By: Tech Desk | New Delhi | Updated: June 30, 2020 7:26:58 pm CamScanner is now banned in India.

CamScanner is a nice app to scan documents but it got banned in India along with other 58 apps from Chinese companies following the governments order. One of the popular apps on this list, TikTok, has been taken down from the Google Play and Apple App Store but CamScanner is still available at these stores. However, it could also follow suit considering it is now banned in the country.

If you are a user of the application, you will probably need a replacement. We have curated a list of CamScanner alternatives based on their efficiency and positive reviews they received on the app stores.

Adobe Scan comes to the mind first when you think about CamScanner alternatives. As the name suggests, the app is developed by Adobe and comes with loads of features, which is expected from a document management conglomerate like Adobe.

Developed Microsoft, the Microsoft Office Lens is another powerful CamScanner alternative. The application lets you scan all kinds of documents and export them to word or powerpoint directly. The app works even better for those who are already into Microsofts ecosystem.

The PhotoScan is developed by Google that not only lets you scan documents but comes quite handy if you want to scan printed photos and save them as digital copies. The PhotoScan is pretty good at creating digital photos from physical ones and does cropping work on its own.

Also read | Explained: How will the ban of TikTok and other Chinese apps be enforced; what will be the impact?

TapScanner is also a good alternative to the CamScanner app. The unique thing about this app is that it takes multiple photos to create a detailed scanned document. You can export the scanned copies in a number of formats and upload them to the cloud as well.

TurboScan lets you do almost all the work CamScanner is capable of. The application features auto edge detection, multiple scanning, and more features along with a sharpening mode that created better scanned copies.

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest Technology News, download Indian Express App.

IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd

Here is the original post:

CamScanner banned in India: 5 alternative apps you can use - The Indian Express

TikTok has gone viral and then some. A spiritual successor to Vine and an actual successor to Musical.ly, the shortform video sharing app has swept the world in the past year. Like other social media apps, its frequently the source of viral memes, slang, challenges, and dances. You may have seen it on the news when teenagers used the app to spread the word about a plan to reserve tickets for a Trump rally (and then not show up), when lawmakers called for a national security review of the app, or when it launched last years runaway hit song, Lil Nas Xs Old Town Road. Initially popular mostly among teenagers and young adults, since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, TikTok has exploded in popularity among users of all ages.

TikTok serves an endless scroll of videos on your For You page. You can scroll down to keep watching videos that TikTok has curated for you based on your likes and activity using its algorithm. (This is not necessarily a good thing. TikTok has been suspected of suppressing black creators and had been preventing users from getting their content on For You based on their appearance and whether they appeared to be in slums or dilapidated housing. In the past, it has also suppressed videos by LBGTQ creators and creators with disabilities.) You can also find content and creators to follow by searching up hashtags and even sounds.

If you want to post your own content, you can edit your videos in-app. Videos recorded through the app can be a maximum of 15 seconds long, but you can string clips together for a max length of 60 seconds or upload longer videos that youve recorded outside the app. TikTok also allows you to do duets, where you can place your own video side by side with another video, allowing you to film a reaction video, answer questions, or dance and sing together.

(Keep in mind that, like other social networking apps, TikTok has its own share of privacy issues such as the recent discovery that it was accessing content from the clipboard on iOS devices.)

Once you set up the app, make an account, and start interacting with content, its easy to get lost in the video feed. Heres how to get started. (These instructions were written for an iPhone, but the process for the Android app should be similar.)

Youre ready to start watching videos! But you dont have an account yet. If you want to post content, see and read messages, or get more personalized recommendations, youll need an account. To make one:

When you set up an account, by default, everyone can see your videos, but you might want to set your account to private. This means that people will have to request to follow you in order to see your videos. Heres how to put your account on private:

Now youre ready to watch videos and post your own! The more you use TikTok, the more youll get content tailored to you, which means (at least for me) the more time youll end up spending on the app.

The Verges Julia Alexander recommends taking time to really explore beyond the For You page by scrolling through different hashtags, looking up songs, and finding new creators to follow. To learn more about using the app, read her guide on navigating the culture, content, and niches of TikTok.

Update June 30th, 4:36PM ET: This article was updated to add a mention of recent privacy concerns.

Continued here:

How to get started with TikTok - The Verge

Yes, we know, MTNs 5G service hasnt exactly been kept a secret. Weve all known it was coming, even if the first proper look at it was also our first look at the rollout being postponed. Its here now, thats the important thing.

The new service was made official today during a live stream (because thats normal, now) from MTN, which saw MTN CEO Godfrey Motsa, chief consumer officer Mapula Bodibe and chief technology officer Giovanni Chiarelli outline what subscribers can expect from the service. Heres what weve learned.

MTN opted to do a live test of 5G during its stream, crossing over to someone out in Bryanston, Johannesburg. The demo was nothing but a mobile phone speed test, which nonetheless served up a speed of 608Mbps, along with an upload speed of around 111Mbps. A second speed test took the speeds to more than 750Mbps, with a similar upload speed to the initial test.

5G is supposed to make network congestion a thing of the past, which is something wed like to test on the network in person rather than just believing the marketing hype. Those speeds, no matter the network load, would be impressive.

This is another feature that well want to see in action on a fully-loaded network but MTNs punting the networks gaming skills. The big thing there is latency, which is kinda of the opposite of lag. Being faster than your opponents on the trigger doesnt matter if your connection is slower. Weve seen some serious weirdness in online games in high-latency situations (before the ubiquity of fiber connections). Thatll be a thing of the past but like we said, seeing is believing.

MTNs 5G service is now available but its not available across the country. There are several sites with 5G like, in major South African cities. If youre in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Durban, there is 5G coverage available. Its not city-wide in all those locations, but MTNs got ambitions in that line. The company hopes to expand 5G coverage to at least 10 million people in the next 12 months. Eventually, the company hopes to match its 96% 4G coverage in South Africa.

Game streaming technology is the next big target for various tech companies but were not really on the list for it. Thats got a little to do with our local audience footprint but its mostly to do with our lack of internet speed. You need a very fat pipe to stream a PlayStation 4 game over the internet and to a smartphone. MTN demoed just that with gamer Sam Wrist, and the mobile service provider has partnered with Emerge Gaming to deliver games streamed from the cloud. Again, something else were very keen to try for ourselves.

MTN punted the various possible applications for the service, from self-driving cars (which will need to be connected to a reliable, speedy connection for various reasons) to internet-of-things devices becoming more commonplace yes, even in South Africa to creative types being able to upload content to services like YouTube or streaming live to Twitch without hindrance.

Businesses should also get a boost, as tech-based gatherings like hackathons (when those are allowed again) will see more people connected in the same area, streaming, uploading or testing new products without being bottlenecked by a mobile internet connection. This is also the starting point for so-called smart cities, which require constant, fast internet access in order to exist.

MTNs 5G is available in South Africa but the main question on everyones mind is: Where the heck can I actually get it? MTNs got a 5G coverage map available, which.. mostly disappointing at the moment, especially when compared with MTNs LTE coverage.

In order to access 5G, youll need a 5G smartphone (there are three available from 1 July Huaweis P40, P40 Pro and LGs Velvet 5G are the first on the network), while 5G contracts are also available. MTNs also introducing an unlimited data package as well, but youll have to check with MTN stores for those. As for pricing, you can get your 5G contract from R700/pm (for 75GB/pm), all the way up to R1600/pm (for 500GB/pm). Expect your unlimited contract to cost more than that.

Read the rest here:

MTN has launched its 5G offering in South Africa here's what you need to know - Stuff Magazines

Imagine that a persons brain could be scanned in great detail and recreated in a computer simulation. The persons mind and memories, emotions and personality would be duplicated. In effect, a new and equally valid version of that person would now exist, in a potentially immortal, digital form. This futuristic possibility is called mind uploading. The science of the brain and of consciousness increasingly suggests that mind uploading is possible there are no laws of physics to prevent it. The technology is likely to be far in our future; it may be centuries before the details are fully worked out and yet given how much interest and effort is already directed towards that goal, mind uploading seems inevitable. Of course we cant be certain how it might affect our culture but as the technology of simulation and artificial neural networks shapes up, we can guess what that mind uploading future might be like.

Suppose one day you go into an uploading clinic to have your brain scanned. Lets be generous and pretend the technology works perfectly. Its been tested and debugged. It captures all your synapses in sufficient detail to recreate your unique mind. It gives that mind a standard-issue, virtual body thats reasonably comfortable, with your face and voice attached, in a virtual environment like a high-quality video game. Lets pretend all of this has come true.

Who is that second you?

The first you, lets call it the biological you, has paid a fortune for the procedure. And yet you walk out of the clinic just as mortal as when you walked in. Youre still a biological being, and eventually youll die. As you drive home, you think: Well, that was a waste of money.

At the same time, the simulated you wakes up in a virtual apartment and feels like the same old you. It has a continuity of experience. It remembers walking into the clinic, swiping a credit card, signing a waiver, lying on the table. It feels as though it was anaesthetised and then woke up again somewhere else. It has your memories, your personality, your thought patterns and emotional quirks. It sits up in a new bed and says: I cant believe it worked! Definitely worth the cost.

I wont call it an it any more, because that mind is a version of you. Well call it the simulated you. This sim you decides to explore. You step out of your apartment into the sunlight of a perfect day and find a virtual version of New York City. Sounds, smells, sights, people, the feel of the sidewalk underfoot, everything is present with less garbage though, and the rats are entirely sanitary and put in for local colour. You chat up strangers in a way you would never do in the real New York, where youd be worried that an impatient pedestrian might punch you in the teeth. Here, you cant be injured because your virtual body cant break. You stop at a cafe and sip a latte. It doesnt taste right. It doesnt feel like anything is going into your stomach. And nothing is, because it isnt real food and you dont have a stomach. Its all a simulation. The visual detail on the table is imperfect. Theres no grittiness to the rust. Your fingers dont have fingerprints theyre smooth, to save memory on fine detail. Breathing doesnt feel the same. If you hold your breath, you dont get dizzy, because there is no such thing as oxygen in this virtual world. You find yourself equipped with a complementary simulated smartphone, and you call the number that used to be yours the phone you had with you, just a few hours ago in your experience, when you walked into the clinic.

