United News of Bangladesh

The Pentagon said it canceled a disputed cloud-computing contract with Microsoft that could eventually have been worth $10 billion. It will instead pursue a deal with both Microsoft and Amazon and possibly other cloud service providers. “With the shifting technology environment, it has become clear that the JEDI Cloud contract, which has long been delayed, no longer meets the requirements to fill the DoD’s capability gaps,” the Pentagon said in a statement Tuesday. The statement did not directly mention that the Pentagon faced extended legal challenges by Amazon to the original $1 million contract awarded to Microsoft. Amazon argued that the Microsoft award was tainted by politics, particularly then-President Donald Trump’s antagonism toward Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, who stepped down Monday as the company’s chief executive officer. Bezos owns The Washington Post, a newspaper often criticized by Trump. The Pentagon’s chief information officer, John Sherman, told reporters Tuesday that during the lengthy legal fight with Amazon, “the landscape has evolved” with new possibilities for large-scale cloud computing services. Thus it was decided, he said, to start over and seek multiple vendors. Read:Microsoft unveils Windows 11 operating system Sherman said JEDI will be replaced by a new program called Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, and that both Amazon and Microsoft “likely” will be awarded parts of the business, although neither is guaranteed. Sherman said the three other large cloud service providers — Google, IBM and Oracle — might qualify, too. Microsoft said in response to the Pentagon announcement, “We understand the DoD s rationale, and we support them and every military member who needs the mission-critical 21st century technology JEDI would have provided. The DoD faced a difficult choice: Continue with what could be a years-long litigation battle or find another path forward.” Amazon said it understands and agrees with the Pentagon’s decision. In a statement, the company reiterated its view that the 2019 contract award was not based on the merits of the competing proposals “and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement.” Oracle, which had earlier sought the JEDI contact but didn’t make it to the final round, declined comment Tuesday. In separate statements, IBM said it was evaluating the new Pentagon approach and Google said it looked forward to discussing it with Pentagon officials. Read: Sanctioned Russian IT firm was partner with Microsoft, IBM The JEDI project began with the $1 million contract award for Microsoft, meant as an initial step in a 10-year deal that could have reached $10 billion in value. The project that will replace it is a five-year program; Sherman said no exact contract value has been set but that it will be “in the billions.” Sherman said the government will negotiate the amount Microsoft will be paid for having its 2019 deal terminated. Amazon Web Services, a market leader in providing cloud computing services, had long been considered a leading candidate to run the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. The project was meant to store and process vast amounts of classified data, allowing the U.S. military to improve communications with soldiers on the battlefield and use artificial intelligence to speed up its war planning and fighting capabilities. The JEDI contract became mired in legal challenges almost as soon as it was awarded to Microsoft in October 2019. The losing bidder, Amazon Web Services, went to court arguing that the Pentagon’s process was flawed and unfair, including that it was improperly influenced by politics. This year the Pentagon had been hinting that it might scrap the contract, saying in May that it felt compelled to reconsider its options after a federal judge in April rejected a Pentagon move to have key parts of Amazon’s lawsuit dismissed. Read:Microsoft buying speech recognition firm Nuance in $16B deal The JEDI saga has been unusual for the political dimension linked to Trump. In April 2020, the Defense Department inspector general’s office concluded that the contracting process was in line with legal and government purchasing standards. The inspector general found no evidence of White House interference in the contract award process, but that review also said investigators could not fully review the matter because the White House would not allow unfettered access to witnesses. Five months later, the Pentagon reaffirmed Microsoft as winner of the contract, but work remained stalled by Amazon’s legal challenge. In its April 2020 report, the inspector general’s office did not draw a conclusion about whether the Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp. was appropriately declared the winner. Rather, it looked at whether the decision-making process was proper and legal. It also examined allegations of unethical behavior by Pentagon officials involved in the matter and generally determined that any ethical lapses did not influence the outcome. That review did not find evidence of White House pressure for the Pentagon to favor the Microsoft bid, but it also said it could not definitely determine the full extent of White House interactions with the Pentagon’s decision makers.

