Tech

Oppo K12s was launched in China on Tuesday. The new handset runs on a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 chipset and packs a 7,000mAh battery with 80W charging support. The Oppo K12s sports a 6.67-inch display with up to 120Hz refresh rate and is available in three different colour options . Much like other Oppo K-series smartphones, the new offering has a dual rear camera unit headlined by a 50-megapixel main rear camera. The Oppo K12s appears to be a rebranded version of the Oppo K13 5G, which was announced on Monday in the Indian market.

Oppo K12s Price

Price of Oppo K12s is set at CNY 1,199 (roughly Rs. 14,000) for the base 8GB + 128GB storage model. The 8GB + 256GB, 12GB + 256GB, and 12GB + 512GB RAM and storage versions are priced at CNY 1,399 (roughly Rs. 16,000), CNY 1,599 (roughly Rs. 18,000), and CNY 1,799 (roughly Rs. 20,000), respectively. It is available in Rose Purple, Prism Black and Star White (translated from Chinese) shades. The phone will go on sale in China from April 25.

Oppo K12s Specifications

The dual-SIM (nano) Oppo K12s runs on Android 15 with the company’s ColorOS 15 skin on top. It sports a 6.67-inch full-HD+ (1,080×2,400 pixels) AMOLED display with up to 120Hz refresh rate, up to 180Hz touch sampling rate and 1,200 nits peak brightness. It runs on an octa-core Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The handset has 5,700mm sq VC for heat dissipation.

For optics, Oppo K12s has a dual rear camera unit, comprising a 50-megapixel primary sensor with f/1.8 aperture and autofocus and a 2-megapixel monochrome camera. On the front, it sports a 16-megapixel sensor with an f/2.5 aperture. The phone has an IP65-rated build for dust and splash resistance.

Connectivity options on the Oppo K12s include 5G, NFC, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, Beidou, GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and USB Type-C port. It has dual stereo speakers and an in-display fingerprint sensor for authentication. The handset supports facial recognition. Sensors onboard include ambient light sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, infrared remote control and proximity sensor. 

The Oppo K12s carries a 7,000mAh battery with 80W charging support. The fast-charging feature is said to fill the battery from zero to 62 percent in 30 minutes. The battery is advertised to provide up to 49.4 hours of calling time and a maximum of 14.9 hours of video calling time on a single charge. The battery is claimed to have a capacity retention rate of more than 80 percent after five years of normal use.

Oppo announced the Oppo K13 5G in the Indian market yesterday with the same combination of 7,000mAh battery, 80W charging, and Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 SoC. The Price of the phone starts at Rs. 17,999 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage version.

Zoom launched several new enterprise-focused features last week, expanding its agentic tools. The San Jose-based communications technology company is introducing several AI agents across the Zoom Workplace, including Custom AI Companion, Zoom Tasks, and more. Additionally, the company is also rolling out multiple new features for its existing products, such as Zoom Phone, Whiteboard, and Zoom CX. The new features arrive a month after Zoom unveiled its agentic strategy and revealed the roadmap for the features arriving in the coming months.

Zoom Introduces New Agentic Features for Enterprises

In a press release, the company announced the launch of agentic tools such as the Custom AI Companion, Voice Recorder, Tasks, and Custom Avatars. Apart from this, it is also introducing new features for Zoom Meetings, Zoom Team Chat, Zoom Whiteboard, Zoom Revenue Accelerator, and more.

Zoom Tasks is a new feature being added to the AI Companion. It can detect, manage, and complete tasks across Zoom Workplace. It can automatically generate tasks from Zoom Team Chat, Mail, or Docs, and convert them into actionable tasks that users can do themselves or delegate to the AI Companion.

Zoom Tasks
Photo Credit: Zoom

Tasks can also provide insights and recommend next steps. Additionally, the feature utilises the centralised task management tab to help the entire team keep track of its actions. Zoom Tasks is now available with Zoom Workplace plans. The AI Companion capabilities are only available to paid users.

Custom AI Companion Features and Pricing

Custom AI Companion is also rolling out for enterprises. It is an AI agent that is powered by Zoom AI Studio. Essentially a customised version of the AI Companion, it can connect to integrated third-party AI agents to carry out a wide set of tasks. The company says the agent will support Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Google’s Agent to Agent Protocol to seamlessly connect to external tools.

Apart from that, the Custom AI Companion can also be connected to enterprise data via the new “Bring Your Own Index (BYOI)” feature. Zoom says the tool can be integrated with data sources such as project management tools, cloud storage, email accounts, and customer databases.

