Youngsters in football are one of the most interesting topics of observation for fans of the sport. With the modern era of football, the clout around the players in their early twenties has become higher than ever. With that said, here are 5 relatively unknown players in Europe that will demand attention in the years to come.
Odilon Kossounou
At 20, Kossounou can play as a right-back as well as a centre-back which already adds to his versatility across the backline. The youngster plays for Belgian Pro League team Club Brugge and is being tipped to be one of the top defenders in the years to come.
Adrien Truffert
Moving to the other side of the pitch, and in left-back, Adrien Truffert has been an amazing revelation for Rennes. The French club qualified for their first ever Champions League this season but got eliminated in the group stages. He has assisted three goals this season and has all the tools to succeed as a modern full-back.
Sofiane Diop
The Monaco youngster is turning into one of the most versatile players in the league, being deployed in a variety of midfield positions by Niko Kovac and impressing in every one of them. Diop has managed to score 6 times in 26 appearances this season.
Christos Tzolis
Tzolis hails from Greece, and is tipped to be the one to break the trend of below par attackers being produced from the country. The teenager can play anywhere across the front three and has already scored 11 times in 32 appearances this season.
Matthew Hoppe
As what seems like the only good thing about right now, Hoppe is an old school number 9, who presses the opposition, gets into good positions and has the ability to finish. The teenager has found the back of the net five times this season, and will only get better with time.
Google, in a shocking announcement, revealed to the public the closure of Stadia Games & Entertainment. As much shocked as we all were, we all knew that this was doomed to happen.
But reports have revealed further details about the studio’s projects before running to a close. The canceled projects from Stadia included a multiplayer action game known as “Frontier,” a sequel to Journey to the Savage Planet 2, and an exclusive game from the legendary Kojima.
A report from VideoGamesChronicle claims to reveal a few of the major projects Stadia Games & Entertainment, SG&E, had in the works. The reportedly “Frontier,” named project, was a major action multiplayer game. The team developing that game was reportedly led by Francois Pelland, the former producers of Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, a pretty big deal.
Journey to the Savage Planet just made its Stadia debut this month, and Google’s purchase of Typhoon Studios was set to result in a sequel. But unfortunately, the team here only found out about the project’s cancellation alongside the public announcement.
Stadia Games & Entertainment worked with some third-party studios to develop exclusive games for the Stadia platform. It’s been publicly known for some time that Harmonix was working with SG&E on an exclusive. In response to the news, Harmonix CEO claimed the game had not been canceled, stating, “While Google has shifted its strategy, we remain incredibly excited about what we’ve been working on for Stadia, and if the project isn’t released for Stadia, we will take it to other platforms.”
According to sources, Google was also working with Kojima Productions, the studio behind Death Stranding, Silent Hills, and Metal Gear Solid, on an episodic horror game.
Google had a pretty big project running at the Stadia Games & Entertainment. It makes you wonder why the company decided to pull the plug on all those projects. Hopefully, it doesn’t pull the plug on Stadia; I am pretty excited to see how the technology works when 5G becomes stable and globalized.
A few days back pTron launched two new TWS earbuds in India: pTron Bassbuds Pro and pTron Bassbuds Vista. Speaking of pTron we have already seen that the company is focusing on delivering the best audio devices within a budget price range. Both these TWS earbuds are one of the best in the market right now. So we got our hands right after the launch on both of them and it took us some time to examine it in various indoor and outdoor situations to deliver a detailed review on these items.
In this article, we will be talking about the pTron Bassbuds Pro TWS earbuds. These earbuds are one of the lightest earbuds available in the market. Each earbud in this case weighs approximately 4grams which feels lighter than ever and fits easily in the ears. These earbuds are being sold on Amazon at only ₹ 1,299. I have got the black one for this article.
Speaker: 8mm Dynamic Speakers with High Bass Microphone: Built-in High Definition
Charge time: 1.5 Hours
Total Playtime:: 12 Hours (Earbuds 4hrs, +8Hrs on charging case) Talk Time: 3 Hours wit earbuds, +8Hrs on charging case Standby Time: 100 Hours
Battery: 40 mAh*2 Li-Polymer Battery
Charging Port: Type C Fast Charging
Charging Input: DC5V /1A
Weight: 4gm each earbud
Compatibility: Supports all iOS, Androids, PC/Tablets, or other devices with Bluetooth function.