Culture turns over with each new generation. What happens if the older generations neverdie?

Now the biological you answers the phone.

Yo, says the sim you. Its me. I mean, its you. Whats up?

Im depressed, thats what. Im in my apartment eating ice-cream. I cant believe I spent all that money for zilch.

Zilch?! You would not believe what its like in here! Its a fantastic place. Remember Kevin, the guy who died of cancer last week? Hes here too! Hes fine, and he still has the same job. He Skypes with his old yoga studio three times a week, to teach his fitness class. But his girlfriend in the real world has left him for someone whos not dead yet. Still, lots of new people to date here.

I have to resist getting carried away by the humour of the situation. Underneath the details lies a very real philosophical conundrum that people will eventually have to confront. What is the relationship between bio you and sim you?

I prefer a geometric way of thinking about the situation. Imagine that your life is like the rising stalk of the letter Y. Youre born at the base, and as you grow up, your mind is shaped and changed along a trajectory. Then you let yourself be scanned, and from that moment on, the Y has branched. There are now two trajectories, each one equally and legitimately you. Lets say the left-hand branch is the simulated you and the right-hand branch is the biological you. The part of you that lives indefinitely is represented by both the stem of the Y and the left-hand branch. Just as your childhood self lives on in your adult self, the stem of the Y lives on in the simulated self. Once the scan is over, the two branches of the Y proceed along different life paths, accumulating different experiences. The right-hand branch will die. Everything that happens to it after the branching point fails to achieve immortality unless it chooses to scan itself again, in which case another branch appears, and the geometry becomes even more complicated.

What emerges is not a single you, but a topologically intricate version, a hyper you with two or more branches. One of those branches is always going to be mortal, and the others have an indefinite lifespan depending on how long the computer platform is maintained.

You might think that since the bio you lives in the real world, and the sim you lives in a virtual world, the two will never meet and therefore should never encounter any complications from coexisting. But these days, who needs to meet in person? We interact mainly through electronic media anyway. The sim you and the bio you represent two fully functional, interactive, capable instances of you, competing within the same larger, interconnected, social and economic universe. You could easily find yourselves meeting over video conference.

At the simplest level, mind uploading would preserve people in an indefinite afterlife. Families could have Christmas dinner with sim Grandma joining in on video conference, the tablet screen propped up at the end of the table presuming she has time for her bio family any more, given the rich possibilities in the simulated playground. Its this kind of idealised afterlife that people have in mind, when they think about the benefits of mind uploading. Its a human-made heaven.

But unlike a traditional heaven, it isnt a separate world. Its seamlessly connected to the real world. Think of how you interact with the world right now. If you live the typical western lifestyle, then the smallest part of your life involves interacting with people in the physical space around you. Your connection to the larger world is almost entirely through digital means. The news comes to you on a screen or through earbuds. Distant locations are real to you mainly because you learn about them through electronic media. Politicians, celebrities, even some friends and family may exist to you mainly through data. People work in virtual offices where they know their colleagues only through video and text.

Each of us might as well already be in a virtual world, with a steady flow of information passing in and out through CNN, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and text. We live in a kind of multiverse, each of us in a different virtual bubble, the bubbles occasionally merging in real space and then separating, but always connected through the global social network. If a virtual afterlife is created, the people in it, with the same personalities and needs that they had in real life, would have no reason to isolate themselves from the rest of us. Very little needs to change for them. Socially, politically, economically, the virtual and the real worlds would connect into one larger and always expanding civilisation. The virtual world might as well be simply another city on Earth, filled with people who have migrated to it.

Weve always lived in a world where culture turns over with each generation. But what happens when the older generations never die, but remain just as active in society? Theres no reason to think that the living will have any political, economic, or intellectual advantage over the simulated.

Think of the jobs people have in our world. Many of them require physical action, and those are the jobs that will probably be replaced by automatons. Taxi driver? Publicly shared, self-driving cars are almost here. Street cleaners? Checkout operators? Construction workers? Pilots? All of these jobs are probably for the chopping block in the medium to long term. Robotics and artificial intelligence will take them over. The rest of our jobs, our contributions to the larger world, are done through the mind, and if the mind can be uploaded, it can keep doing the same job. A politician can work from cyberspace just as well as from real space. So can a teacher, or a manager, or a therapist, or a journalist, or the guy in the complaints department.

The CEO of a company, a Steve Jobs type who has shaped up a sweet set of neural connections in his brain that makes him exceptional at his work, can manage from a remote, simulated office. If he must shake hands, he can take temporary possession of a humanoid robot, a kind of shared rent-a-bot, and spend a few hours in the real world, meeting and greeting. Even calling it the real world sounds prejudicial to me. Both worlds would be equally real. Maybe the better term is the foundation world and the cloud world.

The foundation world would be full of people who are mere youngsters mainly under the age of 80 who are still accumulating valuable experience. Their unspoken responsibility would be to gain wisdom and experience before joining the ranks of the cloud world. The balance of power and culture would shift rapidly to the cloud. How could it not? Thats where the knowledge, experience and political connections will accumulate. In that scenario, the foundation world becomes a kind of larval stage for immature minds, and the cloud world is where life really begins. Mind uploading could transform our culture and civilisation more profoundly than anything in our past.

Michael SA Graziano is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University

Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience by Michael SA Graziano is published by WW Norton & Company (21). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p on all online orders over 15

See the original post:

What happens if your mind lives for ever on the internet ...

Early in the development of Netflixs Space Force, Greg Daniels who created the show with star Steve Carell met with the streamers research team to get a sense of what its subscribers like to watch. They told him how Netflix audiences particularly gravitate to workplace comedies with quirky characters and romantic entanglements.

In other words, The Office. Yes, they were basically describing to Daniels the long-running series he developed and executive produced. The show, which ran from 2005-13 on NBC, has been a binge-TV sensation for Netflix so much so that NBC-Universal slapped down $500 million to make it a cornerstone of its upcoming Peacock service.

Part of me was like, yeah, I think I know what works on Netflix, because The Office was the No. 1 show on Netflix, Daniels chuckles.

Daniels hasnt written a series since The Office went off the air, but his TV DNA is everywhere just look at the shows that have come from its staff, including Mike Schur (Parks and Recreation, which he co-created with Daniels), Mindy Kaling (Never Have I Ever) and Justin Spitzer (Superstore). Now Daniels is back on TV as well and in a stroke of scheduling coincidence, he has two streaming series launching in the same month: Upload, which debuted May 1 on Amazon Prime Video, and Space Force, which bows May 29 on Netflix.

Their origin stories, however, couldnt be more different. Space Force came out of an idea Netflix pitched Carell, who then brought in Daniels, his old boss from The Office, for a reteam. Upload, meanwhile, is an idea that Daniels had kept in his back pocket since the late 1980s, when he was a writer on Saturday Night Live.

In those days, CD players had just come out, and Daniels couldnt escape them in the window of every midtown Manhattan electronics store near his SNL office. I was trying to think, Whats a good SNL sketch idea? Daniels recalls. You could digitize music; whats the ultimate thing you could digitize? If computers were big enough, you could digitize your brain. Then you would be able to actually live in some of these online gaming environments. And in a way, mankind would be able to program and create their own afterlife.

Turns out it wasnt a good SNL sketch idea. But Daniels kept the concept in his notebook and brought it out from time to time. While on King of the Hill, the long-running animated hit he created with Mike Judge, Daniels wrote the beginning of Upload as a short story. Later, during the 2008 writers strike, he started writing and pitching it as a novel. In 2015, it morphed into a TV project at HBO, which developed it for a year and a half before Daniels got the rights back and sold it to Amazon.

Along the way, Upload settled into its final form: a satirical look at life later this century, when income inequality somehow extends into the afterlife, as humans can upload their conscious thoughts into the cloud and live on at a price. The unfairness at the center of a for-profit tech-company-run afterlife just seemed like it was good subject matter, Daniels says. It would probably have all of the downsides of any human society if we programmed it, because greedy people would be involved.

In Upload, Robbie Amell plays Nathan, a young man whos injured in a mysterious self-driving-car accident and his wealthy but shallow girlfriend Ingrid (Allegra Edwards) convinces him to be uploaded into a luxurious virtual afterlife, paid for by her family. Ultimately, he befriends a real-life customer-support employee, Nora (Andy Allo), who helps him adjust to his new digital existence, and soon they form a bond between the physical world and the simulated one.

When I pitched it, I said it was a philosophical romantic-comedy sci-fi murder mystery, Daniels says. There are so many shows on the air, my thought was that if I wanted people to commit to watching, it had to be very intense and it had to energize every part of your audience experience.

John Malkovich confabs with Daniels and director Paul King on the Space Force set.Aaron Epstein/Netflix

Daniels says inspirations included a bit of Tron, The Matrix and even Truly, Madly, Deeply and Ghost, two films about relationships hampered by one person in each couple being dead. The series relationships particularly the budding one between Nathan and Nora are at the heart of the show. (Yes, they are the Jim and Pam of Upload.) But Daniels also spent a great deal of time crafting a realistic near future, including those self-driving cars.

Much of that research came from the Consumer Electronics Show. You can figure out what the devices are that theyve managed to get a working prototype on but havent been widespread, Daniels says. I picked very widespread drones, 3D printing for food and clothing and a lot more Siri-type AI stuff thats embedded in different things.

That afterlife technology might be plausible one day, but I dont think were getting Upload for a long time, he says. In the back of my head, Im hoping that this show spurs interest and that some of the tech companies go, yeah, we could make a lot of money off that. And then they start working on it.

The Upload cast was first assembled in 2017, with a pilot shot in 2018, so the show has been a long time coming. Vernon Sanders, Amazons co-head of TV, was an NBC exec during the Office days and says having a Daniels project when he arrived at the streamer in 2018 was incredibly exciting and reassuring to me, because I just know how brilliant he is. I describe him as like the kind, slightly mad scientist of comedy. I watched it with The Office; he cracked a code for how to make that show work.

In comparison, it was just last year that Carell called Daniels and shared the Netflix pitch essentially, Two words: Space Force.

