2020 is here and so are celebrations for the new year. While people partied their way into the new year, the celebrations don’t have to stop as yet and what’s a party without dance and peppy songs. So all the Bollywood fans who are confused in selecting their playlist of dance song for their extended new year 2020 celebration we bring a list of songs that will surely pump up your mood and make you hit the dance floors.End to end encrypted messaging app Telegram has announced a whole bunch of new features that will be seen on the app soon.
These features were announced in a blog post last night. Being a security focused app, Telegram will now let developers who make open source apps to independently verify their code on GitHub and ensure that it is the same code that was used to build the app they downloaded from the App Store or Google Play Store.
The new features coming to Telegram have already started rolling out.
Here are the major features.
You will need to head to Chat Settings (Android) or Appearance Settings (iOS) to tweak how your Telegram interface looks. From changing the background to changing the chat window gradients, you can tweak the look to your heart's content. You also have predefined colour themes, where you can further tweak some things.
Telegram already had a feature to schedule your messages when the recipient came online, provided you are allowed by the recipient to see when they are online. Now you can also schedule Stickers along with messages, with or without sound.
You can use the universal search feature to search for a particular word or phrase in a Telegram chat. But earlier you had to click on the up/down arrow to toggle between search results. The latest update shows you a list of search results thereby reducing the number of clicks required to go to your desired result.
This is a boon for podcast addicts. If you have an audio file or a podcast longer than 20 mins, Telegram will be able to remember your last played position. There's also a 2x speed dial for podcasts.
Telegram on Android has supported Night Mode since 2017, but activating that involved a lot of steps. Now with just a single tap, you can switch between regular and night mode. This applies to the Maps as well.
This feature has been there on iOS. Now the Android app will also let you select part of the message instead of the full text.
Telegram on Android will now let you share stuff with your friends from multiple apps. You can send a photo from Instagram or a tweet from Twitter to multiple friends and will even get an option to add a comment accompanying it.
External browser support has now been added for opening links. Head to Settings > Data and Storage > Other to select between in-app Safari, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera Touch among others.
You can control what does or doesn't appear in your iOS Share Sheet (which generally adds your most popular Telegram chats). Head over to Settings >Data and Storage > Other > Share Sheet and toggle according to your preference.
Just long hold on the Telegram icon and it will show you the other Telegram accounts. You can switch between up to three phone numbers without logging out.
You can get a quick look at how Telegram is using your phone's storage now. You can see the Telegram Cache, Other apps and Free storage. There is a button to clear Telegram Cache with a single click as well. Head over to Settings > Data and Storage > Storage Usage for more options.
Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Diljit Dosanjh, Kiara Advani starrer Good Newwz continued its momentum on Day 5. The film which had already collected over Rs 78 Crore till Monday added a whopping Rs 16 crore on Day 5 and inched closer to the Rs 100 crore mark. According to film trade analyst Taran Adarsh the film's collection after 5 days of its release stands at Rs 94.60 crore. Good Newwz is expected to touch the Rs 100 crore mark very soon.India will launch Chandrayaan-3 in 2020, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Tuesday, asserting that the mission cost will be less than Chandrayaan 2.
Singh, who is the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, said it is wrong to term Chandrayaan 2 as a disappointment since it was India's maiden attempt to land on the lunar surface and no country could do so in its first attempt.
"Yes, the lander and rover mission will mostly likely happen in 2020. However, as I have said before, the Chandrayaan 2 mission cannot be called a failure as we have learnt a lot from it. There is no country in the world that has landed on its first attempt. The US took several attempts. But we will not need so many attempts," Singh said.
An illustration of Chandrayaan 2's lander Vikram. Image: ISRO
He added that the experience gathered from Chandrayaan 2 and available infrastructure will bring down the cost of Chandrayaan-3.
He, however, declined to specify the month of the third lunar mission launch.
Chandrayaan 2 mission was India's first attempt to land on lunar surface. The ISRO had planned the landing on the South Pole of the lunar surface. However, the lander Vikram hard-landed.
In a written response to a question in the Winter session of Parliament, Singh said, "The velocity was reduced from 1683 m/s to 146 m/s. During the second phase of the descent, the reduction in velocity was more than the designed value. Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard landed within 500 m of the designated landing site."
Bhojpuri actor and Member of Parliament Ravi Kishan's father Pandit ShyamA Narayan Shukla breathed his last on New Year's eve. Pandit Shukla, 92, passed away in Varansi after prolonged illness at 11 PM on Tuesday.Gloria Rivera likes the freedom of freelance.
She moved to San Diego from Peru in 2005 and has a bustling career as an interpreter and translator for doctors, courts and conferences.
Now, as a new California law governing freelancers is set to take effect Wednesday, her clients are wary. They are asking for more paperwork. Some services are hitting pause on hiring Californians at all.
