Ever wondered, to what extent the wildlife photographers go to click pictures and video shots with their camera plus with all the baggage they have to carry with themselves. Well, they need to be extra careful whenever they are capturing pictures of wild animals like lion, tiger and among others who can be unpredictable at a time when you think they are just roaming around.

Such an incident happened to a photographer when she dropped her camera by chance and a saucy lioness took it away and gave the next level to let the humankind see.

The photographer’s name is Barbara Jensen Vorster who dropped her in Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana when she was shooting at a natural reserve with a Canon 7D and Canon 100-400mm lens — a camera kit worth over $2,000! Luckily, the photographer had an extra camera to shoot the whole incident. The lioness took the lens in her mouth and carried it away to her cubs and let them play with a camera worth $2000.

Taking to her Instagram, Barbara wrote talking about this incident, “#africaforever #canon #canonphotography #mashatu #c4 #janetkleyn #shemcompion #lions What happens if you have to many gadgets and you drop your Canon 7D with 100-400 on the ground at a lion sighting. There were cubs and she was not impressed with us. She approached and we had to reverse. She gently flipped the camera over and picked it up. She carried it for quite a way and the dropped it for the cubs to play with. We could retrieve the camera it is very dirty but appears to still work. It wrapped it in a Maasai shuka & will take it to Canon …. priceless experience”.

Take a look at her post:

“As soon as one lioness heard the thud, she looked up, growled and approached the vehicle. We had to reverse without attempting to retrieve it.”
“The camera fell with the lens looking up, she gently flipped the camera on its side and picked it up by the barrel of the lens,” Vorster told The Daily Mail.

Post this, she found the abandoned camera which is working properly with some scratches at the surface. The camera was “very dirty but appears to still work,” Vorster says. “There are two huge teeth marks on the rubber focus rings of the lens and small teeth marks on the plastic lens hood, both of which I decided not to replace.”

Published by Soniya Kaur on 16 Sep 2018

Seven feet of Christmas cheer: For $115, Amazon will be more than happy to deliver a Douglas Fir to your front door. Just be sure to tip the delivery driver if you live at the top of a four-flight walk-up.

$60: Want to “Switch” up your gaming experience? Now you can relive the nostalgia — and hand-cramping ergonomics — of the original NES controllers with the new generation of Nintendo console!

$1,100: The Xs Max only $300 more than last year’s flagship Apple phone. What’s the big deal? It’s not like you’re going to trade it in for an updated model exactly 11 months and three weeks from now.

10,000: Spotify finally, finally got around to loosening its chokehold on the number of songs its users can download for offline playback and did so in a big way this week. The company announced that it would effectively triple the cap, jumping from 3,333 songs up to a cool 10,000. Because who doesn’t love round numbers?

300 MBPS: If you want those Spotify downloads to finish up before New Years, Verizon has a solution. The company announced this week that come October 1st, it will roll out its 5G home internet bundle. The service will set you back $70 a month, though existing Verizon customers will receive a $20 discount.

$6: All these new toys and trees and connectivity are enough to make one forget to eat. Luckily for New Yorkers, Walmart is relaunching Jet.com and its three-hour fresh grocery deliveries. Never leave your house.

First!: But I mean if you were going to leave your house, being the first person to ride on SpaceX’s new “around the moon” orbital jaunt would be a pretty good reason to do so.

JEFFERSON CITY, MO. — 

The fate of a Missouri nail manufacturer suffering under President Donald Trump’s steel tariffs has put Republican Senate candidate Josh Hawley in a bind between his support for the president’s trade strategy and a local plant that says it could be forced to close.

Mid Continent Nail Corporation says it could shutter its Poplar Bluff plant, which employs about 335 workers, as early as this month without an exemption to tariffs, the site’s Operations General Manager Chris Pratt told reporters in early September. The company previously had said that it might not survive through Labor Day but stayed open.

After Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on imported steel, the company in June cut 60 of 500 positions at the plant in rural Butler County, where the unemployment rate is above the national average and the company is the area’s second-largest employer. Pratt said many employees also have left because of the uncertainty, and the company is not replacing those workers.

“Right now we’re counting on Josh Hawley, who says he has a good relationship with President Trump, to save the 500 jobs in Poplar Bluff, Missouri,” Pratt said after Labor Day.

