Amazon Fire phone now official: Starting $199 for 32GB on contract with AT&T

June 19, 2014

Jun 19: Amazon just unveiled Fire, their first ever smartphone which will be sold exclusively via AT&T with a two-year contract. Pre-orders begin today and customers can either pay $199 for the 32GB version or $299 for the 64GB version. The phone ships on July 25. Amazon is also throwing in 12 months of Amazon Prime service free with Fire.

Amazon Fire phoneThe Amazon Fire sets its self apart with a couple of defining features which Dynamic Perspective and Firefly. Dynamic Perspective uses a new sensor system to respond to the way you hold, view, and move Fire, enabling experiences not possible on other smartphone. The fours sensors on each corner of the phone are also accompanied by infrared LEDs for the depth perception to work even in pitch darkness. Firefly quickly recognizes things in the real world—web and email addresses, phone numbers, QR and bar codes, movies, music, and millions of products, and lets you take action in seconds with the dedicated Firefly button.

Fire features aluminium buttons and injected moulded steel connectors for a premium look and feel. You also get a 4.7-inch HD IPS display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and a rubber frame for protection. The display boasts of 590nots of brightness, making it readable even in hard lighting. You also get global LTE coverage, Wi-Fi "ac" with channel bonding, NFC and Bluetooth.

It"s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chipset running at 2.2 GHz. There"s 2GB of RAM and internal storage options of 32GB or 64GB. There"s no mention of a microSD card slot however. The Fire also gets a 13MP rear camera with a f/2.0 lens and Optical Image Stabilisation. There"s a dedicated camera button too and pictures captured can be saved to Amazon"s Cloud Drive, which offers unlimited storage.

Multimedia is taken care of by dual stereo speakers placed on either side (horizontally) along with the Dolby Digital enhancements. The Fire also comes bundled with flat-cable earphones with magnetic earbuds for easy storage.

Fire deeply integrates Amazon exclusive services like X-Ray and Second Screen. ASAP (Advanced Streaming and Prediction) predicts which movies and TV episodes you"ll want to watch and prepares them for instant playback before you even hit play.

Mayday is now available over 3G and 4G, in addition to Wi-Fi. Simply hit the Mayday button in quick actions and an Amazon expert will appear via live video to co-pilot you through any feature on the device. Amazon experts are able to draw on the screen, talk you through how to do a task, or do it for you. This feature is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and it"s free.

Amazon will also release the SDK for Dynamic Perspective and Firefly so apps like MyFitnessPal can give you nutrition values when you point the camera to any food objects.

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Agencies
June 26,2020

Facebook will introduce a new notification screen on its platform that will warn users if the article they are about to share is over 90 days old, the company announced on Thursday.

“We’re starting to globally roll out a notification screen that will let people know when news articles they are about to share are more than 90 days old,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.

The social media platform had previously introduced a context button in 2018 that provides information about the sources of articles in the News Feed. Building upon that, the new feature will inform users about the timeliness of the article.

“To ensure people have the context they need to make informed decisions about what to share on Facebook, the notification screen will appear when people click the share button on articles older than 90 days, but will allow people to continue sharing if they decide an article is still relevant,” Facebook said.

The social media giant stated that timeliness is important in understanding the context of an article and curbing the spread of misinformation on the platform.

“News publishers, in particular, have expressed concerns about older stories being shared on social media as current news, which can misconstrue the state of current events. Some news publishers have already taken steps to address this on their own websites by prominently labelling older articles to prevent outdated news from being used in misleading ways,” Facebook added.

Apart from this, the platform will also be testing a similar notification screen for information related to the global Covid-19 pandemic. The notification screen will provide information about the source of the link shared in a post if the link is related to information on Covid-19. It will also direct people to its previously introduced Covid-19 information centre for “authoritative” health information, it said.

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Agencies
June 13,2020

The Brazilian government said that the Amazon rainforest witnessed deforestation of a record 829 sq km in May, the highest monthly level since 2015.

On Friday, the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) said that deforestation in the Amazon increased by 91 sq km compared to the same period last year, reports Xinhua news agency.

Between January and April, destruction of the forest by illegal loggers and ranchers rose 55 per cent, or a total of 1,202 sq km was wiped out, it said.

The Real-time Deforestation Detection system, a federal project created to monitor human activity in the Amazon, alerted authorities to the increase in the rate of destruction of the rainforest.

A recent study by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) warned that deforestation in 2020 could reach 11,900 sq km if the pace of May, June, and July follows the historical average.

Deforestation in the region has soared since President Jair Bolsonaro took office last year, according to conservation groups.

He has argued that more farming and mining in protected areas of the forest were the only way to lift the region out of poverty.

Bolsonaro's environmental policies have been widely condemned but he has rejected the criticism, saying Brazil remains an example for conservation.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Income Tax Department has facilitated a new functionality for banks and post offices to ascertain TDS applicability rates on cash withdrawal of above Rs 20 lakh in case of a non-filer of the income-tax return and that of above Rs 1 crore in case of a filer of the income-tax return.

In a statement, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said that now banks and post offices have to only enter the PAN of the person who is withdrawing cash for ascertaining the applicable rate of TDS.

So far, more than 53,000 verification requests have been executed successfully on this facility, a statement by the CBDT said.

"CBDT today said that this functionality available as 'Verification of applicability u/s 194N' on www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in since 1st July 2020, is also made available to the Banks through web-services so that the entire process can be automated and be linked to the Bank's internal core banking solution," it said.

On entering PAN by the bank or the post office, a message will be instantly displayed on the departmental utility: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 1 crore", in case the person withdrawing cash is a filer of the income-tax return.

In case the person withdrawing cash is a non-filer of income tax return, the message shown would be: "TDS is deductible at the rate of 2 per cent if cash withdrawal exceeds Rs 20 lakh and at the rate of 5 per cent if it exceeds Rs 1 crore."

The CBDT said that the data on cash withdrawal indicated that huge amount of cash is withdrawn by the persons who have never filed income-tax returns.

To ensure filing of return by these persons and to keep track on cash withdrawals by the non-filers, and to curb black money, the Finance Act, 2020 with effect from July 1, 2020 further amended IT Act to lower threshold of cash withdrawal to Rs 20 lakh for the applicability of this TDS for the non-filers and also mandated TDS at the higher rate of 5 per cent on cash withdrawal exceeding Rs 1 crore by the non-filers.

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