“Everyone’s scared in California,” Rivera, 42, said. “Who’s going to hire me as an employee for three assignments a month?”
The new law, Assembly Bill 5, will radically reshape freelance work in California. Prompted in part by frustration with the treatment of workers by companies like the ride-hailing behemoths Uber and Lyft, the bill was created to extend workplace legal protections to roughly 1 million people in the state.
On Monday, Uber and Postmates filed a lawsuit in federal court in California seeking to block the law from being enforced against them. But the suit is unlikely to stop the law from going into effect in other professions.
Those other industries include a wide variety of freelance workers, such as writers, translators, strippers and clergy. Many said they were now discovering that the law could make earning a living much more difficult.
The idea behind the law, signed in September, is that many workers are misclassified as contractors so companies can save money. Unlike contractors, employees are protected by minimum-wage and overtime rules and are entitled to workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance. Their employers pay half their payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.
Assembly Bill 5 codified and extended the reach of a 2018 State Supreme Court ruling that said workers must be classified as employees if the work they did was a regular part of the company’s business. Under the ruling, a plumber who fixes a leak at a store may be a legitimate contractor. But workers who sew dresses at home using cloth and patterns provided by the manufacturer are likely to be employees.
The new law also means a company must treat workers as employees if it controls how they do their work, or if the workers don’t run independent businesses in the same line of work that they do for the company. A plumber who worked only at the store would most likely be deemed an employee.
The law has a host of so-called carve-outs. It exempts certain white-collar workers like doctors and accountants, but it extends legal protections to tens of thousands of low-paid workers in fields like construction, janitorial services and hairstyling.
But complexities cropped up quickly. For example, marketers and grant writers were exempted, but journalists were not.
So a weekly columnist for a newspaper must now be considered an employee, since under the new law a freelance writer can publish only 35 so-called submissions a year with a publication. (A video and a text article on the same event would count as one.) The intention was to require newspapers to put these workers on staff. The result in some cases has been layoffs.
Vox Media cut more than 200 California freelancers, citing the new law. The transcription service Rev told its freelancers that it would be leaving California.
Emma Gallegos, 34, has been freelancing while saving money to start a local news website, Hwy 99, covering her hometown, Bakersfield, located in California’s agricultural heartland. She recently took a copy-editing test to get a significant contract that would help pay her bills. Afterward, the potential client emailed her, apologising and explaining that it would not be able to hire her because she lived in California.
“There aren’t many full-time writing jobs in Bakersfield, so these kinds of remote editing contracts are important for me,” Gallegos said. “I just feel really frustrated and like I’m getting set back from my goals.”
Proponents of the new law argue that many companies are playing on worker anxieties and that many of the arrangements that employers are abandoning were illegal even before AB 5.
“A lot of these employers are sending out these fearmongering emails,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, the bill’s author. “I guess in this day and age of Twitter, that’s an easy thing to do — create a kind of mass hysteria.”
Gonzalez, a progressive Democrat, has in recent weeks become a fierce Twitter presence pushing back at critics, sometimes with profanity.
When asked about some of Gonzalez’s tweets, a spokeswoman said by email: “The assemblywoman is incredibly angry at an economic system that has caused a permanent underclass in her community of working men and women who are constantly being squeezed by corporate greed.”
Gonzalez has said the problems facing companies that rely on freelancers preceded the new law.
SB Nation, the sports website owned by Vox Media, which cited AB 5 as the reason it recently let go about 200 freelancers, was already sued by freelancers before the law changed. In one lawsuit, freelancers claimed that they worked as many as 40 hours a week but earned less than $150 a month.
A spokeswoman for Vox Media declined to comment but cited a post from SB Nation’s executive director in which he said the change was also “part of a business and staffing strategy that we have been exploring over the past two years.”
Even in situations where the new law might hurt workers, Gonzalez said, the reality is more nuanced than opponents let on. She pointed out that some media outlets, including SB Nation and The Los Angeles Times, were hiring more employees because of the new law.
While acknowledging concerns among journalists, Gonzalez attributed the media angst over the law partly to journalistic ethics: Those who lose their jobs feel free to complain loudly. But those who may benefit from the law by becoming employees, she said, “think it’s not appropriate to be engaged in something affects them, that they have a conflict.”
Some freelancers said the new law would force them to change the way they worked. And some said they preferred or needed their flexible schedules. Many companies limit their employees’ flexibility for practical reasons, though there is nothing that requires them to impose a rigid schedule.
Nancy Depper, a copy editor and proofreader in Oakland, has multiple sclerosis. So “setting my own hours makes life infinitely better for all the reasons,” she said. She said she had lost a set of contracts for 2020 worth $120,000.
“I’ve barely had time to process the information,” Depper, 53, said. “I don’t know what my options are going forward.”