Trump imposed tariffs in March, saying a reliance on imported metals threatened national security. He initially exempted Canada, Mexico and the European Union to buy time for trade negotiations, but tariffs for those countries took effect in May after talks stalled.

Mid Continent is owned by Deacero, a private Mexican company, which supplies steel for the nails made in Missouri. Company spokeswoman Elizabeth Heaton said nails are sold throughout the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean and used for industrial pallets, crating for transportation and residential construction.

Hawley, the state attorney general, and Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill are sparring in one of the most closely-watched Senate races in the nation, with Republicans’ 51-49 majority at stake on November 6. Both candidates visited the plant after tariffs began and both say they’re fighting for Mid Continent, but the issue is more delicate for Hawley.

Missouri is one of several Senate races including North Dakota, Indiana and Montana, where Republican candidates are on the defensive as trading partners retaliate against agricultural and manufacturing products from the U.S. in response to Trump’s tariffs.

In Missouri, Hawley says he supports Trump’s goal of getting tough with trading partners to get better deals for the U.S. and urges patience to see results from the negotiations. The Trump administration recently said it reached a deal with Mexico to update the North American Free Trade Agreement and is now negotiating with Canada to finalize it.

In an August letter to Deacero, Hawley says the company makes a strong case for an exemption and urges the Department of Commerce to grant it quickly.

But an exemption is unlikely to be granted quickly. The federal government has been deluged with requests for exemptions, the process is slow and some U.S. steel producers have objected to Mid Continent getting favorable treatment, saying the company could switch to U.S. suppliers.

Pratt said the plant also buys American steel, but he said there’s not enough to meet the company’s needs and noted that domestic prices rose steeply with the tariffs.

Hawley has also put pressure on the plant’s Mexican parent company to keep it open.

“As a company with a global presence and many locations, Deacero is clearly not struggling to make ends meet,” Hawley wrote in the letter. “The reality is that Deacero can afford to keep the factory open, and in turn, help keep men and women employed who simply want to do right by their families and earn a living.”

Democrat McCaskill has gone on the attack over the company’s plight, highlighting Mid Continent Nail during a June U.S. Senate hearing, pushing for the exemption and holding an August hearing in St. Louis to listen to concerns from Missouri businesses.

Instead of tariffs, McCaskill has advocated joining U.S. allies to take a stand against China’s unfair trade practices and spending more money to enforce current trade laws through the United States International Trade Commission.

In a recent Facebook post, she used the tariffs as an example to paint Hawley as a rubber stamp to Trump.

“All across the state, farmers and manufacturers are telling me how they’re being hurt by this trade war. That’s why I’m calling for it to end,” McCaskill wrote. “Hawley is supporting it because he doesn’t want an inch of daylight between him and President Trump.”

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In July 2015, during the heavy rains in Mumbai, a boy named Prakash Bilhore was just 16-year-old when he lost his life. Its been three years now his family is still saddened by this that changed his mother-fathers life forever.

For the love of his son Prakash, his father Dadarao Bilhore fill the potholes on the roads make them smooth so that no one crashes with the potholes that took his son’s lives. Till now, Dadarao has filled more than 600 potholes in the city.

image source

According to a leading daily, AFP, his son was sitting in the back seat of the motorcycle which hit a deep pothole, sending him flying off the vehicle. Also, Prakash who was not wearing a helmet suffered a fatal brain damage. His father said, “Prakash’s sudden passing away left a huge void in our lives. I do this work to remember and honour him.”

“I also don’t want anyone else to lose a loved one like we have,” Mr. Bilhore tells AFP at the modest apartment where he lives with his wife, daughter and extended family.

A leading daily, AFP shared a video on Twitter and wrote, “In tribute to his dead son, one of thousands lose their life due to potholes in India’s financial capital, Mumbai resident Dadarao Bilhore has filled in almost 600 potholes”

Take a look at the video:

VIDEO: In tribute to his dead son, one of thousands killed in pothole accidents in India’s financial capital, Mumbai resident Dadarao Bilhore has filled in almost 600 potholes https://t.co/8p4Jw0zm03 pic.twitter.com/cWMahqOynR

— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 14, 2018

Till now, we came across the daily news which we heard or read that potholes are very common taking lives of many people. The Government’s statistics show that potholes were responsible for the loss of lives of 3,597 people last year all over India which is an average of 10 per day.

