How Maharashtra govt averted rumour-mongering over Yakub Memon’s execution

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government actively kept tabs on the internet and social media to ensure that hate messages on platforms like Twitter and Whatsapp did not stir up passions, besides maintaining a close vigil on the law and order situation in connection with Yakub Memon's execution. 

"Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis stayed awake until the wee hours today, monitoring the law and order situation and following up the development on the Supreme Court front in the case," a senior official told PTI

Yakub Memon buried amid tight security 

Memon's body was buried at Bada Khabristan graveyard here in the evening amid tight security with close relatives and a large crowd turning up. 

The body of Memon, who went to the gallows on his 53rd birthday after exhausting all legal options to escape capital punishment, was flown here from Nagpur on Thursday morning. 

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

Things that brought Salman-Shah Rukh Khan together

Salman and SRK to share screen space?

Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan have buried the hatchet and it seems that they are keen to share screen space now. According to a Mid-day.com report, Aditya Chopra is planning a two-hero film with Salman and Shah Rukh. A source was quoted in the report as saying that Aditya felt that the SRK-Salman combo will work wonders at the box-office. The report also stated that SRK had already given his nod to the film. However, YRF refused to comment on the development.

Read on to know if Aamir is nervous about Salman-Shah Rukh's budding friendship... 

Is Aamir Khan nervous about Salman Khan-Shah Rukh Khan's budding friendship?

It is a known fact that Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are mending ways. From SRK attending Arpita's wedding to both the Khans promoting each other's films on Twitter, the Khans seem to have buried the hatchet for good. However, according to a report on Bollywoodlife.com, Aamir Khan is feeling sidelined and cornered. The report quoted a source as saying that Salman Khan's proximity with SRK was not a good sign for Aamir. 

While Salman and SRK continue to strengthen their friendship over tweets on Eid, read on to know what their fans are doing on Twitter... 

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

Here's Everything You Need To Know About Upgrading To Windows 10

On July 29th, Microsoft will release the most significant overhaul of its operating system in years when it launches the long-awaited Windows 10.

You probably have some questions. So we've prepared some answers.

What's new and cool about Windows 10?

Windows 10 comes with lots of nifty new features: The Cortana digital assistant takes the best parts of Apple's Siri and Google Now and adds a little more attitude; the new Windows Store promises apps that work exactly the same on your Windows 10 PC as on your Windows 10 tablet. 

Plus, the new Microsoft Edge Web browser has cool new features (like being able to scribble notes directly on a webpage), and it's performing better than Google Chrome in some early benchmark tests.

Should I bother with the upgrade to Windows 10?

So far, Windows 10 seems pretty solid.

Microsoft has made a free preview edition available to those brave enough to test early versions of the software, with a program called Windows Insider.

And even in that early form, there's been a lot to love. At first blush, Windows 10 takes the best parts of Windows 7 (stability, user friendliness) and Windows 8.1 (touchscreen-friendliness) and combines it into something that's easy to use, both on computers and tablets. It's familiar, but fresh.

Microsoft is billing this as "The Last Version of Windows," and promises that it'll get new features and upgrades on a rolling basis rather than ever releasing a Windows 11 (or 12, or 13.)

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA

Kalam's life will be taught in schools: Shivraj Singh Chouhan

"A lesson on Dr Kalam's life will be taught in schools," Chouhan told reporters at airstrip here.

Chouhan said that teaching children about Kalam's life will inspire them in achieving their goal and make them ideal citizens. 

"Kalam's death has created a void and irreparable loss that can't be filled," he said adding, the former President was a source of inspiration to him. 

"Kalam proved that a person from modest family background can make it to the highest office by the virtue of talent and hard work," Chouhan said. 

Recalling Kalam as a "visionary", the CM said the former not only dreamt to make India a developed country by 2020, but also prescribed a concrete vision and guidelines for the country. 

The state has already declared a seven-day mourning in the wake of Kalam's death in Shillong yesterday. 

As per the protocol, the Tricolour is flying half mast in all government buildings.