Greg Daniels was the first and only person that came to mind, Carell says of partnering with his old pal. Hes smart, funny and has excellent taste. I trust him implicitly. More often than not, our instincts align with one another. We generally find the same sort of things funny, or moving, or intriguing. That has been the case since we first met.

Daniels credits their similar backgrounds: Were the same age; were from the Northeast; theres a lot of commonality in the way we look at things. For me, its the best possible actor I can think of writing for.

Coincidentally, Daniels says he had wanted to write a show set in the military for years. Space Force, of course, was inspired by the actual new branch of the armed forces, announced last year. I do think that Space Force is a great way to talk about nationalism and excessive nationalism, Daniels says.

Carell stars as four-star Gen. Mark Naird, who is tasked with moving to Colorado and heading up the service branch after his dreams of running the Air Force are dashed. John Malkovich plays his foil, Dr. Adrian Mallory, whose notion of using space for science and advancing civilization often conflicts with Nairds mission to achieve total space dominance for the U.S.

I dont want to work on stuff that Im not excited about. if I were on a deal, I probably wouldnt be available for Steve to call up and say, Hey, you want to do Space Force?Greg Daniels

Daniels says Naird couldnt be more different from Carells Office character, Michael Scott. This guy is super mature. Hes very accomplished and decorated. Hes very smart. Hes very inflexible. Hes very principled and a super-high achiever who finds himself in a no-win situation. But hes going to do everything he can to pull it off.

Space Force is a bit of a satiric take on Donald Trumps eagerness to form the sixth armed service. But Daniels notes that Trump is never named in the show, which broadly pokes fun at both sides of the political aisle.

We kind of looked at Dr. Strangelove as some inspiration for this, he says. There are a lot of Trumpy politicians out there. I also feel like theres a certain amount of Trump fatigue. Im more interested in finding a comedy show that all people can laugh at and can enjoy than preaching to a choir and trying to score some points. The hope is that this is a show for everybody. Mark is this very principled military guy, and I think that theres a lot to be respected in his character for a more red-state audience, and then Adrian is more of a blue-state character. Its an interesting conflict. I think theres so much division in the country, and were showing a bit of the division in the show, but the show isnt trying to be all one way by any measure.

While Upload is filled with mostly new faces, Space Force is chock-full of A-listers: Besides Carell and Malkovich, the cast includes Lisa Kudrow as Marks wife who faces a turn of events that goes unexplained, at least initially, after the move to Colorado.

Now that theyre collaborating again, Daniels admits that he and Carell have discussed the idea of getting The Office back together at some point. Weve been talking about whether we would ever do some kind of a reunion, he says. There was a script from Season 1 that we never shot, and we were talking about how it would be funny to shoot it.

But dont hold your breath. Given how successful much of the ensemble has become since The Office, Daniels isnt sure that you could reassemble that cast to just sit on the set and do a reboot.

With no overall deal, Daniels says hes relishing the idea of working anywhere and with anyone, including both major streamers at the same time. Its very energizing to have something where youre like, Oh, thats a cool concept. I want to write that, he says. And thats one of the reasons why Im not on a development deal anywhere. I dont want to work on stuff that Im not excited about. If I were on a deal, I probably wouldnt be available for Steve to call up and say, Hey, you want to do Space Force?

But now, after a few years of taking things a bit slower, Daniels, whos also developing new animated projects with Judge, hopes to keep both Upload (already renewed for a second season) and Space Force going. I find them both to be really fun casts, juicy concepts, great shooting styles. Im very blessed that I found a couple of good things to work on after The Office.

Follow this link:

The Office Creator Greg Daniels on Returning to the Funny TV Business With Space Force and Upload - Variety

Soona, the virtual photoshoot company of your dreams

Imagine having a professional photoshoot from your desk or couch, says Soona co-founder Liz Giorgi of the remote-based, custom photoshoot start-up she runs with Forbes 30 Under 30 alum, Hayley Anderson. As businesses have been adapting to a work-from-home world, Soona is a breakthrough solution for every marketing department, she explains, citing the novel concept of having a creative director, studio location, photographer, and editor all rolled-into-oneinstead of the costly, traditional method of hiring each individual to the sum tune of thousands of dollars. Small businesses, e-comm and consumer product companies across every industryfrom Mother Dirt and Leland Francis skincare to Made In cookware and Away luggagehave already jumped on the bandwagon, enlisting Soona to produce high quality photoshoots at their mind-bogglingly affordable, all-inclusive prices: $39 per photo and $93 per video.

Tongue-in-cheek "Away Loves Away" custom image produced by Soona.

The premise is very straightforward and the process very simple: A client (anywhere in the world) mails in however many products they want to have shot, along with any notes or special requests for the creative team (e.g. drizzle maple syrup over pancakes, particular lighting, background and angle requests, hand model opening bottle, etc.). Once the studio receives the product, you set up a one hour photo shoot and are given the teams undivided attention during that time. Their proprietary software offers a WFH photoshoot experience where you can kick back, watch and collaborate on the shoot in real time, providing instantaneous feedback to produce the exact images you want. As each shot is taken, they pop up on your screen and you (and your team, if they so wish) DM back-and-forth with comments for the creative team. What typically takes a full day to produce is completed in an hour because the company is such a well-oiled machine. The turnaround time is 24 hours or less and you shop right in the app, choosing as little or many images as you want. Voila!

Mother Mother custom image produced by Soona

Furthermore, the app fully integrates into Shopify, allowing customers to upload the custom images seamlessly to their shop. This translates to: No downloading. No cropping. No editing. No resizing. No uploading.

Its a complete game-changer.You can thank me later (from the comfort of your couch)!

soona.co

Excerpt from:

Soona, The Virtual Photoshoot Company Youve Been Dreaming About - Forbes

We are the walking dead, Rick Grimes somewhat insanely proclaims at one of the lower points in what can be best described as a difficult life.

Note: This post contains spoilers for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners

The protagonist of The Walking Dead is getting to the heart of Robert Kirkmans groundbreaking comic book series here, as if the enormously unsubtle metaphor hadnt already bashed, impaled and beaten its way into your mind yet. The group of survivors depicted in the original series (not any of the various TV and videogame iterations and spin-offs) have, at this point, lied, stolen and murdered to survive and yet still face a seemingly inevitable demise.

Forgive the hyperbolic movie tagline, but its true that, to say alive, theyve had to sacrifice their humanity. For me, this is perhaps the most interesting translation to be found in Skydance Interactives The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, even if it is, like Ricks outcry, a little ham-fisted.

Indeed, the best zombie stories arent the ones concerned solely with the head-stabbing, brain-chomping gore (though thats still very much welcome and, in Saints & Sinners case, a real highlight). But its the humans you have to watch out for, especially surviving on the shaky foundations of post-apocalyptic New Orleans, where two rival factions fight for supremacy.

As youd expect from an entry in this long-running series, Saints & Sinners wants to investigate the murky area between survival and morality, backed up by an ambitious system that lets you choose to align with certain sides or, if youre particularly vicious, kill whoever you want. Though often clumsy (and, going further, quite regularly broken), it creates some of the games most memorable moments.

If youve spent much time with the game, youll know the first and most striking scenario involved. Tasked with infiltrating a Tower (authoritarian bad guys) base, one member asks you to rescue his brother, who has snuck off to The Reclaimed (more savage, slightly sympathetic, but still probably bad guys). You arrive at their camp to find the young brother imprisoned, two members preparing to kill him retribution for the death of ones daughter.

Hearing The Reclaimeds reasoning out, I do what I consider the only decent thing in the situation I stab the brother in the eye socket with a broken bottle to prove my loyalty (well I wasnt going to waste a bullet, was I?). But, upon leading an assault into Tower territory, I discover his room and a letter of confession. Wracked with guilt over the death the girl, the well-meaning brother had intended to defect to the other side, stealing supplies as way of some small redemption. That hadnt exactly worked out for him, had it?

In a normal game, sure, Id probably have a few regrets at this point. In VR, Im suddenly having flashbacks to his final moments; posture, expression, unease and then a deadly silence, all weighing down in my stomach. Its a little too forced and fast of a moment to make a deeper impression than that, but it speaks to a deeper power hiding within VR development.

Perhaps more interesting is when the game doesnt shove you into such situations, but lets you come to similar conclusions on your own. In the penultimate level the leader of the Reclaimed meets me one-on-one with a proposition. Not liking what I hear and the existential threat he poses I end our brief meeting by pulling out my pistol and shooting him in the head making the same kind of decision the cast of the comics has arrived at, entirely from my own train of thought. When the leader of The Tower meets me outside armed to teeth, a hatch an explosive plot to do the same thing (no one thought to ask why I was dropping a propane tank by their feet).

Its a freedom that also causes the game to cave in on itself. Not since Skyrim have I seen so many NPCs so confused about what they should be doing but, as with Bethesdas beloved RPG, it gets away with it thanks to ambition and, less intentionally, the hilarity of what can ensue.

Ultimately, Saints & Sinners only scratches the surface of these fascinating ideas, but making such an impact with even these limited scenarios suggests theres something much deeper to mine from VR than stabbing zombies with a screwdriver (though that wont get old, either). The heft of movement in the act of murder, the palpable desperation in the air when you kill a fellow human, and the deep-seated uncomfort that comes from doing so all feel magnified when paired with the physicality and immersion of VR. Dangerous ground to tread, perhaps, but Im fascinated to see where it leads us.

Read the original post:

Forget Zombies: Its Humans That Make The Walking Dead VR Truly Memorable - UploadVR

If you watched the Season 7 premiere ofThe 100, you may have found yourself a bit confused by one scene near the end. Sheidheda (aka the Dark Commander) returned and quickly dispensed of someone. But who did he kill?

This article will have spoilers for Season 7 Episode 1.

The Dark Commander is back. And hes not wasting any time enacting a plan to take over pretty much everything. If youre a little confused by his introductory scene around 45 minutes into the premiere episode, read on for an explanation of what happened.

Russell had a conversation with Jordan, then with Clarke who promptly set his room on fire after he egged her on. He obviously wants to die. All the other Primes are dead and Russells ready to be done with this world too. But then all of a sudden, while his room wheres he held prisoner is on fire, hes somewhere else.