The National Press Photographers Association, which represents photographers who could lose freelance work because of the law, has filed a lawsuit challenging AB 5.
“Photographers and writers are stuck between the rock of dwindling to nonexistent employment opportunities and the hard place of AB 5,” said Mickey H Osterreicher, general counsel for the association.
The politics of the bill were messy. There was significant support on the left for regulating Uber and Lyft, which use incentives to encourage drivers to work when and where the companies need them while avoiding any of the protections offered by employment. Gonzalez focused partly on those companies.
But many of those who could end up losing freelance work consider themselves progressives, so it has been confusing to find themselves disagreeing with a progressive lawmaker over a union-backed law.
Vanessa McGrady, a writer in Los Angeles who runs a feminist clothing brand, planned to volunteer for Sen Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign next year. But then Warren endorsed AB 5. Now McGrady, who is anxious about how the law will affect her career, is conflicted.
“I feel so strongly that workers need protection,” McGrady said. “But this bill is killing cockroaches with a cannon.”
Nellie Bowles and Noam Scheiber c.2019 The New York Times Company
Rapper Travis Scott says he will always love reality TV personality Kylie Jenner because she is the mother of his daughter Stormi.
A 42-year-old Tamil television actress killed her former boyfriend by smashing his head with a log and hammer in front of her husband.
Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor shared a post on Instagram to recall memories of the year and decade that is ending.Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shootin' stars
I could really use a wish right now
With the New year looming, we can all do with a few wishes and it looks like we are getting it.
The annual meteor shower, the Quadrantid meteors will be making their scheduled appearance this Saturday, 4 January 2020. The shower is active for around two weeks from 27 December to 10 January. However the peak intensity of the shower last for only a few hours and if you miss it, well its tata, goodbye till next year. If you do manage to catch it, it is a sight to behold and you might be able to see around 100 meteors an hour.
The Quadrantid meteors or Quads" are among the oddest meteor showers known to us.
They were discovered fairly recently in 2003 and have a very short peak period of a few hours, unlike the Perseids or the Orionids which last for days.
Interestingly, the constellation that the Quads were named after no longer exists.
When the Quads were first spotted in 1825, the meteors appeared to stream away from a point in the sky that appeared in a constellation called the Quadrans Muralis. This constellation falls between the constellations Draco the Dragon and Bo̦tes the Herdsman in a star map Рjust near the handle of the famous Big Dipper.
The International Astronomical Union prepared a list of constellations in 1922, a list in which Quadrans Muralis was neither elected, nor included.
Since 2003, the real origin of the Quadrantids has become ever so slightly clearer.
Most meteor showers come from comets that have broken apart, and the source of the Quadrantids is now believed to be an asteroid called the '2003 EH1', which is believed to be an extinct comet or a "rock comet."
The best time to watch the spectacular show, according to EarthSky, is probably late at night on 3 January until dawn on 4 January.
According to the International Meteor Organization prediction, the meteor showers will peak will come on 4 January 2020, at 1.30 pm IST. This means that people living in India will be forced to give the show a miss.
The shower favours the Northern Hemisphere because its radiant point is so far north on the sky’s dome.
A radiant point of a meteor shower is the point in the sky, for a person’s point of view on earth, from which the paths of meteors appear to originate.
According to EarthSky, one piece of good news for the people who will be in the northern hemisphere is that the moon is waxing and the absence of the moonlight will only be helpful.
2020 is just around the corner and everyone is looking back at 2019 to remember te memories made during the year. Former US President Barack Obama had a special way to remember 2019, he compiled a list of his favourites from the year. He first shared the list of his favourite books, TV series and films that released in 2019. Now he has shared his favourite music list from the year 2019 with his fans. Obama's favourite music list came as a rather pleasant surprise for Indian musician Prateek Kuhad whose song Cold Mess made it to the list.Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced that India will be opening up its 5G spectrum for trials to all telecom equipment manufacturers, including Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
An official has stated that the Huawei clearance, along with clearance for other telecom equipment makers, is only for the testing phase at the moment.
"5G is the future, it is speed. We will encourage new innovation in 5G," said Prasad.
Huawei India CEO Jay Chen thanked the Indian government for its decision. "We firmly believe that only technology innovations and high-quality networks will be the key to rejuvenating the Indian telecom industry. We have full confidence in the Indian government and industry to partner with the best technology for India's own long-term benefit and also for cross-industry development," said Chen.
Huawei.
One of the major technology-related pieces of news of 2019 was the fact that the United States banned Huawei from any 5G related deployment within its borders, which was eventually expanded to a total US ban on trade with Huawei and 70 affiliated Chinese companies.
US President Donald Trump passed the government order back in May 2019.
Google announced that it would stop Android services and updates on Huawei made phones (a ban which has been excused twice since it was first announced). This caused Huawei to release its own in-house operating system for smartphones and smart devices called Harmony OS.