A campaign is underway to have Mumbai featured in the Guinness Book of Records as the city with the most potholes, according to the indiatimes.com.

We salute Dadarao Bilhore for initiative, strength, and with such a spirit he is doing the whole work.

Published by Soniya Kaur on 16 Sep 2018

Facebook is advertising for a human rights policy director to join its business, located either at its Menlo Park HQ or in Washington DC — with “conflict prevention” and “peace-building” among the listed responsibilities.

In the job ad, Facebook writes that as the reach and impact of its various products continues to grow “so does the responsibility we have to respect the individual and human rights of the members of our diverse global community”, saying it’s:

… looking for a Director of Human Rights Policy to coordinate our company-wide effort to address human rights abuses, including by both state and non-state actors. This role will be responsible for: (1) Working with product teams to ensure that Facebook is a positive force for human rights and apply the lessons we learn from our investigations, (2) representing Facebook with key stakeholders in civil society, government, international institutions, and industry, (3) driving our investigations into and disruptions of human rights abusers on our platforms, and (4) crafting policies to counteract bad actors and help us ensure that we continue to operate our platforms consistent with human rights principles.

Among the minimum requirements for the role, Facebook lists experience “working in developing nations and with governments and civil society organizations around the world”.

It adds that “global travel to support our international teams is expected”.

The company has faced fierce criticism in recent years over its failure to take greater responsibility for the spread of disinformation and hate speech on its platform. Especially in international markets it has targeted for business growth via its Internet.org initiative which seeks to get more people ‘connected’ to the Internet (and thus to Facebook).

More connections means more users for Facebook’s business and growth for its shareholders. But the costs of that growth have been cast into sharp relief over the past several years as the human impact of handing millions of people lacking in digital literacy some very powerful social sharing tools — without a commensurately large investment in local education programs (or even in moderating and policing Facebook’s own platform) — has become all too clear.

In Myanmar Facebook’s tools have been used to spread hate and accelerate ethic cleansing and/or the targeting of political critics of authoritarian governments — earning the company widespread condemnation, including a rebuke from the UN earlier this year which blamed the platform for accelerating ethnic violence against Myanmar’s Muslim minority.

In the Philippines Facebook also played a pivotal role in the election of president Rodrigo Duterte — who now stands accused of plunging the country into its worst human rights crisis since the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s and 80s.

While in India the popularity of the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging platform has been blamed for accelerating the spread of misinformation — leading to mob violence and the deaths of several people.

Facebook famously failed even to spot mass manipulation campaigns going on in its own backyard — when in 2016 Kremlin-backed disinformation agents injected masses of anti-Clinton, pro-Trump propaganda into its platform and garnered hundreds of millions of American voters’ eyeballs at a bargain basement price.

So it’s hardly surprising the company has been equally naive in markets it understands far less. Though also hardly excusable — given all the signals it has access to.

In Myanmar, for example, local organizations that are sensitive to the cultural context repeatedly complained to Facebook that it lacked Burmese-speaking staff — complaints that apparently fell on deaf ears for the longest time.

The cost to American society of social media enabled political manipulation and increased social division is certainly very high. The costs of the weaponization of digital information in markets such as Myanmar looks incalculable.

In the Philippines Facebook also indirectly has blood on its hands — having provided services to the Duterte government to help it make more effective use of its tools. This same government is now waging a bloody ‘war on drugs’ that Human Rights Watch says has claimed the lives of around 12,000 people, including children.

Facebook’s job ad for a human rights policy director includes the pledge that “we’re just getting started” — referring to its stated mission of helping  people “build stronger communities”.

But when you consider the impact its business decisions have already had in certain corners of the world it’s hard not to read that line with a shudder.

Citing the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (and “our commitments as a member of the Global Network Initiative”), Facebook writes that its product policy team is dedicated to “understanding the human rights impacts of our platform and to crafting policies that allow us both to act against those who would use Facebook to enable harm, stifle expression, and undermine human rights, and to support those who seek to advance rights, promote peace, and build strong communities”.