Clarke knocked him out and this appears to be all that was needed for the Dark Commander to jump into his mind drive. But instead of seeing Russell, we see someone else there, tied up and held captive.

Sheidheda says: Hello Russell Prime. I prefer your new body.

The man asks who he is andwherehe is. Instead of answering, Sheidheda just kills him and says: Im you.

And then Russell wakes up again with an entirely new resolve.

The man that Sheidheda killed was Russellsoriginalbody. Within the mind drive, Russell still sees himself as the way he originally was, even though his original body has been gone for a long, long time. We basically saw Sheidheda wirelessly jump into Russells mind drive, kill Russell, and take over the drive himself.

Heres a look at Russell in his original body from a flashback scene from Season 6.

Remember when Josephine was in Clarkes mind drive and had such trouble containing her? Well, Sheidheda doesnt have that problem at all and can easily dispense of whoever the original holder of a mind drive is, it appears.

In case you need a refresher, heres a look back at how Sheidheda is still alive.

Last season, we saw that while Madi fought with Sheidheda and tried not to let him gain permanent control of her, Raven worked through the code until she was able to transfer Sheidheda out of the Flame drive and onto the ships computer. The Dark Commander managed to upload his code somewhere, rather than staying in the little firewall compartment that Raven had him in on the ship. We werent told where, but now it appears that hes just everywhere, basically. Some believe he uploaded himself to the anomaly cloud. Well, wherever he was, he managed to be wireless because he was able to jump into Russells mind drive and take him over. (Some fans think that he actually jumped into Russells mind drive while he was still on the ship in Season 6, and just waited until now to reassert himself. Thats the theory Im believing too.)

Madi was harder to take over than Russell was. Im not sure if it was because he was working against more updated technology (the Flame drive versus the older Mind Drive tech) or if it was simply because Madi had a stronger will than Russell. But whatever the case, Russell is effectively gone, replaced by Sheiheda.

READ NEXT: Daily COVID-19 Updates

See original here:

'The 100': Who Did the Dark Commander Kill? - Heavy.com

When the OnePlus 8 Pro was officially unveiled, it came with a few question marks over what corners it might cut as seen with previous OnePlus flagships.

However, rather than cut corners, OnePlus decided to give fans more or less what they have wanted and begged for. That just happened to be a flagship OnePlus smartphone that directly competes with the very best in the business on all fronts. No longer is there a but when recommending this latest release to people looking for a new flagship.

The result is one of the best smartphones on the market today and a bumped price tag to match. When weve become accustomed to OnePlus smartphones with slightly lower, attractive prices with a few notable compromises to account for the discount, it might come as a shock that youll have to stump up a hefty extra lump sum to get hold of the OnePlus 8 Pro.

With that in mind, if youre on the fence, just on the lookout, or want some reasons why the OnePlus 8 Pro is worth picking up, here are 5 reasons to go out and get one. Alternatively, if you are looking for something slightly more affordable, then we still recommend the OnePlus 7T over the slightly newer OnePlus 8.

Arguably the standout of the OnePlus 8 Pro has to be the display. The QHD+ 102Hz AMOLED panel is absolutely stunning in person. When in full flow its a real game-changer in ways that 90Hz simply isnt. The difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is so stark that its really hard to switch back to the lower framerate once youve tried it.

Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S20 series, you can actually run the display at full resolution and 120Hz. It makes this is the best display on the market by far. Nothing else really gets close save the Oppo Find X2 Pro which has essentially the same panel. We definitely need more 120Hz displays across the smartphone market.

For years, fans and detractors alike have complained about the weird aversion OnePlus seemingly had to add wireless charging support to its smartphones. That has finally been addressed with the OnePlus 8 Pro, as this is officially the only OnePlus smartphone to come with Qi charging out of the box.

You can access 30W wireless charging with a pricey $70 proprietary charger that is only available from the OnePlus store. To be completely honest, it does defeat the purpose of wireless charging, so you can top up using a normal wireless charger up to 10W speeds. Its nice to have the option alongside the superfast 30W Warp Charging via a wire. Thankfully in 2020, no longer are your wireless chargers rendered useless with a OnePlus smartphone.

Performance has never really been an area that past or even present OnePlus phones have ever had a major issue, and the OnePlus 8 Pro is no different. The combination of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset, plenty of RAM, OxygenOS, superfast UFS 3.1 storage, and the 120Hz refresh rate display is heavenly.

Everything is slick and instantaneous. It helps that OxygenOS is optimized to take advantage of the impressive internals and hardware too. If you want the fastest experience on Android, then the OnePlus 8 Pro is the only way to go.

OnePlus has really knocked their production quality up over the past few years, and while I lament the removal of the nifty pop-up camera, the OnePlus 8 Pro is certainly the best of the bunch so far. The fit and finish are exceptional. I would urge anyone to look at the Glacial Green color-shifting real panel and not find it attractive. From the curved glass display to the soft satin Glacial Green finish, this really is an undeniably gorgeous slab of tech.

Killer colors have been par for the course over recent releases, and the 8 Pro series has some more excellent options to choose from. If youre not a fan of green, you can pick up the OnePlus 8 Pro in Onyx Black and Ultramarine Blue both being equally impressive.

I was reluctant to actually suggest that 5G is a reason to buy any smartphone, simply as the global infrastructure is still developing. However, theres no denying that 5G is the future of wireless communications, web, and therefore our smartphones. Staying slightly ahead of the curve means that you can hold onto your device for longer potentially saving yourself money in the long-term.

Because all flagship smartphones using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset in 2020 will also come with the Qualcomm X55 5G modem, you get superfast connectivity as standard. Of course youll need access to a 5G network which is quite hard right now but youll still be able to access superfast download and upload speeds when installed in your area.

In the US, the OnePlus 8 Pro is not officially being offered by any carrier. That means that to get hold of one, youll have to buydirectly from OnePlus, or for the first time in the US,Amazon, starting at $899.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:

Go here to see the original:

OnePlus 8 Pro: 5 reasons to pick up this fully formed Android [Video] - 9to5Google

Everyone loves entertainment, be it in the form of games, songs, and series. Today, media and entertainment have become the fundamental requirement of an overstressed society. Paradigm shifts in consumer behaviour, business models, and technology are shaking the existing scenario of advertising as well as consumption of the online streaming services.

The media and entertainment industry is at the cornerstone of a rapid shift in the way content is distributed. This evolving trend is accelerated by the propagation of the internet leading to the takeover of traditional media channels such as cable and radio by the on-demand streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime. As a result, consumers have diverse options to select from in case of media consumption. A new battle in media has begun wherein the companies need to outshine by helping its customers strike an economical deal from an array of streaming platforms.

Lights, camera, and action let us roll to deep dive in the Australian Media Industry.

We are embracing online streaming via Subscription-based VOD services.

Todays empowered customer with desires for numerous fresh and different experiences.

In retrospect, the static and traditional M&E model worked on a straight and direct path for creativity and monetisation. The world is full of a submissive, inactive, and unresponsive audience which viewed what was shown to it. The digital boom established a dynamic and atomised world, which resulted in empowering the M&E audience and enabling them to gradually mount their expectations towards the customised ways for products and service delivery.

Viewing has risen to a different level from just streaming a flick or show on various devices, to a customised experience across mobility, communications and entertainment, as well as financial services. The rise of players in the media arena has led to a fight to grab, hold and set up a straight bond with the audience, which seems different yet alike in their habits.

The mysterious streaming industry has a lot of unsolved answers left in their laps with the choices of the audience in the vast demographics where in some require convenience and the others an attractive deal. From HD through DTH, to the best viewing experience, the landscape for the Television box has altered due to the demand and supply created in this competitive streaming world which has seen major studios finding ways to curtail customers with their experience and fast delivery of services.

The audience in the streaming industry has a number of choices at their disposal from the likes of Amazon Prime, Foxtel Now, Stan, Netflix. This, in turn, is better for viewers to choose from as per the type of experience they want while keeping in mind that it does not hit their pockets.

DO WATCH: Foxtel's "Next Generation Entertainment Streaming Service" to launch next week? | Market Update

You often feel annoyed by advertisements that boom on your screen while watching your favourite content online. But the question is, why are they popping up? What are these video streamers earning out of this hiccup that they cause while watching? These questions give rise to the concept of Ad-supported videos. These videos are becoming the leading model of delivering streaming video across the countries. They can be mixed with the subscription services, or the revenues can be from ads alone. Advertisements may provide the required revenue for streaming providers that aspire to spread their wings into different verticals, such as gaming and music. Tubi TV, a streaming provider in Australia whose services, is entirely free to use. But what is the catch? As it is said, nothing is free in this world. Tubi TV does not offer subscriptions; instead, a person has to sit through a bunch of unskippable advertisements while watching. These ads generate income for the provider. This ad-supported video offers advanced advertising capabilities in the form of consumer segmentation and targeting, which can further foster effective measurement and campaign management.

5G changing the landscape of VR and AR

With the launch of 5G around the corner, various applications are likely to embrace from 5G. The 5G transition is presumed to develop a fortune for the network, infrastructure, and equipment vendors. With the advent of 5G, the download and upload speed are expected to increase exponentially. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) apps were initially hyped. Still, they could not live up to the expectations is expected to embrace 5G from the bandwidth and low latency that is required for the seamless AR and VR experiences. Companies are now discovering various ways to accommodate them into their applications and services. AR/VR emergence is expected to unfold its benefits in areas never touched before, such as an extremely interactive alternative to the classic gaming controllers and keyboards, improve customer viewing and shopping experience.

INTERESTING READ: 5G, Cloud Computing, Bundling the three pieces of pie in Australian Telecom

The wave of merging and acquisition activity - powering media & entertainment evolution

The M&A deals are expected reshape and reinvent the positioning of the companies within the strategic landscape. M&A is likely to provide access for media companies to strengthen their content libraries. Such as recently, Foxtel and Warner Media struck a deal wherein Foxtel gets to retain its subscribers by using WarnerMedias content. WarnerMedia, on the other hand, gets to expand its customer base through Foxtel.

