- BREAKING: Dunki passed with a U/A certificate; CBFC ‘suitably’ modifies visuals of Shah Rukh Khan on horse Bollywood Hungama
- ‘Dunki’ vs ‘Salaar’ advance collection: Will SRK gain upper hand over Prabhas? India Today
- ‘Dunki’ to have a show at 6:55 am at Gaiety Galaxy which is the earliest show for a Shah Rukh Khan film IndiaTimes
- Dunki advance box office collection: Shah Rukh Khan’s film goes head-to-head with Prabhas’ Salaar for audience’s attention The Indian Express
- Shah Rukh Khan’s Dunki Gets U/A Certificate From CBFC After “Suitable” Changes NDTV Movies
Tag Archives: Visuals
Varjo Reveals XR-4 Headset, Claiming Mixed Realty Visuals “indistinguishable from natural sight” – Road to VR
- Varjo Reveals XR-4 Headset, Claiming Mixed Realty Visuals “indistinguishable from natural sight” Road to VR
- Finnish startup Varjo launches new $3,990 mixed-reality headset to take on Apple, Microsoft CNBC
- Varjo XR-4 Headset “Indistinguishable From Natural Sight” UploadVR
- XR-4 aims for mixed reality that’s “indistinguishable from natural sight” New Atlas
- RAVE Computer showcases new Varjo XR-4 headset in stunning new collaborative demo at I/ITSEC, the World’s Largest Modeling, Simulation and Training Event Business Wire
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Nintendo Switch 2 Will Match PS5 Visuals & Performance; New Leak Reveals – Beebom
- Nintendo Switch 2 Will Match PS5 Visuals & Performance; New Leak Reveals Beebom
- Thrilling Nintendo Switch 2 leak includes PS5-like quality for FF7R and verifiable backwards compatibility claims Notebookcheck.net
- Switch 2 leaks claim console runs “like a PS5”, FF7R to be launch title & more Dexerto
- Leaker says Square Enix has Switch 2 kits, is backwards compatible & has camera, Final Fantasy VII Remake launch game My Nintendo News
- Exciting Switch 2 Leak Teases Console’s Power and Possible Launch Title GameRant
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Paris Burns LIVE: Horrific Visuals From Burning Paris | Paris Protest News | France Crisis Update – India Today
- Paris Burns LIVE: Horrific Visuals From Burning Paris | Paris Protest News | France Crisis Update India Today
- France riots LIVE Updates: French fashion house Celine cancels its menswear show in Paris | Mint Mint
- ‘Disgrace’: Macron Roasted For Dancing at Elton John Concert As France Burns in Violent Protests Hindustan Times
- President Emmanuel Macron seen partying with Elton John as France descends into chaos, destruction WION
- Macron Criticized For Attending Elton John’s Gig Amid France Crisis, Listen To Gavin Lee For More India Today
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Kia and Hyundai vehicles across America are being stolen in seconds
It can take as little as under a minute to steal some Hyundai and Kia models, and it’s happening all across the country.
Why it matters: The widespread problem is attributed to design flaws in the cars, forcing owners to resort — for now — to an old-fashioned steering wheel lock if they want to keep their vehicles safe.
- Hyundai is telling customers that if they want a specialized security kit to protect their vehicle, they’ll need to pay for it.
- The equipment, a “starter interrupt and siren” that “targets the method of entry thieves are using,” will be available starting Oct. 1 for Hyundai vehicles at an undisclosed cost, Hyundai said in a statement.
- Kia says it is not offering a security kit at this time.
How it works: Thieves bust a window and remove part of the steering column’s cover, exposing the ignition. They break the ignition cylinder off and start the vehicle with a flathead screwdriver or USB plug-in.
- They’re “just the perfect size to put in the opening,” Sam Hussein, president of Metrotech Automotive Group auto repair in Dearborn, Mich., tells Axios.
- The method works on 2011-2021 Kias and 2016-2021 Hyundais that use a steel key, not a fob and push-button start. They are targeting cars that lack engine immobilizers — devices that don’t allow the car to start without the correct smart key present, per the automakers.
- Damage can run between $2,000-$3,000, Hussein estimates. And getting the car back may take a while, he says, as some parts are on backorder due to the increased demand.
The intrigue: Officials link some of the thefts to a trend shown in a viral YouTube video in Milwaukee that interviews members of the so-called “Kia Boys.” They demonstrate how they purportedly steal the cars so quickly.