Stay updated on the go with Times of India News App. Click here to download it for your device.

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

Lenovo K3 Note review

After launching A6000, A6000 Plus and A7000, K3 Note is the fourth budget smartphone by Lenovo that is so feature rich.

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

SONY Xperia Z3+

Sony Xperia Z3+ (Black)

SKU: 190855

4.0

13 Expert reviews

Key Features

• Slim, light weight, waterproof and
• IPS display with Triluminos 700cd
• 20.7MP camera for super-sharp images
• Incredible battery life

Rs. 52,990

MRP Rs. 55,990

FROM CROMA 

A TATA ENTERPRISE

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

Line launches 2G-friendly app in India

WASHINGTON: Japanese mobile messaging company Line has launched a light version of its service for Android devices for emerging markets. 

The service has 205 million monthly active users, but over half of those are located in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan.

According to the Techcrunch.com, Line Lite is just 1MB in size and is releasing in eleven countries including Algeria, Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Korea, and Vietnam. 

The Lite version does not include audio and video calling feature and has dropped the Timeline feature as well. Only the core features of the app like texting, stickers and image sharing are available. 

Line says in a statement that it intends to add new features in the future. 

A spokesperson for Line also said that they do not have any plans for releasing the iOS version yet.


REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

Facebook helps man discover new plant species

LONDON: When an amateur researcher posted a picture of a plant on Facebook, little did he realize that it could be a new plant species in the world "discovered on Facebook."
Amateur researcher Reginaldo Vasconcelos who clicked the plant in a jungle on a mountain top in Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, decided to post it on the social networking site for his friends' amusement. 

When circulated, the image reached the experts at the Bavarian State Collection for Botany in Munich who identified the sundew plant as a new species and named it "drosera magnifica" (magnificent sundew), Telegraph reported. 

"It is the first plant that was discovered on Facebook. It is the largest sundew in the Americas, and the second-largest carnivorous plant in the Americas," Andreas Fleischmann from the Bavarian State Collection, Germany, was quoted as saying. 

This is "the first plant species to be recorded as being discovered through photographs on a social network", they added. 

The results were published in the journal Phytotaxa.



REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

BlackBerry Mobile Phones

BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion Limited (RIM), is a Canadian telecommunication and wireless equipment company best known to the general public as the developer of the BlackBerry brand of smartphones and tablets, but also well known worldwide as a provider of secure & high reliability software for industrial applications and mobile device management.

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA

Apple Mobile Phones

Established in 1976, Apple Inc is the biggest technology company in the world by valuation. Best known for iPhone smartphones, iPad tablets and Mac computers, the company is also engaged in producing the Apple Watch smartwatch and iPod music players.

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

iPhone 7 rumour round up: Specs, features & more

Excitement is building for the next iPhone — and already a steady trickle of leaks are emerging, about the phone's features, look and specs. Here's a regularly-updated collection of everything we know so far.

Apple has been highlighting the iPhone’s camera in its recent advertising, and it’s set to get another bump this time around. Leaked social media posts seemed to indicate that the rear camera will have a 12MP sensor for taking photos, and will shoot 4K video.

The front-facing, or selfie, camera will also be improved. And it could even get a flash, to allow for selfies in the dark. The camera will also be controlled by Force Touch, according to reports. Pressing hard on the screen will be able to control extra features on the camera, like triggering a burst of stills during a film, or switching from photo to video mode.

REFRENCES= TIMES OF INDIA 

5 new WhatsApp features you don’t know about

WhatsApp has just released a new update for Android smartphones that brings a bunch of new features for the popular app.

Though the update has not been pushed to the Google Play Store, you can still download it from the company’s website and check out the new features.

With the upcoming update, Android users will soon be able to mark messages as unread even after reading them.

To be clear, this feature does not make it appear as if you have not read the message yet, and your messages will appear as read to senders even after you mark them as unread.

Instead, it can be used to highlight messages so you can get back to them later. Also, marking a message as unread will not change the order of conversations on the app.