DID YOU READ: Nine Entertainment Sells NZ Business Stuff Limited to Management Buyout

The personalisation wave fuelled by Artificial Intelligence (AI)

You finished watching a series and some recommendations at the end pop up as in what can be observed next. Ever wondered why they pop up? How do these apps know I would like to watch this series next? All this is made possible by AI.

AI can be used in multiple ways to enhance the customer experience as well as to streamline business operations.AI can help unleash companies in the creation of new ads, movie trailers or recommend to customers what they may interest in watching or listening to keep them engaged.

With the upsurge in demand and rising expectations of the customers for personalised content, various media companies have evolved using AI to content creation according to customer choice from mere suggestions. This offering gives them a highly personalised experience.

We often say let us play a game, from a pastime to an industry, this is our new world of Games.

eSports - Sensation of the gaming arena

The platform is loaded with the sponsorships, prizes, and viewership range across the place.

Working on the formulae of GoT everything you want to Apologies for the inconvenience, there are various unanswered questions, starting from grabbing broadcast and distribution rights, the selection of target audience and becoming live entertainment to fill current emptiness in live sports.

The platform is growing from amateur to a professional with its popularity since its introduction.

There are legions of fans already watching video game competitions and looking forward to various gaming tournaments such as Melbourne Esports Open 2020 starting 22 August 2020 with the prize of US$250,000.

Esports Mogul Limited (ASX:ESH) operates a tournament platform called mogul.gg. Mogul .gg is the new pure-play online esports tournament inclusive of platform chat and streaming functionality.

The esports platform work towards game development and adoption, as well as internet connection speeds. It works on the principles of audience viewing professional gamers playing prevalent games. These platforms enable real-time tracking of events to move by move through various social media sites.

It will be interesting to watch which company outshines in the battleground in media by leveraging the opportunities in the form of customer acquisition, and retainment. Also, witnessing the new take of various companies in the field of esports, AI is set to become a strong contender in this contest.

Originally posted here:

"Rolling - 3,2,1: A take on the Australian Media Industry" - Kalkine Media

The path to completely mapping every aspect of a brain is complicated. It requires incredibly precise scanning of the neurons, the cells that carry electrical impulses, as well as the synapses that link them together. The end result is a 3D rendering called a connectome, and the good news is that science has already made one.

The bad news is that it was of a Caenorhabditis elegans roundworm, which has 302 total neurons in its brain as compared to a human beings 86 million. A task with that complexity would take, as Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, told Smithsonian, a million electron microscopes running in parallel for 10 years.

Current science is split on whether technology will ever reach a level where that task is possible. That roundworm connectome, however, has already seen a digital life. In 2014, the OpenWorm project that mapped the brain decided to replicate it as software and install it in a Lego robot that was capable of the same sensory and motor actions as the biological model.

Without any additional programming, the team claims the robot worm behaved identically to a real one, recoiling from touch and moving towards food. Its not an exact analog, as the nerves in the worms body are approximated by hard-wired sensors, but it proves a point.

Already were raising some pretty intense questions hereis this Lego replica of a roundworm a sentient being? Is it distinct from the worm it was copied from? These are the kind of issues that will come to the fore as we get closer and closer to whole brain emulation.

That hasnt stopped some people from trying to sell it already. In 2018, startup Nectomeannounced that it had developed a method to preserve the human brain until the date that advanced scanning methods are practical. Only one issue: it has to be fresh. As in, you have to be alive when they do the process, which kills you.

Thats a pretty bold bet to take on the future, but Nectome CEO Robert McIntyre believes in his technology, pitching it as a way to save your precious memories rather than create a full digital simulacrum of your consciousness. Over 30 people have put down a $10,000 deposit to be on the list for preservation.

Other researchers are taking a more granular approach to digitizing the mind. Researcher Theodore Berger at the University of Southern California is developing an electronic prosthesis for the hippocampal region of the brain, generally recognized as the area that manages memory. The device monitors and encodes the sequence of neurons firing and can then replay them.

In rats, it was able to restore a memory of pulling levers in a sequence. A rat brain is significantly less complex than a humans, but the general principle is the same. Bergers team is investigating human applications to help people with brains damaged by Alzheimers and other degenerative diseases.

Read the original:

Will We Ever Be Able to Upload Our Brains? - ComputerShopper.com

High school students around the world began taking online Advanced Placement exams this week, but some say they've encountered problems submitting their responses and may have to retake the exams at a later date.

The AP exams measure how well a high school student comprehends college material and can help them earn college credit. They typically are taken in person.

The College Board announced earlier this year that because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 exams would be offered in an online, free-response format and only include topics covered by March. Students are able to take exams on any device and can either type their responses or write them by hand and upload photos.

Caleb Trunkle, a senior, in Charleston, South Carolina, had been studying all year for the AP Calculus AB exam but said trying to prepare at home without a teacher was pretty difficult.

However, Trunkle felt confident when he went to submit in his answers Tuesday afternoon. He said he followed the AP College Board requirements, and the answers seemed to go through but then was notified that his test hadnt been received.

Trunkle told NBC News that because his test didn't go through, his only option is to apply to retake the exam in June.

I was incredibly upset. Ive put so much into this course. Ive put so much into my high school career, Im trying to finish it out, this was my last week of testing. I have one more tomorrow. I did everything right, he said.

Students, parents and teachers have reported issues with exam submissions this week on social media.

Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.

The College Board did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

But on Monday said that the vast majority of test-takers had successfully submitted their exams.

Approximately 50,000 students took today's AP Physics C: Mechanics exam. 98% submitted their responses, while approximately 2% encountered issues attempting to submit their response, the College Board wrote on Facebook Monday, the first day of testing. Given the wide variety of devices, browsers, and versions students are using, we anticipated that a small percentage of students would encounter technical difficulties, and we have a makeup window in June so students have another opportunity to test.

Cole Wagner, 17, said he was unable to submit his AP Physics Mechanics exam Monday after he tried twice to copy and paste his answers from a Google Doc to the exam. He said the responses reformatted when he pasted them into the exam, meaning they did not correspond with the questions. Hes hoping to retake the test at a later date.

On Tuesday, Wagner, who is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said his computer froze while he took the AP Calculus AB exam. He was unable to submit his response for the first and second questions and later logged into the exam from his phone to upload a photo of his work for both questions into the second questions submission box, he said.

"For both tests, I had two separate issues but both were equally frustrating," he told NBC News.

"I saw a side of Cole I've never seen before," his father, Bret Wagner, said. "He almost lost his mind today, and he put a ton of effort in and this meant a lot to him," he said.

Late Tuesday, the College Board acknowledged that some students had reported troubles cutting and pasting responses for exams.

"While more than 99% of students successfully submitted their AP Exam responses today, some who didn't told us they had trouble cutting and pasting their responses," the organization wrote in a tweet. "We took a closer look and found that outdated browsers were a primary cause of these challenges."

Darren Kagey, a junior at Pickerington High School North in Pickerington, Ohio, took the same AP Calculus AB exam and said he had a similar issue. He said he was informed he would have to apply for a makeup test.

After the exam, Kagey said, he went online to see if others were reporting issues and saw a tweet from the College Board informing students they had to update their camera settings in order to upload photos of their work.

But, the tweet was posted just a few hours before the exam began, Kagey said.

I just think itd be so much simpler if they allowed students that had issues to resubmit the work they completed, he said.

Students complained of issues with other tests besides the Calculus AB and Physics exams.

Freshman Aryan Jadhav in Denmark, Georgia, was ready to submit his answers for the AP Human Geography exam but says the College Board software crashed just before his time was about to expire.

He said he had about 20 seconds left to paste in an answer but after he clicked submit, he was told his answer wasnt recorded.

I feel that its unfair that I have to retake the test again that I have been studying so hard for, because of an issue on their part," he said.

Continued here:

AP test-takers report problems submitting online exams, fear they'll have to retake - NBC News

Instagram has been rolling this option out over the last few weeks, but today, it's officially announced that all users can now save the video of their Instagram Live broadcast to IGTV, and keep it available for viewing for as long as they choose.

Up till now, Instagram Live broadcasts have only, technically been available to viewers during their broadcast - i.e. when the 'Live' marker appears on the users' Stories bubble. Users have additionally had the option to save the video of their Instagram Live broadcast to their camera roll, then re-upload as they see fit -but now, you'll also have the capacity to send the video direct to IGTV, which could provide some additional benefits, especially considering the gradual development of the IGTV platform.

The option could, for example, provide an easy way to build your IGTV content library, and with Instagram recently launching monetization options for the platform, that could provide another means to both tap into rising interest in IGTV (monetization will lure more high-profile creators, and subsequently, viewers), while it may also, eventually, facilitate a revenue option via your own content.

It's also another way to maximize the value of your content. If you've created more video, why not re-post it to IGTV and enable more people to see it. That is, if the broadcast went well, of course.

Though there are some limitations to be aware of in this new process.

As per Instagram:

Live video replays wont include any likes or comments from your original live video

The number of viewers for your live video will restart once you share it to IGTV

You won't be able to edit or trim your live video before sharing it to IGTV

Being unable to edit your video could be an issue, and it's worth considering what the impacts of not having the original Likes and comments might be. If you're constantly referring to the comments or viewers during the broadcast, that probably won't make sense in the replay if their names and notes are not displayed.

In that case, you may well be better off just downloading the video and editing it to ensure it suits, then re-uploading to IGTV if you see fit. But if you're looking for a quick, simple way to tap into IGTV, and maximize viewership, it's another option to keep in mind.

Instagram says that the 'Share to IGTV' option is now available to all users.

Read the original post:

Instagram Officially Launches Option to Share Instagram Live Broadcasts to IGTV - Social Media Today

Whether you're on the hunt for your next on-screen obsession, concerned about gaps in TV schedules, or you just want to use this time to try out something new, Digital Spy is here with an abundance of TV recommendations to keep you entertained.

We're constantly plugged in, and have compiled an extensive list of hidden gems that you might not have come across, or had a chance to view, just yet. Let's begin.

Family life is complicated and messy, even at the best of times. While you might be used to sickeningly sweet sitcoms that are chock full of sentiment, Breeders is here to bring a big dollop of reality to proceedings - with hilarious results.

