CTC BLOG

If you’re even a moderate gaming enthusiast, you’ve likely heard of Discord, a messaging app that prides itself on near-instant voice chat as well as the ability to communicate via text and instant messaging. If you don’t game, chances are you’re thinking “Discord, what?” 

While the completely free app has somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 million users, somehow, in the non-gaming community, it’s pretty much unknown. And that’s a bit of a shame because in terms of free voice/video/texting software, group collaboration tools, and ease of use, it’s hard to beat. In fact, even among paid messaging software, it stands up to all of the big boys. 

Head to the Discord website, and you’ll have the opportunity to either access chat right through the web, or you can download a desktop app for machines running Windows 7 and up, or MacOS 10.10 (Yosemite) and up or Linux. Alternatively, you can download the mobile apps for iOS 10.0 and above at the Apple App Store or for Android 5 (Lollipop) and above at the Google Play store.

Once that’s accomplished, you’ll be asked to create a “server,” which is Discord’s name for a chat room. You can start from scratch or choose a template from categories including Gaming, Friends, or Study Group. After that, you’ll be asked for your email and a password if you’d like to access your different servers and the chats they contain even after you close the app.

Next comes the fun part: chatting. To do so in your own server, you’ll need to add or invite friends, which you can do using their individual “DiscordTags” (read: usernames). Easy navigation buttons on the left side allow you to create a new server, explore public servers, or download apps that plug into Discord.

If you choose to explore public servers, you’ll certainly get the impression that Discord is for gamers, as the main servers you’re presented with are for Minecraft, Fornite and other popular games. But choose from the categories on the left, and you’ll see just how many communities there are to get involved with using Discord. There’s everything from the TruckersFM station in the Music category, that provides music to drive with, to a “Stranger Things” server under the Movies & TV category. 

Join a server and you’ll be asked to read over its rules, much like joining a subreddit in Reddit. Follow all instructions, and click the “Join” button at the top of the screen to get in on the action. Once you’ve either created or joined a server, you’ll see a list of possible chat threads (called “Channels”) on the left, much like you’ll find in Slack. Click one and you can start interacting with others who belong to the same server. 

You can also follow a server to have its notifications sent to your own server. 

One of the stand-out features that sets Discord apart from other collaborative apps like Slack, is that you can enter lounges where, if you leave access to your microphone enabled, you can have an ongoing conversation with everyone else on a server. It’s a bit like turning on a CB radio (remember those?) and listening in on conversations – and contributing when you want to. 

Discord also lets you direct message other users for a more private chat. You can also change the permissions for users of your own servers so that you can control what they can see and participate in. 

Discord is a lightweight install that offers an intuitive eye-catching design and the chance to dive into a range of communities for either business or fun. The free version of the app provides pretty much all you need to connect to friends who already use the service, or to make new friends in the public servers. 

Discord’s paid option is called Nitro and costs either 9.99 per month or 99.99 for a year. This bumps up some features such as letting you increase file upload (yup, you can do that too) size from 8MB to 100MB, share your screen (that too) or stream other content at higher resolution, and enjoy some vanity features like animated avatars and emojis and creating a custom Discord tag. While those might be nice to have if you’re a power user, we think you’ll do just fine starting out with the free version. 

Download Discord here.  

Some scientists say recent research on heart inflammation, even in asymptomatic Covid-19 patients, is being overblown.

On 27 July, the academic journal JAMA Cardiology published a paper showing that 78 out of 100 study participants had abnormalities typically seen in a potentially life-threatening heart condition. Their hearts had been imaged roughly two months after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. And while two-thirds of the group had suffered mild or no symptoms, medical scans showed fluid and scarring — signs of heart inflammation, or myocarditis.

These findings, among others, “indicate the need for ongoing investigation of the long-term cardiovascular consequences of Covid-19,” wrote the authors, who are based in Germany at University Hospital Frankfurt.

Not everyone was impressed with the paper. The day after it published, scientists identified statistical errors, which the research team went on to correct. Another noted that the study’s controls — people who hadn’t been infected with the virus — also showed inflammation on their heart scans.

But those conversations were unfolding among small groups of scientists on Twitter. Meanwhile, colleges across the country struggled with a vexing question: Was it safe to move forward with fall sports? The study caught their eye because of the rare but devastating possibility of sudden cardiac death in athletes and soon, high-profile media outlets were credulously citing the study as one of the hurdles for a fall season.

An 8 Aug article in The Washington Post referred to the findings as “bad news for everyone in a general way and scary news for athletes in a specific way.” On 11 Aug, in what would be a highly contentious decision, the Big Ten Conference announced it was postponing its fall season due to ongoing concerns related to the pandemic. The conference later issued a statement on the postponement, which read, in part: “While the data on cardiomyopathy is preliminary and incomplete, the uncertain risk was unacceptable at this time.” Around the same time, Pac-12 announced it would postpone its season as well, in part due to similar concerns.

But over the course of roughly a dozen interviews by Undark with physicians and researchers specializing in cardiac radiology, cardiac pathology, and sports cardiology, several expressed concerns over the limitations of the German research, and with a more recent heart imaging study published by a team at The Ohio State University. Some also shared deep misgivings about how the findings of these small studies are being interpreted, reported, and used in the wider world. September’s media coverage has been more circumspect, but these preliminary findings are already being used to guide treatment of virus-positive athletes.

While the experts agreed that COVID-19 can harm the heart, the severity and frequency of the outcomes, as well as how to test for myocarditis, is under fierce debate.

The Big Ten and Pac-12 have since reversed course, with plans to resume their seasons this fall, but the implications of this new research go beyond football. Many experts worry about broader, graver consequences, including the overuse of the pricey heart scans — known as cardiac MRI — and unduly frightening Americans, both of which, they say, could jeopardize public trust in science.

Michael Ackerman, a genetic cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic who has no professional ties to any of the college sports conferences, took issue with the “spookiness” that was being assigned to myocarditis. “If this is the reason why a conference is shutting down a sport,” he said, “I call nonsense on that.”

Even prior to the pandemic, sports medicine physicians were sensitive to the potentially devastating effects of heart problems in athletes. In 1990, Loyola Marymount University basketball player Hank Gathers collapsed on the court during a game and died shortly after. While he had been previously diagnosed with an abnormal heartbeat, an autopsy found he died of cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disorder, with myocarditis. In 1993, tragedy struck again when Boston Celtic Reggie Lewis died during a team practice under similar circumstances. Though instances of sudden death in athletes are rare, “the outcome is such a drastic one in an otherwise healthy young population,” said Ella Kazerooni, a radiologist at Michigan Medicine who has been coordinating coronavirus testing for University of Michigan student-athletes. For this reason, teams try to stay on top of information about cardiac diseases and screening recommendations.

Myocarditis, in particular, is an important cause of abnormal heartbeats, or arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death in physically active individuals. The condition is often triggered by a viral infection — it tends to spike seasonally with the flu season. In the early months of the pandemic, case reports and autopsies of hospitalized patients showed that the coronavirus can damage the heart. These findings helped motivate the German and OSU researchers to investigate further.