realme has kicked off its ‘Mega Eid Campaign’ where the buyers and fans can win prizes including deep freezer and washing machine. It also guaranteed data bundle offer as well for Robi, Airtel and Banglalink users. In consideration of the recent situation, the users could buy realme smartphones from their nearest outlets through home delivery facility and enjoy these offers. Read: realme to bring G85 gaming processor-equipped phone C25s This campaign would continue till 20 July. Each purchase during the offer period would be rewarded with a guaranteed prize that includes deep freezer, washing machine, realme 8 Pro, realme 8, realme 8 gift box, realme C21 gift box, realme Buds Classic, realme T-shirt and instant cashback. This offer would be valid for realme official smartphones only. Read realme narzo 20 review: Best Features, Specs and Price phone in Bangladesh 2021 Prize winners would be informed via SMS. To know more about the campaign buyers could call this number -09610555555. Buyer could order for home delivery with the Eid offer at the link: https://myrealmeoffer.com. Read realme C25s Review: G85 Equipped Powerful Gaming Smartphone

Chinese telecom giant Huawei won five awards for its cutting-edge technology and inventions in the Mobile World Congress 2021 held in Barcelona from June 28-July 1.  This year, the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) announced the winners of the Global Mobile (GLOMO) awards. Huawei bagged awards in five categories – best innovation for Covid-19 pandemic response and recovery, outstanding mobile contribution to the UN SDGs, best mobile innovation in emerging markets, best mobile innovation for the connected economy, and best mobile infrastructure. READ: Huawei launches new 5G products Introduced in 1996 by the GSMA and judged by a panel of more than 250 global experts, the GLOMO Award is widely regarded as the highest honour within the mobile industry.  In this year's edition, the telemedicine solution for Covid-19 developed by the China-Japan Friendship Hospital based on Huawei's 5G network solutions won GSMA GLOMO Best Innovation or Covid-19 Pandemic Response and Recovery award. This high-end technology provided by Huawei has helped the hospital to scale up patient services and assist more than 5,000 hospitals across China. Read OnePlus Nord CE Review: Know the Pros and Cons? Marvin Chen, president of Huawei DIS Product Line, said: "5G is seeing large-scale application in healthcare. Huawei will continue to innovate 5G solutions together with the healthcare industry to develop 5G applications that can help fight the pandemic and get more value out of 5G."  Also, Rainforest Connection and Huawei's "Nature Guardian" project has contributed positively to protect nature, prevent deforestation, and safeguard against biodiversity loss. As a recognition, this project has been honoured with the GSMA 2021 GLOMO for its outstanding mobile contribution to the UN SDGs.  Huawei also bagged the best mobile innovation in emerging markets award of GSMA GLOMO for its industry-first integrated access and backhaul solution (RuralStar Pro), which has superseded traditional costly transmission modes of optical fibre, microwave, and satellite. READ: $300 billion market by 2025 for Augmented Reality: Huawei

Global smart device brand Oppo has launched a new campaign ahead of Eid-ul-Azha to give smartphone users a chance to share their most trustworthy person's happy moments captured in pictures. Through the "Trusty Rusty" campaign, smartphone users can express their gratitude to the person they count on most. Read: OPPO partners with Thales for World’s First 5G SA-Compatible eSIM To participate in the activity, the smartphone users will have to share their most trustworthy person's happy moments' picture and write why the person is trustworthy to them in the comment box of Oppo Facebook page. The participants have to tag the person they trust most and share the post in public as well. While sharing the post, they will have to use the hashtag #OPPOTrustworthiness #OPPOEidHappiness. Read: Oppo offers discounted prices on Reno5, A15s To make this activity all the more rewarding for smartphone users, there will be exciting prizes for the winners. The most beautiful trustworthy reason will be selected as the winning entry, and the top three winners will get wireless earphones Oppo Enco W11. Read Best Upcoming Phones in July 2021 in Bangladesh: Official and Unofficial

