Samsung made a huge entry in budget level smartphone race with M10, M20, and M30 to give a tough time to its rivals. Samsung A20 received US FCC certification last week and now they have released an inferior version of the same, which is named A20e in Poland.

The new device is supported by TFT Infinity V 5.8 inches LCD display(720 x 1560px) and a dual rear camera with 13 megapixels primary sensor with f/1.9 aperture and a 5mp ultra-wide module with f/2.2 aperture for amazing shots and an 8 megapixels front camera f/2.0 for selfie lovers and if you love traveling and making videos, Samsung  A20e can record videos in 1080p @ 30 fps.

Unlike the other Samsung devices with an on-screen fingerprint reader, Samsung A20e comes with a fingerprint reader on the back for security along with the face unlock feature. The body build is made of plastic and under the hood, it is supported by Samsung’s own processor which is Exynos 7884 chipset 6 small and 2 big cores which also power the Samsung A20. 3 gigabits of ram and 32 GB of internal storage which is obviously expandable up to 512 gigabits with sd cards.

The device runs on Android version, not Android Go and it comes with a 3000mah battery capacity which is quite less compared to what other companies offer but it comes with an EP-TA200 charger that supports 15W fast charging. The price is yet to be announced by Samsung.

As per Microsoft’s promise, it will be getting Android notification mirroring which will let you see all your smartphone notifications on your desktop or laptop.

Microsoft is also adding a feature through which you will be able to send text messages through your desktop and mirror your phone’s screen on your desktop.

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The news of feature update comes from Microsoft’s blog update about the Windows insider build and will be rolled out to insiders using preview builds of 19H1 that is the may 2019 update well known as version 1903. The feature update will

• let you see the incoming notifications and events in real-time
• group all of the notifications of your phone in one place
• let you select which notifications to receive and which to skip
• let you wipe all of the notifications at once or individually.

via Microsoft’s blogThere are chances of this update being available to every user once the May update becomes stable.

When you connect Your phone app to your Android phone with your PC, it will begin installing an application in your Android device so that the notifications from your phone be available on your Desktop.

The notifications will pop up as a normal Window notification in the lower right corner of your Window screen and will be available in the action center also.

Earlier screen mirroring feature used to be a part of Cortana app so this feature is not actually new but has been reintroduced with Your phone app.

With the new update, Microsoft has also allowed phone screen mirroring for devices including, OnePlus 6, OnePlus 6T, Samsung Galaxy S10e, S10, S10+, Note 8, and Note 9. Though this feature needs a “Windows 10 PC with a Bluetooth radio supports the low energy peripheral role.” So if you have a phone that supports it, you also need to have a pc that supports the same.

The entry of tech giants in consumer finance was something that seemed almost bound to happen. There have been many cases of the tech giants that have waded into these shark infested water, it was never seen openly in the public domain.

All this one could say changed recently as we saw in Cupertino, California where Apple released their new credit card last month with a great deal of pomp. This was a pioneering move by both Apple and the industrious bank, Goldman Sachs who are one of the key partners in the deal.

In the announcement, one would not have known that Goldman Sachs had played such a major role in the decision when we saw the mere passing reference made to them as nothing more than a footnote in the event. The entire event was handled and hosted by Tim Cook the CEO of Apple Inc. as the CEO of Goldman Sachs stood on the sidelines and clapped while in truth he should have been proposing the plan along with Cook on stage.

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This entire situation is in a way satirical and almost accurate representation of what the market and Wall Street will be reduced to if in future they continue to collaborate with these technological giants.

However, the question that most people have on their minds is whether or not these banks are ready to sacrifice their place in the driver’s seat because of the millions of customers that partnership with these tech giants would bring them into their banks. This is is a dilemma that the banks clearly have to face where they lose something integral irrespective of the decision they make.

If they choose not to entertain the partnerships of these tech giants they lose out on an opportunity to have millions of new customers join them. But, if they do accept a partnership they seem to be taking a backseat in all the ventures and decisions and may just become another front for these extremely successful companies.