In May, the American College of Cardiology’s Sports and Exercise Cardiology Council recommended that athletes with positive coronavirus tests should rest for at least two weeks, regardless of whether they have symptoms. Current guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association also state that anyone with cardiac symptoms, such as chest pain or labored breathing, should undergo preliminary testing to check the heart’s structure and function. Additionally, a common laboratory test measures a heart protein called troponin, which releases into the bloodstream when the heart is damaged.

If any of these initial tests turn up abnormalities that suggest myocarditis, a cardiac MRI can help confirm the diagnosis. The MRI produces black and white scans, which can be used to create a 3D view of the heart muscle. It’s among the best tools for identifying inflammation and scar tissue. Cardiac MRIs are rarely used on people who don’t have heart-related symptoms. But the German and OSU studies have prompted some patients and doctors to ask whether the scans should be used more often.

A cardiac MRI showing acute myocarditis, taken as a horizontal slice of the chest cavity. Visual: Case courtesy of Dr Tamara Razon Cuenza, Radiopaedia.org, from case rID: 77023

The German study compared three groups of patients: people who tested positive for the coronavirus; people who never contracted the virus and were healthy; and people who never had the virus, but had health issues such as diabetes and hypertension. This third group was included to help disentangle Covid-19 abnormalities from abnormalities that may have been caused by other health conditions — a process called risk matching.

In interviews with Undark, experts offered divergent views of the results, such that the results started to take on the quality of a Rorschach test. “Unfortunately, there is substantial subjectivity in the interpretation of many advanced medical imaging studies, including cardiac MRI,” Venkatesh Murthy, a cardiologist and expert in cardiac imaging at Michigan Medicine, wrote in an email. And when it comes to heart scans of people who are post-Covid and lacking symptoms, he said physicians really don’t know which abnormalities are benign and which are a cause for concern.

Several physicians said they weren’t surprised by the presence of inflammation in study subjects who tested positive for coronavirus. That’s common in people who have just recovered from a viral infection that causes a lot of inflammation, said Chetan Shenoy, a cardiologist and expert in cardiac MRI at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

James Carr, the current president of the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and a radiologist at Northwestern Medicine, said that he finds the presence of scar tissue in Covid-19 patients compelling. “For me, that’s one of the bigger take-home points,” he said. Others noted that the risk-matched group also had a large number of cardiac abnormalities, including scar tissue, so the scarring in the Covid-19 patients might not have been caused by the virus.

The German study’s corresponding author, Eike Nagel, attributed the mixed responses to the fact that “we just don’t know enough yet.” A cardiologist and expert in cardiac MRI, Nagel defended the work, pointing out that one of his measurements found scar tissue in 20 percent of those positive for SARS-CoV-2 versus just 7 percent in the risk-matched group, a nearly threefold increase. He also said he is confident that his team’s technique for measuring inflammation is accurate and meaningful because they’ve validated it in studies of other diseases. Further, the troponin levels were slightly elevated in the Covid-19 group, showing that something must be damaging the heart, he said. While it might not be severe enough to cause sudden death, he added, if the condition is chronic, it could take a toll.

Nagel is planning follow-up studies. But in the meantime, he encouraged physicians to think beyond binaries of “normal” and “abnormal” when it comes to diagnosing myocarditis. Even subtle increases in inflammation could have an effect, he said, if they persist over time.

The nuances of the myocarditis studies have been largely absent from the broader public conversation. In the month of August, the German paper was often cited in coverage of college sports. And though the OSU paper had not yet been published, its preliminary findings were shared with major athletic conferences as they deliberated about the fall season. The New York Times reported that the OSU study had already revealed an “alarmingly high rate of myocarditis” among recovered college athletes, almost all of whom had experienced mild or no Covid-19 symptoms. The article quoted the university’s director of sports cardiology, Curt Daniels: “Everybody is saying now that maybe we should do cardiac MRIs.”

Things ramped up on Sept. 3, when Penn State’s director of athletic medicine mistakenly commented in a meeting that cardiac MRI scans revealed that approximately one third of Big Ten athletes with Covid-19 had myocarditis. The university quickly issued a correction that the true rate was closer to 15 percent — but not before the national news media widely reported the wrong statistics.

“This is pretty frightening,” said CNN’s Sanjay Gupta.

High-profile Twitter users made similar comments: “If even young athletes in their prime come down with heart damage — there IS NO SAFE HERD (w/out vaccine) to be had,” wrote one Harvard epidemiologist.

Wow. 30 to 35% of #COVID19 infected athlete’s heart muscles are inflamed w/ myocarditis, says Penn State physician of Big Ten sport league.

If even young athletes in their prime come down with heart damage—there IS NO SAFE HERD (w/out vaccine) to be had. https://t.co/SCAKUG4RV3

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) September 3, 2020

FOLLOWUP—Penn state has has clarified the data and the newspaper has posted a correction – the correction now says myocarditis is actually 15%. Still high. https://t.co/ihkuHRWOYa pic.twitter.com/8aoxRDR7ei

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) September 4, 2020

Today we learned ~1/3 Big Ten athletes who were #COVID19 + had abnormal heart MRIs, consistent w/ myocarditis, even those without symptoms. If anyone still is questioning whether this virus attacks the heart, it’s denialism. https://t.co/8qGJDhjlpk

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) September 3, 2020

By the end of August, even science magazines were publishing heart-related headlines that some of Undark’s sources characterize as alarmist. Among the more noteworthy headlines: “Covid-19 Can Wreck Your Heart, Even If You Haven’t Had Any Symptoms” at Scientific American and “‘Carnage’ in a Lab Dish Shows How the Coronavirus May Damage the Heart” at STAT.

“The fear has ratcheted up incredibly,” said Ackerman. After the media started reporting on Covid-19 heart problems, and again following publication of the German paper, he said worried patients started calling his clinic.

Ackerman acknowledges that there may be good non-heart reasons to delay or cancel a season: concerns about disease transmission, for instance, or lack of coronavirus testing. “But the heart cannot and should not be the driving reason.” In this context, Ackerman said, the German paper just doesn’t hold up: For one, the test subjects were older and sicker than college-athletes. Another mistake, he added, was prematurely equating the MRI scans — the significance of which are unclear — with a potentially life-threatening disease.

Several other studies that haven’t received the same amount of attention provide another reason for restraint, said Joseph Maleszewski, a cardiac pathologist at the Mayo Clinic. The studies look at autopsies of people who died from Covid-19. And while autopsy research is still in its infancy, so far, the rate of myocarditis in the autopsies is lower than in the cardiac MRIs. Maleszewski said he worries about hasty conclusions on Covid’s effects on the heart: “If you reach that far on tenuous ground, and you wind up not being right, it undercuts the things you’re right about.” This potentially feeds the narrative that the claims around Covid-19 are mostly just politics, rather than ongoing, dynamic science, he added.

Several physicians told Undark that the overwrought messaging around myocarditis is having a ripple effect, with patients contacting their physicians to request a cardiac MRI. There are downsides to doing these tests when they aren’t warranted, said Murthy: the cost and the required resources (“In the U.S., our capacity to do these is nowhere near sufficient to test large numbers of people who have no cardiac symptoms from Covid.”) Then there’s the potential for incidental findings — things spotted on a scanner that might be causing no harm, but that fall outside the range of normal. That can start a chain of events, with a patient receiving one test after another for something that was never going to harm them, said Murthy.

