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WhatsApp Messenger is confirmed to be doubling the number of participants allowed in the group calls. With this, WhatsApp group calls will now support up to 8 people, up from four right now. The change was first spotted in the recent beta version of WhatsApp Messenger on both Android and iPhone, and now Facebook, the

Asteroids, like the planets, revolve around the Sun in our Solar System. They have been known to be a part of the Solar System since their origin. But for the first time ever, researchers have found a group of asteroids that originated from outside our Solar System. These interstellar asteroids are thought to have been

Facebook’s $5.7 billion (Rs. 43,574 crores) investment in Reliance promises to be the biggest headache yet for Paytm, a SoftBank-backed pioneer in India’s digital payments market but which has been losing ground to rivals with deeper pockets. Facebook’s WhatsApp, which has been working on gaining regulatory approval for payments services in India, is gearing up

LG Velvet, the redesigned smartphone from LG, has been in the news for a while now owing to leaks and teasers. Now the company shared a date for its unveiling, May 7, through a video invitation. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unveiling must be mindful of social distancing, to avoid the spread of coronavirus.

Amazon has launched a programme called ‘Local Shops on Amazon’ in India to scale its business and start selling goods directly from local shops. The new initiative, which is likely aimed at giving a tough fight to Reliance Retail’s JioMart and will make things difficult for Walmart-owned Flipkart, has already been piloted in the country

Workers in the port of Antwerp will begin testing wristbands next month developed by a Belgian technology company that could help guarantee the social distancing required during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rombit, also Antwerp-based, already supplies wearables resembling a sports watch that can warn workers if vehicles are approaching, provide an alert if someone falls into

Security experts at Alphabet’s Google have identified more than a dozen government-backed hacking groups using the COVID-19 pandemic as cover for phishing and malware attempts. Google said on Wednesday its Threat Analysis Group found hackers targeting international health organisations, including activity corroborating a Reuters report from early April that the World Health Organisation was targeted.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday released its recommendations on network testing before commercial launch of services for wireless access services. The salient features of recommendations as per the TRAI are -The TSP (telecom service provider) should be allowed to enroll test users in the testing phase to carry out the network

The government said Wednesday that it plans to manufacture thousands of wristbands that will monitor the locations and temperatures of coronavirus patients and help perform contact tracing. The wristband project aims to track quarantined patients and aid health workers and those delivering essential services. India is ramping up surveillance as it begins to ease one

Facebook will buy a 10 percent stake in the digital business of India’s Reliance Industries for Rs. 43,574 crores, as the social media firm looks to leverage its highly popular WhatsApp chat service to offer digital payment services. The deal will help the Indian conglomerate cut debt that has piled up in its expensive push

Hundreds of Amazon employees are expected to strike from Tuesday to protest conditions they say are unsafe and demand better protection in the workplace against the coronavirus pandemic. This is “the biggest mass action by workers yet, as frustrations mount around the company’s failure to protect workers and public health in the wake of the

Oppo last month unveiled the Oppo Find X2 series that included Oppo Find X2 and Find X2 Pro smartphones. The company recently launched a new addition to the series – Find X2 Lite in Portugal. Now, a Dutch retail website is indicating the addition of another Find X2 phone called the Oppo Find X2 Neo.

Oppo has added another smartphone to it’s ‘A’ series of phones with the announcement of the Oppo A52. The phone has been unveiled in China and is listed on the company website with only one RAM and storage configuration. But, there are two colour options. The Oppo A52 comes with four cameras on the back,

Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have gotten together again, this time to fight the spread of coronavirus pandemic in the United States. They have launched a website to show live data on the rate of spread of COVID-19 from one person to another. Their website RT.live uses data from The COVID Tracking Project,

With plunging occupancy rates due to COVID-19 lockdown, hotel chain and room aggregator Oyo said on Monday it is taking a series of measures to support asset owners in different regions of the country. A total of Rs. 24 crore discounts have been offered to over 3,000 Oyo partners to lessening the burden of payments