State of play: Some areas say Kias and Hyundais are disappearing in greater numbers this summer, including the Midwest, where a Kia spokesperson tells Axios the problem is most prominent.
- Detroit had 111 Kias stolen in July and 22 in the first nine days of August, per its police department. That’s up from 23 in June and 11 or fewer in all previous months of 2022.
- Charlotte, N.C., police report 156 Kia and Hyundai thefts since June 20, a 346% increase from 35 incidents in the same timeframe last year.
- Per the NICB’s 2021 Hot Wheels report, seven of the top 10 most stolen vehicles in Wisconsin were Kias or Hyundais. But none of those vehicles made the top 10 in the state in the 2020 report.
Meanwhile, the automakers are getting sued across the country, including a two-plaintiff class-action suit in Iowa, a class-action in Wisconsin and two class-action suits centering Ohio theft victims, per court records and law firms.
- Car owners allege a failure to disclose design defects that make the cars easy to steal. Now, despite admitting the problem, the companies still “refuse to fix them” or “compensate consumers,” the Iowa suit reads.
- “Offering [a security kit] and then charging them to install it is not acceptable,” Jeffrey Goldenberg, an attorney in a five-plaintiff suit of mostly Ohio residents filed earlier this month, tells Axios.
What they’re saying: Hyundai Motor Co., the parent company to both the Hyundai and Kia brands, is aware its cars “have been targeted in a coordinated effort on social media,” a statement provided to Axios says.
- Hyundai added that all its vehicles “meet or exceed Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.” Cars being produced now all have the immobilizers that make them tougher to steal.
Worth noting: The “Kia Boys” influence is far from ubiquitous. Officials in Houston, Austin, Salt Lake City and Richmond, Va., tell Axios reporters they aren’t seeing this trend.
Zoom in: Richard Eldredge reported his 2019 Kia Soul stolen from the parking lot of his Midtown Atlanta apartment building on July 7, he tells Axios. The car was discovered the next day, damaged. He’s now waiting on parts due to the supply-chain logjam.
- “Who on Earth would have thought that a dad-ride like a Kia Soul would have been targeted by teenagers?” the Atlanta journalist and senior editor at VOX ATL said.
- “It’s [because it’s] a social media trend and it’s easy to do. Lamborghinis are a little tougher to rip off.”
Axios Local’s Everett Cook edited this story, and Kim Bojórquez, Joe Guillen, Jay Jordan, Joann Muller, Karri Peifer, Asher Price, Katie Peralta Soloff and Thomas Wheatley contributed.
Sign up for Axios Local, now publishing daily newsletters in 24 cities across the U.S.
Apple builds new ad empire after kneecapping competitors
Apple is beginning to build its own ad empire just as its iPhone privacy crackdown weakens key ad-supported rivals.
The big picture: In the middle of a broader downturn in the online ad market, Apple’s move to limit the way apps track user behavior kneecapped competitors like Meta, even as users embraced it.
Why it matters: Apple has long touted a privacy and security advantage for its products over alternatives like Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows. But the simultaneous rollout of Apple’s ad expansion and privacy changes has stoked criticism and could draw the attention of antitrust regulators.
Driving the news: Apple is planning to expand its advertising business significantly by placing more ads directly on users’ devices directly, Bloomberg reports.
- The expansion would include bringing ads to more of Apple’s own apps on iPhones and iPads, including Apple Maps.
Between the lines: The company has reportedly begun to reorganize its services team — the internal division responsible for making money from apps, media and other “soft” products — to cushion its business as growth slows in hardware sales.
By the numbers: Last quarter, Apple said it made $19.6 billion from services like advertising, the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Apple News, Apple TV+ and Apple Pay — representing nearly 25% of its quarterly revenue.
- In the same quarter five years years ago, services represented just 13% of Apple’s overall revenue.
- Apple doesn’t break out how much of its services revenue comes from advertising, but a Bloomberg report suggests the company currently brings in around $4 billion annually in ad revenue.
- Analysts estimate that Apple’s ad business could reach $6 billion by 2025. For comparison, Snapchat, which almost all of its money from ads, brought in $4.1 billion in revenue last year. Twitter made $4.5 billion in advertising last year.
Catch up quick: Apple’s ad business began to boom following changes it made last year to its app tracking policies that made it easier for iPhone users to opt out of being tracked across other apps on their phones.
- For companies that rely heavily on that user data, the changes made it much harder to efficiently target people with ads online.
- The changes were also devastating for companies like Meta and Snapchat that rely on that data to power their advertising offerings.