Clearly it has an awful lot of “understanding” to do on this front. And hopefully it will now move fast to understand the impact of its own platform, circa fifteen years into its great ‘society reshaping experience’, and prevent Facebook from being repeatedly used to trash human rights.

As well as representing the company in meetings with politicians, policymakers, NGOs and civil society groups, Facebook says the new human rights director will work on formulating internal policies governing user, advertiser, and developer behavior on Facebook. “This includes policies to encourage responsible online activity as well as policies that deter or mitigate the risk of human rights violations or the escalation of targeted violence,” it notes. 

The director will also work with internal public policy, community ops and security teams to try to spot and disrupt “actors that seek to misuse our platforms and target our users” — while also working to support “those using our platforms to foster peace-building and enable transitional justice”.

So you have to wonder how, for example, Holocaust denial continuing to be being protected speech on Facebook will square with that stated mission for the human rights policy director.

At the same time, Facebook is currently hiring for a public policy manager in Francophone, Africa — who it writes can “combine a passion for technology’s potential to create opportunity and to make Africa more open and connected, with deep knowledge of the political and regulatory dynamics across key Francophone countries in Africa”.

That job ad does not explicitly reference human rights — talking only about “interesting public policy challenges… including privacy, safety and security, freedom of expression, Internet shutdowns, the impact of the Internet on economic growth, and new opportunities for democratic engagement”.

But among the role’s listed responsibilities is working with Facebook’s Politics & Government team to “promote the use of Facebook as a platform for citizen and voter engagement to policymakers and NGOs and other political influencers”. So here it looks to be continuing its ‘business as usual’ strategy of pushing for more political activity to take place on Facebook.

If Facebook wants an accelerated understanding of human rights issues around the world it might be better advised to take a more joined up approach to human rights across its own policy staff board, and at least include it among the listed responsibilities of all the policy shapers it’s looking to hire.

We’ve asked Amazon if it can comment on the decision.

AFTVnews speculated that it may have to do with the unconventional connection. Amazon switched to a WiFi Direct connection for the second-generation controller in order to reduce lag (all-important for game sessions), but it was both unconventional and complex. Your Fire TV would show up as a WiFi hotspot, for example, even though it was just waiting for a Game Controller. This may be an attempt to simply things and steer users toward Bluetooth controllers (which still work), or a recognition that the Fire TV isn’t the gaming machine Amazon hoped it would be.

Farmers may be among the hardest hit by Hurricane Florence, which is hit at a particularly bad time and is pouring rain on some of the most important agricultural areas of the Carolinas. VOA spoke with one North Carolina farmer, who says the rain is damaging his cash crop.

Apple’s upcoming iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max devices will be the company’s first handsets to support dual-SIM capabilities, as was widely predicted earlier this year.

If you’re a U.S. customer, you may be wondering why you’d want a dual-SIM phone — it just hasn’t taken off here in the States. But in many regions around the world, smartphone owners frequently have two SIM cards (and two cellular lines) installed on their devices.

In India, 98 percent of iPhones are dual-SIM. It’s 92 percent in the Philippines and 90 percent in China. But in the U.S., it’s just 4 percent, according to IDC.

Many of the markets where dual-SIM phones are common are becoming critical for Apple and other handset makers. Because of that, Apple adding dual-SIM capabilities to its own devices was basically an inevitability.

Benefits range from having two phone numbers on a single device (like a work and home number) to being able to easily switch to an international travel SIM. You can read more about the advantages of dual-SIM smartphones here.

Of course, Apple’s dual-SIM capable phones don’t actually have two SIM trays like many Android models do. Instead, the new iPhones will have a single nano SIM slot but can support an additional cellular line through the use of the company’s proprietary eSIM technology.

It’s worth noting that eSIM technology isn’t available in China yet (with a couple citywide exceptions), where dual-SIM smartphones are massively popular. Because of that, Apple is launching an exclusive model with two physical SIM slots in that market.

Other regions will get the eSIM-equipped iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. But at launch, that list of “other regions” isn’t going to be all that big.

Currently, there are only ten countries that support Apple’s eSIM technology:

• Austria
• Canada
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Germany
• Hungary
• India
• Spain
• United Kingdom
• United States

Of course, availability varies depending on your carrier. In the U.S., for example, there are some carriers that don’t support eSIM — namely Sprint and many smaller or regional telecom firms.

