A new, minimalistic £10 phone with features like digital payments and streaming unveiled by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio could help expand internet services to a wider audience in the country. The affordable feature phone, priced at Rs 999 (about £10), can help bridge India’s “digital divide” by introducing 4G internet for the first time to scores of users, experts said. “Reliance Jio’s persistence to bridge the ‘digital divide’ by putting 4G internet-capable phones in hands of 2G feature phone users or first-time users continues!” industry analyst Neil Shah from the research firm Counterpoint said. Jio said in a press release earlier this week that the beta trial for its first million Jio Bharat phones would begin this week on Friday. The low-cost 4G-enabled phone with a 2-inch display comes with a number of pre-installed features. These include mobile payments through the United Payments Interface (UPI) – a form of instant digital payments that are widely used in India – as well as access to Jio’s own on-demand video and music streaming services JioCinema and JioSaavn. The low cost of the new phone may also bring the internet further within the reach of women in households. In low-income households in India, mobile phones remain a shared device with internet access shared on an individual mobile phone, explained digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa, founder of tech policy analysis website MediaNama. “Typically, there is one person in the household whose mobile phone has internet access because devices are expensive and internet access prices have increased of late,” Mr Pahwa told The Independent. “So, a low-cost device means it will become affordable for low-income households to have more than one handset. This is great for women because typically it is the men in the house that have access to the internet,” he said. Reliance Jio said the phone will also come with a Rs 123 (£1.2) data plan valid for 28 days, offering 14GB of internet access (0.5 GB or 500 MB per day) – a price the company claims is 30 per cent cheaper than plans offered by competitors. This move may lead to other network operators in India such as Bharti Airtel reducing their tariffs too. “Bharti recently raised 2G prices from Rs99 to Rs155 across all circles while Vi [Vodafone Idea] took this in one circle. This disruptive step can halt incremental tariff increases for 2G and help JIO gain share in that segment,” JP Morgan said in a report on Tuesday. Following Jio’s announcement, shares for Bharti Airtel and Vi slipped by 2 to 3 per cent in early trading on Tuesday. The move also brings internet-enabled phones within the reach of the masses, and as more people understand the utility of the internet, it may lead to the further conversion of featurephone users to adopt smartphones, industry experts said. “There are still 250 million mobile phone users in India who remain ‘trapped’ in the 2G era, unable to tap into basic features of the internet at a time when the world stands at the cusp of a 5G revolution,” Reliance Jio Chairman Akash Ambani said. Telecom analyst Tarun Pathak tweeted that the featurephone-to-smartphone conversion in India has slowed down due to some “upgrade barriers”, adding that “Jio Bharat aims to bridge that gap”. Read More India rolls out 5G cellular network for eight cities in ‘step towards new era’ France riots: Aunt of teenager shot dead by police in Paris pleads for violence and looting to end Civil conflict in India’s Manipur threatens food supplies to 100,000 people, warns non-profit

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He's a big Manchester United fan, but iShowSpeed had no idea who a group of Newcastle United footballers were after they 'butchered' him during a late night Fortnite session. Three players took down iShowSpeed during his latest gaming stream, but despite being notable Premier League stars the content creator had no clue who he was up against. "Who the f*** is Harvey Barnes, bro?" iShowSpeed shouted after meeting a sticky end in the game. Harvey Barnes, as football fans know, is a talented winger on the fringes of the England squad who moved to Newcastle from Leicester in the summer. Viewers weren’t 100 per cent sure whether it was the real Harvey Barnes who had taken iShowSpeed down at first. However, he was joined by players with the aliases Anthony Gordon and Paul Dummett, who also play for Newcastle, which seemed to confirm things. "I’m creased some Fortnite pro players and Speed got butchered by Harvey Barnes, Paul Dummett and Anthony Gordon at 1am,” one social media user posted after seeing the incident unfolded. Another said: “Never thought i’d hear speed and xqc talking about harvey barnes lmfao.” One more added: “Speed getting his ass handed to him on Fortnite by Harvey Barnes is hilarious.” “A crossover we never knew we needed…” another wrote. It comes a few days after iShowSpeed attracted controversy after attempting a dangerous “coke and condom challenge” on his live stream. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

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DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2023--

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Time travel, or just an illusion? Eagle eyed art lovers have spotted what appears to be a satellite in a four-century old painting of Jesus Christ. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are depicted in the ‘Glorification of the Eucharist’, a painting by Ventura Salimbeni from 1595. But in the background is something surprising – a blue sphere with spikes sticking out of it, which some people have interpreted as Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth in 1957. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Steve Mera, chairman of the Manchester Association of Paranormal Investigation & Training (MAPIT) and a paranormal specialist and lecturer, said at a conference: “You start to find a lot of religious connotation linked in with the UFO phenomenon. “This painting [the Eucharist] was painted in the 1600s and nobody ever really knew what that was a painting of, until we kind of looked at Sputnik, which was the first satellite to pass round the Earth,” he said. “What is really, really interesting is it is surprisingly similar to Sputnik, even to the point there is a little nodule there (on Sputnik) and the exact same nodule on the side there [on the object in the painting].” Clearly, Salimbeni wouldn’t have known about Sputnik. Or would he…? Mera added: "Did they somehow have knowledge of future events?" Well, we can probably assume not. Instead, experts think the ball is a representation of the so-called celestial sphere (or the universe), while the spikes indicate God’s power over it. But for conspiracy theorists, it’s yet another win for time travel. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.