A drive to reduce dependence on imported materials and technology, especially from China, is pushing India to invest in a battery technology that uses aluminum rather than lithium as the key ingredient. Indian Oil Corp., the nation’s largest oil refiner, has teamed up with startup Phinergy Ltd. to develop the Israeli company’s aluminum-air battery. India has few exploitable options to produce lithium, the key metal for the current generation of electric-vehicle batteries, but its eastern jungles hold large reserves of bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum. “Lithium is scarce in the country and we started scouting for an element which is abundantly available as a natural resource,” said Indian Oil R&D Director S.S.V. Ramakumar. Read: Volkswagen triples electric car sales ahead of climate rules India is among the top 10 bauxite producers. It has some 600 million tons of the ore in proven reserves, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, though India’s mining ministry estimates that untapped resources may be many times that amount. Moreover, the country has invested heavily in production of aluminum over the years to become the world’s second-biggest smelter of aluminum. “Clearly the special consideration here is that aluminum is in better supply than lithium,” said James Frith, Head of Energy Storage at BNEF in London. “But with the ever-falling prices of lithium-based systems, developers will be under pressure to find niche applications where Aluminum-Oxygen can gain a foothold.” An aluminum-air battery could win advantages over its lithium-ion rival in three other crucial ways, Ramakumar said: It’s potentially cheaper, vehicles using it would have a longer range, and it’s safer. Read MPs now can import duty free electric vehicles Swapping Batteries The battery works by tapping electricity generated when aluminum plates react with oxygen in the air. It has one of the highest energy densities for a battery. But the system has a number of drawbacks that have kept it from wide-scale use since it was first proposed in the 1960s. Chief among them is the cost of materials that need to be added to the battery to prevent the power from dropping and the fact that the cells can’t be recharged. Instead, Phinergy’s plan is for users to be able to quickly swap in a new battery and send the used one to a recycling facility. It takes just three minutes to replace the battery, about the time it takes to fill up at a gas station, Ramakumar said. The fuel retailer plans to use its network of filling stations as swapping points. Read: 'Irrigation, EV sectors should be focus areas of solar energy' In comparison, lithium-ion batteries often contain hazardous materials that can be toxic if not disposed of correctly, making them harder to recycle. By 2035, the world will have accumulated about 4 millions tons of Li-ion batteries that have reached the end of their lives, according to a BloombergNEF estimate. Lithium is already entrenched in the EV market and absorbs most of the research dollars, with many potential challengers based on sodium, magnesium or aluminum focused on smaller segments such as backup power systems, energy storage or low-power transport, like forklifts. Yet demand both from electric transport and renewable energy storage means India could provide a market big enough for aluminum-air batteries to find a role. Battery demand will rise to as much as 185 gigawatt hours by 2035, according to BNEF. Read Nissan investing in electric vehicles, battery development Amara Raja Batteries Ltd., India’s largest producer of lead-acid cells, is examining existing lithium-based technologies as a “next growth engine,” though also sees scope for alternatives to be developed, Vijayanand Samudrala, the firm’s president of new energy, told a BNEF summit on Tuesday. “I don’t think there’s a final word on the maturity of the technology, I can see at least two or three generations of technology shift happening in the batteries area in the next 10 years,” he said. Indian Oil made a strategic investment in Phinergy in early 2020, and the Indian firm’s 30,000 service stations can “serve as the infrastructure for the deployment of Phinergy’s technology,” the Israeli company said in an e-mail. Read Ford to add 10,800 jobs making electric vehicles, batteries Phinergy’s systems have been tested by telecoms companies for backup power at transmission towers and other sites. The company, which raised $60 million from an initial public offering in Tel Aviv earlier this year, has run a test car using an aluminum-air battery to keep the vehicle’s lithium-ion power pack charged that it says would have a range of 1,750 kilometers. To assess the viability of wide-scale use in India, automakers Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd NSE 0.40 %., Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. and Ashok Leyland Ltd. are carrying out vehicle tests that are expected to take almost a year. If there’s enough demand, Indian Oil and Phinergy plan to set up a gigawatt-scale facility to make the batteries in India, Ramakumar said. Success would help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to tackle three urgent problems for the country: cutting pollution, reducing raw material imports and creating jobs. Read Introduce customer-friendly electric vehicle recharging policy: Nasrul India’s dependence on fossil fuels has made it the the world’s third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and its cities regularly top the rankings for polluted air, putting hundreds of millions of citizens at the risk of lung diseases and premature death. The government has also been pushing companies to reduce the imports bill and increase self-sufficiency. Indian Oil is the the nation’s biggest importer of crude oil. The refiner has joined major oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc in pivoting toward clean energy as governments tighten emission regulations. “We no longer see ourselves as merely an oil company. We want to emerge as an energy player, supplying all forms of energy,” Ramakumar said. “All future fuels have to have a common motive: make India self-sufficient.” Read Bangla Car: The First Car Made in Bangladesh This article was first published in The Economic Times

Bangladesh Forest Department's Wildlife Crime Control Unit (WCCU) filed a case against Grameenphone with a Dhaka court Wednesday for featuring a caged indigenous bird in its advertisement. WCCU Director Nargis Sultana lodged the case with Dhaka's Chief Judicial Magistrate Court under sections 38(2), 41 and 46 of the Wildlife (Conservation and Security) Act 2012.  Also read: Grameenphone receives Asian Leadership Awards 2021 In a recent Grameenphone advertisement, a young girl was shown being gifted a caged parrot. The depiction of a caged rose-ring parakeet, which is an indigenous bird, sparked controversy on social media platforms.  "By showing this bird in a cage in their commercial advertisement, Grameenphone violated three sections of the Wildlife Act 2012," Nargis told UNB. Also read: Grameenphone contributes Tk 31.4 crore to Labour Fund