And while it may seem rational to consider canceling football out of an abundance of heart-based caution, Ackerman disagreed. As director of the Windland Smith Rice Genetic Heart Rhythm Clinic, he treats hundreds of athletes, many of whom were previously disqualified from competitive sports due to preexisting heart conditions. Postponement or cancellation, he said, will have “similarly devastating consequences” on athletes’ mental wellbeing. Are we weighing all of it in the balance, he added, “or are we being selective in which item we are putting forward as the tipping point item, the playing with fire item?”

On 11 September, the long-awaited results of the Ohio State University study of student-athletes published in the form of a research letter in JAMA Cardiology. The authors scanned 26 college athletes who tested positive for Covid-19 and had mild to no symptoms, identifying what they termed “suspected myocarditis” in four individuals. A university press release noted that the cardiac MRI had been “effective in identifying myocardial inflammation not picked up by other methods” and that the technology has the potential to identify athletes who can safely return to play.

The motivation for the research was clinical, said Saurabh Rajpal, the lead author and a cardiologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. It can be hard to detect subtle symptoms in athletes because they don’t get winded as easily as non-athletes, said Rajpal. So he and his colleagues decided that the best way to ensure safe participation was to include a cardiac MRI with other testing.

Unlike the German paper, the OSU study didn’t have a comparison group. That’s important to keep in mind when interpreting the results, said Kate Hanneman, a cardiac radiologist and expert in cardiac imaging at Toronto General Hospital Research Institute. Athlete hearts are different from the hearts of the general population; for example, previous studies have found scar tissue in endurance athletes. Without a point of comparison, it’s not clear whether the abnormalities spotted on the MRI scans were caused by the coronavirus. She also noted that the study participants lacked two criteria usually needed for a diagnosis of myocarditis: cardiac symptoms and elevated troponin levels.

A summary published by The American College of Cardiology made similar points, concluding: “While this study adds to emerging data, it does not imply that CMR should be performed in all Covid-19 positive patients to screen for myocardial inflammation.” A few days later, an open letter appeared online. It had been initiated by Murthy and was cosigned by roughly 50 medical professionals. Addressed to 18 medical societies, the letter asked them to discourage the use of cardiac MRIs on asymptomatic people who test positive for Covid-19.

A day after the open letter published, the Big Ten announced that football season will resume in late-October. Players who test positive for the virus will undergo comprehensive heart screening, including an MRI. Big Ten universities will create a cardiac registry, pooling the test results for future study.

Echoing others, Shenoy said he welcomes more research, and a well-designed registry could eventually provide useful data. But, he said, it’s premature to use these tests to diagnose or assess the risk for people who don’t have cardiac symptoms. “None of it,” he wrote in an email, “is supported by any evidence when it comes to asymptomatic athletes.”

Sara Talpos is a senior editor at Undark and a freelance writer whose recent work has been published in Science, Mosaic, and the Kenyon Review’s special issue on science writing.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

tech2 News StaffSep 29, 2020 16:52:57 IST

Oppo hosted the first-ever global 5G video call recently. Oppo used the Find X2 Pro smartphone to showcase its 5G capabilities when it connected top junior tennis players who can’t compete, or watch matches at this year’s Roland-Garros. Junior tennis players from China, India, Romania, and Thailand participated in the 5G video chat.

Oppo Find X2 Pro. Image: Oppo

Oppo is the title sponsor of the “Junior Wild Card Series” taking place in France.

Managing Director of OPPO France, Denis Morel and the Roland-Garros Tournament Director and former world number three and Davis Cup Winner Guy Forget connected via a video call using an Oppo Find X2 Pro with top junior tennis players to discuss how technology continues to change the world of tennis.

Image: Oppo

For the Roland-Garros 2020 activation, Oppo has also announced “Photo Gallery” which showcase the best pictures taken at Roland-Garros using the Oppo Find X2 Pro.

Oppo FInd X2 was launched in India in June this year, however, Oppo Find X2 Pro was not released in the Indian market.

“Our 5G devices perform even better in the further enhanced 5G environment at Roland-Garros this year,” said Gregor Almassy, Overseas CMO, OPPO. “Connecting global young talents with a legend like Guy Forget, showcases the capabilities and enhanced connectivity of OPPO 5G. The success of it also demonstrates that Roland-Garros and OPPO have shared commitment to enhance and provide better stadium experience for global users and fans.”

Last year, Oppo showcased its first European 5G handsets onsite and the first-ever live 8K TV images of Roland-Garros supported by the stadium’s 5G network.

FP TrendingSep 29, 2020 17:06:46 IST

Two years ago, scientists had reported the discovery of a large saltwater lake under the ice that covers Mars’ South Pole. Now, researchers have stated that there could be several more pools encircling the main reservoir. According to a report in Science News, the central lake spans almost 600 square kilometres and to keep from freezing, the water needs to be extremely salty. Speaking about it, planetary scientist Roberto Orosei at the National Institute for Astrophysics in Bologna, Italy, who also led the 2018 report, stated that the area is the closest ‘habitable’ place on Mars that has been found so far.

Orosei and his team probed the ice using radar on board the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. In data collected from 2010 to 2019, the team found regions beneath the ice that are highly reflective and very flat. The study authors say that the findings don’t just confirm that a large buried lake exists, but also a handful of smaller ponds that are encircling the main body of water. Orosei says that on Earth, the bright, flat radar reflections would definitely be Science News reported.

The South Pole on Mars. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/Bill Dunford

However, one question plaguing many is that how could the water stay in the liquid state. Isaac Smith, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute says the community is divided regarding it, even though he is more towards believing.

According to Smith, as recently as 50,000 years ago, the Martian south pole was warmer because the planet’s tilt is constantly changing. Warmer temperatures could have propagated through the ice to create pockets of salty liquid. Alternatively, the ponds may have been there before the ice cap formed. Study authors say that at very high salt concentrations, once water has melted, it is hard to get it to freeze again.

According to Orosei while they do not know the concentration of salts, which could be deadly to life, but if life forms did evolve on Mars, these lakes could have been “providing a Noah’s Ark that could have allowed life to survive even in present conditions.”

The results of the study was released online in Nature Astronomy on 28 September.

Mangesh Wange and Manish ChokhandreSep 29, 2020 17:17:17 IST

In India, one in 100 children suffers from Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) of varying severity. These children need dedicated health care facilities, infrastructure and trained workforce that can meet their health care needs. CHD surgeries are an expensive affair. And as a result, of the 1.2 lakh children born with heart defects, a mere 30 percent are diagnosed on time and treated every year. The diagnosis of CHD also carries a high risk of mortality, morbidity and chances of becoming handicapped.

Identifying and counselling the parents and mobilization especially in rural areas is another complexity, which makes this problem harder to solve. Stigma, delays in referral resulting in complications or poor outcomes, and co-morbidities (like undernutrition) set in, making the surgery difficult or complicated. Parents, often, are unable to keep up with the capital intensive treatment.

