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Oppo’s under-screen camera is real and taking photos in Shanghai

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Oppo under-display selfie camera

Just like in the earlier video demo, when the camera is idle, the screen works just as normal. However, when you look up close, the area above the camera appears to be more pixelated. According to Oppo, this zoned-out area features a highly-transparent material plus a redesigned pixel structure for improved light transmittance. In other words, this camera tech requires a customized display panel, because existing ones won’t do the job — their transparency properties are only good enough for in-display fingerprint readers, but not conventional cameras.

Oppo's under-screen camera technology.

Oppo added that the under-screen camera itself also packs a larger sensor with bigger pixels, along with a larger aperture to get as much light as possible. This does mean a drop in resolution, and based on our quick comparison, there’s certainly room for improvement in terms of clarity and color accuracy. This is a little worrying, considering Oppo has already applied its algorithm fix on haze removal, HDR plus white balance, and it’ll have to put in extra effort here to meet its usual selfie standards.

Oppo's under-screen camera

There’s still no update on when we can expect this under-screen camera technology to show up on a mass-production phone — all we were told was this will be released “in the near future.” Given that Xiaomi is also toying with this tech, chances are these two brands are not alone in this race. At least this will keep us entertained until someone finally figures out the foldable form factor, anyway.

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Boeing is closer to ISS spaceflights after Starliner’s final parachute test

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To be able to simulate an actual flight suffering from parachute failure, the Starliner test capsule was dropped from a balloon at an altitude of 40,000 feet. It took four minutes for the vehicle to land at the White Sands Missile Range, where future missions will also touch down. Boeing had to ensure that the capsule can land even with a few missing parachutes for the astronauts’ safety, especially since Starliner was designed to land on solid ground instead of in the water.

Boeing Starliner Vice President John Mulholland said in a statement:

“Safety for our astronauts remains our singular focus and this successful landing in a difficult situation affirms the deep commitment of everyone on the team. I want to thank our Starliner teammates, including NASA and the US Army at White Sands, for their part in ensuring mission safety and success. With their contributions Starliner will venture to the International Space Station later this year and safely return home.”

According to a previous report, Boeing is hoping to deploy its first unmanned test flight to the ISS on September 17th for a seven day stay. If all goes well, the Starliner could carry astronauts to the space by the end of the year.

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Target’s Deal Day challenges Amazon’s Prime event

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Mark Tritton, Target’s executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, said that Target.com One-Day Sale last year was one of its “biggest days of the year for online sales.” He added: “This year, we’re giving guests more discounts across even more of our assortment with two days to save on hundreds of thousands of items and offering the best options in retail for delivery and pick up on their terms, including same-day.”

While you won’t be able to grab an Echo or a Kindle from Target’s event, the company says rarely-on-sale items will be available at discounted prices. If you do find a good deal, buying from Target could be the better option if you need your purchase ASAP and have a store near you. You can choose to pick up your order from an outlet nearby or have it delivered via Shipt within hours.

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Now Duolingo teaches the world’s five most common languages

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The courses are available on Android, iOS and the web.

Whether or not you need to know Arabic, this marks an important milestone for Duolingo — it now teaches the five most commonly spoken languages on the planet. You can generally assume that Duolingo will help you settle in a new country or make your next vacation slightly less intimidating. The service still isn’t as flexible for non-English speakers (Arabic speakers can only learn a handful of languages). This is, however, a step in the right direction.

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Apple confirms it acquired a self-driving car startup

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The latest self-driving firm to be consolidated is Drive.ai. The startup has been working on AI tech for autonomous vehicles for a few years, but found itself low on cash in an increasingly competitive market. Now, just as the San Francisco Chronicle reports that it filed with regulators about shutting down, Apple acquired it for an undisclosed amount. However, the paper reports it’s still laying off 90 employees, while some others including dozens of engineers and product designers, according to Axios, are joining Apple.

We still don’t have a lot of information about Apple’s Project Titan efforts that have seemingly changed directions more than once. Still, snapping up the pieces of a company that already had self-driving cars on the streets should bolster whatever Apple is working on.

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Facebook tests controls that turn off those angry red notification dots

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The bright red dots (officially known as badges) appear on the mobile app’s home screen, perhaps to alert you of a new video or new activity in one of your groups. Occasionally the alerts are redundant; popping up for a video you’ve already seen. The notification dots have drawn the ire of plenty of Facebook users — there are scores of videos and how-to-articles instructing how to get rid of them.

