New report suggests India’s local manufacturing sector is struggling

Investment in India’s local manufacturing industry is drying up.

Earlier this month, Samsung announced that it opened a new manufacturing plant in India capable of producing 120 million handsets a year — making it the largets phone factory in the world. The move is a win for Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative, which is designed to facilitate foreign investment in India’s manufacturing industry.

The government’s goal is to get manufacturing industry to account for 25% of the economy, but it looks like it isn’t close to meeting that target. A new report from Bloomberg suggets the manufacturing sector hasn’t seen a meaningful boost in the last four years, with investments declining and more and more projects failing to take off the ground.

The Modi government is betting big on the manufacturing sector to boost the economy and create millions of jobs. Over the last four years, the government rolled out a series of incentives to lure companies to set up factories in India, which included giving away wide swathes of land to set up the facilities, and free electricity.

And when that didn’t work, it introduced regulation that made it harder for the companies to do business in India. To boost local manufacturing in the smartphone segment, the government imposed a 15% duty on devices being imported into the country, affecting Apple’s — which doesn’t manufacture its latest devices in India — ability to compete effectively.

There’s no infrastructure to support the manufacturing sector in India.

The latest data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy show that investments in local manufacturing have declined to $96.6 billion in 2018, down from $270 billion in 2015. And while there have been a few key investments by foreign brands — like Amazon’s $5 billion cash influx — they have gone to the services industry.

One of the main reasons for foreign investments drying up is the fact that there’s no infrastructure to support manufacturing. India lacks the skilled labor and the factories to manufacture key hardware components like the PCB (printed circuit board) and displays. These parts are flown in from China or Taiwan and assembled in local factories — like the one Samsung built recently.

In fact, Xiaomi became the first company earlier this year to start local assembly of PCBs, so it’s clear that the manufacturing industry has a long way to go before it is anywhere close to the same level as China. For now, it looks like the best way to see any meaningful growth is by focusing on the services sector. From Bloomberg Economics analyst Abhishek Gupta:

Job creation in India could hugely benefit if Make in India’s focus is expanded to include more services, relative to its overemphasis on manufacturing,” Gupta said. “India’s tough labor laws and higher bureaucratic entry barriers into manufacturing, along with its widespread fluency in English — a boon in global services — suggests that its comparative advantage lies in services.

1Password for iOS Updated With Secure Notes Markdown Support and Several Fixes

Popular third-party password manager 1Password received an update today that takes the iOS app to version 7.1 and introduces Markdown support in secure notes, stickers for Messages, and a couple of notable fixes.

Following on from the Mac version updated in May, 1Password for iOS now lets you create rich secure notes that can include headers, bold and italic text, lists, tappable links, and more.

Also in this version is a collection of 1Password stickers for users to enliven their chat threads in the Messages app.

Several lingering bugs have been squashed in version 1.7, but two stand out: Searches no longer return broken or incorrect results, and creating a new item no longer causes 1Password to become unresponsive.

Elsewhere, an issue where search borked when vault items where syncing has been resolved, and occasional crashes when users add new items should no longer occur.

Lastly, the developers have updated all text in the app to make it more consistent, and ensured improved the rendering of template icons in list and detail views.

1Password for iOS can be downloaded from the App Store for free, but there is an in-app fee to access the service. A standard 1Password account is priced at $3.99 per month and a multi-user family account is priced at $6.99 per month. [Direct Link]

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Xiaomi Mi Band 3 review: The best fitness tracker for under $100

For $30, you’re not going to find a wearable that offers the same set of features as the Mi Band 3.

Xiaomi entered the wearable market four years ago, emulating a similar strategy as its phone business that saw the brand edge out its Chinese rivals. The key takeaway from the first-gen Mi Band was its affordability: costing just $15, it was much cheaper than any other product that offered a similar set of features.

It’s no wonder, then, that the Mi Band turned out to be one of the most popular products for Xiaomi. The company introduced an updated variant — the Mi Band 2 — back in 2016 with an OLED display and heart rate monitoring, all for under $25.

With the Mi Band 3, Xiaomi is offering a larger OLED screen, better heart rate, activity monitoring features, and water resistance up to 50 meters. The Mi Band 3 is just as affordable as earlier models in the series, retailing for the equivalent of $25 in China. There’s even a model with NFC connectivity that is available for just $30.

You’ll have to shell out over $100 to get a fitness tracker from the likes of Fitbit that offers heart rate monitoring, but with the Mi Band available for a quarter of the cost, it’s easy to see why Xiaomi is the second-largest wearable manufacturer in the world.