Key Functions: Call & Music Control
Voice Assistance: Yes (Google & Siri)
Product Material: ABS
Available Colors: Black/Blue, Black/Red, Black/Green & Black
In The Box
Accessories we will get inside the box are,
Earbuds and Charging case
2 Extra Pair of Silicone Eartips
Instruction Manual
USB Type-C Charging cable
Warranty card
DesignandBuilt
We are looking at small and compact earbuds that weigh not more than 4 grams each and designed in a plastic body with a touch panel at the outer side of the earbuds. These earbuds have the branding right above the touch panel on both earbuds. There is an indicator that glows red and blue to indicate charging, control, and connectivity status.
Now moving towards the case, we are looking into a usually smaller in size earbud case which is the most important thing right now. This case has a plastic built and has branding at the top of it. The most interesting part of it is that it has a tiny little display that indicates the charge of the case and from here also we can see that the earbuds are being charged. Apart from this, the case has a Type-C USB port.
If you see or take both the case and TWS earbuds in hand you can feel how compact it is and apart from these the TWS surely feels nearly premium, but not totally. The built quality is very sturdy and does not break when falls from waist height, in case, the lid opens and the earbuds come out.
How to Pair?
Steps to pair the pTron Bassbuds Pro with any iOS and Android devices.
Open the lid of the case and take out the earbuds.
Then turn on the Bluetooth of your smartphone/ iPad/ laptop.
Search for any wireless device.
Then the newly found device section you can see the name pTron Bassbuds Pro.
Click on the name and then it will ask to pair with the TWS earbuds.
Accept the prompt and pair with it.
Controls
These are all the touch controls that will help you in a hands free experience from your smartphone. There are several controls from accepting calls to accessing smart assistant without touch your device that can be accessed only by these touch controls.
Action
Outcome
L
R
Press & hold for 3 seconds
Power on
✔ or
✔
Press & hold for 3 seconds
Power off
✔ or
✔
Triple Tap
Track back
✔ or
✔
Double Tap
Track forward
✔ or
✔
Press once
Play/Paus
✔ or
✔
Press once
Take/End call
✔ or
✔
Press and hold for 2-3 seconds (sound alert)
Activate assistant
✔ or
✔
Press & hold for 10 seconds after power off
Reset
✔
✔
Comfort and Usage
As mentioned earlier each earbud weighs approximately 4 grams which is very lightweight and after fitting in ears it will feel like nothing is in the ears. It has an absolute physical noise cancellation design that will not allow any surrounding sound while plugged in the ears to enter ears. It fits comfortably in the ears and feels great, moreover, it does not falls from the ears once fitted properly.
All conditions proof IPX4 sweat and water-resistant earbuds can be word while workout, while the silicon tip are adjustable with two other spare eartips of different sizes. Along with this the touch controls make it more user friendly and accessible with any one hand.
The pTron Bassbuds Pro provides a 4Hrs Playback with Earbuds, +8Hrs with charging case which gives a pretty decent 12 Hrs Combined Playtime for such compact TWS earbuds. It takes around 1.5 hours to fully charge the case with a Type-C charger. On top of that, the battery percentage shown in the case is pretty useful which gives a proper idea of the remaining usage time.
I would like to focus on the microphone of this earbud which is quite impressive but one thing I noticed after outdoor usage that it faces a problem to receive the voice properly in a crowded place with a mask on. In such a situation, you need to talk loudly so that the microphone can receive your sound properly.