Unfortunately, not everyone can get rid of notification dots right away. Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that they only started testing the feature on a subset of iOS and Android users. In order to find out if you’re a part of the test, go to the “Settings and Privacy” section of your Facebook mobile app. Tap on “Settings” and then scroll down to “Notifications”. You should see a heading that says “Notification Dots” at the very bottom, and that will lead you to a toggle menu where you can choose which type of badges you no longer want to see.

Notification badges are just one of the many ways that Facebook keeps users tied to the platform. While such design changes may seem small, they play a huge role in how users spend time on the site. A bright-red notification can easily lure you to a video you normally wouldn’t watch or lead you to read a post by a Facebook group you rarely frequent. Whether this is a good or bad thing highly depends on the user and their lifestyle. Some people savor alerts on their phone, while others view them as a source of stress or a distraction. Facebook’s decision to test making the feature optional is a sign that the company wants to help users tailor their experience; rather than imposing one design change on us all.



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Amazon funds STEM programs in Seattle schools

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FIRST, which was co-founded by Segway inventor Dean Kamen, encourages young people to get involved in science and technology through mentor-based initiatives and robotics programs in schools. It provides the curriculum for the robotics grants. Amazon is already supporting 100 schools across 22 states through the Future Engineer program, with which it aims to help 10 million kids and young people from underrepresented and underserved communities explore careers in coding and computer science every year.

“This partnership with Amazon will give our students of color the opportunity to see engineers who look like them — which provides a huge benefit and creates a quicker course to students imagining a future in a STEM field,” Seattle Public Schools superintendent Denise Juneau said in a statement. “Creating educational journeys like these help ensure our students are prepared for college, career, and life.”

Helping kids access computer science education and get to grips with robotics should certainly buy Amazon a little more goodwill in Seattle, and other areas in which it’s running the program.

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‘League of Legends’ take on ‘Auto Chess’ reaches open beta this week

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Don’t expect to simply walk right in. Japanese and Oceanic users will need at least a level 10 account to play early on. The missions and client hubs will only be enabled in some regions (including North America and Latin America) a week after Teamfight Tactics is available. Transfers won’t work until July 1st, the practice tool has been disabled, and you can’t have more than 10 players in custom modes. Riot wants to be sure everything is working “as intended,” and doesn’t want to rob people of rewards (like a Little Legend and a beta pass) until then.

If you do play, it might seem familiar. It’s a rough equivalent to the popular Dota Auto Chess mod (and by extension, Dota Underlords) that has eight players choose teams of champions that automatically do battle against each other. Whoever’s the last one standing wins. It’s a blend of strategy, turn-based gaming and even a dash of card gaming, and it’s been rabidly popular — to the point where Riot and Valve both felt compelled to produce official counterparts. There’s no guarantee they’ll be as popular as the original, but that clearly isn’t stopping them from riding the bandwagon.

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All Walmart pickup locations now accept SNAP for online grocery orders

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Walmart began accepting SNAP for online grocery purchases in a very limited run back in 2017. The company has since expanded the service and plans to continue. It will soon accept SNAP payments at more than 3,100 store locations before the end of the year. Walmart is also participating in a New York-based pilot program launched by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) that allows SNAP recipients to purchase groceries online using the assistance program.

Retailers have slowly been expanding their services to reach low-income shoppers in recent years. Amazon is also participating in the USDA program and has launched discounted services for those receiving government assistance. The massive online retailer offers its Prime subscription service at half price for SNAP and Medicaid recipients.

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Netflix loses ‘The Office’ after 2020 to NBCUniversal’s service

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Wondering what the most watched show on subscription streaming is? According to NBC it’s The Office, and as such, it’s no surprise that once the company’s agreement with Netflix expires at the end of 2020, it’s keeping the show for its own streaming service. The ad-supported NBCUniversal package is launching in 2020, but it won’t have the show’s nine seasons until 2021.

It’s following a trend we’ve seen from AT&T and Disney, as they try to capitalize on back catalogs to launch new streaming competitors. Of course, for viewers it means they won’t be able to see popular shows all in one place, and it’s unclear how this will impact international distribution. In response, Netflix tweeted that at least members can binge watch “ad-free” until January 2021.



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