Barcelona manager Ronald Koeman took up the job in what is arguably still the most tumultuous time in the club’s recent history.
Leo Messi was on the verge of leaving the club, the financial mismanagement is still unresolved, and Josep Maria Bartomeu resigned from his post of President.
In the midst of all this, the Dutch manager has stuck to the primary focus of getting results on the pitch. While he hasn’t been as successful as the board hoped he would be, the overall picture does not look too bleak.
One of the few notable changes that Koeman has made during his time at Barcelona is ditching the long-favoured 4-3-3 formation for the Blaugrana for a 4-2-3-1 double pivot.
Additionally, Koeman has also been at work in the locker room and has quite literally restructured the player’s locker positions.
The original report was written by Javier Miguel of AS, and here is what the insider had to say regarding the issue:
“One of the best-kept secrets of the dressing room is the order of the players’ lockers
“Nothing is random and a strict configuration is followed. Ronald Koeman has actively participated in choosing this order, after consulting with the captains and delegate Carles Naval with the ambition of achieving a professional atmosphere and promoting good vibes within the group.”
Captain Leo Messi sits in the middle of the U shaped arch, having a clear view of everything going around in the room. Marc Andre Ter-Stegen and Trincao sit on the either side of La Pulga.
New arrival Sergino Dest sits beside Frenkie de Jong, which is understandable considering their Ajax background.
Griezmann sits right next to Ter Stegen while Umtiti and Dembele, being fellow Frenchmen, are also placed next to each other.
Barcelona are currently in 8th, and will be looking to climb back into the top four at the very least.
Dean Henderson joined the Manchester United academy in 2013. He was sent to several clubs on loan. But he caught the eye last season during his loan spell at Sheffield United.
The English goalkeeper has signed a new long-term deal with the club last summer. He made his debut against Luton Town in the Carabao Cup. He also made his UEFA Champions League debut against İstanbul Başakşehir F.K.
Dean Henderson in an interview at England’s official youtube channel explains what was Zlatan Ibrahimović’s impact on the Manchester United team.
Zlatan joined Manchester United in 2016 under Jose Mourinho. The Swedish striker has 29 goals to his name with Manchester United. Dean Henderson said, “Zlatan [Ibrahimović], this guy hits the ball so hard, I’ve never seen someone hit it so hard in my life. To go up against him in training every day was fantastic.”
“As a young boy growing up as a Manchester United fan that was something I was inspired to do, for me it was great and I always remember that well.”
Dean Henderson also explained how he wants to connect with Manchester United fans. “I think it’s important to get that connection with your fans. I wear my heart on my sleeve for every football club I’ve played for and I do what I can to the best of my ability to help that team.”- he said.
“They’ve been great for me and hopefully I’ve been good for them and that’s something that really excites me about what connection I can build with the Man United fans.”- Dean added.
Dean Henderson is now on international duty with England. They will face Belgium tomorrow in UEFA Nations League.
The Indian cricket fans are still in their IPL hangover as not finding any cricket on their TV sets at 7:30 PM has been challenging to deal with.
However, to their rescue, is an equally intense international series down under! The Indian team will finally be seen in blue colours post-IPL as they fly to Australia in November. Team India hasn’t been in action for a long time as a series against South Africa was cancelled due to circumstances arising out of the pandemic.
However, there’s a rumor floating around on social media that those blue colors might be reminiscent of a trip down memory lane. Team India is rumored to be donning the retro jersey from the 1992 World Cup. The news has had cricket fans on a nostalgia drive.
MPL signs as the Indian cricket team’s kit sponsor for the next three years!
The stars are aligning towards this rumor as BCCI has signed a deal with MPL to sponsor Team India’s kit for the next three years.
The BCCI and MPL have signed a three-year deal for team India’s kit sponsorship. The deal is from November 2020 to December 2023 and will see the board earn Rs 65 lakh per game over the three-year period.
Speaking to an Apex Council member of the board confirmed and explained the details of the new kit deal with MPL.
“Yes, we have signed a deal with MPL that is effective from November 2020 till December 2023. The kit sponsorship amount is Rs 65 lakh per match while merchandising is Rs 3 crore per year for the three-year period. With that royalty will be 10 percent of net sales per season,” the Apex Council member said.
India’s tour of Australia will begin on November 27 with the first ODI at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The majority of the players already flew to Australia directly from Dubai.