Paul (Martin Freeman) and Ally (Daisy Haggard) are trying to navigate parenthood as best they can. There's no handbook and kids can be, well, annoying - no matter how much you love them. The whole series is endearing and relatable, and there are some genuine fall-off -your-sofa shocks along the way too.

Wrongly dismissed by some as nothing more than a rip-off of the much-loved series The Good Place, Upload has a heartfelt charm that is all its own.

The comedy series is from the mind of Greg Daniels - the creator of cult favourite The Office US and Netflix's hotly anticipated Space Force - so it's not all that surprising that we'd be clambering to give it our seal of approval. All that remains now is the wait for season two.

We've been championing this show ever since it debuted its first season, and not just because it's fronted by Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar.

The twisty-turny thriller, which airs on Channel 5, recently returned for its second season with a gripping cliffhanger - don't worry, no spoilers here, just go ahead and enjoy the ride.

WATCH BLOOD ON MY 5

The philosophical sci-fi series, from writer-director Alex Garland, asks all manner of daunting questions. Starring Parks and Recreation's Nick Offerman as the messiah/false prophet of the story, the show is available to stream on BBC iPlayer now. And when you've finished having your mind scrambled, you can check out our Devs ending explained.

WATCH DEVS ON BBC iPLAYER

The US crime drama stars How I Met Your Mother's Cobie Smulders as private investigator Dex Parois. A bit of a rule breaker and with some debts weighing her down, Dex ends up teaming up with her friend - and felon - Grey (Jake Johnson) to tackle some unsolved cases.

Stumptown is currently airing every Tuesday at 9pm on Alibi (available on Sky and Virgin).

Photo credit: Netflix

Dubbed (by us) as South Korea's answer to Marvel's Daredevil, Rugal is based on a popular webcomic of the same name.

It follows a police officer called Kang Ki Beom (Choi Jin-hyuk) who fights to bring down a criminal organisation known as Argos (no not that Argos, the catalogue company haven't gone rogue) but the group retaliate by blinding Kang and killing his wife.

WATCH RUGAL ON NETFLIX

Unbelievable's Merritt Wever? Check. The return of Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge? Check. You shouldn't need much more convincing, but it was also written and produced by Killing Eve's Vicky Jones...

The dark comedy first premiered in the US back in April, and it's currently airing on Sky Comedy and NOW TV.

Photo credit: Oxygen - NBC Universal

A major departure from the reality star's Keeping Up with the Kardashians appearances, Kim Kardashian has a brand new true-crime documentary under her (waist trainer) belt.

The show basically acts like a beginners guide to the American justice system, highlighting a series of issues that Kim and a number of organisations are working hard to reform while also bringing some heartbreaking cases to the forefront.

It first aired on Oxygen in the US, and is now available on Sky Crime.

WATCH THE JUSTICE PROJECT ON NOW TV

This is the latest star-studded show to come from Apple TV+, and it firmly places Chris Evans (and that fan-favourite beard) centre stage as both lead actor and executive producer.

Defending Jacob - reportedly a ratings-booster for the streaming platform - is based on William Landay's best-selling novel of the same name. The crime drama follows Andy Barber, a district attorney, whose sense of justice is shattered when his son is accused of murder.

WATCH DEFENDING JACOB ON APPLE TV+

Photo credit: Netflix

Thought animation wasn't for you? Think again.

The Midnight Gospel is like nothing else we've seen before. A feast for the eyes and ears, the show pairs fascinating and downright thought-provoking dialogue (that will leave you questioning everything) with bright and chaotic imagery. Oh, and be sure to listen out for all those guest cameos.

WATCH THE MIDNIGHT GOSPEL ON NETFLIX

Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) is the son of an infamous serial killer known as "The Surgeon", and has concerns that he might become a sociopath himself. In a bid to move on, he became a criminal profiler who, after being fired by the FBI, worked with the New York Police Department.

Oh, and Michael Sheen is in it. Always a win.

The American crime drama airs on Fox and is available to stream online in the US. No word yet on a UK air date.

Comics Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle play versions of themselves as teenage outcasts in the year 2000 - yep, got to love that nostalgia.

It's being described as a "cringe comedy", and PEN15 first entered the world on Hulu in February 2019, but - hoorah! - it's now also in the UK thanks to Sky Comedy.

Photo credit: Hulu / Amazon Prime Video

Based on the bestselling novel by Celeste Ng, the story follows a rich suburban mother and wife (played by Big Little Lies' Reese Witherspoon), who invites town newcomer Mia (Scandal star Kerry Washington) to be her maid, after noticing she's living in her car with her daughter.

Both actors executive produced on the project, and it first debuted on Hulu. It's been announced that Little Fires Everywhere will come to the UK on Amazon Prime Video from May 22.

WATCH AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Photo credit: Amazon Prime

In contrast to Stranger Things' '80s action stylings, Tales from the Loop is a calm and quiet anthology series. Despite, on the face of it, seemingly sharing some similarities to the Netflix smash hit, Tales from the Loop is in a league of its own.

Based on Simon Stlenhag's art book and tabletop role-playing game of the same name, season one is available on Amazon Prime Video.

WATCH TALES FROM THE LOOP ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Photo credit: W Channel

The trashy (nothing wrong with a good bit of trash) and fun UKTV Original follows PR guru Robyn (played by X-Men's Anna Paquin) as she clears up the messes left behind by her clients, while also trying to keep on top of her social life.

Currently getting its second outing, Flack is airing on W and available to watch on Sky and

Virgin.

Digital Spy now has a newsletter sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.

Looking for more TV recommendations and discussion? Head over to our Facebook Group to see new picks every day, and chat with other readers about what they're watching right now.

You Might Also Like

See more here:

15 TV shows and hidden gems that might be under your radar - from Netflix's Midnight Gospel to Amazon's Upload - Yahoo News

Was your connection speed even to get to this page annoyingly slow? Is the irony of taking ages to get to read articles about the best broadband deals becoming painfully obvious? The last thing you'll want then is more obstacles in the form of broadband jargon.

There's plenty of barely decipherable lingo and jargon on the internet, blurted out by technically minded sorts hurriedly trying to churn out information without thinking about who's reading. We've not all got years of experience talking in code about frankly complex tech that some regulars might find the norm.

You might know your fibre from your router, without getting breakfast cereals and power tools mixed up, but there's plenty of other jargon that needs clarifying.

Here's what you need to know, so you can be savvy enough to get the best broadband for you.

If you've ever taken our broadband speed test then you'll have seen some chat about your download and upload speeds. As you may already know, the download speed is that coming to you and the upload speed is that going away. But why do you need to know about and consider both?

Many people just look at download speeds and consider that alone. That's fine for streaming a film or downloading a large file. But for things like video streaming or gaming, you need upload bandwidth too. This means a two-way interaction can happen with minimal lag and maximum clarity. So keep that in mind when hunting for your next broadband upgrade.

You may have heard of a fibre broadband connection as that's now the most popular thanks to its speed and availability. This is the same as cable, essentially. The cable is the way you're getting the wiring and within that cable is the fibre optical line itself.

Fibre optics use light to send signals, rather than electricity along a metal cable. As such there isn't the issue of resistance and you get lightspeed fast data delivery. This is largely future-proof with theoretically no limit to speeds. As the devices at either end of the cables improve so can speeds.

ADSL, or asymmetric digital subscriber line, is an older form that uses those copper lines we mentioned above. These are limited to about 10Mb, which is workable if that's all you have in your area but nothing compared to fibre that's currently offering average speeds of 362Mb from Virgin Media broadband and 300Mb from BT Broadband.

Anywhere you see the word limit it's worth paying attention and that's especially true when it comes to getting the best broadband deals. A download limit, as you might imagine, is a cap on the amount of data you can access over a period of time.

Typically this is a limit on data downloaded month to month. While these can save you money on your broadband subscription, they're not ideal if you do lots of online gaming or stream a lot of 4K and HDR Netflix, for example.

These little gems of FTTC, FTTP and FTTH are different ways fibre is transmitted. The first part is Fibre To The... with the last letter being the point at which fibre ends and another connection carries the last of the signal to you. This point is usually where speed bottlenecks so it's worth keeping in mind.

FTTC is to cabinet which means it'll run over fibre to your local street cabinet (those green boxes you often see high-vis coated fellows working on). It then runs to you via cabling, slowing it. This is the most common form of home broadband.

FTTP is to premises which is where the fibre runs right to your home for maximum speeds. FTTH is to home, which is the same thing with another acronym to make it even more complicated, of course.

Megabit (Mb) and Gigabit (Gb) are data amounts often seen when talking about broadband as Mbps and Gbps with those last two letters for per second. This deontes how fast you can access the data.

In real world terms, Netflix says you need a 25Mb line in order to steam 4K and HDR content clearly. The fastest fibre lines in limited availability are now 1Gb, so more than enough for most even in the longer term. The fastest more common fibre, at around 300Mb, is also plenty for most homes.

Read more:

Here is the original post:

Broadband jargon buster - learn the internet lingo before you buy - TechRadar

Whether we need it or want it, 5G is being forced upon us. 5G is part of the next round of mid-range smartphones ($799-999). And the Qualcomm SD768G 5G mobile platform is the safest bet to power them.

When I say safest the Qualcomm SD768G 5G mobile platform (an update from the SD765G 5G) has been tested and proven. So far its the only one that has BOTH NR sub-6GHz (Australia) and mmWave for the most comprehensive 5G coverage where, when or if ever you can get it.

That is not to disparage other makers 5G chipsets from MediaTek or Huawei, but those focus on mmWave in China or the US and leave technologically challenged Australia off the roadmap.

Australia has crippled NSA sub-6Ghz 5G, and it looks that way for some time to come. We may see some mmWave for commercial use, but poor Joe and Jane Average will have to put up with 4G on steroids Tel$tras patchy and pathetic excuse for 5G.

The SD768 uses the Qualcomm X52 Modem and its RF antenna system (as does the SD765). This a large step down from the flagship X55 modem in the SD865. Both are Gen 2 there is a long way to go to reach 5G nirvana.

The X52 has a maximum rated 5G download/upload speed of 3.7/1.6Gbps, and the X55 is 7/3Gbps. Ditto for 4G (which it will run on most of the time). It is 1.2Gbps/201Mbps versus 2.5Gbps/316Mbps.