Xiaomi sold over 3.7 million Mi Bands in the first quarter of 2018, and the Mi Band 3 saw over one million sales in the first two weeks of its availability in China. The Mi Band 3 definitely ticks all the boxes if you’re looking to get started with a fitness band, but what’s it like to use on a day-to-day basis? Let’s find out.

Xiaomi Mi Band 3

Price: $30

Bottom line: The Mi Band 3 is a great way to get started with wearables. At $30, the barrier to entry is low enough to make the Mi Band 3 accessible to a wider audience, and the features on offer make it one of the best budget fitness trackers available today.

Pros:

• Large OLED panel
• Water resistance up to 50m
• Heart rate monitoring
• Automatic activity tracking
• Incredible battery life

Cons:

• Plain design
• Tracking isn’t always accurate
• Screen visibility isn’t great outdoors

See at GearBest

Xiaomi Mi Band 3 What I like

Interest in wearables has plateaued in recent years, but Xiaomi’s offerings have always fared well because they lower the barrier to entry. That’s the main draw with the Mi Band 3 as well — at its core, it is an affordable way to measure your daily activity, sleep pattern, and mirror notifications from your phone to your wrist.

The larger 0.78-inch OLED panel (with a resolution of 128×80) is particularly useful for things like notifications and weather updates, as the Mi Band 3 is able to fit more information on the screen. The touchscreen isn’t the most responsive, but it isn’t any worse than the one on the Fitbit Alta HR.

When it comes to value, there’s nothing in the market that comes close to the Mi Band 3.

In fact, the Mi Band 3 is largely similar to the Alta HR in terms of dimensions, although the larger screen means it is a tad wider. It comes in at 20g — just under the Alta HR’s 22g — so you won’t feel any discomfort wearing it over the course of the day.

Like its predecessor, the Mi Band 3 does a great job utilizing the screen size to the fullest. You’ll be able to scroll through various screens on the band itself, including the steps taken, weather information, and incoming notifications, and there’s also the option to select from a variety of watch faces.

The Mi Band 3 also has a button at the bottom of the panel that lets you go back to the home screen. Like the Alta HR — which automatically measures your heart rate over the course of a day — the Mi Band 3 logs your resting heart rate, and you can trigger a measurement by long-pressing the home button.

The hardware itself is just one half of the story — you’ll need an app that breaks down all the information in an easy-to-use format. That’s where Mi Fit comes in. Xiaomi added new features into Mi Fit with every new generation of Mi Band, and it offers an easy way to view your activity details, calories burned, and sleep data. The app itself is basic and doesn’t offer quite as many insights as Fitbit or Garmin, but you’re getting what you par for in this regard.

As for battery life, the Mi Band 3 easily delivers over a week’s worth of usage from the 110mAh battery. In just under three weeks of usage, I’ve had to charge the Mi Band 3 just once. It takes a smidgen under three hours to fully charge the band, and the one issue I have on this front is that it’s easy to lose the charging cradle.

Xiaomi Mi Band 3 What needs work

While the Mi Band 3 has no dearth of features, it is lacking in overall refinement. The display, for instance, doesn’t get bright enough for outdoor use, so you have to cover it with your hand to see the information on the screen. I’ve only had to do this a few times under intense sunlight, but the panel is lacking in this regard.

The Mi Band 3 isn’t as refined as a Fitbit, and that’s okay.

While the silicone strap is serviceable for daily usage, it feels cheap (which it is). Thankfully, there’s a quick fix if you’re not a fan of the band, as there are plenty of third-party options available for under $10.

The main issue with the Mi Band 3 is that it isn’t quite as accurate as the likes of Fitbit or Garmin. I used the Mi Band 3 alongside my Alta HR, and in general it was off by 5% in terms of counting steps, and 5-7BPM for heart rate readings. That’s the tradeoff for affordability, but overall the Mi Band 3 managed to do a decent enough job automatically tracking (and logging) workouts.

There’s also the fact that the Mi Band 3 doesn’t offer a lot of reminders to meet your daily goals. You can set up an inactivity reminder if you’ve been idle for a few hours, but aside from that, there isn’t a whole lot going on. One of the reasons I was able to get more active using the Alta HR is because of its challenges feature that lets you go up against a friend or family member that also has a Fitbit device.

Xiaomi Mi Band 3 Review

There’s very little to fault when talking about the Mi Band 3. Xiaomi has done a masterful job offering a vast array of features while retaining the $30 price point. Sure, it doesn’t offer the specialized features of Garmin or Fitbit’s software refinement, but for $30 you’re getting a lot of value for your money.

