console in the U.S., Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea on November 12th; while Europe, the Middle East, South America, Asia and South Africa will see it launch on the 19th. It will offer PlayStation Plus subscribers access to over a dozen first and third party titles at no extra charge. To date, there are no limitations for any of the games on the list as long as the plus subscription is active.
The PlayStation Plus Collection will be available to PS Plus subscribers from the very moment the PS5 is released. The Collection will include several big hits from Sony’s Worldwide Studios which including God of War, The Last Guardian, The Last of Us Remastered, and Uncharted 4. In addition, Sony is also including selected third party titles such as Final Fantasy XV and Resident Evil 7. There will be no visual improvements for the PS4 titles played on PS5. However, Sony guarantees more consistent frame rates as well as quicker load times.
In its announcement, Sony also revealed the full list of games in the launch line up of the PlayStation Plus Collection. This includes the first free PS5 game, Bugsnax, which will be available from November 3rd to January 4th.
In addition to Bugsnax, two PS4 titles join the official November line up for the Playstation Plus Collection: Middle Earth: Shadow of War and Hollow Knight: Voidheart Edition.
PS Plus Collection Full Launch Line Up
First Party Titles (From Sony Interactive Studios Worldwide)
Bloodborne
Days Gone
Detroit: Become Human
God of War
Infamous Second Son
Ratchet and Clank
The Last Guardian
The Last of Us Remastered
Until Dawn
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
Third Party Titles
Batman: Arkham Knight
Battlefield 1
Call of Duty: Black Ops III – Zombies Chronicles Edition
Online learning has become the modus operandi for a majority of learning institutions amidst the current pandemic. However, the method of learning isn’t new. Companies such as Coursera have been pushing the boundaries of online learning as early as 2012. The company has established partnerships with leading universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S. and even the National University of Singapore (NUS) closer to home. They even work with companies such as Google to develop up-to-date, industry relevant courses.
To help deal with the current educational climate, Coursera has been working closely with education institutions including Malaysian ones such as BAC Education Group who owns BAC College and IACT College. One of the many efforts that they have been undertaking is their ‘Coursera for Campus’ program which allows access to students from partner institutions. In light of the pandemic and the unfamiliar education circumstances, the company is introducing free access to students from partner institutions. The announcement comes as an extension of their global Campus Response Initiative announced in March.
The new Coursera for Campus will be offered in three Plans: Student, Basic and Institution. The first is catered to students offering unlimited access to guided projects for hands-on learning and one course on a yearly basis. The basic plan provides institutions with 20,000 free student licenses (student plan) while the Institution plan provides unlimited access to both guided projects and course enrollments. It also provides universities the capability to manage for-credit online learning programs.
In addition to access to over 4,200 ready-made online courses, Coursera is also enabling faculties to build custom courses and assessments using its platform. The platform utilizes things like bite-sized videos, in-browser assignments and guided projects. It is also able to support online learning experiences when it comes to high stakes exams with online proctoring and also assignments with plagiarism prevention measures. It’s also optimised for low data consumption and offline learning.
AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series launched just a few weeks ago wowed the world with not just improved performance. It wowed the world by beating Intel in their own game. With their new Zen 3 architecture, they somehow managed to catch up to Intel’s gaming prowess in their processors and now team Red is an even better CPU choice for creators around the world. Even we want an AMD Ryzen build for our gaming PCs now.
In that launch as well, they teased something else that we all knew was coming along. They teased their new AMD Radeon RX6000 series GPUs. In their demo from the Ryzen launch, the GPUs look to be very promising too running Borderlands 3.
Still, nothing compares to the real thing, and so AMD launches their AMD Radeon RX6000 platform. The internet world calls the new GPU “Big Navi”, as a succession to the Navi based Radeon RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT. AMD also thinks that this new GPUs will take the fight to their biggest GPU competitor, NVIDIA and their new platform, Ampere.
Here are the headline figures; 80 compute units clocked at a maximum of 2,250MHz (Boost Clock) with 128MB of cache, 16GB of GDDR6 RAM, all at 300W power draw. Welcome to RDNA 2 on AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT. Welcome to the new standards in gaming GPU.
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT
As mentioned, the headline figures are quite impressive. This is a comparable GPU to NVIDIA’s RTX 3090, if you need the nearest comparison baseline. There are some interesting figures from the headline figures you see above though.
For one, AMD’s Radeon RX 6900 XT is only using GDDR6 technology while the NVIDIA card works with a GDDR6X technology which is, in theory, faster. The AMD card also has less RAM at 16GB compared to 24GB. The AMD card’s GDDR6 RAM also only features a 256-bit memory interface, and its direct competitor uses a 384-bit interface.