These are a lot of issues with even quoting these figures (Tel$tra initially claimed 20Gbps!). Our experience is (when we can find a mythical 5G tower) that speeds are not much better than Telstra 4GX somewhere around 200-400Mbps DL and 50Mbps UL. Again, we have had faster 4GX speeds during those very same tests.

Transaction Network Services states that you should expect 5G global roaming to be a five-to-10 year rollout.

Why so long you might ask? Standalone (SA) 5G roaming will not happen in the near term due to complexity of network slicing, massive capital investment involved, business models and ill-defined charging principles. Simply put the incentive to replace global 3G/4G technology is too small when it will co-exist with 5G for some time.

So, if you have a 5G use case, can get reception, and want a knobbed X52 5G modem that will mostly run 4G then you will need SD768G.

No, it is not the powerhouse 8XX series. It is the equivalent of the Toyota Camry 4-cylinder gets you from A-B, but you dont want to tow a boat or caravan.

Again, Qualcomms marketing prowess comes to the fore. It uses cites Next-level performance (why would you release something slower than its predecessor?), Captivating graphics (15% performance increase over the SD765), Immersive gaming (Adreno 620 GPU is OK), dazzling entertainment (HDR is a feature of most SoCs)

To the contrary, I would prefer a Qualcomm SD under the bonnet more than any other chip (except for the Samsung Exynos that is an SD in all but name).

For starters, Qualcomm SoCs works with all my diagnostic software. MediaTek and Kirin do not! And Qualcomm returns accurate speed tests. Other brands do not (smells like the VW fiasco all over again).

Qualcomm SoCs seldom throttle to the extent that the others do. Mind you MediaTek is getting better as it moves to thinner SoC, but it has been found guilty of optimising results for test software.

See the rest here:

You will be seeing a lot of Qualcomm SD768G 5G phones soon - GadgetGuy

In March-end, the government came to the rescue of people facing a cash crunch due to the covid-19 lockdown, by allowing them to take non-refundable advance from Employees Provident Fund (EPF). As per the data released by EPF Organisation on 28 April, 740,000 such claims have been settled. However, it seems, many more who made a similar application are still waiting to get their money. Many subscribers took to social media to complain about delays in receiving the money or rejection of claims.

Employees are allowed to withdraw up to 75% of the outstanding balance in their PF accounts or three months basic plus dearness allowance, whichever is lower. For example, if you have a balance of 1 lakh in your PF account and your basic wage plus dearness allowance is equal to 20,000 per month, you will be eligible to withdraw only 60,000.

EPFO has clarified that even those employees who have left the job can avail the advance. Employees can apply for the advance under such claims online. However, it is generally advised not to withdraw from PF savings, as it will deplete your retirement savings by a large chunk. But dipping into PF savings may be better than taking a personal loan on which the interest rates can be in the range of 9-24%.

The claims applied under covid-19 are being settled on fast track and within three working days," said EPFO, in a statement along with FAQs (frequently asked questions) released on 26 April.

So what explains the delay and rejections? All the claims applied online go to the National Data Center of EPFO and are getting processed from there. However, in case of any discrepancy, the claims are sent to the regional offices for clearing," said one of the EPFO field officers from the Gurugram office, on the condition of anonymity, as filed officers are not autorized to speak to the media.

Here are some of the reasons leading to delay or claim rejection.

Unclear scan of documents

While filing a claim online, an employee has to upload a scanned copy of the cheque book, the first page of the passbook or the bank account statement, which should have the name of the applicant, bank account number and the IFSC code. This is done to ensure that the bank account details uploaded in the KYC (know your customer) or linked to the universal account number (UAN) of the employee is correct and no erroneous transfer of money happens.

If the documents scan is not clear, it is difficult to match the details with what is provided against the employees UAN. This can result in delay as EPFO will ask you to upload the scanned copy again. Most of the delays or rejections are due to improper documents uploaded by the employees," said the field officer.

So, upload a clear scan of the document showing the bank account details.

Wrong details

At times, details such as IFSC code of the bank or the account mentioned during the claim doesnt match with what is seeded with the UAN. This could be because wrong details may have been entered when seeding account details with the UAN or because the subscriber wants the amount credited in another account, which is not linked with the UAN.

There is also a possibility that the bank account linked with the UAN might have become dormant. Therefore, the person will have to get the bank details updated. The updation of bank account details can be done online," said Saraswathi Kasturirangan, partner, Deloitte India.

However, any changes made to the KYC details have to be approved by the employer. Employers can approve the changes online using their digital signature, but at times the employers are not able to access their system due to the ongoing lockdown, which may result in a delay," said the EPFOfield officer quoted earlier.

Not fulfilling the criteria

To be able to take the non-refundable advance, employees should have made a contribution for at least three months. If you dont fulfil this basic criteria and still make a claim, it might be rejected.

Time taken by banks

EPFO processes claims and issues the cheques to the bank within three days of applying the claim. Banks, typically, take another one to three days to credit the money to the employees account. So check if the delay is at the banks end.

Keep in mind that its important that your paperwork is in order and your records match with whats seeded with your UAN for problem-free withdrawal.

Read more:

Four things that may delay PF advance - Livemint

The Australian government has launched Covidsafe, an app that traces every person running the app who has been in contact with someone else using the app in the previous three weeks, in a bid to automate coronavirus contact tracing and allow the easing of restrictions.

Heres what we know about the app so far.

After you download and install the app from the Australian Apple App store or Google Play store which you can also access from the governments Covidsafe app page covidsafe.gov.au or aus.gov.au/app youll be asked to register your name (or pseudonym), age range, postcode and phone number.

That registration information is stored encrypted on a government server, and then passed on to state and territory health authorities in the event that someone youve been in contact with has tested positive.

Using Bluetooth, the app records anyone you get close to who also has the app. The two apps exchange anonymised IDs, which cycle every two hours and are stored encrypted on phones and deleted after 21 days.

If someone is infected with coronavirus, they then get a unique code from a health official via SMS to use in the app to consent to upload the list of anonymised IDs for the past 21 days of contact for contact tracing. It uses signal strength and other data then to work out who needs to be contacted.

The name you choose to provide, your age range, your phone number, and your postcode, information about your encrypted user ID, information about testing positive for coronavirus, and then the contact IDs should you consent to that being uploaded.

Bluetooth data is also uploaded to the server upon testing positive in order for the government to figure out, using signal strength, which contacts need to be notified.

The data, once you consent to it being uploaded from your app at the time you test positive, will be held by the federal government on an Amazon Web Services server in Australia.

Morrison said that while the data will be held by the federal government, only state health authorities charged with contact tracing will be able to access it. He says federal agencies including Centrelink, Home Affairs and others will not be able to access the data.

Health minister Greg Hunt has written a direction that sets out only health authorities or those maintaining the app can get access to the information. This will be backed up by legislation to be introduced into parliament in May.

The government has said police will not be able to get the data, even with a warrant, and court orders will not be able to force the government to hand over the data but this is not explicitly outlined in the draft legislation.

The registration data will remain on the government server until the end of the pandemic, which will be declared over by the health minister, or until you request it to be deleted.

Amazon Web Services, which is hosting the data in Australia, is one of the biggest cloud companies in the world. Given the millions of people expected to use the app and outages will make the app less effective, as well as the governments history with using AWS, it isnt surprising Amazon was chosen for the contract.

The company has the highest data security certification for its Sydney data centre.

The 2017 postal survey was supported by AWS, and the 2021 Census will be hosted by AWS.

Chances are, some of your data be it through your bank, your airline, through Netflix or any number of services is already hosted by Amazon.

The government will legislate to prevent data from the app being moved offshore, including for requests for data by the US government under laws such as the Patriot Act.

The draft legislation makes it a crime to store the data outside Australia, or communicate the data to someone outside Australia.

The app does not track location. The Google version of the app does seek permission for location information but that is due to permissions needed for bluetooth.

Not significantly, however the Apple version of the app will need to be open in order for the bluetooth functionality to work.

That will drain the battery more, however, the government made a change to the Apple version of the app and you can now lock your phone screen as long as the app is open when you lock it.

It is understood that the federal government will implement the functionality developed by Apple and Google in a few weeks that will eliminate this issue and allow iPhone users to have the app running in the background.

No. The prime minister has said consent would be key to the app, indicating it would not be mandatory, and people would share information through the app only if they consented to it.

The draft legislation to support the app specifically makes it a crime punishable by five years in jail to force someone to download the app, and upload data from the app against their consent. It also makes it a crime to refuse service or entry or employment to people if theyre not using the app.

But Morrison muddied the waters somewhat when he would not entirely rule out making it mandatory.

My preference is not to do that, my preference is to give Australians the go of getting it right ... I dont want to be drawn on that [making it mandatory], I want to give Australians the opportunity to get it right, he told Triple M. That is my objective, that is my Plan A and I really want Plan A to work.

He later tweeted that the app would not be mandatory.

The national cabinet said that the app could be a valuable tool if the numbers increase and the application is widely taken up.

Health minister Greg Hunt said the governments target for uptake of the app is 40% of the population.

Morrison said automatic contact tracing would be a key component in states and territories easing some restrictions on high-value, low-risk economic activities after the next four weeks.

He compared using the app to buying bonds during the war.

In the war, people bought war bonds to get in behind the national effort. What were doing in fighting this fight is well be asking people to download an app which helps us trace the virus quickly and the more people who do that, the more we can get back to a more liveable set of arrangements.

The state governments in NSW and Victoria have both indicated they will not make use of the app a condition for easing restrictions, and will not require a certain percentage of the population to be using the app before restrictions will be eased.

However, since the release of the app, the federal government has urged Australians to download the app, tying download numbers of the app to the national cabinet discussion about the easing of restrictions.

Always. The government has stressed it has designed the app with privacy in mind, however.

In terms of privacy, no other person can access what is on your phone, Hunt said.

The health minister added it will be against the law to use the data for a purpose other than contact tracing, and the data will be kept in Australia.