Custom AI Companion will also offer the Custom Avatars for Zoom Clips feature. It can be used to create an AI-generated clip. The clip will contain an avatar in the user’s likeness, which will speak a script shared by the user. Zoom says such clips can be used for employee orientation, project briefs, and more. The company is also adding several safeguards to ensure the tool is not used to generate offensive or harmful clips.

Currently, Custom Avatars are available as a part of the Custom AI Companion add-on, but in May, the company plans to release it as a separate product. The Custom AI Companion add-on is available for $12 (roughly Rs. 1,020) per user per month.

Other Notable Features

A new Voice Recorder feature in AI Companion can transcribe, summarise, and capture action items from Zoom Meetings or Zoom Phone calls, eliminating the need for note-taking while interacting with others. It will be rolled out later this month in the mobile app, and the company plans to bring it to Rooms later this year.

Zoom Team Chat is also expanding its multilingual support. The company is using a native small language model (SLM) to provide improved translations from eight languages, including German, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Portuguese-Brazilian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese (to English).

The platform is also adding a new capability that will let participants mention people who are not in a chat or channel and share their contact information without adding them. AI Companion can also schedule meetings with multiple participants, and the chatbot will find the best times for all invitees by pulling data from across the platform. It will then suggest the scheduling options, and the user can either accept or make changes to it.

Once the schedule has been fixed, the AI Companion will set up a Zoom meeting, add it to the participants’ calendars, and generate suggested meeting topics and agendas. During meetings, users can also create private group chats, either with a single participant or with a specific subset. Users will be able to add a custom name to the groups.

The company is also adding agentic features to the Zoom Revenue Accelerator. The agent can run on admin-configured sales methodologies, and admins can deploy custom frameworks to ensure repeatable approach based on what works for an organisation. Zoom claims the new feature uses large language models (LLMs) to analyse sales conversations to surface key customer insights.

Further, a deal explorer feature in Zoom Revenue Accelerator will allow users to surface sales insights via natural language prompts. The tool can analyse information across customers’ entire opportunity cycle, and present the information. Citing an example, the company said sales professionals can ask queries such as “What are the next steps for this opportunity?” or “Has pricing been discussed?” and the AI will provide a contextual answer.

Amazfit Active 2 was launched in India on Tuesday. The new Amazfit smartwatch has a 1.32-inch AMOLED display and is claimed to deliver up to 10 days of battery life on a single charge. It comes with a BioTracker 6.0 PPG biometric sensor for reading biometric data and providing feedback to help users track their physical conditions. The Amazfit Active 2 offers blood oxygen saturation level (SpO2) monitoring, real-time heart rate monitoring and female health tracking features. It has 5ATM water resistance and is compatible with the Zepp app. The watch supports Bluetooth calling, as well.

Amazfit Active 2 Price in India

The Amazfit Active 2 is priced at Rs. 9,999 for the Standard version in India and Rs. 11,999 for the Premium version. The former comes with a black silicone strap, while the Premium version comes with a black leather strap and an additional red silicone strap in the box. It has a sapphire glass screen covering. Amazfit Active 2 is currently up for purchase through the company website, Amazon, and select retail stores. 

Amazfit Active 2 Specifications

The Amazfit Active 2 has a 1.32-inch display with 466×466 pixels resolution and a 353ppi pixel density. The circular display is touted to deliver 2,000 nits of brightness. The wearable has two buttons for navigation. It offers 164 workout modes, including strength training, hyrox race, cycling, swimming, among others.

For connectivity, the Amazfit Active 2 has Bluetooth 5.2 and BLE. It offers Bluetooth calling support that lets users make and receive voice calls directly from their wrists. It boasts a BioTracker 6.0 PPG sensor that picks up a range of biometric signals to assist users in tracking and understanding their physical condition. It ships with a Spo2 monitor and heart rate tracker.

Further, the Amazfit Active 2 provides menstrual cycle tracking, sleep monitoring, stress level monitoring and sedentary reminders. The wearable shows call and SMS notifications and app alerts. It offers camera control, music control, and the Find My Phone feature among others.

The Amazfit Active 2 has a Zepp Flow AI voice control feature that allows users to control their watch settings, adjust their calendar, and more with just their voice. It also lets Android users reply to instant messages with either keyboard or speech-to-text input. It has the support of five satellite positioning systems for easy navigation. This permits wearers to access offline maps with GPS turn-by-turn directions. The smartwatch includes a Zepp Coach feature that is claimed to offer personalised training plans for users. The smartwatch has 5ATM water resistance. Users can pair the device via the Zepp app on paired Android or iOS smartphones.

The Amazfit Active 2 carries a 270mAh battery that is advertised to offer up to 10 days of battery life with typical usage and up to five days with heavy usage. Without the strap, the standard version weighs 29.5g, while the premium variant weighs 31.65g.