Comparison between Old and New Models
Parameters
pTron Bassbuds Pro – Old Design
pTron Bassbuds Pro – New Design
Mold Design
NA
Private mold – Patent Design
Style
In-the-Ear
In-the-Ear
Connectivity
Bluetooth v5.0
Bluetooth v5.1
Wireless Transmission Range
10 meters
10 meters
Control Type
Convex Touch Sensor
Flat Touch Sensor
Sounds
Stereo Audio with Deep Bass
Stereo Audio with Deep Bass
Speaker Driver
6mm
8mm
Mic
Stereo
Stereo – Ceramic
Mucis & Call
Stereo
Stereo
Playtime
12 Hours (Earbud + Charging Case)
12 Hours (Earbud + Charging Case)
IP rating
IPX4
IPX4
Earbud
40mAh Li-Polymer, 4gm each
40mAh Li-Polymer, 4gm each
Voice Assistant Enabled
Yes
Yes
Noise Cancelation
Passive
Passive
Digital Display
Yes
Yes
Charging Case Interface
Type-C
Type-C
Charging Case
300mAh Li-Polymer
300mAh Li-Polymer
Product Dimensions
5.5 x 4.6 x 2.7 cm; 35 Grams
5.4 x 4.6 x 2.9 cm; 35 Grams
Audio Quality
The audio quality of the pTron Bassbuds Pro is amazing, especially the highs (audio) are up to the mark. When the volume is 100% the sound has a soothing effect but might not be needed every time. The 8mm Dynamic Speakers with High Bass exquisite sound details with proper Bass. The bass is very prominent and overall the quality is up to the mark for this price range. There seems to have no issue while playing games with these headphones.
The headphone can be accessible within a range of 10m and the connection breaks down a little bit if you travel in the whole house, keeping the phone in a room.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Cons
Stereo Calls
Built Quality
Type-C charging
Battery Capacity
Comfortable fitting
No dual pairing
Great battery life
IPX4 protection
Light weight
Our Thought
After using it for a week I am totally impressed with both the audio quality and its lightweight built. The whole case of the TWS is very small and can be easily carried anywhere, needless to mention the weight as each earbuds are weighed 4grams approximately. There is no fear of falling from the ears but would recommend you all to handle it properly as it has a high tendency of falling while handling as it is so lightweight.
Considering the price of Rs.1,299 you can definitely go for this pTron Bassbuds Pro TWS earbuds. I am strongly recommending this gadget as it is one of the best within this price range and might also be the only one.
Mumbai, 28th February 2021: Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (“RSBVL”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited, announced that it has acquired additional equity stake in its investee company skyTran Inc. (“skyTran”) for a consideration of USD 26.76 million increasing its shareholding to 54.46% on a fully diluted basis.
skyTran is a technology company incorporated under the laws of Delaware, United States of America (USA) in 2011. skyTran has developed breakthrough passive magnetic levitation & propulsion technology for implementing personal transportation systems aimed at solving the problem of traffic congestion globally. The technology has been developed by skyTran to create Smart Mobility Solutions. The proposed skyTran transportation systems would consist of computer-controlled passenger pods running on its state-of-the-art, patented Passive Magnetic Levitation technology and would use cutting edge IT, Telecom, loT and Advanced Materials technologies to transport passengers in a fast, safe, green, and economical manner. It is also supported by notable global venture capital investors such as Innovation Endeavors.
Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, said, “Our acquiring majority equity stake in skyTran reflects our commitment to invest in building futuristic technologies that would transform the world. We are excited by skyTran’s potential to achieve an order of magnitude impact on highspeed intra and inter-city connectivity and its ability to provide a high speed, highly efficient and economical ‘Transportation-As-A- Service’ platform for India and the Rest of the World. We firmly believe that non-polluting high speed personal rapid transportation system will help facilitate environmental sustainability through efficient use of alternative energy and make an impactful reduction in air and noise pollution.”
The law firms Covington & Burling LLP and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer US LLP acted as legal counsel and IP counsel respectively to Reliance Industries.
Facebook is undoubtedly the world’s biggest social media company. It owns the world’s most famous chat platform WhatsApp and the world’s biggest image and video sharing social platform. But now it seems that the company is putting its hands into music as well.
According to fresh sources, Facebook is releasing an app that will let users post and share videos of them rapping over beats, which are provided by the app.
The app is called Bars, and it lets you create 60-second rap videos. According to sources, users can then post the video to a TikTok-style feed, where people can watch it and mark it as “fire.”
Facebook also promises an auto-rhyme dictionary with the app, for those who mark themselves as “beginners” in the app’s sign-up. For those closer to the “Advanced” level, it provides a Freestyle mode, which gives you eight random words to work into a 16-bar off-the-cuff rap.