Arm Holdings which licenses designs for application processors inside chipsets also asked all its employees to "halt all active contracts, support entitlements, and any pending engagements."
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the Trump-backed decision would “prevent American technology from being used by foreign-owned entities in ways that potentially undermine US national security or foreign policy interests.” The basic premise for banning Huawei from the US is the suspicion that Huawei telecom equipment will provide a backdoor to the Chinese government, something the US does not want to risk. Given Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei's connection with the Chinese Communist Party, the US is wary of handing over control of critical infrastructure to the Chinese.
No. The US govt hasn't provided any proof on the matter, but it has gone ahead and put pressure on its allies to also ban Huawei from their 5G deployment plans. Some countries such as Australia and New Zealand have agreed to abide by these requests. But many other countries aren't too keen to bow down to US diktats.
Till October, Germany had taken a stand that it won't ban any 5G equipment maker up front. But latest developments include clearing a proposal involving technical certification and scrutiny of telecoms equipment suppliers. If this proposal goes through, it could possibly ban Huawei from Germany as well. The UK hasn't entirely banned Huawei from its 5G trials, but does not want to use Huawei equipment in its critical industries.
In March, Huawei had sued the US government for what it called an 'unfair ban.' “The US Congress has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to support its restrictions on Huawei products,” Guo Ping, Huawei’s rotating chairman had then told The New York Times.
With all this background, it is indeed a big deal that India (which is said to be in the good books of the US administration) has taken a stand and given a go-ahead to Huawei, even if it's just for 5G trials. Back in June, Huawei had agreed to sign a 'no backdoor policy' agreement with the Indian government to keep away the fears that the US has been perpetrating. According to Business Standard, under the proposed agreement, the Indian government will have the power to ban Huawei from operating in the country if there is serious evidence of security breach on its part.
In the absence of any concrete US proof of Huawei providing a backdoor to China, and Huawei agreeing to sign a no-backdoor policy, it would be foolish to rely on the whims and fancies of the Trump government when making policy decisions for India. Dilly-dallying on this decision also means a delay in commercial 5G deployments in the country. We are already late on that front. The move has also got a thumbs up from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) which said that telcos were awaiting this decision before going ahead with their investments.
Huawei CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei. Reuters
Huawei has been banned from operating in the US, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand. Countries such as France, Hungary, South Korea, Thailand, Switzerland, Russia and Malaysia have permitted Huawei to operate. Germany, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK are still on the fence regarding Huawei, but they haven't banned it outright despite US pressure.
According to reports, Vodafone-Idea has agreed to use Huawei and Ericsson for its 5G trials, Bharti Airtel has sought permission to use Nokia, Huawei and Ericsson for making its 5G telecom equipment, whereas Reliance Jio has an agreement with Samsung.
Airtel chairman Sunil Bharati Mittal had even gone on to say that he found Huawei-made 3G and 4G equipment to be superior to that of other European vendors.
In a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum 2019 with US commerce secretary Ross, Mittal noted that the Chinese company had been able to take its products to a level where it was leading edge. "The power consumption is a fraction of the Europeans', the footprint is small if you have to put it on a tower, and they have powerful leading features... They are clearly leading edge. Now, whether they compromised some American IPs (internet protocols), I don't know," he said.
The 5G trials were supposed to begin earlier this year. The idea behind the trials is to determine use-cases for 5G in India. Unlike the 4G network, 5G has immense applications in fields as varied as fixed to the home (FTTH) broadband internet, high-speed mobile internet on phones, communications with Internet of Things devices which can be deployed in many fields such as agriculture, manufacturing industries, healthcare, data analytics, automotive industries, and so on.
These 5G trials are supposed to act as a precursor to the proper public rollout of 5G services. Countries such as China, South Korea, the USA, the UK, Germany have some regions where 5G has become operational. There is no clarity as to when commercial 5G operations in India will begin. Given the delay in the testing of 5G networks in India, it would be safe to assume that 5G won't be going mainstream in India before 2021 at the very least. China is the only country in the world, currently, which has the highest number of commercial 5G deployments.
The government has said that it will have the next round of spectrum auction from April to June 2020. Four months should give enough time for telcos to test key 5G use cases.
Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd which owns Reliance Jio is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd, the publisher of Firstpost and tech2
Country singer Carrie Underwood is stepping aside from hosting duties of the CMA Awards after 12 years. The musician took to Instagram to share the news. "One of the highlights of 2019 and of my entire career so far was being on stage with the legends that are Reba (McEntire) and Dolly Parton. I'm so proud that we could celebrate the incredible female artistes that are part of the legacy of country music, past, present and future, and I'm thankful for the huge audiences all over the world that tuned in to see it.