Out of the 1.2 lakh children born with heart defects, a mere 30 percent are diagnosed on time and treated every year.

Social taboos, myths, gender bias, lack of knowledge of existing government programmes, charitable organizations that exist for benefit of economically weaker section of society make it difficult to stage a timely intervention. The number of public hospitals that provide health care at low cost are few and far between. Public hospitals see a large number of patients, and have waiting lists that range anywhere from a few months to a few years. Most cardiac centres are in the private sector and may not be affordable by the masses in India. These are a handful of the factors contributing to the deterioration of children suffering from CHD, due to delayed or no treatment available to these children.

As a nation, we can address this problem if the less fortunate are given support at the right time. Given the need for high resource and specialization, this problem can be best solved through the collaborative efforts of all stakeholders — affected parents, social organizations, frontline health workers, governments and medical specialists and hospitals.

The non-profits and development partners along with front line workers can support in early screening and intervention. Since they are in regular touch with the community, they can play a crucial role addressing the challenges that the parents and children face. They can also establish the link to higher facilities for identification and required treatment for children with CHD. The front line workers and hospitals further need to link these children to the existing government schemes. Thus, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) can play a critical role in addressing the severity of CHD in the country.

The number of public hospitals that provide health care at low cost are few and far between and have waiting lists that range anywhere from a few months to a few years. Representational image. Image credit: Wikipedia

A partnership that was successful in this effort, in Maharashtra, was the Swades Foundation and Government of Maharashtra, in collaborated with the Paediatric and congenital heart centre at Wockhardt Hospitals. Through the intervention, free-of-cost health care was offered to children in many underpriviledged communities in the state. This increase in coverage of health services for the children with CHDs was implemented in seven blocks of the Raigad district — Poladpur, Mahad, Mangaon, Tala, Mhasala, Shrivardhan, and Sudhagad.

The public and private partnership has ensured the delivery of specialized care to some 146 children suffering critically with CHD so far, who would not have been able to afford the diagnosis and treatment. The partnership has continued its efforts over the last five years. In this time, 704 symptomatic children were identified, and 146 children with varying degrees of complex heart disease were operated upon. The treatment included surgeries of varying complexities and catheter-based interventions under expert care.

In 2019-20, the survey with support from Wockhardt hospital in seven blocks showed the disease burden has gone down to a negligible level if not zero. It shows the immense possibility that such public-private association can reform the healthcare system, particularly in rural India.

Mr Mangesh Wange is the CEO of Swades Foundation and Dr Manish Chokhandre is a Consultant Pediatric Cardiologist with Wockhardt hospital.

11:06 (IST)

FP TrendingSep 28, 2020 17:25:41 IST

Realme is reportedly going to launch a new Q-series smartphone on 13 October, a leaked certification listing on Weibo has shown. The report claims that two Realme phones were approved by the TENAA authority of China recently. The models had the serial numbers RMX2173 and Realme RMX2117. As the RMX2173 phone had similar specs to that of the Realme X7 (including downgraded cameras), it is believed that the upcoming model will be a lite version of the Realme X7. Another report claims that the Realme RMX2173 will actually be a new Q-series smartphone.

This launch is expected to take place in China.

The article cited Digital Chat Nation on Weibo. The post said that the product will have a punch-hole OLED screen, fingerprint support, 5G connectivity, and support 65 W super flash.

Representational Image (Realme 5i)

This tip comes a week after Realme vice president Xu Qi Chase announced on Weibo that the company will be releasing a new smartphone with Android 11-based Realme UI 2.0 next month.

Earlier, it was speculated that Realme’s next moniker will be Realme Q2. The GizmoChina report adds to some of the rumoured specs of the device. It said the product will have dimensions of 160.9 x 74.4 x 8.1 mm and weigh 175 grams. At 6.43-inch, the smartphone has an S-AMOLED punch-hole full HD+ display. Powered by a 2.4 GHz octa-core processor and 6 GB of RAM, the Q2 is rumored to arrive with support for 65W charging.

The first device in the Q series was the Realme Q. Launched in China in September, 2019, it was powered by a Snapdragon 712 processor, and had a 48 MP main camera.

FP TrendingSep 28, 2020 17:43:55 IST

FarmVille developers Zynga has revealed that the original game on Facebook is finally shutting down after 11 years on the social media platform. In a post on its help page, the developer wrote, “Following an incredible 11 years since its initial launch back in 2009, we are officially announcing the closure of the original FarmVille game on Facebook.” According to the developer, they had to take the decision since Adobe will stop distributing and updating Flash Player for all web browsers, and Facebook will stop supporting Flash games on the platform completely after 31 December 2020.

FramVille

FarmVille will therefore be directly affected as a result of the move, Zynga added.

Thanking gamers for “helping to build an incredible global community of players over the years who’ve enjoyed this game just as much as we have,” Zynga added that they would like to point out that in-app purchases will be available up until November 17, at which point the game’s payment system will be completely turned off.

According to the developer, following 17 November, the game will not be accepting any in-app payments and any refunds will not be processed during this time.

FarmVille, itself, however, will be playable until 31 December 2020 before being shut down completely.

Zynga advised players to use any remaining credits that they might have before 31 December, adding that they are working on fun in-game activities that they will announce soon to make remaining time with FarmVille more enjoyable for gamers.

The developer ended the post by stating, “We look forward to you joining us in FarmVille 2: Tropic Escape and the upcoming worldwide launch of FarmVille 3 on mobile.”

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

In the workplace, women are now as good as men when it comes to computing performance, but there is still a gender gap when it comes to confidence, according to our new research.

As professors of business, we studied how well men and women in midlevel business jobs performed on computing tasks. We also asked them to rate how they thought they did.

Study participants were randomly assigned basic, intermediate or advanced problems on laptops, tablets or mobile devices, while seated, standing or walking slowly.

We found no difference in the performance between men and women in the total number of questions answered correctly or the time taken to answer the questions. In only one scenario did men perform slightly better – while completing a basic task, on a tablet, while seated (76.3% correct for men versus 64% correct for women). Otherwise, women and men performed equally.

There was a statistically significant difference, however, in how men and women rated their own performance. Women were less confident of their answers in all scenarios – 3.5 for women versus 3.88 for men on a scale of 1 to 5 – despite having performed equally to men in all but one.

Why it matters

With a rapid expansion of employment in STEM areas, the shortage of qualified labor has risen to the level of national importance. Yet the proportion of women in STEM careers remains around 24% even though women make up almost 50% of the overall workforce. The causes of this gender gap are often attributed to cultural and institutional biases against women in technology fields, and governments and other institutions have made significant efforts to reduce this gap.

What still isn’t known

No one knows for sure why women with demonstrably the same computing skills as men are less confident. This lack of confidence has been found in other STEM-related areas. For example, one study of university students found that among men and women who performed equally well in mathematics courses, women perceived themselves to be significantly worse at math than their male counterparts. Another study that focused on the adoption of mobile learning technology shows, while the gender gap has all but disappeared, there is still a significant gap when it comes to how women perceive their confidence with this technology versus how men perceive it. Some research found that technical skills were more consistently stereotyped by both men and women than were nontechnical skills. Further research is needed to explore the reasons for lack of female confidence so that effective mitigation approaches can be put in place.