If you look into the current smartphone market under Rs.30,000 in India, Vivo and Oppo are on the top who are working to bring sleeker handsets with great looks. Vivo’s V20 is one of those, and it launched in the middle of October. During the Big Billion Days sale, it equally competes with the other heavyweight smartphones like Samsung Galaxy M51 and OnePlus Nord with just only its looks and sleek design.
So, we become curious to figure out what exactly the company is proving apart from the viewing. I ordered the Midnight Jazz color variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. I know you may ask why I didn’t go for the Sunset Melody. Actually, the bluish color looks more formal to me. Without wasting more time, let’s just into the main topic.
On-paper Specifications :-
6.44-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with HDR10 support and 90.37% screen to body ratio
Snapdragon 720G SoC
Adreno 618 GPU
8GB RAM
128GB/256GB internal storage, expandable for up to 1TB
In-display fingerprint sensor
Preinstalled Android 11 with Funtouch OS 11
64MP + 8MP + 2MP triple rear camera setup
44MP front camera with Eye Autofocus
Dual 4G connectivity
Bluetooth 5.1, Wi-Fi
3.5mm Audio jack
4,000mAh battery
33W Vivo flashcharge 2.0
In the Box :-
Handset
USB Cable
Power adapter
Protective case
Sim ejector tool
Earphones
Protective film (applied)
Paperworks
Design :-
It’s the primary thing that attracts people. The Vivo V20 weighs just around 170 grams and 7.38mm sleek. Frankly speaking, after using this handset, almost all the smartphones I hold seems very thick. On the rear end, there is a multi-color gradient design protected with Gorilla Glass 5. A matt coating is also on top of the glass, but that fails to catch fingerprints. The camera module is placed beautifully and has a minimal bump, but that will not bother you. In the bottom left, the branding is made vertically.
The front view is totally opposite of the back, the main reason is the big teardrop notch holding the 44MP camera cutout. The bezels are thin on three sides, the bottom chin is thick comparatively yet tolerable.
The power button and volume keys are placed in a perfect and reachable position. Let you know; Vivo provides a separate getup to segregate it from the volume keys. In the bottom, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, Type-C port, and mono speaker. The SIM tray (2 Nano SIM, 1 microSD card) and secondary microphone are placed in the top left and top.
Display :-
In the Vivo V20, you will get a 6.44-inch Full HD+ (2400×1080) AMOLED display. It also has HDR10 support, Widevine L1 certification, and a 90.37% screen to body ratio. Hope you already get the viewing outcome of this device. You can enjoy all your favorite content with its maximum resolution and great color, contrast, and brightness. In the sunlight you hardly get any trouble to catch your screen.
Coming to the cons in this section. In today’s competitive market, smartphones event around Rs.15,000 is coming with a 90Hz refresh rate. But in this case, we are getting the regular 60Hz refresh rate only that too at Rs.24,990. On top of that, Vivo skips Gorilla glass protection on the front.
Audio :-
In the audio section, the company again disappoints us with the mono speaker. However, the output is thunderous and clear. I’m not fully sure about the 3.5mm audio jack’s output as I only test with the Vivo earphone coming in the box. The audio quality was very cheap. But if you use any wireless earphones or headphones, the experience will be a great one. During the calls, you need not struggle to listen to the opposite person.
During the past 10 days testing process, I tried my Infinity Glide 510, boAt Airdopes 171, Rockerz 335, and Noise Air Buds and discovered a new issue. If your earbud allows you to adjust the volume, then the handset cant sync with the earbuds’ instruction properly. For example, if pairing the volume adjustment of both the smartphone and earbuds will at 100%, and after pairing you decrease the volume from your buds, the sound will decrease, but the media volume level in the V20 will be the same at 100%. It’s probably a software optimization issue, and expecting Vivo will fix it with the upcoming updates.
While using the Airdopes 171, I didn’t find any problem as it doesn’t allow you to increase the media volume through its multi-function buttons.
Performance :-
The new Vivo V20 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G SoC coupled with 8GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of internal storage. Multiple other smartphones are available out there with a better chip at the same or lower price. Despite that, it manages to handle all kinds of day-to-day talks smoothly, even gaming at higher settings. I tried Call of Duty Mobile that runs very well. An Ultra Gaming Mode is there that will help you while gaming to manage calls and other stuff.
Both the under-display fingerprint and facial unlock works fast. It manages to read my fingerprint every time. The facial unlock is pro-active; it works even when I covered half of my face or keep my one eye close. So, it’s another issue in the list Vivo needs to fix urgently.