Youth-focused brand realme will provide home delivery service amid the nationwide "stick lockdown." Realme has launched a home delivery service for its fans and users so that they do not need to step out of their homes, risking their lives. Read: Realme to bring G85 gaming processor-equipped phone C25s To get home delivery, customers can click on www.realme.com/bd/store-address to get the number of their nearby outlet. Next, they will have to make a phone call to get their desired realme smartphone at their doorstep, free of delivery charge.  Read realme narzo 20 review: Best Features, Specs and Price phone in Bangladesh 2021 Smartphone enthusiasts can get home delivery service for any realme smartphone, read a press release. 

Huawei launched new 5G products at Mobile World Congress (MWC 2021)this week to expand multi antenna technology worldwide. These product solutions are designed to support and enforce “1+N” 5G networks. The New launched products are 400 MHz Ultra-Wideband 64T64R Massive MIMO, light weight (19KG) 64T64R Massive MIMO, BladeAAU Pro: 64T A+P Solution, Ultra-Wideband Blade RRU Pro, Commercial FDD Massive MIMO. READ: $300 billion market by 2025 for Augmented Reality: Huawei Among these, there are industry’s only solutions at this moment. These five products will promote multi antenna technology to all bands and all scenarios for building a strong 5G network. These products will also enhance the 5G experience for users and help carriers to distribute their network in a better way. Read Top 7 Best Android Skins in 2021: Know pros, cons Huawei's new products can be transported and installed with minimum effort while also delivering on performance, significantly improving construction efficiency and cost. Yang Chaobin, President of Huawei Wireless Product Line, said, "By launching this series, we aim to bring multi-antenna technology to all scenarios and bands. Several products within the solutions are one-of-a-kind and will help operators efficiently deploy 5G networks and provide first-rate experience. Huawei will work with global partners to innovate and share 5G benefits with all." Read Best Upcoming Phones in July 2021 in Bangladesh: Official and Unofficial

Leading global smartphone brand OPPO recently took part in the premier annual computer vision event Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR) 2021.  During the conference, OPPO's achievements in AI were recognized with its placing in seven major Challenges in 12 different contests in total. These included one first-place, seven second-place, and four third-place awards, demonstrating the company's industry-leading technological strengths and innovative breakthroughs in AI, said a press release on Monday. Read:OPPO partners with Thales for World’s First 5G SA-Compatible eSIM The team participating in the CVPR 2021 competition on behalf of OPPO came from the Intelligent Perception and Interaction Department and OPPO US Research Center of OPPO Research Institute. Eric Guo, Chief Scientist, Intelligent Perception, OPPO, said, "We are very pleased to have achieved such remarkable results again in this year's CVPR Challenges, following our inaugural participation in CVPR 2020. The Challenges won by OPPO this year, such as Multi-Agent Behavior, AVA-Kinetics, and 3D Face Reconstruction from Multiple 2D Images, cover more complex and advanced areas of computer vision, including behavior detection, localization of human actions in space and time, and facial detection.” Read G85 gaming processor-equipped realme C25s hits Bangladesh market Among its eleven honors, OPPO received three awards in the Multi-Agent Behavior Challenge, which assesses an AI model's ability to understand, define, and predict complex interactions between intelligent agents such as animals and human beings. OPPO ultimately won the first-place prize in the Learning New Behavior category, second-place in Classical Classification, and third-place in Annotation Style Transfer, distinguishing itself from over 240 other participants thanks to its leading AI capabilities. Read:Oppo fans can win F19 posting favourite moments with friends, family Through its mission of "Technology for Mankind, Kindness for the World," OPPO is building capabilities in human-centric AI. In the SoccerNet Challenge, OPPO took second place in both the Action Spotting and Replay Grounding tasks. In the MMact Challenge, OPPO took second place in both the Cross-Modal Action Recognition and Cross-Model Action Temporal Localization tasks. OPPO's powerful AI algorithm can accurately recognize more than ten types of actions in a video, such as talking, crouching, and walking, using only visual data. OPPO also won third place in the AVA-Kinetics Challenge, which makes use of the industry's first dataset to include both space and time information. Read:Oppo offers discounted prices on Reno5, A15s At this year's CVPR, OPPO also made a new milestone in the more cutting-edge academic challenges, including taking two third-place in LOVEU (Long-form Video Understanding) challenge. Moreover, OPPO US Research Center participated in the Dense Depth for Autonomous Driving Challenge, demonstrating its technology that can output dense 3D depth information based on a 2D image. OPPO won second place in the Self-supervised track and took home "Novelty Award." Read OnePlus 9 Pro Full Review: Does it offer value for money?