For the rap lovers, the app seems to be a good alternative over TikTok, as it promises to provide professionally made beats for you to rap over. Reports indicate that the App is being developed by Facebook’s New Product Experimentation group.
For now, the App is only in the beta state and available on iOS. For the Android version, it will still take a lot of time. When all said, the app has promised a whole lot of features and it seems that Facebook is quite positive for the Apps success. Let’s wait for the stable release of the App.
The Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows PC has been in development for quite a while, and now finally, it seems that the app is ready to be launched. According to fresh sources, Microsoft is in the finalizing stages of the Streaming app, including access to streaming games from the company’s xCloud service.
According to TheVerge, who managed to get access to the latest version of the Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows, an unannounced and unreleased app. The app will let Windows users stream games from their Xbox Series S / X consoles and xCloud.
However, in the current version, according to sources, you can’t stream games from the new Xbox consoles to Windows PC. But Microsoft stated that it will be resolved once the app is finalized. It will also bring xCloud streaming to Windows PCs for the first time.
The Xbox remote play feature, for connecting to Xbox consoles, is similar to the existing Console Companion does. You can remotely wake an Xbox console, sign in, and play games wherever you are.
scoop: here's a look at Microsoft's unreleased xCloud app for Windows. This app lets you stream Xbox games from an Xbox Series X / S console, or from xCloud. Full details here: https://t.co/ymyjQDmaeHpic.twitter.com/V3U3PXe7LO
According to sources, Microsoft is working on 1080p streams for xCloud, instead of the 720p, which is good news. It will improve the experience on Windows PCs, ahead of higher resolutions once Microsoft has upgraded its xCloud servers to include Xbox Series X hardware.
Microsoft is rumored to be planning a “what’s new for gaming” event for next month, so we may hear a lot more about the company’s xCloud plans.
Google Discover has come a long way from the time it was launched. In August, the service started surfacing “Short videos” to join webpages, regular videos, and later AMP-based Web Stories.
For its next-month beta update, the Android maker will be testing YouTube shorts and other short content for its Discover service. According to sources, the cards will feature the YouTube play logo in the top-left corner, while the video title and “YouTube” appear below.
Tapping on the card immediately opens the YouTube app, and a new fullscreen player where you can like/dislike, see comments, share, and see “More” — Description, Report, or Send feedback, will appear. But there won’t any seek bar to control play and pause.
“YouTube Shorts” are up to 15 seconds long and created using a “Shorts camera” that’s currently only available in India. To access the camera, go to the Create menu in the YouTube app’s bottom bar; this new “short-form video creation tool” lets you select music, adjust speed, and set a hands-free Countdown timer while recording.
Reports indicate that YouTube encourages all creators to upload short vertical videos that are up to 60 seconds and tagged with #Shorts in the title or description. Those videos will be shown in Google Discover.
As for now, Google Discover shows regular YouTube content as full cards, and the addition of Shorts will help boost the beta format. Google said the “the YouTube Shorts player is now receiving more than 3.5 billion daily views globally.”
Google Discover’s Short videos carousel with YouTube is still in testing and not yet widely rolled out.
Jio is continuously expanding its reach to different markets one after another. One of the existing fields, the company is currently nurturing is wireless broadband solutions. The fresh fruit of its work is the new JioExtender6 AX6600 Wi-Fi 6. As per the company’s claims, this extender can back the network to increase the speed by up to four times.
The main plus point of this solution is the support of Wi-Fi 6. Obviously, it’s far better than Wi-Fi 5 and also future proof. On top of that, the JioExtender6 is comfortable with the 1Gbps broadband.
The JioExtender6 AX6600 Wi-Fi 6 is powered by a quad-core processor that resides inside with 128MB NAND and 256MB RAM. Unfortunately, the processor brand is not specified. There will be 3 Wi-Fi 6-enabled radios, two Wi-Fi clients, and one dedicated 5GHz network.
The on-paper markings of the company say the extender is able to boost the output of the 5GHz band by up to 38%, whereas 2.4GHz output can be boosted up by around 90% in maximum cases. There are eight “high performance” internal antennas on the JioExtender6 AX6600 Wi-Fi 6 along with Jio’s high-power amplifiers.