Software :-
Vivo is providing its Funtouch OS 11 that is based on Android 11. It’s one of a small number of smartphones that comes with pre-installed Android 11. Obviously, you will get all the latest Android version’s general features, like an always-on display, built-in screen recorder, and more. In this small duration, I got multiple updates, and I notice some improvements every time. But still, there are issues.
I already mentioned two problems in the Audio and Performance section. Rather than those two, there are a few more. Some times, the notification panel refuses to come down. I have to turn off the screen and on again to fix the problem temporarily. I faced this problem multiple times. The other one is the split-screen problem. The home screen splits into two sections, both vertically and horizontally, respectively, when I press the back button to return to the home screen. You can see the problem in the images I attached.
Apart from these, the overall UI will provide you an ad-free experience; though you will get some pre-installed Vivo applications, no one pushes any annoying notification. It’s a big plus point of the Vivo V20, no doubt.
Camera :-
Needless to say, Oppo and Vivo, these two companies give the camera section great attention. The Vivo V20 is not an exception. Vivo introduces its Eye Auto-focus technology in this smartphone for the 44 MP selfie camera. You will get a triple camera setup with a 64MP main sensor, 8MP wide-angle cum macro lens, and a 2MP mono sensor on the rear side.
The 64MP main shooter can capture and produce some great images, keeping both HDR on and off. You can get that in the camera samples. Only the colors are getting dull a bit every time; it’s the only issue I notice. While using the Super Wide Angle mode, the image output is good and very wide. Most of the details are captured that are in the center of the image. On the edges, I noticed some problems.
Normal
Normal without HDR
High Quality
10x Zoom
10x Zoom
Super Macro
Super Macro
Normal Selfie
Portrait Selfie
Portrait Selfie
The rear camera can record at 4K 30fps highest. The rest of the other combinations are 1080P 30fps and 50fps, and lastly, 720P 30fps and 60fps. You will get a stable video; as a result, each time, even while running, thanks to the EIS support. All the recording samples are given.
The 44MP selfie camera with the Eye Autofocus is also a great player. I get some great shots both in normal and portrait mode if I ignore the skin whitening issue. In the portrait mode, the background separation is maintained seamlessly. Due to the eye autofocus, it focuses on your eyes in no time. The front camera, too, is capable of recording at the highest 4K resolution. For all the three resolutions, 4K, 1080P, and 720P, the frame rate is fixed, i.e., 30fps.
4K 30fps – Walking
4K 30fps – Running
Super Anti-shake
1080P 50fps
720P 60fps
All the cameras are equally able to capture shots in night and low light conditions, especially selfies. The portrait selfie mode too works very well, and the high resolution of the front camera helps capture more detailed selfies than ever.
You will get some other interesting features in the camera application such as live photo, slow-mo, super anti-shake mode, cine camera, video recording option from both the front and rear camera at a time, and so on.
You can also enhance the camera abilities with the power of Google’s image processing algorithm. The mod version of GCam is available for V20, after all.
Battery :-
Vivo packed a 4,000mAh battery and gave a 33W Flashcharge 2.0 adapter in the box. I know it may seem, this capacity is very less. I agreed, but it’s sufficient to use this phone for a day. I got around 23 hours of backup with around 9 hours of screen time. Point to note, the always-on display was enabled, and the phone was connected with Wi-Fi all the time. So, I hope, with casual usage and light gaming, you will also get mostly the same backup.
While charging, it takes around 20 minutes to reach 50% from 10%. And in total, it needs around 75 minutes.
Pros & Cons :-
Pros
Cons
Beautiful design
Un-optimized UI
Great in-hand feel
Mono speakers
Lightweight and sleek
Poor audio output from the 3.5mm jack
Decent performance
No display protection
Good camera performance with Eye autofocus
4K video recordability
Android 11 pre-installed
Ad free experience
Verdict :-
If the Funtouch UI optimization can be ignored, all the offerings are good, especially the in-hand feel, camera performance, and an ad-free experience. But unfortunately, software issues are very annoying. In the price range of Rs.25,000 to Rs.30,000, there are multiple options in the market.
I personally feel Vivo is still working to fix all the issues, as I noticed some improvements after a few continuous updates, including the last one I got on this Saturday. On top of that, Vivo is coming with its new Origin OS on this 19th November. I’m expecting all the problems will be recovered very soon, within a few months.
The 128GB variant costs Rs.24,990 and the model with 256GB internal storage is priced Rs.27,990. Vivo V20 is available on all the popular e-commerce platforms at the same price tag. A link is given below for your convenience.