What’s next

Many have made the case that companies need better participation of women in the STEM workforce for greater innovation and productivity. These efforts have had some success, but other avenues are needed to promote STEM careers to women and help them to believe in their abilities.

To address this issue, secondary schools and universities are promoting computing careers to young women, while tech companies have made concerted efforts to promote and hire more women for high-profile jobs involving technology.

We will continue to work on understanding how to narrow the gender gap and explore ways to increase female participation in computer fields.

FP TrendingSep 28, 2020 13:33:33 IST

Increased demand in video conferencing apps amidst the lockdown period had prompted Google to announce that it was making Meet free for all users. However, that scheme was time-bound and the free features are going to last only till the end of this month.

Starting from May, Google had declared that its office-oriented platform will be available for all users who have a Gmail account. They can enjoy unlimited video calling on the application. For free users, the limit is 60 minutes on every call and this is going to be restored after 30 September. Also, under the temporary extension, anyone with a Google account was able to create free meetings with up to 100 people.

Google Meet

Speaking to tech portal The Verge, Google confirmed that it was not making any changes to the Meet promo, or advanced features. So after the last date, things are going to go back to the way they were before the extension.

In its drive to push Meet out, Google had extended access to advanced features for G Suite and G Suite for Education customers. This will also end on 30 September. Under the extension, users could arrange meetings with up to 250 participants and conduct live-streaming with up to 100,000 people within a single domain. This also gave free users the ability to save meeting recordings to Google Drive. Now in order to access these features, users would have to pay for the enterprise level of G Suite. This is available for $25 per user every month.

Google had also pushed a shortcut of Meet on Gmail. Now every Gmail user has a dedicated section to quickly arrange a meeting. This was done to compete with the increasing popularity of Zoom and other video conferencing platforms during the pandemic. More and more people had to opt for the remote working format to adapt to the new normal and Google tried to float better in the market with the free feature extension.

FP TrendingSep 25, 2020 16:38:02 IST

Garmin launched two new solar-powered smartwatches in India today, the Garmin Instinct Solar and the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar. Both of these products are equipped with the firm’s patented solar charging technology. These smartwatches utilise solar energy output to give a long battery life and support various smartwatch features such as heart rate detection, advanced sleep monitoring, stress tracking, and giving health insights to users. The smartwatches have been pegged at fitness enthusiasts who are into rugged sports activities like surfing, mountain biking and climbing.

Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar, Instinct Solar: Pricing and availability

The Garmin Fenix 6 Pro comes in two options: The black variant with a slate-grey band is priced at Rs 89,990 and the cobalt blue with whitestone band will be sold for Rs 99,990.

For the Instinct Solar series, there are several colour variants. The smartwatch will come in Graphite, Tidal Blue, Orchid, Sunburst, and Flame Red colour. The smartwatch will set you back by Rs 42,090. On the other hand, the Graphite Camo will be available for Rs 47,490 and the Lichen Camo has been priced in India at Rs 47,490.

These watches will be sold on various online platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. These will be also available at premium watch retailers, outdoor stores and sports stores all over India.

Garmin Instinct Solar

Garmin Fenix 6 Pro Solar, Instinct Solar: Specifications and features

Garmin Instinct uses the company’s solar lens technology. The Instinct Solar and Instinct Solar – Camo Edition
come with a Power Manager feature that allows users to toggle to the Battery Saver mode to enjoy unlimited battery life.

The Instinct Solar series also includes the Body Battery feature which analyses heart rate variability, stress level, sleep quality and activity data to determine overall energy levels. The watch also comes with Pulse Ox (SpO2)2, a technology which measures blood oxygen saturation.

The Instinct Solar series boasts up to 24 days in smartwatch mode indoors and more than 50 days with sufficient solar exposure.

The Fenix 6 Pro Solar, on the other hand, features Garmin Power Glass solar charging lens and a customisable Power Manager mode. The Fenix 6 Series offers training features, onboard mapping, music streaming among others.

FP TrendingSep 25, 2020 16:51:19 IST

Amazon has launched a number of products during its virtual hardware event alongside a host of new products. Among them is a new Ring security camera called the Ring Always Home Cam. The Ring Always Home Cam is an autonomous indoor security camera that can fly inside the home and record footage of multiple viewers. Users have to set a path for the device to fly throughout the home.

Amazon Ring Always Home Cam

As per the Ring blog, the camera flies through personalised paths so that users can easily check in on their home for peace of mind.

The blog adds that the Ring Always Home Cam easily integrates with Ring Alarm—our home security system. When Ring Alarm is triggered while in Away Mode, the Always Home Cam automatically flies a set path to see what’s happening. Users can easily stream video while the camera is in-flight via the Ring App, making sure that one knows about everything happening at home.

The device comes with a rest in the base which completely blocks the camera when docked, giving users the privacy that they need. The camera only starts recording when the device leaves the base and starts flying via the present paths. The Always Home Cam has been designed to hum at a certain volume to make people aware that it is in motion and is recording.

Furthermore, the setup process allows the user to set preferred flight paths, ensuring that the camera will only fly where the user wants it to go. It cannot be manually controlled, ensuring that it records things that are only important to the user.

The device also has obstacle avoidance technology which allows it to avoid unexpected objects as it moves on the paths that have already been set.

In addition to this, the company announced a new Echo Dot, Echo Dot with the clock and Echo. Amazon also introduced the next-generation Fire TV Stick, the all-new Fire TV Stick Lite, and a reimagined Fire TV experience that is more personal and customised.

FP TrendingSep 25, 2020 16:55:10 IST

The latest Mafia: Definitive Edition game has been launched by 2K Games today. The 2020 version has been developed by the Hangar 13 development studio and it is the remake of the original 2002 action-adventure video game Mafia. The remake version includes an updated script, additional cutscenes, all-new gameplay sequences, a re-recorded orchestral score, and other features, according to a press release. It completes the Mafia: Trilogy that includes Mafia II: Definitive Edition and Mafia III: Definitive Edition.

Read our review of the Mafia: Definitive Edition.

Magia: Definite Edition

The game, along with the whole trilogy is currently available worldwide on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam. It is also being sold at the Epic Games Store. Its physical edition was also released today in select EMEA and Asia regions.

While Mafia: Definitive Edition is touted as the “built-from-the-ground-up remake” of the classic game set around the rise and fall of taxi driver-turned-mafia Tommy Angelo; the Mafia II: Definitive Edition and Mafia III: Definitive Edition contain all original bonus add-on content, along with completely remastered 4K compatible visuals.

The company has said that owners of Mafia: Trilogy will get a chance to win loyalty bonus packs that consist of various protagonist outfits and vehicles. Tommy Angelo’s suit and cab come in the first edition, Vito Scaletta’s leather jacket and sports car comes in the second and Lincoln Clay’s army jacket and muscle car in the third part.

Moreover, players can sign up for a 2K Account to unlock some bonus items in each individual game like a Black Cats Motorcycle Pack in Mafia: Definitive Edition or a Classico Three-piece Suit and IL Duca Revolver in Mafia III.