4.5
out of 5

If you’re interested in trying out a fitness band, the Mi Band 3 is an ideal starting point. You’re not going to be wowed by the design, but the range of features on offer makes it a great budget wearable.

See at GearBest

Apple CEO Tim Cook Congratulates 2018 iPhone Photography Award Winners

Each year, the iPhone Photography Awards (IPPA) highlights the best photographs captured with an iPhone over the course of the year. This year’s winners were announced yesterday, with the winning photographs selected from thousands of entries submitted by iPhone photographers from more than 140 countries.

The Grand Prize Photographer of the Year Award went to Jashim Salam, who submitted a photograph called “Displaced,” captured in Bangladesh.

The first place award went to Alexandre Weber for his shot of a woman wearing a colorful skirt in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, while second place went to Huapeng Zhao for a photograph of a boy with a fish.

Along with the overall winners, IPPA also chooses winning photographs from a range of categories that include abstract, animals, architecture, children, floral, landscape, lifestyle, nature, news-events, other, panorama, people, portrait, series, still life, sunset, travel, and trees.

Winning photographs from the sunset (left) and floral (right) categories
Apple CEO Tim Cook took to Twitter this evening to congratulate the award winners.

Congratulations to this year’s @ippawards winners! Take a look at some of the best #shotoniPhone photography from around the world.https://t.co/sW6Uew7VYZ

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) July 20, 2018

Apple’s iPhones are popular photography tools, and Apple has maintained a long running “Shot on iPhone” ad campaign to showcase photos and videos captured with the iPhone. IPPA award winning photos were captured using a range of devices, from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone X.

All of the winning photographs from 2018 are displayed on the IPPA website.

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Garmin’s latest fitness wearables get a workout boost from Gold’s Gym

Apple isn’t the only fitness watch company making its way into the gym. Garmin now is extending its reach into the personal training and fitness realm by partnering with Gold’s Gym, one of the top fitness franchises in the world. The first fruit of this collaboration is a new Garmin version of the popular Gold’s AMP app that bundles in support for the latest Garmin fitness wearables.

Released in 2017, the Gold’s AMP app is a combo fitness coaching and music app designed to free you from tedious and unmotivating workouts. The app uses upbeat music playlists to keep you moving and audio coaching that encourages you throughout your workout. The app has thousands of DJ mixes in a variety of music genres and more than 100 workouts for both indoor and outdoor activities. It’s like having the best music and a great trainer right by your side while you push yourself to run farther, bike faster or lift more no matter what level you are at. You don’t even have to be a Gold’s Gym member to use it, the app is available to everyone.

The new Garmin integration keeps the audio coaching and curated music of the original Gold’s AMP app and makes it even better by connecting it to Garmin’s latest GPS smartwatches and its fitness trackers. In this first version, Garmin owners working out with the AMP app will be able to track their heart rate in real time within the app. Heart rate tracking can be a useful tool to gauge the intensity of a workout to ensure you are working hard enough to improve your fitness and not slacking off.

The Garmin heart rate tracking is just the first step in this collaboration. A future update coming in fall 2018 will add a Garmin Connect IQ version of the app. This Garmin-specific version will reside on the fitness tracker or smartwatch and will allow users to log and store their workouts in both Golds AMP and Garmin Connect. You can workout once and analyze your fitness data on both platforms.

The Garmin-enabled Gold’s AMP app is available in both the iOS app store and Android’s Google Play. Compatible Garmin devices include the Vivosmart 3, Vivosport, Vivomove HR, Vivoactive 3, Forerunner 645, Forerunner 645 Music, Fēnix 5s, Fēnix 5, and Fēnix 5x.

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Genetically modified bacteria may be the key to plants that fertilize themselves

For decades, ever-increasing population growth has made people worried about the long-term sustainability of our planet. Perhaps the biggest concern? How best to feed everyone. Looking for a solution to this problem, scientists from Washington University in St. Louis have been searching for a means by which plants can create their own fertilizer. Such a breakthrough could mean that farmers would no longer have to buy and manually spread it on their crops in order for them to grow.

Their innovative solution involves a genetically engineered bacteria that is able to pull fertilizer out of thin air. Because bioavailable nitrogen is a critical nutrient for crop productivity, this could turn out to be an agricultural game-changer.

“A long-term and sustainable solution will be the plants fixing their own nitrogen,” Himadri Pakrasi, a professor in the department of biology in arts and sciences, told Digital Trends. “The energy required can come from the sun via photosynthesis. However, biological nitrogen fixation in bacteria is catalyzed by nitrogenase, an enzyme that is poisoned by oxygen, the product of photosynthesis. The exciting news from our study is that we have been able to engineer functional nitrogenase in cyanobacteria that perform photosynthesis and also produce oxygen. This is an important step toward engineering nitrogen-fixing crops in the future.”