The tech companies also have a reason for needing these partnerships. As they enter the world of consumer finance these tech giants need these Wallstreet heavy hitters in order to navigate this new terrain. It is not all great news for the banks as mentioned earlier as if these deals are agreed upon the more lucrative facets of the company like the customer relations and branding will go to the tech companies. The stakes, however, are higher than they have ever been with almost 40% of the $1.35 trillion in revenues that will go to these companies like Amazon and Apple, and maybe also to price competition.

American tech companies are in a way looking to their Chinese counterparts like Alibaba and Tencent as inspiration, these companies have already become major players due to their mobile applications that have greatly increased their ease of transactions, investing and payments.

American companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple are not far behind as they have begun to encroach on the turf of the banks. Google has Google Pay, Apple has Apple Pay, Amazon has Amazon Cash and Amazon Pay with which customers shop online and even Facebook is looking to enable payments via Whatsapp. These tech giants are doing this in order to fuel their revenue growth and also help them strengthen their grip on the market.

All you have to do to get started is say “Hey Google, tell me a story” which brings you tales such as Let’s Be Firefighters and Robot Rampage. You can ask the Google Assistant narrate a bedtime story to help kids sleep well, and it does that simply.

Important: You have to have the Google Play Books’ latest version installed on your phone.

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Using this feature is not so difficult, you just have to teach your child to say “Hey Google, tell me a story” though kids of this generation already know a lot of features. Google Assistant will do its job and narrate a bedtime story for your children such as Let’s be firefighters, Tortoise, and the Hare and many more stories.

It also includes a feature of “read along” which will provide sound effects on Home smart speakers and the kids will read aloud. If you have a favorite audiobook of your child on google play, you can ask the Google assistant to read it out loud.

Buzzfeed recently published a controversial article which points out that several popular Android apps available on the Google Play Store have been collecting and storing user’s sensitive data without their permission and encryption.  This is alarming to most users as these are not the apps that are not popular, in fact, they are the most-downloaded apps on the Google Play Store mentioned in the report, they also happen to be developed by Chinese companies that may be sharing collected data with the Chinese government.

These are the apps that have been implicated in Buzzfeed’s investigation. If you have any of these installed on your phone, delete them right away:

• Selfie Camera
• Total Cleaner
• Smart Cooler
• RAM Master
• AIO Flashlight
• Omni Cleaner
• WaWaYaYa
• Emoji Flashlight
• Samsung TV Remote Control (via Peel Technologies, Inc.)

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However, as Buzzfeed’s investigated and it has pointed out, thse apps ask for various permissions that are “dangerous” permissions like access to phone sensors, location data, or personal contact information. These are a clear sign of suspicious apps.

Google has blacklisted six of the above apps Total Cleaner, Smart Cooler, Selfie Camera, RAM Master, AIO Flashlight, and Omni Cleaner in response to Buzzfeed’s reporting, and updated how it will evaluate permissions and developer accounts going forward.

But, even then, it seems to be far too easy for malicious developers to dupe the Google Play Store. Google has shown a sense of professionalism in removing these apps to ensure that the trust of the users is not lost.

With many versatile features, Xiaomi black shark’s sequel Black Shark 2 is here and In the box, you will get

• Black Shark 2
• Charger
• USB-C cable
• Slim case

Black Shark 2 doesn’t come with any gaming accessories like a controller and the box contains very basic smartphone accessories. The device doesn’t’ have a 3.5mm headphone jack and above those USB-C headphones are an optional purchase.

Moving towards the design and body, the device has gaming lights with 163.6mm x 75mm x 8.77mm body dimensions and a solid aluminum chassis and the front portion is of glass. The logo of Black shark is positioned in central and glows in 16.8 million colors as per Black Shark. You can choose the gaming smartphone from its two variant colors, Frozen silver, and shadow black.

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However, because of the aluminum chassis, the device seems bit heavy, thus you might feel the device bit heavy in your pocket while walking around.

The 3.5mm headphone jack is missing and the sim tray is at the bottom with 2 sim card support but no memory card support. Just like every other smartphone the rear camera are positioned in the exact same way.

Keep your phone away from water and wet hands as there’s no waterproofing and water resistance support.

Moving towards the display the device comes with a 6.39 inches screen full hd+ and AMOLED, 2,340 x 1,080 resolution, 430ppi, 19.5:9 aspect ratio, 430-nit brightness.

