Heena Sharma Blog

  From entry-level budget ones to premium, smart televisions now come at all price points. Irrespective of price-point, however, every smart television aims to offer better contrast, light control and vibrant colours. These parameters are important because they can truly elevate your home entertainment experience, be it while watching video, listening to music, and playing games. Business Standard lists five best smart televisions across market segments that deliver top-notch experience for their prices. Take a look: Sony A8H OLED The Sony Bravia A8H is among the best 4K smart TV that your money can buy. From exceptional picture quality to immersive sound experience, there is no parameter where the Sony Bravia A8H seems lacking. It boasts a plush design, OLED screen with support for most high dynamic range formats, actuators-based sound system, Android operating system with Play Store for TV for apps, and support for Amazon Alexa, Apple AirPlay and Apple HomeKit, besides Googl...

  The Maharashtra government has once again slashed the price of the RT-PCR test at Mumbai airport. In the beginning, the price was Rs 4,500. Then it was cut down to Rs 3,900. And now it is slashed to Rs 1,975, said a press release. Today the notification regarding the same will be issued and airport authorities will be informed. Before this, Mumbai airport had the highest RT-PCR rates and this was burning a hole in the wallets of the passengers. Especially those passengers who were from the same group or family. Meanwhile, Maharashtra reported 684 new Covid-19 cases, 686 recoveries, and 24 deaths in the last 24 hours, said the state health bulletin on Tuesday. 8 more patients were found infected with Omicron in the state on Tuesday. Out of these 7 are from Mumbai and one patient is from Vasai Virar. Read More

  Apple has started rolling out an iOS 15.2 update with new features and fixes as the first major update to iPhone software since iOS 15.1 in October. iOS and iPadOS 15 introduced the Record App Activity feature in the privacy settings, allowing people to save a summary of sensor, data, and Internet access by apps on their device. "In iOS and iPadOS 15.2, this activity is presented in Settings in a new UI called App Privacy Report. This is a great opportunity to review the app's sensor, data, and Internet usage," the company said in a statement. Auto Call can now be set up to use one of two methods for initiating an emergency call: holding the side button together with a volume button, or rapidly pressing the side button multiple times. Both methods now show a longer, 8-second countdown before placing an emergency call. Read More

  India's coronavirus tally rose to 3,46,97,860 with 7,350 people testing positive for the infection in a day, while the number of active cases declined to 91,456, the lowest in 561 days, the Union Health Ministry data showed on Monday. The death toll from the pandemic has climbed to 4,75,636 with 202 new fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am. The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been recorded below 15,000 for the last 46 days now. The number of active cases has declined to 91,456, comprising 0.26 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.37 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the Health Ministry said. A decline of 825 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 case count in a span of 24 hours. Read More

  Eight more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Sikkim in the last 24 hours, taking the Himalayan state's virus tally to 32,382, a Health Department bulletin said. The COVID-19 death toll of the state stood at 405 as no fatality was reported in the past 24 hours, the bulletin said. The fresh infections have taken the number of active cases to 198, while 341 others have migrated to other states and 31,438 persons have recovered from the disease. East Sikkim has so far registered the highest number of cases at 18,031 followed by 7,133 in South Sikkim, 6,205 in West Sikkim, and 671 in North Sikkim. The state has so far tested 2,72,855 samples for COVID-19. Sikkim's Covid-19 daily positivity rate stood 2.3 per cent, while the daily recovery ratio remained at 98.1 per cent. Read More

  Apple recently launched the Watch Series 7 lineup and now the company is gearing up to launch an updated version of the Watch SE, which might be named Watch SE 2. In the latest edition of 'Power On' newsletter Mark Gurman said that next year Apple may launch an update to the Apple Watch SEaCE alongside the Apple Watch Series 8, reports MacRumors. The Apple Watch SE 2 will be in line with the original SE model that was launched in the year 2020. The original Apple Watch SE 2 features designs similar to the regular Apple Watch models, but lacks some of the advanced features, such as always-on display, blood oxygen sensor, and ECG functionality. Read More

  Amid the scare from the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Monday said there is need to take a decision at the national level on whether a booster dose of the vaccine is required to curb the pandemic. Speaking after paying tribute to legendary social reformer Babasaheb Ambedkar at Chaityabhoomi in Dadar here, he said information available showed that those who had taken both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had also got infected with the Omicron variant. Is booster dose required then? We have doses available today. There is a need to take a decision at the national level in this regard I think. There are different opinions about it. So, it should be told why it needs to be given or why it shouldn't. Only experts who have researched it (the infection) can talk about it," Pawar said. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and the state administration are keeping a close tab on the current situation, the senior NCP leader said. Read More ...

  As many as 12 patients suspected to be infected with the COVID-19 ' Omicron ' variant have been admitted to Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan (LNJP) hospital in Delhi so far, said the sources on Friday. As per the sources, eight Omicron suspects were admitted to LNJP hospital yesterday. "Four suspects have been admitted today, out of which, two have been tested COVID-19 positive while the test results for the other two are awaited," stated sources. Of these four suspects, two have come from the UK, one from France and one from the Netherlands, sources added. Further, they informed that the samples of all four patients will be sent for genome sequencing today. Earlier on Thursday, the Union Health Ministry informed that two cases of the potentially more dangerous coronavirus strain were detected in Karnataka. Read More

  Zydus Cadila's COVID-19 vaccine ZyCoV-D will initially be used in seven states, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, which have been recommended to identify the districts with a high number of of beneficiaries who have not received a single dose of a Covid vaccine for its introduction Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, who reviewed the status and progress of the "Har Ghar Dastak" campaign with the health secretaries and National Health Mission (NHM) directors of the states and Union territories through a video-conference on Thursday, advised the seven states to identify the districts with a high number of first dose left out for the introduction of ZyCoV-D, a statement issued by the health ministry said. The seven states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. ZyCov-D, which is the first COVID-19 vaccine to be cleared by India's drug regulator for those aged 12 years and above, w...

  Qualcomm Inc on Tuesday released its new top-tier smartphone chip aimed at premium-priced Android phones with features like sharper photos and graphics than handsets using chips from rivals. The San Diego, California-based company is the biggest supplier of the chips at the heart of many Android phones, competing against rivals such as Taiwan's MediaTek Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which uses Qualcomm chips in some of its phones but self-supplies chips for some models. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip released Tuesday will have similar computing cores to rivals like MediaTek, which this month announced a chip aimed at premium phones. But almost every other part of the chip are custom designed by Qualcomm, including those playing a role in the visual quality of photos and graphics-intensive apps like games. Alex Katouzian, senior vice president and general manager of mobile, compute and infrastructure for Qualcomm, said the company has been crafting software that will l...