The AMD Radeon is clocked faster though at about 2GHz in base clocks and a maximum of about 2.2GHz in maximum clock. Even its base clock is much faster than its direct competitor’s 1.7GHz boost clock. All of that while drawing 300W, 50W less than its competitor.
There are differences in the cards, which are quite expected. Which card might perform better in different situations can be arguable as well thanks to the differences in specs. From the presentation by AMD’s Lisa Su though, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is more powerful that its direct competitors in up to 4K gaming conditions. Oh yes, the NVIDIA RTX 3090 is no longer the most powerful GPU in the world. NVIDIA is no longer the only choice when it comes to high-performance gaming. Did we also mention that the RX 6900 XT is the same size as the RX 6800 XT?
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
To be fair, we should have started with this GPU since AMD started their presentation with this card. It is just one step down from the all-powerful and mighty AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT. It features mostly the same headline figures with 8 less compute units, bringing a total of 72 Compute Units.
That does not mean that the RX 6800 XT is a huge compromise over the almighty RX 6900 XT. It is less powerful thanks to less Compute Units. But it is still more powerful than its closest competitor the NVIDIA RTX 3080.
How do we know? We do not. We can only take the words of AMD as truth for now, until independent reviewers pick up the cards to test out.
AMD Radeon RX 6800
Then they brought out a slightly more budget conscious choice of the AMD RX 6800. This consumes less power than the big RX 6800 XT at 250W, 50W less. But that is also because it is clocked at a lower speed.
The AMD Radeon RX 6800 is clocked at about 1.8GHz at the base and pushes 2.1 GHz at maximum clock. It also has 128MB in Infinity Cache (like the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT), and 16GB GDDR6, also like its bigger brothers. But it has 12 less Compute Units compared to the RX 6800 XT at 60 Compute Units.
RDNA 2
The new AMD Radeon RX 6000 series cards come with what AMD calls the RDNA 2 architecture technology. What does it mean for you? It means a 65% performance increase from the RX 5000 series of Radeon GPUs (RDNA). But that is still a little general, to be honest. The RX 6800, for example, is more powerful than the NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti, and even more powerful than AMD’s older Radeon RX 5700 XT. The RX 6800 is also a very different GPU compared to the RX 5700 XT. In fact, the RX 6800 XT is twice more powerful than the RX 5700 XT
So the only way to measure this difference is in the performance of other computational capacities. For example, memory access. While the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT has a smaller memory bandwidth at 256-bit and less memory at 16GB of RAM and 128MB in cache (a very fast cache, if I might add), it could outperform its closest competitor. That is thanks to something they call Infinity Cache.
The Infinity Cache, in an oversimplified form, is basically a memory sharing technology. That is an oversimplification to the technology. To say that the GPU can draw some compute power via accessing a super-fast cache is still oversimplifying it. But that also means that AMD could get up to twice more memory bandwidth from just 128MB cache, 16GB RAM, and a 256-bit interface compared to 384-bit 24GB RAM system while also drawing less power.
Mind you, you might get even better performances if you are using an AMD Ryzen 5000 CPU paired to the Radeon GPU. This one is called Smart Access Memory, which is also another word for memory access sharing between an AMD Ryzen CPU and an AMD Radeon GPU. This also means that there is an even higher memory throughput from the PC to give workloads more speeds to work with. That might mean a bigger performance boost on games or other workload processes.
But having both AMD’s CPU and GPU does not just add performance on your screen. It helps you improve your competitiveness in games. With AMD’s Radeon latency boost combined with FreeSync, it reduces your input lags up to 40ms. This also means that in games like Counter-Strike, or Dota2, or Valorant, or even Overwatch, your clicks converts to an action even faster and more instantly.
There is more to RDNA 2 as well. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, which is quite expected. But more than that, it works with DirectX to enable Ray Tracing and something called Super Resolution. We are guessing that it is AMD and Microsoft’s version of DLSSS technology.
All these are under the surface though. On the surface, there is a new control app for the AMD GPUs. On that new app, there is something called RAGE mode for the GPUs. This is a one-click overclock mode built-into the GPUs. You do not even need to know how to overclock to under-volt GPUs or CPUs to do this. You just needt to hit RAGE mode and let the GPU rip apart every game you play.
Pricing and Availability
The AMD Radeon RX 6800 will be available from 18th November 2020 onward for US$ 579 (MYR2,407.81). The Radeon RX 6800 XT will be available also on the same day onward for US$ 649 (MYR2,698.91). The more powerful and extreme AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT will be available 8th December 2020 onward for US$ 999 (MYR4,154.41). These are extremely attractive prices compared to its competitors. These prices are also for reference cards from AMD and may not reflect the prices of Radeon GPUs from OEMs.