Along with the release of Mafia: Definitive Edition game, 2K also released the original orchestral score on various music streaming platforms like Spotify and available for purchase digitally on Steam, Amazon, and Apple Music. The music has been composed by Jesse Harlin.

The mental and physical resources that enabled Saw Agu to survive the horrific experience of the 2004 tsunami are an inspiration to us all — perhaps even a metaphor for overcoming this coronavirus pandemic and its challenges.

Read part 1 of this column here.

Agu called out to his companions again and again, with whatever force was left in his body and through the excruciating pain.  But there was no answer; their names would be added to the list of tsunami victims in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The height of the fall from the peepal tree into the swirling tsunami waters had been at least 6 or 7 metres.  He’d hurtled through the old-growth maze of twigs and branches which had bruised and gashed his body; and he realised that the searing pain was from a fracture on his right arm.  That this was the extent of his injuries, was a miracle.

But other miracles would follow, adding Agu’s tsunami story to the chronicles of almost unbelievable human endurance and courage.

Struggling to free himself from the forest debris, gasping and swallowing the swirling, smelly water, Agu tried to find his bearings. But the world had changed. All around him was the fallen forest in a sea of water; and as he tried to orient himself another tidal wave pulled him under. Its brute force ripped the clothes off him, leaving him naked. The raging waters threw him against fallen trunks and branches and dunked him repeatedly in the stinking marsh. He managed to crawl to the one standing tree near him so he could use it as a crutch, stand up and survey the landscape. But it gave way and fell on him, causing further injury.

The main thing, the only thing, on his mind was that he had to stay afloat, keep his head above the water, breathe. He struggled towards a floating raft of tree logs, reached it, and gaining some “safety” and height, called out again  with the strength left to him. He was able to sit on the logs, scan the landscape: Just water and debris, with the columns of the bridge jutting out in helpless surrender. The coast was gone. An eerie quiet surrounded him; no birds or insects, just the sound of water, lapping, swirling, rushing.  Would there be another wave?

Then, through the pain and exhaustion, came a life-saving realisation from his vast fund of forest knowledge. The tree-raft he was sitting on had been part of a swatch of lowland forest adjoining the sea-bound Galathea River. He tried to keep his head clear, and used this clue to orient himself. It gave him a possible direction for the coast,   and he knew that’s where he should head to. But for now, moving from the log raft was impossible.  He had to stay put; his battered and bruised body and fractured arm needed rest.

Night came, and not a wink of sleep. In the morning light, he watched a turtle carcass float by; then a live turtle, a good reminder that there was still life around him.  As the sun rose, it got hot and his thirst drove him to drink the smelly slush around him.  He fell asleep for a while, woke up, drifted off again.

And thus the hours, then days, passed by. The dehydration and weakness caused him to drift into long semi-conscious spells with some alert times in between. He managed to keep track of the days, counting and remembering the number that had passed. He saw light aircraft and helicopters circling overhead, searching for survivors.  But he was too weak by now to even think of a plan for alerting them.  Sometimes, during an aerial sortie, he’d try to stand above the wall of debris and raise his good arm, but it was a useless action that drained him of the little energy he had left.

Sandflies tortured him during the day, mosquitoes at night. This was also the home of saltwater crocodiles and he saw several swimming or basking on the fallen trees. One night he saw a saltwater crocodile in the moonlight. It swam up to his log raft, circled.  Agu looked around for a suitable branch to use as a weapon but luckily it decided to swim off and leave him alone. After a week, it rained and he was able to catch and drink the little that fell into his open mouth. But the rain also brought freezing nights.

Agu recuperates in hospital, and a friend visits. Photo courtesy Dr Manish Chandi

The leatherback, the most distinctive of the sea turtles. Photo courtesy Adhith Swaminathan

The research and conservation continues. Photo courtesy Adhith Swaminathan

And then there were no more helicopter sorties; they must have stopped looking for survivors and bodies. He plunged into the depths of despair. But hitting the bottom helped him rise. The catalyst was a water monitor lizard (Varanus salvator) which, tongue flicking, investigated his inert body to check if he was carrion.  Agu willed his mind and body back into action. Using a small branch as a crutch for his wounded arm, he left his raft and swam to the next logjam. There, after a rest, a life-saving image came into his mind: a forest trail at the 35th kilometer, that led from the beach to the village of Shastri Nagar. A small stream ran alongside it. He had to orient himself accurately, and get there.

Stumbling, crawling, sometimes yelling out from the excruciating pain, frequently falling unconscious, he crawled onward and got to the shore. The beach was unrecognisable; but the stream still flowed, and he was able to quench his thirst for the first time in two weeks.

On 11 January, Day 16, crawling on all fours, Agu got to the outskirts of Shastri Nagar village. Spotting a pair of trousers in the muck, he put them on, using a fresh vine as a belt to keep them on his now skeletal body.  [This was how Manish, co-author of this article and part of the ANET team, saw him later that day in Port Blair.] Further on, Agu met an old man he knew, but who didn’t recognise him. He took Agu home, gave him some daal roti, and led him to Shastri Nagar. Here the devastation was complete; devoid of life, with debris and shards from houses scattered everywhere.

Harry Andrews was then director of the Madras Crocodile Bank. He and Manish had managed to get to Port Blair from the mainland on hearing news of the disaster at the leatherback camp. They’d been desperately trying to organise an aerial search over Point 41, but naval aircraft were busy 24/7 with rescues, disaster surveys and reaching rations to stranded survivors.

By an extraordinary coincidence, this day, Day 16, was when they finally got permission from the Navy for an aerial search. Harry and the pilot circled the mouth of the Galathea and scanned the ravaged landscape for signs of life. And in a forest clearing above the water line, they saw people waving. The pilot landed nearby. Harry was delighted to see Agu sitting under a coconut tree, and heartbroken in the immediate knowledge that the others probably hadn’t made it. He explained to Agu that he would be taken to Port Blair. Harry and the pilot would continue the search for the others.

A chopper took Agu to Campbell Bay and from there to Port Blair on the next Navy Dornier shuttle flight.  Manish and others from ANET received him and he was soon in INS Dhanvantari, the Amed Forces hospital at Minnie Bay. After his injuries healed and he gained some strength, he spent several months with his family in the Karen settlement of Webi on North Andaman, before returning to ANET. Ambika Tripathi’s legacy lives on and the leatherback research project continues through ANET, which is now under the wonderful conservation NGO, Dakshin Foundation.

The mental and physical resources that enabled Agu to survive this horrific experience are an inspiration to us all; perhaps even a metaphor for overcoming this coronavirus pandemic and its challenges.  As to his abiding memory of it, I can only repeat his words when I said, “Agu, what horrors you lived through!”

“Yes,” he’d said, “I was so worried about where the others were, what was happening to them.”

Something to learn from this. Maybe a lot.

*

Author and conservationist Zai Whitaker is managing trustee — Madras Crocodile Bank Trust/Centre for Herpetology

Find latest and upcoming tech gadgets online on Tech2 Gadgets. Get technology news, gadgets reviews & ratings. Popular gadgets including laptop, tablet and mobile specifications, features, prices, comparison.