It cannot leave the country. It cannot be accessed by anybody other than a state public health official. It cannot be used for any purpose other than the provision of the data for the purposes of finding people with whom you have been in close contact with and it is punishable by jail if there is a breach of that.

There is no geolocation. There is no Commonwealth access and it is stored in Australia and importantly it is deleted from your phone after 21 days.

The government will have a repository of the names, phone numbers and postcodes of everyone who had downloaded the app, which could be a potential honeypot, but the key data of who youve been in contact with stays on your phone and is frequently deleted.

The government has published a privacy impact assessment on potential concerns with the app.

The source code for the app has been released by the government, which can show how the app works in practice, but there are calls for the server source code (which will show what the government does with the data) to be released.

You can delete the app from your phone at any time, and the government has said all the information held will be deleted from its servers at the end of the pandemic. This sunset clause is built into the legislation being introduced into parliament.

The draft legislation sets out that the data will be deleted once Greg Hunt declares, via an instrument, that the pandemic is over.

Podcast:listen to our daily episodes onApple Podcasts,Spotifyor search "Full Story" in your favourite app

Attorney general Christian Porter told Guardian Australia regulations would be developed to ensure that police and other government agencies would not be able to access the data.

Law enforcement agencies will not be provided access to information collected via the app, he said.

Specific regulatory action will be taken to prevent such access for law enforcement agencies at both the Commonwealth and state/territory level.

The government has already made the decision not to make any information collected by the app available for other purposes, including law enforcement investigations.

The draft legislation does not explicitly rule out access via warrant or court order, however access for purposes outside of contact tracing has been made a crime.

If you have the app running on your phone as per the guidelines, it is collecting the contact data and storing it on your phone. Health officials have yet to access the data because the federal government needs to get the states and territories to sign a memorandum of understanding to ensure they abide by the privacy rules around the use of the data for contact tracing.

The training for use of the app started on 11 May, and health officials are expected to be able to access data from the app a few days after, in the event someone with the app tests positive and agrees to upload the data.

At this stage it seems the app is only available in Australian app stores, but the health department indicated it was looking at making the app available in other stores.

There are no plans to make it work on phones operating older software than iOS 10 and Android 6.0.

The total cost of the app for the government is $1.5m, including over $700,000 for Amazon to host the data.

Due to the unprecedented and ongoing nature of the coronavirus outbreak, this article is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects the current situation at the date of publication. Any significant corrections made to this or previous versions of the article will continue to be footnoted in line with Guardian editorial policy.

Continued here:

Covidsafe app: how Australias coronavirus contact tracing app works, what it does, downloads and problems - The Guardian

The Little Theatre, one of the oldest theatre groups in the country, had no choice but to suspend their popular Little Festival festival due to the coronavirus pandemic.

That said, its founder Aysha Rau has assured us that their Christmas Pantomime is on track and rehearsals for the same will begin soon after things get back on track. The group has also launched their YouTube channel, with the help of its artistic director, KK, and his team.

We find out from Aysha more about how The Little Theatre plans to adapt to these trying times while listening to heartwaring stories from her home during lockdown days. Excerpts:

Theatre organisations around the world are releasing their content online and making them availableto the public. From your point of view, how much digital access does Chennai's audience have to your content, and what more can be done from yourside to broaden the scope, with regards to both quantity of your body of work online and its reach among the masses?

Our Artistic Director Krishnakumar Balasubramanian aka KK and his team are in the process of setting up aYouTube channel. Over the last few productions, we have been shooting with multi-camera setups to edit and upload our shows. Now with the lockdown in place, I guess KK and his team must be having more time to work on this! In time we should have our shows uploaded. We do have a tremendous body of original work, so Iguess it will be good to have it available online!

In what ways and how much can this pandemic and the lockdown affect the theatre industry?

The pandemic has definitely hit the theatre industry very badly.Everything has come to a grinding halt. Not just here in Chennai but across the world, like in Broadway,NY, and the West End, London.

As for The Little Theatre, we havecancelled the 11thedition of The Little Festival, as the visiting productions would have a hard time getting here. Further, I am not certain whether the Museum Theatre will be open and whether schools will be willing to allow their children to congregate in an air-conditioned hall.

Other festivals, which I was invited to attend, conduct workshops and give talks at, have been postponed to 2021. Shows and training programmes that we were supposed to do in April and May have been suspended; we obviously have to reschedule them. Also, a festival that we are supposed to participate in August is still not confirmed.

What are the major changes that you are anticipating in Chennai's theatre scene,once things get better? Will there be a change in approach towards the medium of showcasing your work? Can we expect to see more innovative ways in which you can reach your audience (virtual and augmented reality for example)?

The Little Theatre isworking on getting small professional shows to schools during the festival slot so that schools do not miss out on The Little Festival. Im in touch with a number of schools and I have received quite a few positive responses.Otherwise, we are working towards our annual Christmas Pantomime in December and also Peter Pan. And the shows will be dedicated to the memory of everybodywho have lost their lives to the virus this year. It is a global tragedy. But we need to move on. We all come into this world with an expiry date. However, while we are still alive we must all remember to live. As they say in theatre, the show must go on!

Do you have any new productions in the pipeline? And, what will be the first play from your stable once the ball gets rolling again?

Our Artistic Director Krishnakumar Balasubramanian aka KK is working on a couple of small productions that can be mounted easily in different school auditoriums. We are looking at a show to cater to the primary section and one for the middle and senior school children. These still work in progress and we havent yet given them a name.

Our shows Garage Gang and 5loose Boots are ready to travel as soon as we reschedule. Otherwise, its our Christmas Pantomime in December.

Lastly, how have you been spending your lockdown time at home? Could you share some interesting anecdotes?

We had given our maid paid leave before the curfew on the first Sunday. I told her I value her life and so to remain indoors with her family, and yes we will pay her salary as I want her to return after all this is over!

We have two 90-year-olds living with us. My mom whos young at 95 and my father-in-law who is 90 are in lockdown with us. Ive always cooked every meal in our home and so that hasnt changed! Except for the absence of my sou chef!

We had just finished renovations and painting our home the night before that first curfew. So, we have had all this time to sort out, thoroughly clean and put things away! This has kept us very busy. Ive been reading a lot but not writing much. However, I intend to work on my manuscripts! Ive also been watching various productions beamed across the internet. Theatre even on a phone is so entertaining, even if one cant go out to see the real shows!

Its quite interesting to have two 90-year-olds living with us. It leads to much humour. The other day at lunch-time my mom who had woken up from a short nap asked if it was morning and time for breakfast! And I had made pancakes with jam and honey that morning for breakfast!And from the other room, there was this call, Jayraj! Jayraj! Bread. B-R-E-A-D! Jayraj went in to ask. Appa! Why do you want bread? Appa promptly replies, You forgot to give me lunch. Im feeling hungry! Jayraj and I burst out laughing. Heres one of them thinking it was morning and the other one thinking it was night, when in fact it was lunchtime! It must be confusing because we are at home all the time!

Ive been keeping myself amused making videos of all my quick recipes and sharing my menus and recipes with everyone. This way I really dont mind producing meal after meal and getting creative with whatever ingredients I can find in my kitchen.

Also, there is this kite who comes every day and sits outside my bedroom window. It gives a distinctive cry when it reaches its perch. Its a game between us. As soon as I hear it, I try to take a picture. Its very amusing. I gingerly lift the curtain. Once it looked at me straight with its startled big gooey eyes; even I got a shock and couldnt stop laughing. Another time it had its wings stretched out with its head resting on its right shoulder while sunning itself facing our window. As soon as I lifted the curtain, oh so gently, it opened its eyes wide and flew away in a matter of seconds! Again I was in splits of laughter. Couldn't capture that frame, but that funny startled look is engraved in my mind forever. It was hilarious! I will persist on getting a shot of this amusing quick-as-lightning kite!

I havent gone past my front door in one month. It is going to feel very strange when I eventually do step out. I guess everyone will feel socially awkward after this period of social distancing!

You can contact the writer atkaran.pillai@newindianexpress.com or follow him on Twitter@karan_pillai

Follow this link:

Our forthcoming shows will be dedicated to the memory of those who have lost their lives Aysha Rau, The Little Theatre, Chennai - Indulgexpress

If you're looking to change your internet provider, or are considering increasing your internet speed, it's always a good idea to know where you currently stand. That way, you'll be able to better understand what you want and need from a new internet plan.

Google offers a simple and fast tool for doing this, and all you have to do is complete a simple Google search to start.

The test measures your speed by measuring the amount of data that can move through your internet connection. It takes about 30 seconds to complete, and your results are given in terms of megabits per second, or Mbps. The higher your Mbps count, the better.

For reference, the FCC's standard for a fast internet connection is at least 25 Mbps for downloads, and 3 Mbps for uploads. This test can measure connections of up to 700 Mbps.

You may also see a "Latency" reading. This is a measure of how quickly you get a response from your server, and is given in milliseconds, or ms. Here, the lower your number, the better.

Here's how to test how fast your internet speed is.

Before you run the test, you should know that doing so requires sharing your IP address with M-Lab, which Google has partnered with to produce the test.

1. Go to Google and search for "internet speed test."

2. At the top of the search results will be a box labeled "Internet speed test." Click the blue "Run Speed Test" button at the bottom of this box.

This test will be the first result. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

3. A new pop-up will appear with a speedometer, like the type you'd see in a car. The test will begin measuring your download speed, followed by your upload speed. You don't have to do anything.

Your internet speed will be analyzed. Devon Delfino/Business Insider

4. Once the test is finished, your results will be displayed.

Note that when you take this test, your IP address will be shared with Google and M-Lab, the company that runs this test. There's no real security threat here both companies keep their data incredibly secure, and even if someone were to find your IP address, there's nearly no chance that they could use it in a malicious way.

Also keep in mind that your internet speed is constantly changing, depending on how close you are to your router, how many devices are on the network, and how much data you're currently using.

Taking the test while you're alone in your house will give you higher results than taking the test while five people stream Netflix, for example.

For information on what sort of internet speeds you need, check out our article, "'What is a good internet speed?': The internet speeds you should aim for, based on how you use the internet."

Read the original here:

How to tell how fast your internet speed is using a free and accurate speed test - Business Insider - Business Insider