Alphabet’s Google said on Friday it will waive for the next five months the small fee it charges news publishers to decide which ads to show on their online properties. News publishers, especially the print media, have struggled as many advertisers pulled their marketing budgets to rein in costs because of economic uncertainty related to

A virtual concert packed with A-listers — from The Rolling Stones to Taylor Swift to Billie Eilish — entertained fans around the world with a show celebrating health workers, as billions shelter at home due to coronavirus. Lizzo, Jennifer Lopez, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and LL Cool J also joined in the Lady Gaga-curated online

Making the chief operating officer (COO) of firms such as Amazon and Flipkart responsible for strict implementation of social distancing and sanitisation norms and staff compulsorily downloading the Aarogya Setu app are among the measures proposed in the draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for e-commerce operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the government allowing e-commerce

Netflix has increased the amount of money in its coronavirus emergency relief fund by $50 million, bringing the total for displaced production workers to $150 million, a company spokeswoman said on Friday. Film and TV production has been shut down around the world as people shelter at home to help slow the spread of the

Airtel and Vodafone Idea have extended low income subscribers’ prepaid pack validity to May 3. This is due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis that has resulted in the entire nation practising social distancing. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), on the other hand, has extended validity for its subscribers till May 5. The telecom operators have

Flipkart has restarted smartphone selling in India. E-commerce giants had been limited to selling only essential goods after PM Modi announced a nationwide lockdown from March 25. However, the Indian government recently approved selling of smartphones online in India, and Flipkart has opened its mobiles category for orders. The company says that the mobiles category

NASA on Friday said its astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan returned to Earth, alongside Roscosmos’ Soyuz Commander Oleg Skripochka. The space agency said Morgan’s extended stay in space will help increase knowledge about how the human body responds to longer duration spaceflight, The space agency revealed the trio had departed the International Space Station

NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir will take an unusual – and more exhausting – route home after safely landing in the Kazakh steppe on Friday, a Russian healthcare official said, because of lockdowns caused by the novel coronavirus. A capsule carrying Morgan, Meir and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka touched down southeast of the

Apple recently unveiled its low-cost iPhone SE 2020 after much anticipation. The phone although retains the design seen in the old iPhone 8, it is powered by the new and powerful A13 Bionic chipset that is also used in the flagship iPhone 11 series. On the other hand, Samsung, which has been a strong competitor

Google has launched a new feature on YouTube to help students and educators who are stuck at home during lockdowns due to coronavirus outbreak. Dubbed as YouTube Learning, the new feature contains resources like curriculum-relevant topics in physics, math, and biology, language studies, study hacks, and much more, from YouTube’s education-focused creators. Users can access

Facebook announced Thursday its many users will see tailor-made warnings highlighting facts about the coronavirus pandemic, after being accused of failing to counter the spread of outlandish conspiracy theories. The leading social media platform has already been publishing fact-checking articles about the global outbreak through its partnerships with media organisations, including one with Agence France-Presse.

Google parent Alphabet Inc. is “significantly” slowing hiring for the remainder of the year, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told employees in an email on Wednesday. Here’s the full memo:     Hi everyone,     It’s now been well over two months since we closed the first [Google](https://gadgets.ndtv.com/google) offices in Asia out of an abundance of

Ola said on Wednesday it is partnering with Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to support essential mobility during COVID-19. Ola has provided a dedicated fleet of cars to BMC to help ferry medical staff, healthcare workers, and paramedical staff from homes to hospitals in Mumbai. The Ola cars will also be used to ferry doctors and

The government has decided to give some relaxation to the IT sector by allowing it to operate with 50 percent staff. According to the guidelines, companies in the information-technology business will be permitted to operate with 50 percent staff in the offices from April 20. India has been under lockdown since March 25. In an

India is currently under a state of complete lockdown till May 3. The government has ordered restriction of movement, except for emergencies and people providing essential services. These social distancing measures have been taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has been declared a global pandemic. To make sure the businesses