Amazon finally launches its flagship Fire TV Cube streaming box in India

Yesterday, we learned that Amazon was gearing up to bring its Fire TV Cube to the Indian shores. And today, the company has officially launched the device in the country. The Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd gen) is a flagship streaming box from Amazon. It was launched in the US in 2019, but it’s only now making its way to the Indian market.

The new Fire TV Cube improves upon its predecessor with improved processing speed, support for more HDR formats, and the ability to process select voice commands locally.

The Fire TV Cube (2nd gen) is an amalgamation of an Echo smart speaker and a Fire TV streaming stick. Much like other products in the Echo and Fire TV lineups, the Cube needs to be connected to a wall outlet all the time. The 3.4-inch square box measures 86.1mm x 86.1mm x 76.9mm dimensionally and weighs about 465g.

The new Fire TV Cube is powered by the Amlogic S922X hexa-core processor and Amazon claims it’s the fastest Fire TV device ever. Just like its predecessor, the new Cube is still capable of outputting 4K content at 60 frames per second but it now supports more HDR formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10+, HLG, and HDR10. It has a built-in 1.6-inch (40mm) speaker and supports Dolby Atmos, 7.1 surround sound, and HDMI audio pass-through up to 5.1. Meanwhile, eight omnidirectional microphones and beamforming technology take care of the voice commands.

The Fire TV Cube can also control other IR-enabled devices in your living room such as TVs, soundbars, A/V receivers, and cable satellite set-top boxes. You can turn on or off your TV, control the volume level on your soundbar and A/V receiver, change TV channels, and so on. In terms of connectivity, the Cube supports Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, HDMI, micro-USB, and wired infrared.

Pricing and Availability

The Fire TV Cube (2nd gen) goes on sale today at ₹12,999 ($172) on Amazon.in and select Croma and Reliance Digital outlets. As an introductory offer, Amazon is also throwing in an AmazonBasics HDMI cable for free which otherwise needs to be purchased separately. This device will go head to head against the new Apple TV 4K streaming box which will be available in India at a starting price of ₹18,990.

Amazon Fire TV Cube

The Amazon Fire TV Cube merges a smart speaker with a streaming stick. If you are looking to get two of these devices, why not get one that does both the tasks?

Buy from Amazon.in

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Here’s why WebView kept crashing last month and how Google is making improvements

Late last month, Google pushed a buggy Android System WebView update that caused many Android apps to crash. The issue was quite widespread, and a significant number of users on Reddit and Twitter reported the problem. Thankfully, Google promptly rolled out updates for Android System WebView and Google Chrome via the Play Store to resolve the issue, and all was well. The company has now shared some insight about what actually caused the issue and how it plans to make improvements to prevent any future mishaps.

As per a recent update from the Google Workspace team, the issue was a result of a “bug within Chrome & WebView’s experiment & configuration technology.” It affected several popular Android apps, including Gmail and Amazon, that incorporated WebView to show web content. To fix the issue, Google distributed updated binaries for Chrome and WebView via Google Play. The company also published a detailed post on the Android Help Center community forum to help users impacted by the issue.

Now, in order to prevent any similar mishaps in the future, Google plans to improve its change management and rollout policies to the WebView system component and its dependencies. To do so, the company will take the following steps:

• Audit WebView and its related dependencies for production readiness.
• Implement a WebView ‘Safe Mode’ which will handle this class of configuration error and revert back to a known-good state.
• Improve experiment testability and the roll-out process.
• Accelerate the update mechanisms for Chrome and WebView via the Play Store.
• Better communicate throughout incidents with our users, and provide commentary with our partners on impact and resolution status.

In case you’re still facing random app crashes on your Android phone and you haven’t installed the latest Chrome and Android System WebView updates, follow the links below to download the latest updates right away.

Android System WebView (Free, Google Play) →

Google Chrome: Fast & Secure (Free, Google Play) →

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Here’s how much Apple’s new iPad Pro, M1 iMac, and other products cost in India

Apple introduced a bunch of new products at its ‘Spring Loaded’ event the other day, including an all-new iPad Pro series and a new iMac powered by Apple’s ARM-based M1 chip. We also have a revamped Apple TV 4K, a new purple color option for the iPhone 12 and 12 mini, and the highly anticipated Apple AirTags.

We’ve covered the U.S. pricing and availability during our launch coverage, but if you’re looking to pick up these products in India, here’s what you need to know about the Indian pricing:

New Apple iPad Pro (2021) with M1

The new iPad Pro is even more souped-up with the inclusion of Apple’s M1 chipset, the same one used in Apple’s impressive new Macbook lineup. Not only that, but the larger 12.9-inch model now comes with the company’s new Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED display that can offer up to 1600-nits of peak brightness. Even the USB-C port gets an upgrade and now offers Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 support, meaning super-fast data transfers and wider bandwidth.