For new iPhone owners in China, dual-SIM capabilities will be available at launch thanks to the two physical card slots. But for eSIM-equipped iPhone owners, Apple says the functionality will launch in an update to iOS 12 later this fall.

As before, LanzaTech’s particular approach to jet fuel helps the planet both through its composition and how it’s obtained. The company captures waste gas from steel mills and converts it into an ethanol that puts up to 65 percent less carbon into the atmosphere. It’s not only reducing the immediate impact of the fuel, it’s cutting pollution at the mills.

You’ll have to be patient if you want to see airlines adopting this on a wide basis. While the fuel should be “competitive” with conventional options, there’s still some work to be done before it’s useful for airlines around the globe — and even then, it’s only estimated to produce “nearly one fifth” of aviation fuel used in a given year. Nonetheless, it could be important for reducing the impact of airliners until electric aircraft are good enough to start replacing existing fleets.

Apple has now launched its new mobile phone- iPhone XR which will give many people a feel like they are using a default iPhone. With the lower price and some same features, this new iPhone XR has a similar design with iPhone XS model which is much more expensive. iPhone XR is considerably lower at prices plus features.

The display of iPhone XR has a display of 6.1-inch LCD with a print at the top. iOS always offers a very nice display LCD which led the company as well. If you look closely at the top notch and the rounded corners gave a little different look to this new iPhone. This features preserves the look of iPhone XR full-screen pattern.

It shares many notable features with the new XS but there is 3D touch is removed in the XR which iPhone users will surely miss. This time Apple is giving a variety of vibrant colours which includes blood red, dark peach, sky blue, black and white obviously and consumers are going to love this. The XR missing the stainless steel frame like the XS, but it still has an aluminium frame and glass sandwich design. It is lighter than XS for sure and people will buy it if they don’t care about the other features like dual cameras and 3D Touch.

It’s like last year when iPhone 8 compared with X.

iPhone XR has Apple’s new A12 Bionic processor inside and it is the same chip used in more expensive models. It has also IP67 water resistance, a battery that lasts long one and a half which is longer than last year’s iPhone 8 Plus, and a single 12-megapixel camera which has also blurring effects. And for the very first time, Apple is giving dual sim feature.

It will available in the market from October for $749 which is Rs.55,000 with 64GB of storage. 128GB and 256GB of storage Apple iOS are available in the market.

Published by Soniya Kaur on 15 Sep 2018

The iNEXT is the latest iteration of BMW’s “project i” which was started back in 2013 and has since spawned models like the i3 and i5, hence the naming scheme. This new model is an SAV (Sports Activity Vehicle), that takes the idea of “state of the art” and runs with it. Or, at least it will in 2021 when BMW expects “the car we know today as BMW iNEXT will come onto the market.”

The demo vehicle that BMW showed off, as it made its San Francisco stop during a 4-city teaser tour, looked like it had driven straight out of San Angeles. The exterior was all angles and planes with a matte finish that melded from copper, on the hood, to rose gold on the rear spoiler.

Given the iNEXT’s electric powertrain, the front grille has been replaced with a beaver tooth (or rather “kidney-shaped” according to the press release) front plate, the cabin floor is completely flat allowing for a variety of seat layouts. It’s not that they’re really needed, the top half of the iNEXT’s front seats flip back 90 degrees on command to facilitate conversations with the rear passengers (read: better to threaten your kids with turning this car around if they don’t stop the horseplay already.)

Since the interior floor of the vehicle is flat (thanks to the underlying layer of Li-ion batteries), BMW’s design team sought to imagine the interior of the vehicle as the “Favorite Space” you’d want to be. As such, they incorporated a number of aspects from what you’d find in the modern living room into the vehicle’s passenger cabin.

The vehicle interior that BMW envisions somehow manages to blend bleeding edge of modern technology with your grandmother’s living room. There is no instrument console. Instead it’s been replaced with a pair of exceedingly large touchscreen displays that span the length of the dashboard. They need a sneeze guard, but that’s a different matter entirely. The left panel, dubbed “Boost,” displays relevant telemetry data while the right panel, “Ease”, serves more as a smart planning coordinator, allowing you to check the state of your smart home security or the state of your social schedule.