The world’s biggest electronics giant who is into storage and DRAM solutions for quite some time now has been making SSDs for the industry predominantly. So, to bring something new and exciting to the industry, Samsung has partnered with Xilinx.
The Samsung SmartSSD computational storage drive (CSD) is the industry’s first adaptable computational storage platform. It accelerates data-intensive applications by 10X or more by pushing compute to where the data lives.
However, at the heart of the SmartSSD is the Xilinx Adaptive Platform, a powerful toolkit that enables customers to create customized, scalable applications to solve a broad range of data center problems. The SmartSSD CSD combines the uncompromising performance of hardware acceleration with total programmability, using common high-level languages like C, C++, and OpenCL.
A 4TB U.2 drive combines all the guts of one of their high-end PCIe Gen3 enterprise SSDs as well as the second-largest FPGA from Xilinx’s Kintex Ultrascale+ (16nm) family and 4GB of DDR4 SDRAM @2400 Mbps. It promises a sequential read speed of 3,500 MB/sec and a write speed of 3,200 MB/sec.
In terms of performance, in real-time analytics, the SmartSSD is 2.8x faster SQL query execution on Parquet data from 1 SmartSSD CSD and performance scales with additional drives. Also, there’s an 87% reduction in CPU utilization from 3 SmartSSD CSDs, while maintaining the same video transcoding frame rate.
The blazing-fast performance is due to the 72GBps read rate of LZ4 compressed data and line rate decompression from 24 SmartSSD CSDs in a single 2U server.
With Xilinx Storage Services, the SmartSSD CSD includes powerful offload capability integrated with popular storage software such as dm-crypt and Virtual Data Optimizer. SmartSSD CSD-based servers remove PCI-Express bottlenecks, producing near-linear performance scaling even on an over-subscribed host CPU.
According to Canalys, the overall PC market has enjoyed immense growth in the third quarter of this year.
After having a decline in the first quarter, the market has seen a growth in the second and third quarters consecutively. The market research and analyst firm, Canalys said in the report that the sales of PC and tablets hit 124.5 million units, up 23% year-on-year during the third quarter.
The recent data says that the maximum of the market growth was led by Chromebooks and detachable (notebooks and tablets). If we see the shipment of Chromebook, there is a 122% increase to a total of 9.4 million, and 88% of sales grew for the detachable products. Also, the shipment of tablets grew by 43% year-on-year to reach around 44 million units. Whereas the broader desktop category has faced a loss of 32% overall.
by – Canalys
Lenovo topped the market by shipping 23.48 million tablets, desktops, and notebooks while Apple became second in the list with 22.07 million Macs and iPads. The rest three in the top five are HP with 18.68 million, Dell with 12.04 million, and Samsung with 9.98 million units.
by – Canalys
Chromebook made a record of shipping 9.4 million units, which has grown 122% over the last year of this same period. Whereas, Apple led the market with tablet sales of 47% annual growth. After 2015, in quarter four, Samsung hit 79.8% annual growth for the first time.
by – Canalys
by – Canalys
This year HP has nearly doubled its Chromebook sales to reach 3.2 million units. As per the records HP sold most of the Chromebooks among the other brands. Meanwhile, Lenovo made a record for its impressive annual growth in Chromebook sales from quarter three of last year.
The new RTX 3080 killer from AMD was supposed to beat the NVIDIA card in all aspects but it seems compute benchmarks says other things. While in games the GPU might go neck-to-neck with the RTX 3080 but in the Geekbench 5 OpenCL tests, the scores aren’t much convincing against NVIDIA.
As spotted by the tipster @TUM_APISAK, the new AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is spotted to have scored 158820 points on OpenCL benchmarks. It features 72 Compute Units 4608 Stream Processors, and units will be paired along-side 16GB of GDDR6 memory.
The card features a 256-bit memory bus and has a clock speed of above 2.0GHz. The game clock will be 2015 MHz while attaining a healthy 2250 MHz for the boost clock. The 128MB infinity cache helps to further leverage better 4K gaming performance and is built upon the 7nm process; the total board power remains 300W.
As we see in the Compute benchmarks, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 scoring a hefty 178335 points and is almost ahead of the RX 6800 XT by about 20,000 points. It will be interesting to see how the new AMD GPU competes against NVIDIA in real benchmarks after being available on November 18th.
Lenovo has released two new ThinkPad laptops without any formal declaration. The first one is L13 Gen 2 and the second one is L13 Yoga Gen 2. Both the business model comes with Intel Tiger Lake. This laptop is the first L series laptop which features Thunderbolt 4.