Mental health is a central part of our lives and having resolutions that facilitate it could only be a step forward towards better living.I often look back in wonder at the horrors of humanity’s past, marvelling at the primitive barbarity of Spartans that tossed young Leonidases out to survive in the untamed wilds, of Indian tribes that skewered the muscles of their young and hung them upside down till they fainted as a rite of passage, of the Amazonian people that forced boys to be bitten by bullet ants and girls to have every strand of their hair individually plucked out at their roots.
When I think about it though, I would imagine that Generation Alpha — the successor to Gen Z — would ascribe that same horror to parents who sent their kids to school sans smartphone, to students who had to endure college without YouTube, and to the 20-somethings of yore forced to find mates without Tinder.
Would Gen Alpha even be able to comprehend travel without Uber or Airbnb, navigation without Google Maps, and a social life without Instagram? How would one even survive in a world without information just a tap away, where the pace of communication is defined by our ability to swipe on glass screens? Unborn babies of the future won’t be kicking mothers in their wombs, they’ll be tapping mommy’s bellies with their fingers.
The ability to communicate with machines is already intrinsic to the human condition and an inevitable link in the evolutionary chain. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the ability to communicate defines the pace of evolution.
Communication allowed the first cells to band together to form organisms, allowed organisms to come together to form packs, packs to tribes, tribes to societies, societies to civilisations.
Communication allowed individual entities to band together under common ideals, to share information and feedback that allowed the whole to evolve faster than the individual.
Organic means of communication can only get us so far, however, and it’s only this past decade that, for better or worse, we truly learnt how to communicate with, and via, machines.
It was in this decade that battle lines were drawn not around the flow of oil, but of data. Facebook became emblematic of all that was wrong with Big Tech, Twitter a mirror of humanity’s hatred, Google of its indifference.
This was the decade when governments scrambled for control of the information superhighways of the nations they were governing, where internet shutdowns became a means of control, where genocides were orchestrated via social networks.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. While oppressors fought for control, there were those who fought back.
Apple emerged as a staunch guardian of privacy, the Arab Spring would never have happened without social media, the Hong Kong protests would not still be alive if it wasn’t for the internet.
This was also the decade that the power of the internet allowed science to go global. We saw the birth of the first planet-scale telescopes, documented the shockwaves of cosmic collisions, imaged our first black hole, confirmed the existence of the God particle, and made advances in gene-editing that were, up until a decade ago, only described in science fiction.
Fast and easy access to the internet is revolutionising education and empowering a new generation of entrepreneurs, uplifting entire sections of an oppressed society.
The ability to communicate is what brought humanity to this point, this hyper-connected reality where the survival of an entire species is now contingent on the efficiency with which it can talk to supercomputers.
These are exciting times, revolutionary even, but the thing is, we’re still learning, and we've made mistakes. We need to tread with caution.
Whatever the next decade holds for us, it’s the learnings from this past decade that will define our future.
Former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn, who is awaiting trial in Japan on charges of financial misconduct, has arrived in Beirut, a close friend said Monday. He apparently jumped bail.
It was not clear how Ghosn, who is of Lebanese origin and holds French and Lebanese passports, left Japan where he was under surveillance and is expected to face trial in April 2020.
Ricardo Karam, a television host and friend of Ghosn who interviewed him several times, told The Associated Press Ghosn arrived in Lebanon Monday morning.
“He is home,” Karam told the AP in a message. “It’s a big adventure.”
Karam declined to elaborate. Local media first reported Ghosn arrived in Lebanon but didn’t offer details.
There was no immediate comment from Japan or from Lebanese officials.
Ghosn, 65, has been on bail in Tokyo since April and is facing charges of hiding income and financial misconduct. He has denied the charges. He had been under strict bail conditions in Japan after spending more than 120 days in detention.
Lebanon-based paper Al-Joumhouriya said Ghosn arrived in Beirut from Turkey aboard a private jet. AP has not been able to confirm those details or how he was able to leave Tokyo.
A house known to belong to Ghosn in a Beirut neighborhood had security guards outside with two lights on Monday night, but no sign otherwise of anyone inside. The guards denied he was inside, although one said he was in Lebanon without saying how he knew that.
Ghosn was arrested last year in Japan and has been charged with under-reporting his compensation and other financial misconduct. He denies wrongdoing and was out on bail. His trial had not started.
Ghosn’s lawyers say the allegations are a result of trumped-up charges rooted in a conspiracy among Nissan, government officials and prosecutors to oust Ghosn to prevent a fuller merger with Nissan’s alliance partner, Renault SA of France.
Ghosn, one of the auto industry’s biggest stars before his downfall, is credited with leading Nissan from near-bankruptcy to lucrative growth.
Even as he fell from grace internationally, Ghosn was still treated as a hero in Lebanon, where many had long held hopes he would one day play a bigger role in politics, or help rescue its failing economy.