The steering wheel totally does the Demolition Man thing where you can say “BMW, let me drive” and the steering wheel’s outer ring expands to a comfortable circumference for human hands. If the driver wishes to let the level 3 autonomous driving system (that means you can take your hands off the wheel and look away from the road for a while — but no napping) take over, they simply have to tap the emblem in the center of the steering wheel. BMW hopes to eventually upgrade the on-board autonomous systems to level 4 when more expansive parts of the US highway infrastructure come into regulatory code.

The center console was a juxtaposition of teal and walnut, the front seats a riot of peach, mid-century and modern aesthetics battering themselves at loggerheads. The back seats were splayed out as a single sheet of jacquard material, which presumably will be waterproofed since dear god can you just imagine what your kids will do to it and the integrated touchscreens.

Oh, right, the back seats in the iNEXT have integrated touch screens that controlled the sound system. Simply draw a musical note on a specific section of the seat and the radio turns on. Spread your thumb and forefinger to turn up the volume, squeeze them together to turn it down.

The integrated seat controls are part of the iNEXT’s “Shy Tech” system, essentially smart screens that are only visible to the user when they need to be. With the sound system touchpad, for example, its LED only lights up and the system activates when the user draws the proper pattern. While the current iteration is only applicable to fabric-based interfaces, the BMW design team hopes to eventually expand the functionality out to wood or other kinds of cloth.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take the iNEXT for a test drive. Namely because BMW held the entire press event on a remote SFO airfield aboard a Lufthansa-branded Boeing 777 cargo jet with the prototype already loaded aboard. Yeah, we stood in a plane to get pitched on a car.

The design team was understandably mum on when, or even if, many of these features will make it into other production models but I for one hope they do. Because if you’re going to hand your life over to a robot chauffeur on the open road, you may as well do it in a cabin that mirrors your Nana’s sitting room. That’s living on the edge.

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges Friday in connection with his past lobbying efforts on behalf of Ukraine. As part of the plea deal, Manafort has also agreed to cooperate in the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election led by special counsel Robert Mueller. VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.

Twenty-five years after Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo Peace Accords that raise hopes for a comprehensive settlement, experts say peace in the Middle East is as elusive as ever. And as VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, some of those experts caution that the Trump administration has lost the trust of Palestinians to be an honest broker in the conflict through several recent actions.

“Insatiable,” the Netflix comedy about an overweight high school girl who suddenly becomes slim and beautiful thanks to having her jaw wired shut for a summer, has been drawing controversy ever since its first trailer went online.

The reviews for the show were almost uniformly negative, yet they didn’t quite prepare me for the terribleness of the initial episodes, which alternate between feeble attempts to mine humor from hot-button issues like sexual assault and suicide, and even feebler attempts to treat those issues seriously.

To help me figure out just what makes this show so bad, I was joined by Original Content‘s original co-host, Darrell Etherington. Our ultimate question: Is this the worst thing we’ve watched for the podcast? (Yes.)

We also discuss the fact that Henry Cavill has been cast as the lead in Netflix’s adaptation of the “Witcher” video game franchise.

This episode was actually recorded more than a week ago, but I didn’t get time to edit it until after Disrupt SF. So much has happened since then — like “The Witcher”‘s showrunner leaving Twitter and Cavill apparently departing the role of Superman. (Plus, somehow, “Insatiable” has been renewed for a second season.) Still, the initial news gave us an opportunity to weigh the relative merits of the “Mission Impossible” movies, and to discuss my favorite subject, Superman’s invisible mustache in “Justice League”.

You can listen in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You also can send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)

Contrary to earlier reports and analyst predictions, Apple’s new iPhone XS flagship did not see a $100 price drop from the last generation.

Instead, the iPhone XS starts at $999 — the same retail price as its predecessor. The larger-bodied, 6.5-inch OLED iPhone XS Max retails for $100 more at a new $1,099 price tier.

That means the most expensive stock iPhone you can buy from Apple in the U.S. is now the 512-gigabyte iPhone XS Max. The device will cost U.S. consumers $1,449.