A few weeks ago, E14 and E15 Gen 2 with Intel Tiger Lake were updated. Now Lenovo enters the market with the new Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen and ThinkPad L13 Yoga Gen 2. Lenovo has finally changed its CPUs to the Tiger Lake series 10 nm CPUs from the Intel Comet Lake chipsets. This chipset uses Intel’s Willow Cove cores and also this SoC is based on Intel’s Xe architecture.
ThinkPad L13 Gen 2
If the user wants to connect an external GPU, then the ThinkPad is compatible with an eGPU, which was a con for its predecessor, and also, if you want to use an external monitor, you will get high resolutions.
L13 Yoga Gen 2
The same chassis that was used in the first-gen Lenovo ThinkPad L13 is now used in the Lenovo ThinkPad Gen 2 and Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Yoga Gen2. This is not new that Lenovo uses its designs for more than one generation. The L390 and L390 Yoga model from the previous year was missing a few features like the Smartcard reader or the mechanical docking port.
Lenovo has already listed the two new laptops in their PSREF database. Now, we can assume, ThinkPad L13 Gen 2 and ThinkPad L13 Yoga Gen 2 will be available very soon.
AMD’s third-generation Zen architecture based EPYC Milan lineup is expected to start shipping later this year. The mammoth from AMD features 64 cores and 128 threads. It will be configured with a 280W TDP. Its clock is reported around 2.45 GHz base and up to 3.55 GHz boost, but they are just results from a sample version and will definitely increase.
The processor has ‘100-000000312’ OPN code, and the EPYC 7763 is expected to sport faster clocks in the final variant. The AMD EPYC Milan processors will succeed in the current EPYC Rome lineup, and the new Zen 3 core architecture is based on an advanced 7nm process node. The processors would focus primarily on overall performance per watt enhancements, according to AMD.
Sources reported the official stated from Norrod stating, “unlike Zen 2, which was more of an evolution of the Zen microarchitecture that powers first-gen Epyc CPUs — Zen 3 will be based on a completely new architecture. Zen 2 delivered a bigger IPC gain than what’s normal for an evolutionary upgrade — AMD has said it’s about 15% on average — since it implemented some ideas that AMD originally had for Zen but had to leave on the cutting board”.
EPYC Milan has the following main features:
Advanced 7nm Zen 3 cores (~64 core / 128 thread)
Pin Compatible With SP3 Socket
120W-225W TDP SKUs
PCIe 4.0 Support
DDR4 Memory Support
Launch in 2020
AMD has assured that the CPU’s will be completely available by the first quarter of 2021 and that its new CPU lineup will be better than Intel. Intel’s Cooper Lake SP 14nm and Ice Lake SP 10nm will start shipping next year. It will be interesting to see the two rivals going head-on against each other.
ISL is growing day by day, season by season. This year it is the 7th edition of ISL. In 2013 when it was first started every team had signed marquee players. In that season, some legends like Luis Garcia, Del Piero, Trezeguet, and many others played in the league. Later on, Postiga, Anelka, Elano also played in this league.
This year also all the club has made some surprise signings. There are some former Premier League players as well. Premier League is one of the most competitive leagues in Europe. There is a worldwide fan base of this league. ISL will be graced to have them in the league.
Gary Hooper [Kerala Blasters FC]
Gary Hooper has played in Premier League in his time at Norwich City from 2013-2016. In his 70 appearances for the Premier League side, the English forward has scored 20 goals.
Steven Taylor [Odisha FC]
Steven Taylor has spent 14 years of his senior football career in English Club Newcastle United and left the club in 2016. Last year he was playing for Wellington Phoenix and has decided to join Odisha FC this year.
Adam Le Fondre [Mumbai City FC]
The English striker has played in several clubs in England like Reading, Wolves, Wigan Athletic, and many more. In his time at Reading, he has played in the Premier league in 2012-13 season. He has scored 14 goals in his 37 appearances that season.
Daniel Fox [SC East Bengal]
Daniel Fox has joined SC East Bengal this season. The English defender has played in Premier League for Burnley in 2009-10 and 2012-13 and 2013-14 with Southampton.
Anthony Pilkington [SC East Bengal]
Another Premier League experienced players in SC East Bengal. He has spent 3 seasons in Norwich City and played in Premier League. He joined the club in 2011 and in his 82 appearances for the club, he has scored 15 goals.