REFRENCES=TIMES OF INDIA 

Udaipur teenage twins make sci-fi film at home

UDAIPUR: Fourteen-year-old twins Pal and Chin Vardhman showed the courage to do something different to follow their dream. They skipped school for three years to pursue their passion of film-making. They worked non-stop for months, spent sleepless nights and their hard work has finally borne fruit. 


'The Adventure of Palchingiri', an hour-long sci-fi (science fiction) movie, is scheduled to be screened at more than a dozen international film festivals that will be organized in Chicago, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Busan, Cairo among others in the coming months. After the screening sessions, the movie would be released in theaters in India next March

The boys then started surfing various tutorials related to animation. Within a year, they developed a few animated games. When Pal was eight, their parents took him to MAAC (a Ketan Mehta-promoted animation institute) in Mumbai and after analyzing his animated games, the people at the institute allowed him to undertake an advance course of animation which is generally not meant for children. "That course opened a new vista to our cinematic dreams and aspirations. The internet indeed became our guru," said Pal. 

Movie Synopsis: The story revolves around two kids - Pal and Chin. Pal has an obsession of making and experimenting with new gadgets while Chin, who has artistic interests, is in love with the colours of life. Improper functioning of Pal's gadgets always leads to chaos amongst the brothers. 

One day one of Pal's gadgets is able to get in touch with an alien who responds. The alien tells them that technology has become their enemy and the radioactive garbage is ready to destroy their planet. The alien also warns Pal and Chin about the impending danger to their planet. How the two kids, with their gadgets and the alien, manage to save their planet from the threat makes the story of the movie interesting.

REFENCES-TIMES OF INDIA 

India Will Be Home To World's Biggest Science Project That Aims To Prove Einstein Wrong!

The site to set up an ultra-sensitive laser detector to find the elusive gravitational waves predicted by Einstein will be in Maharashtra, Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh.

Proving Einstein wrong? 

An ironical twist has deprived Bengaluru - and Karnataka - of an opportunity to play a pivotal role in the biggest science project ever in the world. The project sets out to prove whether Albert Einstein was right or wrong - an objective which would either boost astrophysics or entirely change the way astrophysicists have been looking at it.

Despite having a large density of scientific and information technology institutions in and around Bengaluru, that very attraction - and resulting property development around the city - has eliminated not just Bengaluru but the entire state of Karnataka from the list of candidate sites to set up an extremely ultra-sensitive detector, called Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). This detector sets out to detect a shift which is as short a distance as a fraction of the nucleus of an atom in the laser beam due to impacts of gravitational waves emanating from even billions of light-years away.

Two such detectors exist in the USA - one at Hanford near Richland, Washington; the other at Livingston near Los Angeles. One of them is to begin operations to detect gravitational waves this year. A third is to be set up in India to form a part of a global LIGO network to detect the gravitational waves. The Indian scientific institutions involved in this project are Inter University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune; Institute of Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar; Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore; the various institutions under the Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs); and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

MS Dhoni Beats Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi To Be 9th Most Marketable Athlete In The World

He might be busy following his passions without the attention from the outside world when he's not playing cricket but the brand Dhoni never refuses to die. In a list of world's most marketable athletes, India's ODI skipper is ranked ninth, above the likes of football superstars Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The list of top 20 athletes by London School of Marketing has Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer as No 1 and golfer Tiger Woods as No 2. 34-year-old Dhoni, though is behind tennis stars Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova are the only women in the top-20 list.

Last month, Dhoni was ranked 23rd on the Forbes list of The World's Highest-Paid Athletes, dropping a notch from his ranking of 22 last year. Dhoni's total earnings stood at USD 31 million (Rs 198 crores), including amount from salary/winnings at USD 4 million (Rs 25 crores) and endorsements worth USD 27 million (Rs 172 crores). These figures include salaries, prize money and bonuses paid out between June 2014 and June 2015.