But, of course, consumers in other countries will typically pay more money for the newest iPhone than U.S. consumers, as we saw with last year’s iPhone X. That’s largely due to international currency valuations and import fees.

It’s worth noting that many countries, unlike the U.S., include sales tax in the final cost. While sales tax varies depending on the state, U.S. consumers can expect to pay (at most) about $1,099 for an iPhone XS once the tax has been applied.

While not true across the board, in some countries, you’ll be paying a lot more for a new top-tier iPhone XS Max. For example, that device retails for a staggering $1,971 in Italy.

The Verge on Thursday published this handy table showing what the top-tier iPhone costs around the world, compared to the base tier and iPhone XS Max and the iPhone X at its launch.

How Much the
iPhone XS Max Costs
Around the World

On the other hand, the publication notes that international iPhone pricing appears to have “settled” a bit in certain countries — particularly on those that paid the most for the 2017 iPhone X.

In Russia, the iPhone XS retails for $1,292, an actual $100 price drop from how much the iPhone X cost last year at launch.

The iPhone X sparked criticism last year because of its high price compared to other devices, but it appears that the entire industry is moving toward Apple’s premium tier. Last month, Samsung debuted its latest Galaxy Note 9 phablet at $999.

Of course, Apple also debuted the iPhone XR this year — a mid-range handset that still manages to sport many of the premium tier features of the iPhone XS. That device starts at $749, pitting it more closely against flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S9.

We all work to earn money and also gain a certain amount of experience which takes us to next level of successs. A job is an important aspect of one’s life which keeps one going on and one and achieve everything once they had desired for. Be it buying the smallest thing or the largest, having a good job with a decent pay package makes all your dreams come true.

In India, work conditions are quite different from that of other countries. Be it pay package or work conditions, it is very different and way too hectic than the rest of the countries.

Image Source 

Well, after hectic weekdays, we all need a weekend to relax and spend some quality time with themselves or with their family. This is a basic need which every Indian employee wants. Unfortunately, there are many who are not blessed with such work conditions and need to work on weekends. This is really frustrating and nothing can be done about it.

So, if you are facing the same condition, you are among the 69 per cent full-time Indian employees who are willing to work five days a week. A recent survey done by an international workforce management company reveals that India is the hardest working country. Some survey done in countries like the US, Canada, Germany, Mexico, France, Australia and the UK have some insightful revelations.

Image Source 

Mexico is a bit closer to India which has 43 per cent of workers satisfied with a five-day working schedule. Other countries like the US is at 27 per cent, Australia is at 19 per cent and France is at 17 per cent.

Published by Harmisha Chauhan on 15 Sep 2018

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This isn’t the first nationwide EAS test, but it is the first for WEA — it’ll be crucial to showing that the mobile-oriented system can work as effectively as conventional TV- and radio-based alerts on such a large scale. And to no one’s surprise, FEMA and the FCC are taking great pains to notify people in advance and avoid the chaos that stemmed from Hawaii’s false missile alert.

In some ways, the test might be a sign of things to come. Senators recently put forward a bill that would reduce the chances of false alarms, add alerts to streaming services, eliminate opt-outs for some federal-level notices and repeat alerts coming from either FEMA or the President. Simply speaking, these kinds of tests may be more frequent and widespread.

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The popular reality show- successfully completed its 11 seasons and all of them were most watched by the viewers. Once again, Dabangg Superstar Salman Khan is all set with Bigg Boss 12 which will broadcast on the Colors. With commoners, celebrities are going to be the contestants on the Bigg Boss 12. Well, be prepared guys because now you will hear those yelling, shouting, singing, dancing and all the drama again in the Bigg Biss again. Big Boss is coming up with next season- season 12, starting on 16 September and it is going to be much different than previous BB seasons.

Now, only one day is left for the premiere of BB 12. As for now, we know that cricketer Sreesanth, TV couple Dipika Kakkar-Shoaib Ibrahim, Neha Pendse, Anup Jalota, Gurmeet Choudhary-Debina are most likely to come up on the show. Recently, it is confirmed by the Colors TV that Sreesanth is going to be on the show for sure and it will be fun to know more the cricketer. Also, showing few promos on the Colors TV, Neha is also confirmed on the show.