Meta has waged a huge lobbying campaign against Apple’s changes, arguing they make it harder for small businesses to find customers.
- But the company has its own reasons for pushing back. Meta executives said they would lose $10 billion in ad revenue this year in response to Apple’s changes.
Between the lines: Apple began pushing privacy long ago, but it landed heavily on the selling point in the wake of Facebook’s many data spills and privacy calamities, including the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- That “privacy narrative,” some are now arguing, helped it introduce its anti-tracking plan without being cast as a corporate predator.
Be smart: Apple’s biggest source of ad revenue is search advertising. Data shows that Apple’s privacy changes have significantly shifted ads that promote app downloads from companies like Meta and Snapchat to Apple.
- Analytics firm Branch found that in the first half of the year, Apple’s in-house search ads were responsible for around 50% of iPhone app downloads resulting from clicks on ads for the first half of this year, up from around 20% in April 2021 before the company rolled out its privacy changes.
What’s next: So far, regulators have yet to pay too much attention to the issue.
- That’s likely because the biggest voice rallying against Apple’s changes right now is Meta, which faces its own plethora of competition issues.
Go deeper: Apple’s privacy changes eat rivals’ businesses
Congress on “high alert” amid security threats
A series of high-profile security incidents is rattling members of Congress and prompting Capitol security officials to take major steps to shore up lawmakers’ security.
Why it matters: Threats against lawmakers have risen precipitously in recent years, and many of them are still reeling from the violence of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Driving the news: The House sergeant-at-arms on Wednesday announced plans to cover the costs of security upgrades to members’ homes, including $10,000 for equipment and installation costs and $150 a month for monitoring and maintenance.
- The development came just weeks after a man was arrested for threatening Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) outside her home while armed with a handgun.
- More recently, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who’s running for New York governor, was attacked by a man holding a sharp object at a campaign event.
What they’re saying: Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who chairs an appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Capitol Police, told Axios that “everybody’s on high alert” in the wake of these incidents.
- “The threats are real, the increases have been unbelievable,” he said. “We’ve got to do everything we can to try to make sure people are safe. Lot of wild cats out there.”
- Ryan said the Capitol Police and sergeant-at-arms are doing enough to keep members safe “so far,” but added, “We’ve got a lot more to do.”
- A Capitol Police spokesperson told Axios they “cannot discuss what we may or may not do to protect Members.”
The other side: Jayapal said she doesn’t think security officials are doing enough. “I think we need a lot more. And, you know, I’ve learned a lot from going through this myself,” she told Axios.
- Jayapal said the sergeant-at-arms’ allotment is a “good step” but that wants there to be “a pool of money [for] when we do have a serious threat at our residences.”
- After she was threatened outside her home, she said, she received an assessment that recommended $50,000-$60,000 in security upgrades.
- Additionally, she said security officials should help scrub members’ addresses from the internet and improve their communication with members’ offices.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has received a lot of death threats, wants a fundamental overhaul in members’ security.
- ”If you’re on a certain committee, if you have a certain [leadership] title, your security is already taken care of. But increasingly we are having … rank-and-file members, not just me, but many others, who are subject to increasing threats,” she told Axios.
- There should be “an assessment for the actual threat environment for each individual member,” she said.
- Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), the ranking member of the House Administration Committee, told Axios: “Zeldin almost gets stabbed – there should’ve immediately been a Capitol Police detail going to New York to protect him.”
The backdrop: Capitol security and law enforcement took no chances with Thursday’s Congressional Baseball Game, which has been the subject of violence in the past.
- The event was targeted this year by climate demonstrators vowing to “shut down” the game.
- In response, D.C. Police boosted security for the game, the Capitol Police urged protesters to stay away, and the House sergeant-at-arms sent offices a memo reassuring them there was a “comprehensive security plan in place.”
- The demonstration resulted in several arrests but no violence.
Remote work may not be working any more
The challenges of remote work are getting harder and harder to ignore, as employees and bosses alike grapple with the realities of indefinite separation from the office.
The big picture: A growing number of corporate executives want to put an end to the work-from-home revolution. But workers have gotten used to the flexibility, and they have the leverage to demand it.
Driving the news: Tesla CEO Elon Musk stirred the pot last week with a blunt warning that workers would have to spend a “minimum of 40 hours per week” in the office, or find a new job.
- It raised the question about whether other employers might also adopt a tougher stance.
- JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon only recently softened his stance on remote work, and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has been on a mission to return to the 5-day status quo.