Vivo T4 5G was launched in India on Tuesday. The smartphone comes with a Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset paired with up to 12GB RAM and a 7,300mAh battery with 90W Flashcharge, as well as wireless and reverse charging support. It comes with a 50-megapixel dual rear camera unit and an 8-megapixel front camera sensor for selfies and video calls. The handset has a quad-curved AMOLED display and an IP65-rated dust and splash-resistant build. Notably, the Vivo T4x 5G variant was unveiled in India in March.

Vivo T4 5G Price in India, Availability

Vivo T4 5G price in India starts at Rs. 21,999 for the 8GB + 128GB option, while the 8GB + 256GB and 12GB + 256GB variants are marked at Rs. 23,999 and Rs. 25,999, respectively. It is offered in Emerald Blaze and Phantom Grey colour options. The phone will be available for purchase in the country via Flipkart, the Vivo India e-store and select offline retail stores.

Vivo T4 5G Features, Specifications

The Vivo T4 5G sports a 6.77-inch full-HD+ (1,080 x 2,392 pixels) AMOLED quad-curved display with a 120Hz refresh rate and up to 5,000 nits of local peak brightness. The phone is powered by a 4nm octa-core Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 SoC paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 2.2 onboard storage. It ships with Android 15-based Funtouch OS 15.

For optics, the Vivo T4 5G gets a 50-megapixel primary rear sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and an f/1.8 aperture alongside a 2-megapixel secondary sensor with an f/2.4 aperture. The front camera is an 8-megapixel shooter with an f/2.0 aperture. 

The Vivo T4 5G is backed by a 7,300mAh battery with support for 90W wired FlashCharge as well as reverse and bypass charging. The handset has an in-display fingerprint sensor for security. It has an IP65 dust and splash resistance rating. Connectivity options include 5G, 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, OTG and a USB Type-C port. The Emerald Blaze variant measures 163.40 x 76.40 x 7.89mm, while the Phantom Grey option has a 7.93mm profile. Both versions weigh 199g.

Ethereum, touted as the most commercial blockchain in existence, is set to undergo a significant upgrade in the coming days. Dubbed “Pectra”, the upgrade is aimed at improving Ethereum’s efficiency, stability, and usability. Initially, the upgrade was slated to be completed around early April, however, owing to the ongoing tests on the upgrade its deployment has been pushed by some days. According to Tim Beiko, who runs the core protocol meetings for Ethereum, the upgrade could be completed by April 30.

Pectra’s introduction to Ethereum will improve the blockchain’s ability to augment accounts and upgrade the experience for its validators, as per an official blog from Ethereum. It will also expand Ethereum’s scalability range for the supported Layer-2 blockchains like Arbitrum, Base, and Polygon among others.

Some Key Highlights

With Pectra, Ethereum users will be able to replace traditional private key-controlled accounts with programmable smart contracts for greater flexibility and security. This will notably advance Ethereum’s “account abstraction” features.

Explaining the feature, Ethereum said it represented “a major step toward widespread account abstraction, enabling users to enhance their Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) with smart contract functionality.

“This hybrid approach combines the simplicity of EOAs with the programmability of contract-based accounts,” the blog post read.

Through the feature, users will be able to execute multiple operations within a single transaction. This will eliminate the need to execute separate transactions for transaction approvals and token swapping.

Another significant feature that will come with Pectra is the “Gas Sponsorship”. Essentially, users will be able to process gas fee payments through other crypto tokens instead of accepting only ETH tokens.

For network validators, Pectra will introduce profitable rewards. “Pectra raises the maximum balance a validator can receive rewards on from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, through an opt-in update of withdrawal credential type. For smaller stakers, this enables automatic reward compounding. Both existing and new validators can be configured to earn rewards on the entirety of their stake, up to 2048 ETH per validator,” the network explained.

Beiko has posted more details on the upcoming upgrade on X.

The word “Pectra” has been explained as the combination of Prague, the location of Devcon IV, and Electra, a blue-white giant star in the constellation of Taurus. Its testnet was activated on February 24.

Previous Ethereum Upgrades

In March 2024, Ethereum had undergone the Dencun upgrade. It was aimed at lowering the expenses for the Ethereum-supported Layer 2 networks.

Before that, Ethereum had completed its Shanghai upgrade in April 2023. That upgrade started allowing validators to withdraw their staked ETH tokens on the PoS network.

In 2022, Ethereum saw one of its biggest upgrades when its consensus shifted from energy-intensive Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism to the eco-friendly Proof of Stake (PoS). This upgrade was called the “Merge”.