App of the Week: Fender Play – Guitar Lessons
Fender Play is a complete guitar, ukulele and bass learning app for anyone who wants to learn virtual music from an instructor, including players of all skill levels. With this app, you can learn at your own pace, on guided paths of lessons. The app has experienced instructors who can help you learn. Furthermore, you can customize your experience by diving deeper into lesson collections of artists, sub-genres, skills, techniques and more. Your guitar playing journey is never complete with new song lessons added weekly by popular artists like The Beatles, Green Day, and John Legend.
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Twitter Now Expands Hate Speech Rules
Twitter on Wednesday has expanded its policy excluding hateful speech to include “language that dehumanises people on the basis of race, ethnicity and national origin,” it said in a statement.
The company earlier banned speech that dehumanises others based on religion or caste last year and updated the rule in March to add age, disability and disease to the list of protected categories.
The organization Color of Change have been pushing tech companies to reduce hate speech online, called the changes “essential concessions” following years of outside pressure.
A spokeswoman to Twitter said the company had planned from the start to add new categories to the policy over time after testing to ensure it can consistently enforce updated rules.
In a statement, Color Of Change Vice President Arisha Hatch criticised Twitter for failing to update the policy before November’s presidential election, despite repeated warnings by the advocacy groups about violent and dehumanising speech.
“The jury is still out for a company with a spotty track record of policy implementation and enforcing its rules with far-right extremist users,” She said. “Void of hard evidence the company will follow through, this announcement will fall into a growing category of too little, too late PR stunt offerings.” She added.
Retail Giant Debenhams Collapses For Bankruptcy!
No more shopping from Debenhams retail outlets UK! On Tuesday, the Debenhams store chain collapsed, possibly striking the end of a business that was running for nearly two and a half centuries. The implosion was the collateral result of the collapse, one day previously, of Topshop owner Arcadia Group.
“The economic landscape is extremely challenging and, coupled with the uncertainty facing the UK retail industry, a viable deal could not be reached,” joint administrator at FRP Advisory, Geoff Rowley said in the statement.
In total, around 25,000 people are now at risk of losing their jobs in the middle of the pandemic of COVID-19.
However, Debenhams announced on their Instagram that their website will trade as usual and stores will be open in line with local Government guidance, and they are accepting orders and operating online.
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Two Chinese Smartphone Companies to Setup Manufacturing Plants in Pakistan
According to the recently signed agreement at the Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (FIEDMC) office. Two Chinese companies will establish a smartphone manufacturing plant in Faisalabad.
The agreement was signed between the Vice President VIVO Duam Tai Ping and Director Manufacturing Zhang Bin in the presence of Provincial Minister for Industry and Commerce Mian Aslam Iqbal, at the FIEDMC office.
Both the companies will be investing $10 million in the project initially, and the mobile phones will be manufactured locally. The manufacturing plants will be located at M3 Industrial Estate, Faisalabad.
The provincial minister welcomed the new development in the tech industry. He said that the local investors are turning towards Punjab due to the beneficial policies placed by the Punjab government. He further shared that it will help to attract major foreign investment, as Pakistan is the seventh largest importer of smartphones with a market size of over 40 million.
UK Bans Huawei 5G Network
Huawei in trouble as Digital Secretary Oliver Dowden recently announced in a statement that he was pushing for the “complete removal of high-risk vendors” from 5G networks. Banning the Chinese firm from the network.
Mr Dowden said that the “new and unprecedented powers” would allow government to “identify and ban telecoms equipment which poses a threat to our national security.”
“We are also publishing a new strategy to make sure we are never again dependent on a handful of telecoms vendors for the smooth and secure running of our networks,” he said.
“Our plans will spark a wave of innovation in the design of our future mobile networks,” Mr Dowden added.
In October 2018, BT Group announced that it had been phasing out Huawei equipment from “core” components of its wireless infrastructure (excluding parts such as phone mast antennas), including its 5G services.
In late November 2018, the New Zealand signals intelligence agency Government Communications Security Bureau also blocked the telecommunications company ‘Spark’ from using Huawei equipment in its planned 5G upgrade, claiming that it posed a “significant network security risk.” The NZ ban followed a similar ban in Australia in August 2018.
It follows months of political wrangling, both in the UK and internationally, over Huawei’s threat to security and its alleged links to the Chinese state.