Politicians across the board mobilized in his defense after his arrest in Japan, with some suggesting his detention may be part of a political or business-motivated conspiracy.
Director Zoya Akhtar says she was clear about one thing when she started working on "Ghost Stories": she wouldn't rely on conventional horror tropes and would instead use the genre to chronicle fundamental fears that haunt people. Zoya's short features Janhvi Kapoor as a home nurse tasked with taking care of an elderly woman, played by veteran actor Surekha Sikri.
2020 is almost here and celebrations have already begun for our star. Many chose to take this time off with family, friends and are holidaying at exotic location. But how are the star kids welcoming the new year? Actress Ananya Panday, Shah Rukh Khan's children Suhana and Aryan Khan are off to get away with their old friends to celebrate the beginning of a new year. Ananya took to her Instagram to share a picture from their vacation. She along with Aaryan, Suhana and their old' friends are seen posing together.This is it, the last day of 2019 has already arrived!
Now, most of you must be planning to let your hair down and start the new year with bash by going to fancy parties and while many like me may planning to stay back at home in pyjamas and greet the new year with a peaceful vibe. One thing that is common in both the scenarios is everyone wants to celebrate it around their friends and family.
But some of us cannot be with our close ones during this time of the year for whatever reason, you can always wish them in your own ways. Wishing people via text is now so old-school, that I would suggest you go ahead with themed WhatsApp stickers.
All you need to do is go to the Play Store and search for apps like "WhatsApp stickers for New Year 2020" or something on the same lines and you will see a huge list of apps.
Select any app and install it in your device. Once it is installed, open it and select the preferred stickers and tap on the "Add to WhatsApp" option. Now you can head to WhatsApp and open the stickers option and the stickers that you selected will be present in the already existing options.
You can download apps like WAStickers Happy New Year Stickers, New Year Stickers for WhatsApp, and Happy New Year stickers 2020.
The fans are all set to witness Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif--the most good-looking onscreen pair yet again, thanks to filmmaker Rohit Shetty’s next film in the cop universe titled ‘Sooryavanshi.’ A lot of BTS videos and pictures along with a promo have been shared by the makers which hint that the actor will play the role of a cop but not much was revealed about the actress’s character. Well now, the curtains have been raised by the director himself who has spilled the beans that Katrina will be seen playing the role of a doctor in the film.
Actress Deepika Padukone who is all set for the release of her next film Chhapaak has been actively promoting the film. Chhapaak has already created quite a buzz and glimpse of Deepika's performance in the trailer of the film and only raised our expectations. Deepika recently took to her Instagram to share a 'DPism' video that’s apparently from the first day of the film's shoot. The video starts with Deepika in conversation with director Meghna Gulzar and does a wink as she looks into the camera. The video end with a message saying, " Get that Priya Varrier"
Here are few tips for New Year resolutions that are easy to take up in day to day lifestyle.Last month, Instagram announced that it will be making alliances with fact-checkers around the world to expose deception in shared photos or videos. Starting today, the social media platform has started to roll out the feature.
I spotted the fact-checker pop-up on Instagram Stories today. For any post that is found by fact-checkers to be 'factually incorrect', the images are blurred with a 'False Information' warning. Right below the warning is an option to see why the image has been blocked. If you tap on that, you will be shown details on who the fact-checker, what is the conclusion on the authenticity of the content in the post, and more information that will explain why the content may not be true.
After been warned that the content is false, you can still see the image by shutting the fact-checker pop-up and tapping on 'See Post' at the bottom of the image/video.
The fact-checker pop-up shown to me was by Agence France Presse APAC.
Instagram says that it uses "image-matching technology to find further instances of this [false] content and apply the label, helping reduce the spread of misinformation." "In addition, if something is rated false or partly false on Facebook...we'll automatically label identical content if it is posted on Instagram (and vice versa)."
Facebook already uses third-party fact-checkers in more than a dozen countries, according to its website. Posts reviewed by Facebook fact-checking teams include content flagged by users, as well as material tagged by software that is continually being refined by the company.
Tatum and Jessie J had been dating for over a year when they decided to part ways. The ended their relationship in November.
The iconic Bollywood actor Kader Khan who worked in over 300 films in Bollywood and was known as the master of his art by his contemporaries left for heavenly abode on December 31, 2018. The last New Year was left in grief for family, friends, and fans of the actor who passed away in Toronto, Canada after a prolonged illness. Ever since, a void was left in the industry. From being a dangerous villain to making the audience laugh with his perfect comic timing, the actor time and again proved that he rules the art of acting. He was versatile and there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do. As we remember the veteran actor on his death anniversary, let's have a look at 5 of his unforgettable films. 
Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Dilji Dosanjh, Kiara Advani starrer Good Newwz saw a release last Friday ie December 27. Just from the first day, the film garnered positive box office response from the fans and managed to earn Rs 39.34 crore in just two days. The film crossed its first weekend with superb collections and minted Rs 64.99 crore after its first Sunday. Talking about the fourth-day collections, it is expected to earn record a drop of 25% range from Friday and record an earning of 13 crore net, making its grand total to Rs 78 crore nett, as per reports by Box Office India.There are fireworks, there's a cityscape, there's a tiny boat, and there's Froggy the weather frog wearing a party hat, next to its pigeon friend (also wearing a hat) celebrating the New Year's Eve 2020. That's the Google Doodle for the day.
For anyone who has used the Google weather app on mobile, you'd know of Froggy. And if you are thinking why is Froggy in the New Year's Eve doodle, well the connection is interesting because it's a leap year! Get it? Leap year, frogs leap, Froggy leaping into the leap year, New Year 2020?! I'm sure you get it.
New Year's Eve 2020 Google doodle
Another significance of Froggy in the doodle could be a dedication to all the "party animals" this New Year's Eve.
Google has also shared a little message from Froggy on its blog: "Froggy is gearing up for New Year's celebrations in any weather. He says he’s most excited about it being a Leap Year. “The 2020s are sure to be ribbitting!”
Once the clock strikes midnight, the new decade begins! Time sure is fun when you’re having flies… Ready to jump in?"
Along with the doodle on the main search page, on its blog, Google has also shared doodles of "a few of the Weather scenes you might catch Froggy in today."
Different weather scenes with Froggy in it.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released images of a 'burning' cloud or the Perseus Molecular Cloud captured by its Spitzer Space Telescope.
The fiery image showcased a gigantic collection of gas and dust that stretched over 500 light-years.
The image of the Perseus Molecular Cloud is actually 'infrared radiation' of the warm dust and it makes it seem like the outer space is ablaze.
According to Fox News, the cloud consists of more than 10,000 gas and dust solar masses and has been a reason for astronomers' fascination for years.
The Perseus Molecular Cloud hosts an abundance of young stars. It was imaged here by the NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
"Clusters of stars, such as the bright spot near the left side of the image, generate even more infrared light and illuminate the surrounding clouds like the sun lighting up a cloudy sky at sunset," Fox News quoted NASA as saying.
According to the space agency, most of the dust particles that could be seen in the image emits no or very little visible light and hence, it was revealed using the Spitzer.
The image was taken by the Spitzer's Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS) during the 'cold mission' of the telescope which was from 2003 to 2009.
Just like everyone, Tiger Shroff's sister Krishna is bidding the year 2019 on a positive note. The lady who never shies away in flaunting her body in bikini took to social media yet again to share some of her sizzling pictures by the side of a pool. Not only this she even shared a boyfriend appreciation post for basketball player Eban Hyams. Soon her picture that had tattoos all over her body got trolled by none other than her brother which gave fans a feeling of how every brother and sister reacts to each other's picture. 
Actress Gul Panag says that with the release of two films and two web series, in which she played pivotal roles, 2019 has been her most fruitful year.
It's that time of the year when Bollywood stars fly out of India on vacation, to usher a brand new year. This year is no exception. Anushka Sharma with cricketer hubby Virat Kohli, Varun Dhawan with girlfriend Natasha Dalal, and Parineeti Chopra are among celebrities who are out holidaying. Switzerland seems to be Bollywood's favourite destination this year. Anushka and Virat are in the Alpine country, and who should they bump into but Varun and Natasha!
Actress Nehha Pendse is set to tie the knot with Shardul Singh Bayas, whom she describes as the man of her dreams. Photos from the grahmukh pooja show that she is going to be one happy bride.
The scariest part of being an actor for Sobhita Dhulipala is to never find out her true potential in an environment which hails mediocrity. The actor made her debut with "Raman Raghav 2.0" and got acclaim for her performance in web series "Made in Heaven" and "Bard of Blood". "My fear is to never be pushed to whatever the potential may be. Because the environment that's being celebrated is largely that of mediocrity. The fear to never know what I could've been," Sobhita told PTI.
Neena Gupta is thrilled with the kind of work coming her way, but at the same time, the actor says she feels envious of the younger generation of women in the industry, who are getting a chance to play varied parts so early on in their careers. Neena, 60, said she found a new lease of life as an actor with films like "Badhaai Ho", "Mulk", and "Veere Di Wedding".
Sushmita Sen and her boyfriend Rohman Shawl often make appearance on each other's Instagram feed in their display of love. In his latest Instagram post, Rohman shared a lovely picture where the two can be seen gazing at each other in complete love while Sushmita leans on Rohman. The amazing picture was topped with a lovely note for Sushmita Sen.Last month, WhatsApp was reported to be working on a 'disappearing message' feature that would allow users to set a timer to how long a message should exist on a chat, after which it would automatically get deleted. The feature was being tested on the Android beta app.