FP TrendingSep 27, 2020 00:31:07 IST

The new Chromecast device from Google will be launched on 30 September. Ahead of the release, features of the gadget have been leaked again giving users a more intricate look at the dongle’s hardware and user interface.

The leak comes courtesy of Redditor who was able to purchase the unannounced “Chromecast with Google TV” dongle early from a local Walmart.

The user also answered a few queries regarding the device. According to the person, there is no Ethernet port on the device but it is 4K/HDR compatible. The interface is branded as Google TV, but u/fuzztub07 says that it seems to be based on Android 10.

The device supports multiple user accounts and one can pair Bluetooth headphones to it as well.

According to the leak, the home screen lists plenty of content to watch, including content from apps users have not installed. Furthermore, the dongle reportedly supports HDMI-CEC, allowing it to control the television it is plugged on to.

Apps listed include OTT services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus and YouTube TV among others.

A separate Reddit user also shared a hands-on video of the device, highlighting all the angles of the retail packaging of the Google Chromecast.

The Chromecast branding is highly visible but the product name is inconsistent in the video. From the front, the branding ‘Chromecast with Google TV’ is clearly visible.

As per what is visible in the bottom of the packaging, the purchase includes a power cable and adapter, the Google Chromecast Voice Remote, and 2 AAA batteries.

If you are one of the millions of people in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. who turned your gaze toward the sky recently, you may have noticed the Sun shining through an odd, milky haze. This widespread opaque veil was caused not by clouds, but rather by smoke from wildfires in the Western U.S.

The smoke was cruising by in the middle levels of the atmosphere many thousands of feet above the ground. While far too high to smell, it caused spectacularly hued sunsets from New York to D.C. to Missouri.

Red sky at night

Lasting for about a week from Sept. 12 to Sept. 19, the smoke could be seen in satellite images as wisps and patches of light gray and was especially apparent over the darkly contrasting water of the Atlantic.

Soot particles are much larger than air molecules and are more adept at scattering the yellow, orange and red wavelengths of sunlight. The enhanced oranges, pinks and reds during sunset occur when the Sun’s rays have to travel through more smoke. That happens when the Sun is very low near the horizon rather than when it is directly overhead, hence the fiery sunsets.

Riding the jet stream

The smoke on the East Coast is coming from the horrifically large and persistent wildfires in the Western states. Smoke from those fires is showing up not only on the Eastern Seaboard, but even across the Atlantic in Europe.

How has all that smoke migrated so far? Blame this on the vagaries of the jet stream.

The jet stream is a high-altitude belt of fast wind that sails from west to east around the hemisphere in the middle latitudes. The jet stream is always present, but its wind speeds and exact path around the globe vary daily.

In early September, the jet stream’s path abruptly dipped south, draping it through the Western states. When this happened, the air current picked up the rising plumes of smoke and transported them across the U.S. in a layer of air between 10,000 and 20,000 feet above sea level. As the smoke layer raced eastward at up to 100 mph, it spread over cities along the way – dimming the Sun and creating red sunsets.

A connected world

Smoke isn’t the only aerosol that can sail around the Earth on wind currents. Pollution from China regularly travels to the U.S., where it’s been detected along the East Coast. Fine dusts lofted from the Sahara Desert in Africa can be swept westward to the Southeastern U.S., as happened just a few months ago.

After a week of hazy skies, a large air mass from Canada blew into the East Coast bringing in smoke-free air. But the Western U.S. fire season continues, and if the jet stream dips south again, the East could experience additional blasts of smoke-laden air. The globe may be vast, but wind currents connect us all.

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Earlier this year, Realme launched its Narzo 10 series of smartphones and they have been marketed as devices that deliver good mobile gaming performance on a budget. The new Narzo 20 Series is said to offer subtle upgrades over the older series.

Also added in this refresh cycle, is the introduction of the new Narzo 20 Pro. The ‘Pro’ model is supposed to offer the best gaming-grade hardware possible by Realme at budget pricing.

Realme Narzo 20 Pro. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

But after using my Realme Narzo 20 Pro review unit for a week, I’m not convinced about it’s “Pro gamer” branding even in the budget smartphone range.

So, let’s take a deep dive into the aspects that make it a gaming smartphone. In short, it’s all about that 90Hz display, the gaming-grade MediaTek Helio G95 chipset’s performance, and — since it’s a gaming smartphone — also check out how that not-so-vital camera performs.

It’s a 90Hz display

The display gets the job done for an average LCD panel, but the colours are a bit saturated and there’s a minor blue tint to it. You can adjust the screen colour temperature and attempt to fix the whitepoint, but there’s strangely no presets to adjust the colour scheme, so you will be stuck with the saturated colours. However, such a display may play well with the gaming audience that this phone has been designed for.

The display gets the job done for an average LCD panel, but the colours are a bit saturated and there’s a minor blue tint to it. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

The jump from a well-optimised 60hz refresh rate display to a budget 90Hz display, isn’t a big one. You need proper software optimisations to make the device feel fluid,  which is not the case with the Narzo 20 Pro, as you will discover in the software section of this review.

The OnePlus Nord is a good example of how hardware and software play a vital role when you crank up the display to 90Hz for a fluid experience. But all this falls into place at a higher price tag. Why include a mediocre 90Hz display then? It feels like Realme had a box to tick, which they did.

The display is also a smudge magnet. I have peeled off the screen protector of every single smartphone I have reviewed till date. Naturally, I did the same with the Realme Narzo 20 Pro review unit.

It turned out to be a smudgy mess, because the display does not seem to have an oleophobic coating of any sort. The smudges don’t wipe off easily either, so keep a bottle of lens cleaner handy if you are buying one.

The display is also a smudge magnet. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

Making things worse, is the fact that the 20 Pro is meant to be a gamer’s smartphone. This means greasy palms and sweaty hands after hour long sessions of Call of Duty: Mobile. As expected, even after a short gaming session, you can actually tell whether I was playing COD or Asphalt by just looking at the smudge patterns on the display.

It’s a subtle, classy-looking design, but not loud, radical or industrial-looking that the young, mobile gaming audience would like it to be. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

I liked the V-shaped texture on the back of the Narzo 20 Pro. The Ninja White variant is anything but white. However, my problem with it is that it does not scream “gaming” from any angle. It’s a subtle, classy-looking design, but not loud, radical or industrial-looking that the young, mobile gaming audience would like it to be.

Software needs some polish

As for the Realme UI software experience, it did not give me those 90Hz refresh rate feels and this could be down to the stuttery UI.

There are hiccups from time to time. When swiping between home screen pages, swiping through the Google News feed, pulling down the notifications bar or even scrolling web pages in the Chrome browser. These jitters are everywhere, and they get annoying after a point, making you question what that 90Hz display is bringing to the table.

Realme UI software experience did not give me those 90Hz refresh rate feels. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

In short, there are a few software optimisation issues (which could be down to that shiny new MediaTek chipset). These are minor hiccups that can hopefully be resolved with an upcoming software update. But as of typing this review, there hasn’t been one.