Customer’s complaint helped Black shark improve colors in the successor version providing more color accuracy. And for security, it provides face unlock and fingerprint reader which is nothing new.

Under the hood, it runs on Snapdragon 855 S0C with 2.8GHz octa-core, the 7nm process, 8 or 12GB of RAM which depends upon the users’ need and 128 or 256GB of storage with liquid cooling. The battery is a 4000 mah lithium-ion with Qualcomm quick charge 4.0 and sadly the device doesn’t support wireless charging.

Moving ahead on camera Black shark has a stunning camera. The rear camera has 48MP primary sensor, f/1.75 aperture, and 12MP 2x telephoto sensor, f/2.2 aperture while the front camera has a 20MP sensor, f/2.0 aperture and you can shoot video up to 4k.

The device runs on Android 9 with Joy UI as a skin. The device is available in U.K and Europe for 470 pounds which is equals to $ 625 which is value for money.

Recently the app witnessed an update and has now a material design like most of Google’s new app design. However, the update is not possible for each Android user.

The new design is eye confectionery with a white backdrop and the text is in Google Sans Font. The latest makeover of the application pushed away from the blue headings from the application and substituted it with Spend your credit.

By tapping on it you can go to the Google play store where you can spend your credits on any of the Google services whether it is an in-game purchase, renting a movie, purchasing an album or a single, and an application.

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The app automatically informs you when there is a survey available and will also show the validity of the survey. Although the credits which you receive comes with a validity of a year from the date you have received. iOS users don’t have to worry as they can transfer their opinion rewards directly into PayPal account as they cannot spend it on play store.

The new update makes the app look more impressive yet doesn’t increase the indications of you getting a survey, because it wholly depends upon how frequently do you use Google apps.

While recently being mentioned at the Android open source project discussion Google Pixel 4 reappears alongside Pixel 3a which is its sibling. Developer at Google stated that they have been working on new software on Pixel 3 which can be moved the upcoming flagship Pixel 4 also.

“The plan was to first deploy this on Pixel 3 and make sure that everything actually works. Then move on to Pixel 4 and so on. If I had a Pixel 4 device, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with 4.9 in the first place,” as reported by 9to5google

A new code change has been spotted by the same under the title “Disable Driver Preloading for Pixel 3a and 4”. Similar comment found in the code is “ANGLE requires that driver preloading is disabled. This has been done for Pixel 2 and 3 and needs to be done for 3a and 4 also.”

Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine is a technology developed by Google to make graphics compatible between two different devices.

Pixel 4 is expected to be launched later with improved dual sim technology, latest android Q this year, and Pixel 3a is expected to launch soon with Pixel 3a XL. Pixel had also received IMDA certification in Singapore which is also another hint that both of the devices can be launched soon.

The recent leak of Pixel 3a gives an idea of its specifications that is said to be 5.6 inches of full HD ( 1080 X 2160 px), 4 gigabits of RAM and Android pie operating system. While the Pixel 3A XL is expected to be slightly taller than 3a that is 6 inches and will support 1080 x 2220 pixels resolution.

To @Android. Love, Snapchat. #SnapForAndroid pic.twitter.com/MGOFQYa9Cj

— Snapchat (@Snapchat) April 8, 2019

As per one of the Snapchat’s development team members, they first thought to patch the issues that Snapchat Android app was facing but they realized sooner that it’s better to rewrite the complete app from scratch to get the result company wanted. Thus, they have gone for the rewrite, and the team has been working on it since the beginning of 2018, and here comes the new Snapchat for Android.

Even if you download the new Snapchat, you won’t find any changes to the actual UI or navigation but the work has been done in its codes and the background that all make the new Snapchat less buggy, less laggy, and faster than the old version.

Snapchat’s new version is designed as per the huge Android ecosystem, with its wide breadth of hardware — particularly for cameras and processors, that means that different phones can have different capabilities.

The rewrite is done but future updates will be coming more fastly. The new features will be coming at the same pace as the Snap’s iOS counterpart.

Moreover, Snap’s VP of product Jacob Andreou stated, “With this new foundation I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually see things starting to come to Android even before iOS sometimes.”

Looks like great news for Android users who love Snapchat.