Also read: NETFLIX CATCHING TROUBLES WITH UK GOVERNMENT
App of the Week: FitMind Mind Training App
What do you do when you feel anxious or you feel over the roof with anxiety and worked up emotions? The first very humane instinct is to breathe, stay calm. But have you ever thought if you make this a regular habit through an everyday session, you can change your lifestyle entirely? Meditation is one of the practices, which can help people with these anxiety attacks and problems. Allow us to discuss what Meditation is
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Amazon Apologizes to Customers as Users Received Cat Food Instead of Gaming Consoles
No PS5 for thanksgiving! Amazon users were rather shocked than surprised after receiving cat food and other stuff instead of their gaming consoles. The users have expressed concerns that their consoles were stolen, as demand for the PS5 is breaking records.
Amazon says they are “really sorry” following reports that customers who had pre-ordered the new PlayStation 5 instead received deliveries of cat food and a foot massager. Others reported to have received coffee maker instead.
“Similar thing happened to me except I receive a PlayStation 5 box but it was empty inside”, one user said, complaining that Amazon “have been no help won’t replace it or anything.”
“We’re all about making our customers happy, and that hasn’t happened for a small proportion of these orders. We’re really sorry about that and are investigating exactly what’s happened,” Amazon cleared.
“We’re reaching out to every customer who’s had a problem and made us aware so we can put it right. Anyone who has had an issue with any order can contact our customer services team for help.”
The PlayStation 5 has been in short supply due to no stock left in the inventory and elsewhere. Retailers including Currys PC World, Amazon, Game, and many others reported limited or no stock, with consoles selling out the moment they were available.
In Space: Seven New Cosmic Stars Discovered!
The astronomers from Toruń have successfully completed the survey of the Milky Way plane. They searched for gas clouds, where there was a maser reinforcement of the OH molecule.
They saw seven new sources each of them brings scientists closer to the process by which massive stars are born. “It is like listening to the buzzing of a mosquito during a loud concert,” said Prof. Anna Bartkiewicz.
At the beginning it is worth noting that the formation of high mass stars is a complex process, less recognized by scientists than the formation of solar type stars.
Dr. Wolak said, “Different types of particles send out radio waves at their own frequencies and this is how we can recognize them.”
“In some time, massive stars will become supernovae, black holes, the nuclei of the next generation of stars, or massive elements which give life as we know it. And we still do not know how such a star is born, we do not know its origins. Of course, there are a lot of theories, but it is difficult to examine them, which is why we use all the tools available to us, and so far, radio telescopes have proved their worth,” explains Dr. Wolak.
This success of the Toruń-based group of astronomers will be described in the prestigious Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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Russian Hackers Put the PIA Database Up For Sale on Dark Web!
A team of Israeli cybercrime researchers has revealed that Russian hackers have put up the Pakistan International Airlines’ (PIA) network access and database for sale on the dark web.
The firm KELA has not reported the incident to PIA directly due to the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries and made it public through relevant mediums instead.
According to KELA’s spokesperson they have been tracking the threat actor who published the domain access to PIA’s network for sale last week. He mentioned the possibility of a cryptoware attack on organizations whose network access has been put up on the dark web like this.
“Most of the time, we’re seeing cyber-criminals purchase these initial accesses to gain an initial foothold into the victim’s network, from which they can then perform the lateral movement to advance their access privileges and potentially employ ransomware or some other type of attack,” the spokesperson said.
“The actor mentioned that what he is selling includes around fifteen databases, all with different amounts of record — some around 500,000 records and some around 60,000–50,000 records — but that all the records stored in their network are included,” he added.
Sony PS5: “Absolutely everything is sold” – CEO Jim Ryan
It’s a bad news for all the gamers who were waiting for their Sony PS5 consoles. CEO Jim Ryan confirmed that the PlayStation 5 is completely sold out despite his best efforts to have enough stock, according to Russia’s Tass.
“Everything is sold. Absolutely everything is sold,” he said. “I’ve spent much of the last year trying to be sure that we can generate enough demand for the product. And now… I’m spending a lot more time on trying to increase supply to meet that demand.”
The biggest issue caused by the pandemic was in pre-production, according to Ryan. Because of travel and other restrictions, “we had to do all the manufacturing preparation by camera remotely,” he said. “I mean, just imagine that for a precision device like the PlayStation 5.”
Furthermore, he expressed his relief at the success of the console during a difficult year, but he added that the product and sales would have likely been the same! “The way we took it to market might have been a bit different, but the actual product would have been the same, we might have had a few more to sell, but not very many; the guys on the production/manufacturing side have worked miracles,” he concluded.
And now, we wait!