Needless to say, the new machine will reduce the existing latency problem on a higher scale, especially, while video streaming and gaming. The JioExtender6 AX6600 WiFi 6 Mesh is currently available to buy from Jio’s official website, INR 25,999 will be charged for it.
Intel is all set to launch its new Rocket Lake-S desktop CPUs in the coming days, and as we reported recently, Mindfactory is openly admitting the sale of these CPUs and has even admitted that no embargo has been breached in the process.
The people who bought these CPUs have posted in German tech forums like HardwareLuxx, PC Games Hardware, or ComputerBase. So, we have many early benchmarks of the 8-core Core i7-11700K, which could give us a fair idea of how these new Intel CPUs will perform against AMD’s revolutionary Ryzen 5000 series processors.
Andreas Schilling from hardwareluxx.de, has shared few benchmarks that suggest how Intel Core i7-11700K stacks up against AMD Ryzen 7 5800X:
Take this with a grain of salt, but I wanted to put the numbers in perspective. Core i7-11700K against current Ryzen lineup and in retro perspective with Intel CPUs. pic.twitter.com/adueVdc2wu
In Cinebench R20 single-core, the Intel Core i7-11700K scores 600 points and 5749 points in multi-core. This is close but not enough to beat AMD Ryzen 7 5800X’s 622 points in single-core and 6022 points in multi-core.
This is true because, in our Ryzen 7 5800X review, it also scored 625 points in single-core whereas 5875 points in multi-core. So, indeed the Intel Core i7-11700K fails to beat AMD at early stages, and this is the same case in Cinebench R23 as well:
Here also we see the Ryzen 7 5800X beating Intel by fine margins both in single-core and multi-core tests. Not only this, in CPU-Z too the picture is the same:
Here we see both the CPUs having almost the same single-core scores at the stock, with Intel leading by few points, whereas Intel is far behind AMD in multi-core performance. These early benchmarks only give us some assumptions of the performance we can expect from these Rocket Lake-S CPUs, but the competition is very intense, no doubts!
I know, IPC is just a median and we don't know which models we should compare here, but the Core i7-11700K hits exactly +18 % IPC compared to the Core i7-10700K. Just a coincidence? pic.twitter.com/Zy2en9NKMq
Interestingly, Andreas Schilling also mentions the single-threaded IPC improvement in both the Intel and AMD CPUs, compared to the last-gen Core i7-10700K. In the chart, we see, the Core i7-11700K has an 18.58% IPC uplift while the Ryzen 7 5800X posts a better 22.92% IPC uplift over Core i7-10700K.
Thurrott didn’t look into any information on what kind of announcements might be there in the event. There is a possibility that in the latter half of March, Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda could be unveiled.
Here is a recap of what Microsoft has under the works at its Xbox Game Studios and could make some appearance at the upcoming event:
343 Industries: Working on Halo Infinite this Fall.
The Coalition: Last year they helped with gears Tactics.
Compulsion Games: Launched We Happy Few in 2018. Phil Spencer teased their next game a few months ago.
Double Fine Productions: Psychonauts 2 has been confirmed to be due in 2021. But no official release date is known.
The Initiative: In early December, it was announced that the studio is reimagining Perfect Dark.
inXile Entertainment: Wasteland 3 was released not so long ago, though some DLC should come this year. The developers are now working on two new RPG titles.
Mojang studio: They have recently released a new DLC for Minecraft Dungeons.
Ninja Theory: Recentlythe developer has showcased a part of Project Mara.
Obsidian Entertainment: Finishing up the DLCs for The Outer Worlds while working on Avowed.
Playground Games: It is rumored that they are working on Forza Horizon 5, which could release this year.
Rare: Rare is working on Everwild, though still they were brainstorming gameplay ideas seven months ago.
Turn 10 Studios: Developing a brand-new Forza Motorsport game that will go back to the franchise’s roots.
Undead Labs: As of July 2020, State of Decay 3 was in early pre-production.
World’s Edge: After Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition release, all eyes are now on the Age of Empires IV.