The good bit is that once you are in an app, things are quite smooth. Whether that’s scrolling through Instagram feeds, YouTube videos, lengthy WhatsApp chats, it’s a nice and smooth experience, provided you stay inside an app.

Gaming performance is a mixed bag

And with that, let’s take a look at how this smartphone fares when it comes to gaming — the sole reason for its existence.

The MediaTek Helio G90T had quite a reputation for delivering crazy-good gaming performance, but it was also a power hog on the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Things have improved with the (12nm) Helio G95, as the power issue seems to have been taken care of thanks to Realme’s software optimisations.

The MediaTek Helio G90T had quite a reputation for delivering crazy-good gaming performance. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

The new chipset features the same architecture, but bumps up the GPU clock speed to 900 Mhz, and it’s good enough to get you some high-end gaming.

With PUBG no more (for now), I tried out Call of Duty: Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, Shadowgun Legends, and the rather graphics-heavy PC to mobile port, MudRunner.

Save for COD: Mobile, the rest of the games worked as expected with graphics settings maxed out (or set to High). The games ran smoothly without any hiccups, which is impressive given that it’s a budget smartphone.

Asphalt 9 Legends at High Quality graphics settings on the Realme Narzo 20 Pro

The phone does warm up after about 20 minutes of gameplay, but you really cannot feel the warmth at the back. On the front, the display glass does heat up, but again it does not get as hot as it does on the Realme 7 Pro, which is a thinner smartphone overall.

MudRunner on the Realme Narzo 20 Pro

Coming to COD: Mobile, the experience was not so great. Gameplay was a bit stuttery at ‘Very High’ graphics settings and not as smooth as what you get on the Realme 7 Pro or even the Poco M2 Pro.

This is indeed an optimisation issue, as the chipset itself is fairly new. But the game also does not allow you to max out the graphics settings like on the (8nm) Snapdragon 720G-powered Realme 7 Pro that I tested earlier. The Narzo 20 Pro simply does not show the ‘Very High’ frame rate setting.

Call of Duty: Mobile ran best at Medium graphics and frame rate

Another problem is that the phone heats up while playing COD:Mobile at anything over ‘Medium’ graphics. The phone gets unbearably hot on the front display, and things like loading characters, menus and other parts start to slow down after a couple of games.

The display’s touch sampling rate is also a concern.

A detail to keep in mind about high refresh rate screens is that you will mostly end up using that 90Hz refresh rate in day-to-day use. This will include switching between apps, scrolling through news feeds, chats etc. Screen refresh rate has little to do with the actual mobile gaming experience, as the hardware in most budget smartphones can barely keep up with a 60Hz screen, or even cross the 40fps mark. So, it’s really the screen’s touch sampling rate that matters here. That turned out to be a problem on the Narzo 20 Pro.

I mostly noticed this touch sensitivity issue while playing multiplayer FPS games. There is noticeable lag when you are trying to aim and the display seems to have a hard time keeping up, which also meant that I lost a lot of Frontline battles in COD.

The lag was present with Shadowgun Legends as well, but it did not affect the gameplay much, as I usually go with single player missions which can be played at a much slower pace.

This is mostly a problem for fast-paced multiplayer games like COD, Fortnite, PUBG and the like, where there’s another player (not a bot) that’s pointing a gun at you and you need to take them down before they the same to you.

The bottom-firing speaker is loud but quite harsh and definitely not clear. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

As for the single bottom-firing speaker, it’s loud but quite harsh and definitely not clear. It’s best to plug in a pair of third-party earphones before jumping into a game.

Great battery life

The 4,500 mAh battery keeps this gaming machine running all day, given the heavy gaming usage most users will buy this phone for. I was always left with a good 30 percent charge by the end of the day, and almost never felt the need to reach for the charger by the end of a long work day. This meant that there was enough juice left for a couple of hours of video streaming before plugging it in and jumping into bed.

Unlike most other budget gaming smartphones, there’s a 65W Super Dart charging system available with the Narzo 20 Pro. You may have to roam around with a large charging brick and a thick cable, but believe me, it’s worth that extra bulk. The phone goes from 0-100 percent in the claimed 38 minutes, which is class-leading for a budget smartphone in this segment!

The camera’s not bad

Click here to see the camera samples:

You don’t usually expect the cameras on a gaming smartphone to get the job done, but this one is quite good for still photography. There’s a 48 MP primary camera that has decent dynamic range and a good amount of resolved detail as well. The colours too look quite natural (not on the phone’s saturated display, but on a laptop) and I noticed similar results when using the 16 MP selfie camera as well. The phone does a good job with edge detection as well, whether it’s software-enabled on the front camera or with the help of the B&W portrait camera on the back. The 8 MP ultra-wide angle camera also gets you good photos — provided there’s enough light in the scene — but falls a bit short on details. The 2 MP macro camera is simply there to fill up the spec sheet.

You don’t usually expect the cameras on a gaming smartphone to get the job done, but this one is quite good for still photography. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

In low light, details take quite a hit, no matter which camera you use. A lot of detail is lost thanks to the severe noise reduction, and this applies to the selfie camera as well. The ‘Night’ mode does not improve things drastically; detail still fall short, but you do get better dynamic range.

Video recording is decent at best, and you should use it only if you desperately need to. 4K mode produces the best overall video quality, but It lacks any stabilisation. The 1080p 30fps video falls drastically short on detail, and the exposure keeps on shifting as you pan through a scene. The 1080p 60fps video is better than the 30fps footage, but has the same exposure issues along with a focus hopping problem.

Should you buy one?

I received the top-end variant of the Realme Narzo 20 Pro, that’s priced at Rs 16,999 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage variant. The base 6GB RAM + 64GB storage variant is priced at Rs 14,999. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend either because a clutch of issues I encountered during the review period.

At Rs 14,999, I would instead recommend the Poco M2 Pro as a better gaming smartphone. Indeed, it makes more sense now than it did at launch. The M2 Pro gets you a solid 120Hz touch sampling rate, 33W charging, a capable Snapdragon 720G chipset, a nice haptic motor and slightly better cameras with a 5MP macro.

If you are willing to spend an additional Rs 2000, I would also recommend the recently announced Poco X3. Launched at Rs 16,999, it seems like a better smartphone on paper over the Poco X2, with a 240 Hz touch sampling rate, a Snapdragon 732G chipset and a 6,000 mAh battery. But wait for our upcoming review before you go for one.

There’s really no need for the Narzo 20 Pro to exist; the Realme 7 is a better package with similar hardware. Image: Tech2/Sheldon Pinto

Another reason why the Narzo 20 Pro lacks appeal is because of its own sibling, the Realme 7 (review). At Rs 14,999, The Realme 7 is not a gaming smartphone, but a better budget smartphone package that’s got the gaming guts of the Narzo 20 Pro.

The Narzo 20 Pro is in a curious position: the Realme 7 is a better package with similar hardware. Even for the serious gamer who plays a lot of FPS games, the Narzo 20 Pro falls short.

Find latest and upcoming tech gadgets online on Tech2 Gadgets. Get technology news, gadgets reviews & ratings. Popular gadgets including laptop, tablet and mobile specifications, features, prices, comparison.