Today, we’re looking at why Nintendo’s Swtich consoles are in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. And then, we’ll tear down OnePlus 8 Pro, literally, to see what’s inside.
In the digital payments world, Google is crafting a plan to rival the Apple Card. Facebook has launched its new interactive map on COVID-19 symptoms. The company plans to roll out the survey globally.
And finally, global IT services giant Cognizant says it has been hit by Maze ransomware.
OnePlus 8 Pro’s teardown
OnePlus 8 Pro was launched last week. Zack Nelson, a cell-phone teardown expert, breaks down the phone, literally, on his JerryRigEverything YouTube channel to test the phone’s durability.
One of the new features introduced in OnePlus 8 this year is the official ingress protection rating, IP68. That means the phone is packed to keep dust and water away. So, the adhesive used to put the phone together is much stronger than usual.
After dicing and slicing the adhesives with heat and a sharp metal object, Nelson twisted the back panel away to reveal the “possibly best looking phone guts seen in a while.”
The first thing you’ll notice about this phone during the teardown is the golden coil at the centre. The golden outer ring and the inner black is used to charge the phone wirelessly.
Moving up to the 48MP main camera, the OnePlus 8 Pro has the same sensor footprint as the 108MP from inside the Samsung Ultra S20 phone, Nelson said in the video.
“It’s a flagship-quality camera in line with Galaxy S20, Huawei P40, and just short of Pixel and iPhone,” Marques Brownlee, one of the top technology reviewer, said in a YouTube video.
Coming down to the lower part of the phone, Nelson pulled out the loudspeaker to reveal the sound-dampening balls inside.
Those dampeners makes the speaker sound louder than it actually is.
“I think it the best-looking phone we’ve been inside so far this year,” Nelson said in conclusion.
Google to launch its physical payments card
Google is planning its own smart debit card for consumers to make payments and track purchases made offline and online, Techcrunch reported.
The plan will add more heft to the Google Pay ecosystem as the current set up handles only online and peer-to-peer transactions.
A physical card will expand Google’s presence in the payments processing market.
Google is not the first tech company to venture into the plastic money business.
Apple Card was launched last year, and Huawei’s card was unveiled about a week ago. During its launch, the Chinese smartphone-maker said its card will include an annual fees, like a normal credit card.
For the payment project, Google will be partnering with Citi and Stanford Federal Credit Union; its card will be patched with a Visa-powered chip.
The search giant may also broaden its partner network with other payment processors, like MasterCard.
In China, Apple has been operating its card through MasterCard after the People’s Bank of China gave a preliminary approval to the payment processing company to be the local payment gateway for Apple card.
Techcrunch’ s report doesn’t reveals details about Google’s debit card launch date.
However, the report quoted a statement from Google: “We’re exploring how we can partner with banks and credit unions in the US to offer smart checking accounts through Google Pay, helping their customers benefit from useful insights and budgeting tools, while keeping their money in an FDIC or NCUA-insured account.”
Cognizant hit by ransomware attack
Global IT services firm Cognizant confirmed that it was hit by a Maze ransomware attack.
The New Jersey-headquartered firm said in a brief statement that the security breach involved its internal systems and caused service disruptions for some of its clients.
Cognizant has clients in over 800 countries and provides IT consulting services to them. It is unclear how much of the data has been crypted by Maze, or the clients’ whose information has been taken ransom.
The main goal of ransomware Maze is gain entry into the system, infect it and crypt all files. The malware authors will then demand a ransom to recover the files.
Maze will also threaten the victim that if they don’t pay, their confidential information will be put up on the web.
If Maze operators conducted this attack, they were likely present in Cognizant’s system for weeks, if not longer, according to Bleeping Computer, which first reported the attack on Friday.
Nintendo’s gaming consoles are selling fast Nintendo’s gaming consoles have sold more than three million units in Japan since its launch on March 20, according to gaming magazine Famitsu, Wall Street Journal reported. The sales figure does not count digital copies, that could be even higher.
The reason for the jump is the newly popular game: “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”. The new version of the long-running franchise is proving to be a trendy way for people to lighten up during the lockdowns.
In the game, people take the role of cute animal villagers building their own beautiful islands. As part of the game’s social aspect, they can visit their friends’ island virtually.
The rapidly selling video game is putting pressure on Nintendo to make more of its Switch consoles to meet the surging demand.
But factory closures in China in February due to COVID-19 has disrupted supplies and slowed production of the gaming console.
This means that it could take some more weeks for Nintendo to catch up with the demand for Switch Consoles.
Facebook releases interactive maps from US symptom survey
On April 6, Facebook partnered with Carnegie Mellon University and launched tools to help disease forecasting efforts and protective measures.
To make that happen, the social network company put up a link at the top of the News Feed of some in US. The link leads to a survey to help health researchers monitor and forecast COVID-19 spread.
Today, the CMU’s Delphi Research Center has made its initial results from the US symptom survey public. And Facebook has produced its first report based on that data. It has also built a new interactive map.
The map shows an estimated percentage of people with COVID-19 symptoms, not confirmed cases.
The social networking company plans to update the map daily through the outbreak, and also plans to expand the programme globally.