Here’s the official India pricing from the new iPad Pro…

Apple iPad Pro (M1) 11-inch:

• 128GB- ₹71,900
• 256GB- ₹80,900
• 512GB- ₹98,900
• 1TB- ₹1,34,900
• 2TB- ₹1,70,900

Apple iPad Pro (M1) 12.9-inch (Liquid Retina XDR):

• 128GB- ₹99,900
• 256GB- ₹1,08,900
• 512GB- ₹1,26,900
• 1TB- ₹1,62,900
• 2TB- ₹1,98,900

The new iPad Pro with M1 will be available for order starting 30 April and shipments will go out by the second half of May.

New Apple TV 4K

Apple has also unveiled the new Apple TV 4K powered by Apple’s A12 Bionic chipset that was first introduced with the iPhone XS and XR in 2018. The new Apple TV 4K brings support for high frame rate HDR content and Dolby Vision. There is also a new feature that lets you use an iPhone to function as a color calibration tool for the Apple TV. Lastly, there’s also a redesigned Siri remote that comes with a touch-sensitive D-pad just like the good old iPod. That D-pad can be used as a jog-dial so you can quickly skip to your favorite part of a movie.

• 32GB- ₹18,900
• 64GB- ₹20,900
• Apple TV 4K Remote- ₹5,800

The company has yet to confirm Indian availability for the new Apple TV 4K.

Apple AirTag

Similar to a Tile tracker or the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Smart Tags, the AirTag is a small location tracking device designed to help people find their lost devices. You can hook it up to your keys, luggage, backpacks, etc., and track them using an iPhone with the Find My app. If your iPhone has the U1 chip, you can use ultra-wideband technology for Precision Finding.

• Single pack- ₹3,190
• Four pack- ₹10,900

New Apple iMac 24″ (M1)

The new iMac also gets the M1 chip coupled with an extremely thin design language and a large 24-inch 4.5K display. It will be available in a variety of vibrant colors with matching accessories including the new Magic Keyboard with built-in Touch ID, Magic mouse, and Magic trackpad.

• 8-Core CPU, 7-Core GPU (8GB RAM + 256GB storage)- ₹1,19,900
• 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU (8GB RAM + 256GB storage)- ₹1,39,900
• 8-Core CPU, 8-Core GPU (8GB RAM + 512GB storage)- ₹1,59,900

The new iMac with M1 will be available for order starting 30 April, with shipments starting by the second half of May.

iPhone 12 in Purple

The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini will now be offered in a new purple color option starting at ₹69,900 for the iPhone 12 mini and ₹79,900 for the iPhone 12. It will be available at the same price as the other variants, with pre-orders starting from 23 April.

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All of these products can be picked up from Apple.com/in/ or other participating online retailers.

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You can now add content to albums in Google Photos when you’re offline

Despite Google Photos pretty much replacing the offline gallery app in a lot of smartphones, it is still pretty much an online-first app. Your photos are backed up to the cloud and you can access them anytime from any device (although unlimited storage for this service is going away, so you’ll have to pay if you want more than 15 GB for your backed-up photos and videos). And you can even edit your photos and add certain effects on them, all in the cloud. But because of the app’s online-first nature, it wasn’t possible to create albums or add content to them unless you were online. Now, that is possible.

Now, the Google Photos app allows you to create new albums and modify existing ones, including adding or removing content from them, without having an internet connection. Of course, albums work best when online, so whatever change you make will be synced with Google’s cloud as soon as you get back online, and it even works with pictures that have not yet been backed up—they’ll just get uploaded when you’re online. But you won’t actually need to be online in order to make changes to them. This is nice as sometimes we won’t have access to Wi-Fi or even mobile data, that’s just how life works, and if you want to take a photo and add it to an album when offline, that’s something you can now do.

Credits: Android Police

You also don’t need to enable anything or do anything else: just create and modify albums as you would if you were online. While this update is already live on most people’s phones according to Android Police, if it’s not yet live on your device, you might have to wait until a server-side switch gets flipped since that’s how most features on Google services end up rolling out. If that doesn’t do it, then you might as well try your luck updating to the newest version of the Google Photos app through Google Play.

Google Photos (Free, Google Play) →

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[Update: Halted] Microsoft is in talks to buy Discord for $10 billion

Update 1 (04/20/2021 @ 07:52 PM ET): Discord has reportedly halted talks to sell itself to Microsoft. Click here for more information. The article, as published on March 23, 2021, is preserved below.

After acquiring GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018, Microsoft now has its eyes set on Discord, an instant messaging service widely used by gamers. Even though the instant messaging service has a large gamer-appeal, it has the potential to be widely adopted across topic segments, as many non-gamer servers already do exist on the platform.

Microsoft Corp is reportedly in talks to buy Discord for more than $10 billion, according to a report from Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter. Earlier VentureBeat reported that Discord was looking to sell its business and was in talks with multiple parties, with Microsoft being one of them.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Discord approached Microsoft to gauge interest, and Xbox chief Phil Spencer is currently leading the talks. This news comes after Discord raised $100 million in December last year at a valuation of $7 billion.