Not only Colors confirmed the names of the celebs but also promos are out in which ex-Roadies contestants Kriti Verma and Surbhi Rana and commoners Mital Joshi and Roshmi Manik, friends turned enemies.

This makes sure that these vichitra jodis are going to give us some screaming headlines.

Other than this, earlier Salman has already announced in the grand press launch of Bigg Boss 12 in Goa. His first couple contestant is none other than laughter queen Bharti Singh with hubby Harsh Limbachiyaa. Everyone is excited and curious as well to know the rest of the contestants and every other detail of the show. There are some other names also that are being speculated for the show like Shaleen Bhanot, Dipika Kakar, Karanvir Bohra, Ssumier Pasricha, British adult star Danny D, and Mahika Sharma.

Published by Soniya Kaur on 15 Sep 2018

In the case of FH4, watching players on Microsoft’s Mixer streaming platform (with an account linked to your Xbox gamertag) will add some of the game’s “Influence” points to your account every five minutes, and if you’re a streaming it for others to watch the bonuses come in every two minutes. The game won’t be released until September 28th (Ultimate Edition) or October 2nd (everyone else) on Xbox One and PC, but the credits can be earned now via the demo that dropped this week.

Now that Microsoft owns a livestreaming platform of its own and the popularity of streams affects sales, it’s unlikely this is the last time we’ll see this kind of push. The only question now is whether it will become as annoying and potentially costly as the loot box craze (Forza doesn’t have any) of the last few years?

Play to Win!

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• Dual SIM (nano-SIM and eSIM)
• 4K video recording at 24 fps, 30 fps, or 60 fps
• 3D Touch
• TrueDepth camera with Face ID security.

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Fake social media profiles are useful for more than just sowing political discord among foreign adversaries, as it turns out. A group linked to the North Korean government has been able to duck existing sanctions on the country by concealing its true identity and developing software for clients abroad.

This week, the US Treasury issued sanctions against two tech companies accused of running cash-generating front operations for North Korea: Yanbian Silverstar Network Technology or “China Silver Star,” based near Shenyang, China, and a Russian sister company called Volasys Silver Star. The Treasury also sanctioned China Silver Star’s North Korean CEO Jong Song Hwa.

“These actions are intended to stop the flow of illicit revenue to North Korea from overseas information technology workers disguising their true identities and hiding behind front companies, aliases, and third-party nationals,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said of the sanctions.

As the Wall Street Journal reported in a follow-up story, North Korean operatives advertised with Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, solicited business with Freelance.com and Upwork, crafted software using Github, communicated over Slack and accepted compensation with Paypal. The country appears to be encountering little resistance putting tech platforms built by US companies to work building software including “mobile games, apps, [and] bots” for unwitting clients abroad.

The US Treasury issued its first warnings of secret North Korean software development scheme in July, though did not provide many details at the time. The Wall Street Journal was able to identify “tens of thousands” of dollars stemming from the Chinese front company, though that’s only a representative sample. The company worked as a middleman, contracting its work out to software developers around the globe and then denying payment for their services.

Facebook suspended many suspicious accounts linked to the scheme after they were identified by the Wall Street Journal, including one for “Everyday-Dude.com”:

“A Facebook page for Everyday-Dude.com, showing packages with hundreds of programs, was taken down minutes later as a reporter was viewing it. Pages of some of the account’s more than 1,000 Facebook friends also subsequently disappeared…

“[Facebook] suspended numerous North Korea-linked accounts identified by the Journal, including one that Facebook said appeared not to belong to a real person. After it closed that account, another profile, with identical friends and photos, soon popped up.”

Linkedin and Upwork similarly removed accounts linked to the North Korean operations.

Beyond the consequences for international relations, software surreptitiously sold by the North Korean government poses considerable security risks. According to the Treasury, the North Korean government makes money off of a “range of IT services and products abroad” including “website and app development, security software, and biometric identification software that have military and law enforcement applications.” For companies unwittingly buying North Korea-made software, the potential for malware that could give the isolated nation eyes and ears beyond its borders is high, particularly given that the country has already demonstrated its offensive cyber capabilities.

Between that and sanctions against doing business with the country, Mnuchin urges the information technology industry and other businesses to exercise awareness of the ongoing scheme to avoid accidentally contracting with North Korea on tech-related projects.