Now, another report reveals that while such a feature is under construction, it will only be available on group chats and not one-on-one chats.
WhatsApp beta tester WABetaInfo has spotted the feature on the latest iOS beta version, which lists the feature as a cleaning tool for group chats.
Earlier believed to be named 'disappearing message' feature, previous leak on Android beta version of the app claims it would be called 'delete messages' feature.
The Delete messages option will be available under the Group Settings tab. Admins of groups will reportedly be able to choose from a time frame ranging from one our to one year for which they want the messages to last before they are deleted. There will also be an option to turn off the feature as well. Other options include one day, one week, and one month.
Previous reports have also suggested that there may be an option to choose the messages' deletion within 5 seconds to one year.
Akshay Kumar is undoubtedly one of the most bankable stars of Bollywood, but the actor says surviving in the industry has been a task. The actor, who has been having a golden run at the box office for past one decade, says success has made him more comfortable in taking risks and being versatile. "It feels good that all my films have been loved. I can't believe my films have done so much business. The money is coming in the film industry and it gives the producers the money to make all kinds of films, big or small," Akshay said in a group interview.
"Gul Makai", a biopic on Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, is slated to be released on January 31, 2020. The film has been directed by HE Amjad Khan and produced by Sanjay Singla. It is presented by Jayantilal Gada and Tekno Films.Oppo A5 2020 was launched in India back in September this year at a starting price of Rs 12,490. The smartphone was earlier available in two RAM options — 3 GB RAM and 4 GB RAM and one 64 GB storage options.
The Mobile Indian has reported that the smartphone is now also available in 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage options. The report further reveals that, priced at Rs 14,990, this new storage variant is just available on select offline retail stores.
Oppo A5 2020 already comes in two variants. The 3 GB RAM variant is priced at Rs 12,490 and 4 GB RAM option is priced at Rs 13,990. Both come with 64 GB of storage. Dazzling White and Mirror Black are the colour variants that you will get with this smartphone.
Oppo A5 2020 features a 6.5-inch display with a waterdrop notch and come with a Gorilla Glass 3+ protection. The smartphone runs on Android 9 Pie with ColorOS 6.0.1 and pack 5,000 mAh battery. In terms of processor, it is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 chipset. It offers up to 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internals storage.
On the camera front, Oppo A5 2020 sports a quad-camera setup at the back with different resolution primary sensors. The A5 2020 comes with a 12 MP primary sensor, an 8 MP ultra-wide-angle lens, 2 MP monochrome shooter and a 2 MP depth sensor.
Oppo A5 2020 features an 8 MP selfie camera. The smartphone sports a fingerprint sensor at the back.
Samsung is reportedly gearing up to launch Galaxy S10 Lite and Note S10 soon. Prices and specifications of Galaxy Lite variant were leaked recently that suggested that it might be powered by Snapdragon 855 chipset and will offer 8 GB RAM. It is also being speculated that this upcoming smartphone Galaxy S series might be named as Galaxy S20 series instead of Galaxy S11.
For the launch date, a report by Korea Herald reveals that Samsung is expected to launch Samsung S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite at CES 2020 next month. The report suggests that industry sources claim that Samsung will unveil its "new lineup of mid-range Galaxy phones" at the event.
(Also read: Samsung to announce its Neon Artificial Intelligence project at CES 2020)
It is also expected that the company might launch these smartphones in India in January itself.
The Galaxy S10 Lite is believed to feature a 6.7-inch full-HD+ (1080 x 2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display with 19.5:9 aspect ratio.
According to a report shared by WinFuture, Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite is expected to be powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset. Notably, Samsung is said to offer the Snapdragon 855 variant of the Galaxy S10 Lite in all regions including Europe, and not the Exynos-powered variants that have traditionally been sold in the European countries.
The purported Galaxy S10 Lite is also reported to come with 8 GB RAM and 128GB of onboard storage that can further be expanded via a microSD card (up to 1TB). Fuelling the device will apparently be a 4,500mAh battery with 45W fast charging support. The Galaxy S10 Lite is tipped to run Android 10 with One UI 2.0 on top.
In the camera department, as per the report, the Galaxy S10 Lite might sport a 48 MP primary camera with an f/2.0 aperture. The camera will apparently have something called 'tOIS', which is tilt-OIS, and it is said to have been achieved by allowing the lens to shift its position by an extra few degrees.
Besides that, there will also be a 12 MP ultra-wide angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture and a 5 MP macro camera with an f/2.4 aperture. For selfies, the Galaxy S10 Lite will apparently come with a 32 MP camera with an f/2.2 aperture.
As for pricing, the smartphone is expected to be priced at EUR 679.99, which is about Rs 54,000. The Galaxy S10 Lite will reportedly come in black, white, and blue colour options.