For their study, the researchers were able to isolate genes in a cyanobacteria called cyanothece, which carries out photosynthesis during the day and uses nitrogen to create chlorophyll for photosynthesis during the night, and then splice them into another type of cyanobacteria. As a result, this new type of cyanobacteria was also able to pull nitrogen from the air. While the work is still at a relatively early stage, they are hopeful that the end result will be to apply these findings to create nitrogen-fixing plants.

“Engineering nitrogen-fixing plants is a grand challenge in agriculture, and it will take some time to achieve this dream,” Pakrasi said. “In collaboration with other plant scientists, we will next attempt to emulate our cyanobacterial engineering approach in vascular plants.”

A paper describing the work, “Engineering Nitrogen Fixation Activity in an Oxygenic Phototroph,” was recently published in the journal mBio.

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• Scientists think a form of bacteria could help make Mars hospitable to humans
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Geologists discover a quadrillion tons of diamonds that are impossible to reach

A journey far below Earth’s crust. A global team of intrepid scientists. And a bounty of a quadrillion ton of diamonds, which are darn near impossible to reach. No, it’s not Dwayne Johnson’s next summer blockbuster, but a new discovery from geologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities. Their findings? That, based on sound waves, there is likely an unimaginably large haul of diamonds buried more than 100 miles below our planet’s surface — far deeper than any drilling expedition has been before.

The discovery is the result of an anomaly in seismic activity data kept by agencies like the United States Geological Survey. Scientists are able to use this data to gain an understanding of what the Earth’s interior might look like, since sound waves move at different speeds depending on the temperature, density, and composition of the rocks they travel through. By analyzing this data, the researchers suggest that a fraction of the cratonic roots — the oldest and least movable sections of rock beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates — is probably made up of diamonds.

“This problem was an integrated puzzle that required input from lots of different scientists to work out,” Joshua Garber, from the Earth Science department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Digital Trends. “We know that seismic waves generated by earthquakes pass through certain parts of the mantle faster than we expect. We tested numerous combinations of different possible constituents that could explain these wave speeds. We found that one to two percent diamond is compatible with a whole host of constraints including the wave speeds, but also a number of independent datasets. And we know that the amount of diamond required is compatible with the amount of carbon in the bulk Earth and the mantle.”

Garber said that the work is interesting because it gives us a better handle on understanding the distribution of carbon in the deep Earth. Sadly, there is very little chance of anyone managing to retrieve the diamond haul — through human efforts, at any rate.

“The only way these diamonds will get to the surface is through natural excavation by kimberlite pipes,” Garber continued. “Kimberlites are explosive mantle volcanic products that involve the interaction between carbon-hydrogen-oxygen fluids and the mantle, and result in pieces of the cratonic mantle being picked up and carried to the surface. The depths we considered are far too deep for human drilling. The rocks are just too hot and under too much pressure for us to get down there.”

However, he notes that the diamonds we mine at the surface today are also from kimberlites, suggesting that these stones may also one day be naturally brought to the surface. We suggest quietly investing in buckets and storage units.

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First Marvel Battle Lines trailer shows off the free-to-play mobile game

Get ready to have 200+ characters at your disposal.

If you’re a Marvel fan, there’s no shortage of mobile games to choose from. One of the latest coming out this year, Marvel Battle Lines, recently got shown off with its first official trailer at San Diego Comic-Con.

The trailer’s mostly cinematic and doesn’t show a ton of actual gameplay, but it’s still a great way to get hyped for the title.

Battle Lines is a free-to-play card game and promises over 200 characters across Marvel’s catalog of heroes and villains. Some highlights include Black Panther, Thor, Spider Gwen, and Captain Marvel.

Along with card-based gameplay, developer Nexon says there will also be “an all-new original Marvel story.”

You can pre-register for Marvel Battle Lines on the Play Store now and the game’s on-track for a release later this year. If you do pre-register, you’ll get an exclusive Doctor Strange Super Hero card + 5,000 in-game gold to use when Battle Lines launches.

Pre-register: Marvel Battle Lines

We tried the new Ghostbusters World AR game, and it is spooky good

A brand new take on a classic franchise

At San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Columbia Pictures showed off a new game based in the Ghostbusters franchise. Called Ghostbusters World, the game is an AR game where essentially you walk around the real world catching ghosts. There is a little more to it of course so let’s get into it.

How does it work?