- A March survey by Cleaning Coalition of America, which canvassed over 200 New York-based C-Suite executives, found that a whopping 76% think in-person work is essential to the bottom line.
By the numbers: 7.4% of American workers are teleworking because of COVID, down from a pandemic era high around 35%, according to federal data.
State of play: The convenience of hybrid working is being tempered by the limits of virtual collaboration, which empirical data are now starting to identify.
- One University of Chicago study found that remote workers put in longer hours but were less productive — effects that were especially pronounced among parents. Workers spent more time in meetings, the study found, but lost out on important face time with their managers.
- A September 2021 study of Microsoft workers found that the software giant’s business units became “less interconnected” over time, and that an over-reliance on email and messaging made it “more difficult for workers to convey and/or converge on the meaning of complex information.”
- And a Webex study published last month found high degrees of “meeting fatigue” among remote workers.
What they’re saying: “Hybrid work and video meetings are the new normal, and companies need to provide employees the best technology to reduce meeting fatigue and minimize negative physical ramifications, while taking steps to improve collaboration practices and reduce meeting overload,” the authors of the Webex study wrote.
Yes, but: However flawed, remote work arrangements have become a linchpin of a COVID-era labor market defined by high employee turnover.
- For many knowledge workers in an economy with more open jobs than workers to fill them, WFH is more de rigueur than ever before.
- Even when they’ve done it unenthusiastically, more employers have embraced flexible work-from-home arrangements.
But it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Zoom and Google Chat aren’t substitutes for in-person dynamics that bridge communication gaps and help build careers.
Paul McCartney Features Visuals of Johnny Depp During Florida Concert and Crowd Reportedly Cheers
A Paul McCartney concert in Orlando erupted in cheers when the background visuals displayed a video of a particularly prominent figure—Johnny Depp, whose defamation trial with ex-wife Amber Heard has garnered huge attention, TMZ reports. McCartney began performing the song “My Valentine” as the jumbo screens behind him played clips from the song’s 2012 music video, which features Depp and Natalie Portman, according to TMZ. The outlet reports that the audience went wild as McCartney continued singing, making no comment about the visuals behind him or the reaction. McCartney has apparently been using the song and accompanying visuals throughout his Get Back tour, according to TMZ, which happens to coincide with the trial. Sources told TMZ that McCartney did not feature “My Valentine” during his last tour in 2018-19, suggesting that he deliberately chose to feature the number—and its now-loaded music video—in this year’s concerts.
Read it at TMZ
Deaths from COVID begin to rise again
Deaths from COVID-19 are on the rise again after several weeks of upward ticking case rates sparked by Omicron variants.
Driving the news: The U.S. averaged roughly 365 daily deaths, up 7% from about 342 two weeks ago. That’s still a fraction of where things stood several months ago when the daily average was in the thousands.
- This week, the U.S. will likely reach 1 million deaths from COVID. As the milestone nears, President Biden said that “we must not grow numb to such sorrow. To heal, we must remember. We must remain vigilant against this pandemic and do everything we can to save as many lives as possible.”
Yes, but: The increase in deaths comes after several weeks of declines. While increasingly transmissible Omicron variants have generally not appeared to cause more serious illness, some people are still dying.
- Waning immunity and low booster uptake has also meant a growing share of the deaths are among the vaccinated, officials warn.
By the numbers: There were roughly 77,000 new daily cases over the last week, up 44% from about 53,000 two weeks ago.
- Reported cases rates remained highest in the Northeast, with Rhode Island marking 67.3 new cases per 100,000 people, up from 38.4 per 100,000 two weeks ago.
- Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine were the four states with 50 or more new cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.
- On the flip side, 15 states reported having 10 or fewer new cases per 100,00o people over the same time, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
- Five states reported declines in COVID case rates, including Montana, which reported 5.2 new cases per 100,000 people, down from 5.5 per 100,000 two weeks ago. Alaska, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Washington also reported dips. D.C. also reported a drop, however, the CDC said Wednesday the District had a two-week lapse in reporting, Axios’ Chelsea Cirruzzo reports.
Reality check: As we’ve warned before, the data on new cases are getting less reliable as the public testing infrastructure continues to wind down and home test results are less likely to be reported to officials.
- But it still offers a window into the broad trends of COVID spread in the states.
The bottom line: As variants spread, warm weather returns and more people let their guard down, cases are on the rise. While numbers appear far better than what they once were, officials warn the virus isn’t done with us yet.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a statement from President Biden.