The top-20 most marketable athletes: 

1. Roger Federer (Tennis)

2. Tiger Woods (Golf)

3. Phil Mickelson (Golf)

4. LeBron James (Basketball)

5. Kevin Durant (Basketball)

6. Rory McIlroy (Golf)

7. Novak Djokovic (Tennis)

8. Rafael Nadal (Tennis)

9. Mahendra Singh Dhoni 

10. Cristiano Ronaldo (Football)

11. Kobe Bryant (Basketball)

12. Maria Sharapova (Tennis)

13. Lionel Messi (Football)

14. Usain Bolt (Track)

15. Neymar (Football)

16. Andy Murray (Tennis)

17. Kei Nishikori (Tennis)

18. Derrick Rose (Basketball)

19. Floyd Mayweather (Boxing)

20. Serena Williams (Tennis)

REFRENCES=INDIA TIMES

'Mark As Unread' + New Features That Will Change Your WhatsApp Experience For Life

WhatsApp has just released a new update for Android smartphones that brings a bunch of new features for the popular app. Though the update has not been pushed to the Google Play Store, you can still download it from the company's website and check out the new features.

With the upcoming update, Android users will soon be able to mark messages as unread even after reading them. To be clear, this feature does not make it appear as if you have not read the message yet, and your messages will appear as read to senders even after you mark them as unread.  Instead, it can be used to highlight messages so you can get back to them later. Also, marking a message as unread will not change the order of conversations on the app.  

WhatsApp is bringing its whole set of custom options, which are available only for the whole app at present, for individual contacts.  For example, if you want to set a specific ringtone for a contact, you can select any song from your playlist, so you know the messages and calls are from that particular person even without looking at your smartphone.  Similarly, you can set notification light colours, separate call and message ringtones, enable or disable vibrations and pop-up notifications for each contact.  

At present, you can only mute group conversations, but with the next update you will be able to mute individual contacts as well.  If you want to mute any person on your contact list, check the Mute bar in the About menu.  Slide the Mute bar to the right and you will see duration for which you can mute the chat: 8 hours, a week, or a year. 

If you make a lot of WhatsApp calls and want to reduce your data consumption, WhatsApp has added a new option in the app for that purpose.  Under Chats and Calls menu in Settings, you will notice a new option called Low Data Usage at the bottom of the scroll.  Just click the box and you will be able to save some data while making voice calls using WhatsApp. 

REFRENCES=INDIA TIMES

Move Over, Moon And Mars! The Earth's Big Brother, 452b, Promises A Home Away From Home

You may want to keep your copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy close. With the discovery of Earth's big brother, Kepler-452b, we have just inched a few steps closer to having a habitable Earth-like planet in space. 'Cause NASA surely believes 452b to be our long, lost older cousin that might as well play host to an outer-space homecoming party.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, an associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0," he further added.

In other words, scientists believe that big brother 452b may spill some interesting secrets about Earth's evolution. There is "substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet,” confirms Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.

As per NASA, the rocky 'super-Earth-size' planet, Kepler-452b is bigger than Earth, and has a 5 per cent larger 385-day cycle. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger. 

REFRENCES=INDIA TIMES

11 Reasons 'Bangistan' Is Not Just Another Ordinary Comedy

Critic Karan Anshuman's directorial debut Bangistan, starring Ritesh Deshmukh and Pulkit Samrat, is a satire on terrorism. Yes, you read that right. It's actually a movie that has a pretty usual plot-line framed in a different way. We've all seen Bollywood films, depicting true incidents based on terrorism. And while they were well made, it’s time for us to look at this issue with a different perspective.

Take a look at why you need to watch Bangistan. 

The story is about two budding terrorists. The issue of terrorism has been portrayed in a different manner, and the movie promises to bring something out of the blue.

Since the movie is about two aspiring suicide bombers, it includes a lot of scenes of bombings and blasts. The makers of the film had to get special permissions from the respective authorities to carry fake bombs that looked exactly like real explosives. 

Riteish Deshmukh, who plays the lead role of an aspiring terrorist with Pulkit Samrat, recently commented on the movie. 

We know how well both these actors have entertained us in their respective films. To see them as a duo in Bangistan only promises us laughs.

REFRENCES=INDIA TIMES