Like other AR games, you walk around in the real world where assorted ghosts will spawn for you to fight and capture. The demo showed off many varieties of ghosts that seemed to appear randomly, of course, the demo probably had a higher spawn rate than the actual game but even in the demo, the variety of ghosts seemed extensive.

After you tap the ghost the AR screen appears and you have to use the PKE meter to scan the area for the ghost. This is really just to use the ARCore and ARKit to scan the floor so the ghost interacts correctly with the ground and surrounding area but it fits so well into the game that it feels seamless. Of course, you scan for the ghost using the PKE meter Egon does it all the time!

Once you have found the ghost you can use your proton to pack to drain the ghost’s energy and then catch it in a trap that you can launch or have launch automatically. Once caught the ghost goes into your bank to be used later.

Do you only have a Proton Pack?

The demo showed off 3 different weapons for me to use but I was assured there are many more in the full game, weapons from all the original Ghostbusters media including cartoons, films, and comics. I got to use the original Proton pack, which felt amazing by the way, a shotgun style weapon that can be used to reduce the ghosts stamina but not catch them, and a power glove that allowed me to counter the ghosts attack.

The weapons will be available as upgrades in the full game but most of them require ammunition which you will need to purchase using the in-game currency. The traps are also not infinite though you do get them when you open the dimensional portals that are scattered around the world as a small amount of in-game currency.

So are there in-app purchases?

Definitely. The two main currencies in the game are gold and gems. Gold seems to happen naturally in the game and can be used to buy certain things but the main upgrade currency is gems and that is going to cost you real money. Now you can play the play the game without ever spending money I have been assured but like most games these days, if you are serious about it you’ll need to drop some real cash.

How was the AR?

The AR in Ghostbusters World was surprisingly good. Unlike Pokemon Go, Ghostbusters uses the ARCore framework on Android and ARKit on iOS to great effect. The ghosts hover above the ground and cast shadows that very realistic. at the moment there is no occlusion or obstacle detection but the lady I was speaking to said they were looking into it but it wasn’t ready just yet.

The map screen that shows you walking around is also very well done. Using the new gaming APIs for Google Maps, Ghostbusters World generates 3D models of the buildings around you making it feel much more immersive than other games that only use a flat map. It also helps orientate you to your surroundings so you actually know where you are while you play.

You mentioned portals earlier?

Dimension Portals are the Pokestops in Ghostbusters world. You travel to them and collect consumables like traps, gems, gold, and ghost runes, that allow you to upgrade your ghosts —yes you can upgrade your ghosts, more on why in a moment — but that seems to be all. The developers tell me there is no distance tracking in this game, you aren’t going to collect anything for just walking around with the app open, but there are missions that require you to travel to the dimension portals to complete.

The whole game feels far more linear than Pokemon Go with missions and specific goals including leveling up and getting ready for the big bads in the game, the Raids.

Is there Multiplayer?

There seem to be 2 types of multiplayer in the game, Raids, and PvP. I didn’t get to see the PvP as it isn’t ready yet but they tell me it is a lot of fun. The premise is simple, one of you unleashes one of your stored ghosts on the other player and they try to catch it. You get to upgrade your ghosts after you catch them with mystic runes and they don’t get destroyed if you lose. You do get rewards if you win however thought hey couldn’t tell me what yet.

I did get to play the raid which was a lot of fun. Designed for 4 players, they are, right now, best played out of AR mode so you can enjoy the staged feeling that comes with a big raid event. I got to fight the Stay Puff marshmallow man with one of the team and it was a lot of fun. The raid was much more like a computer game boss fight than other AR Raids. There were specific points on Stay Puff that I needed to hit to cause the most damage and to stop him from causing huge amounts of damage as well as mini Stay Puffs I needed to kill while trying to find the big guy.

Having a Raid that feels like a full game is worth a lot for games like this. These games can quickly get monotonous but with raids like this I can see Ghostbusters World having a little more longevity.

What can I play it on and when?

Ghostbusters World will be available later this year and will be available on both Android and iOS. Do you have any other questions about it? let us know in the comments and we will try to find the answers.

Instagram Gains Status Dots to Let You Know When Friends Are Online

Instagram today announced the launch of a new feature that’s designed to let you know when your friends are active on the social network. When a friend is online, their profile picture will be accented with a green dot in various places within the app.

You’ll see the green dot in the Direct inbox and in your friends list when you share a post from the feed. Dots will be displayed for friends who follow you or people you have previously spoken to in Direct.

If desired, you can hide your own status and turn off the ability to see when your friends are active in the settings section of the Instagram app.

Instagram says this new update is meant to make it easier to connect with friends over direct messages for more realtime conversations. The dots are rolling out to Instagram users today.

Instagram can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

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