Similar discussions were also held with Epic Games and Amazon in the past, two people familiar with the matter told the publication. The talks still seem to be in the early-stage, and a deal hasn’t been finalized yet. Discord could also go public instead of selling its business, the report notes. Both Microsoft and Discord didn’t respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment.

As per the figures released in December 2020, Discord boasts more than 140 million monthly active users. Last year, the company generated $130 million in revenue, a massive jump from $45 million in 2019. However, despite this splendid performance, the company is still not profitable.

Discord is always viewed as a platform built for gamers, but in June 2020, the company announced it would do away with its gaming-centric appeal and assume a new identity that would try to be inclusive of everyone. As part of this new strategy, the company redesigned its website and revealed a new tagline, “Your place to talk”. The company also promised to improve the user onboarding experience, make the in-built jokes in the client to be less gaming-specific, and increase the server capacity and reliability.

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Update 1: Acquisition Talks Halted

A new report out today from The Wall Street Journal says that Discord has halted talks to sell itself. Multiple publications, including WSJ, reported last month that Microsoft was in advanced talks to acquire Discord for $10 billion. Apparently, those talks have ended without a deal being signed, as Discord “is performing well and prefers to stay independent at this time,” the WSJ reports. The chat startup reportedly fielded interest from at least three different companies about a deal, though we’ve only heard about Microsoft so far.

It’s unclear what the future holds for Discord. The company could go the traditional IPO route, do a direct listing, or do a reverse merger. Alternatively, acquisition talks may be rekindled at a later time.

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iOS 14.5 releases next week with Apple AirTag support

Following Apple’s big Spring Loaded event on Tuesday, the company quietly revealed it will release iOS 14.5 next week for iPhone and iPad. No exact date was confirmed, but the software is set to support Apple’s new AirTag location tracker, which launches on Friday, April 30.

The release of iOS 14.5 has been highly anticipated since it was unveiled to include a “mask unlock” feature. The feature is designed to make unlocking your device less of a hassle while wearing a mask, which has become a normal part of everyday life thanks to the pandemic.

You will, however, need an Apple Watch in order for mask unlock to work. The feature is similar to unlocking your Mac with Apple’s wearable. Instead of typing in a password, the auto unlock feature works when you’re wearing your unlocked watch and are close to your Mac. It’s hugely convenient; on the iPhone with Face ID, it will mean you don’t have to constantly enter in your numeric passcode.

There are more features coming in iOS 14.5, including support for Apple’s new AirTag location tracker. The little puck supports Apple’s Find My app and Find My network, and also comes with a U1 chip and support for ultra wideband technology, enabling a feature that Apple calls Precision Finding for iPhone 11 and iPhone 12.

“As a user moves, Precision Finding fuses input from the camera, ARKit, accelerometer, and horoscope, and then will guide them to AirTag using a combination of sound, haptics, and visual feedback,” according to Apple.

AirTag features a polished stainless steel design, IP67 water and dust resistance, and a built-in speaker to play sounds. The tracker can also be customized with a free engraving, including text and a selection of 31 emoji.

Other features expected in iOS 14.5 include PS5 and Xbox Series S/X controller support, Waze-like features in Apple Maps, and more Siri voices.

Hat tip to Eric Seufert on Twitter for first pointing out iOS 14.5 would be released next week.

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Apple’s new Magic Keyboard features redesigned layout and Touch ID

To go along with Apple’s new redesigned iMac, the company has introduced a new Magic Keyboard. The keyboard is available in three configurations and several colors that will match the new iMac, which will be available to preorder April 30 and launches in the second half of May.

What’s different about the new Magic Keyboard is it features a completely new layout. There are now dedicated buttons for Spotlight, Dictation, Do Not Disturb, and Emoji. And for the first time, one of the configurations of the new Magic Keyboard features Touch ID, so you can make purchases and unlock your iMac easier than ever before.

Apple said Touch ID is implemented wirelessly on the new Magic Keyboard and uses a dedicated security component that communicates directly with the Secure Enclave in M1, creating an encrypted channel to protect users’ fingerprint data from end to end.

“Whether unlocking their Mac or making a purchase with Apple Pay, users enjoy a fast, easy, and secure experience,” Apple said in a blog post.

Apple said Touch ID also works with Fast User Switching, so customers can quickly change to a different user profile with just the press of a finger. The new Magic Keyboard is being offered in three configurations: without Touch ID, with Touch ID, and with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad.

The Magic Keyboard is available with the new iMac with 7-core GPU, which starts at $1,299. The Magic Keyboard with Touch ID is available with the new iMac with 8-core GPU, which starts at $1,499. It’s unclear if the new keyboards will be available to purchase separately, or if they’re exclusive for the new iMacs.

In addition to a new Magic Keyboard for iMac, Apple is releasing a new Magic Keyboard for the new iPad Pro with M1 chip. Apple said the Magic Keyboard for the new iPad Pro will be available in black and white for $299 for the 11-inch iPad Pro and $349 for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Today’s announcement comes amid a flurry of new products introduced at its Spring Loaded event, including AirTag, iPad Pro with M1 chip, new 4K Apple TV, and a completely redesigned iMac.

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