When it comes to the most usable and career-worthy soft skills, programming definitely sits at the top. Not just because there is a great career opportunity in programming, rather anyone with an interest in programming can get started with it. And the best thing about it all, there are tons and tons of high-paying programming jobs available on different companies as well as freelancing platforms. So, if you are someone who wants to get started from the basics, here are 10 of the best free programming courses that you can check out. Who Can Learn Programming? Let's be honest here, programming isn’t everyone's cake. There are a lot of technicalities involved with it in addition to a good command of analytics and problem-solving skills. However, some people are exactly good at such things or have a natural knack for problem-solving. Regardless of your educational background, you can get started with programming. To answer exactly why you should learn to program, the answer would be extra money and a good career option. Whether you want to work a regular job as a coder or a freelancer, the demand for a programmer is now more than ever and there is an acute shortage of qualified people. So if this is something that you are passionate about, this might be the calling you should answer. ReadFree Online Content Writing Courses in 2021 Top 10 Free Online Programming Courses for Beginners in 2021 Coding for Beginner Our first course is offered by Skillshare and as the name suggests, it's basically to get you started in the world of programming. Programming is a diverse foray and there are a lot of things that go behind it. In this introductory course, you will learn about the basics of different programming languages, how they work, how it ties up with problem-solving and many more. In addition to that, there is also a hands-on assignment to be completed using python at the end of the course. Overall, this is a great place to kickstart your coding journey. Read Top 10 Free Online Video Editing Courses Beginner PHP and MySQL Tutorial Web app development is one of the hottest outtakes in programming in recent times. not just because it's relatively easy, there is also a high demand for the skill. You can get a good beginner's perspective on PHP and MYSQL, two important pillars of web app development in this course from Udemy. This course is geared towards the intermediate level and will primarily focus on problem-solving to get you started on your own stature. The course is approximately 10 hours long and is self-paced. ReadTop 10 Free Online Digital Marketing Courses in 2021 Full Stack Web development A website basically works on two ends – client and server. A programmer that can work on both ends is termed a full-stack web developer. All the amazing websites that you see on the website with beautiful and responsive transitions are due to full-stack web development. Now if that interests you, this is the course you want to look at. The full-stack web development course offered by Skillshare will take you through the basics of full-stack web development including HTML and CSS. The five and half hour-long course is geared towards the beginner and you can get started without any prior knowledge of coding. ReadFree Online Graphic Design Courses to Enhance Your Skill during Quarantine Coding Camp by Skillcrush Skillcrush is another fascinating platform to learn to code. You might be interested to know about what goes behind each code and how they interact with the machines. Well, this is the perfect course for you as they take you through from the grassroots to the intermediary level. The course mainly focuses on HTML and CSS with UI/UX basics, visual and web design basics as well as WordPress Basics. You can sign up for free in the boot camp from their website. Read Where to Find Online Courses during Coronavirus Home Quarantine Intro to HTML/CSS:  Making webpages Khan Academy is one of those proprietary websites where you get all your educational queries answered. There are lots and lots of courses and classes available on the platform and most of them are free. We looked for beginner-friendly programming courses and found one that gives you a basic idea about HTML and CSS. This is a completely beginner-centric course where even if you don’t know what an HTML tag is, you can still get started. The course is filled with hands-on projects that you can try on every step making the classes super interactive. Read Some advanced tech skills for a sustainable career in 2021 Programming for Everybody This is a course offered by the University of Michigan in association with Coursera. Though titled ats programming for everybody, this is essentially a course geared towards the basics of python learning. You will learn about how to install python, use different variables, describe the basics of the language, etc. the course will take about 19 hours to finish and you can get professional-grade certification subject to payment of a certain fee. Read The 7 Most Promising Tech Startups in Bangladesh Introduction to JavaScript This is not a course in itself rather a detailed overview of how JavaScript works. We all know that right after HTML and CSS, JavaScript is one of the key programming languages that you must learn to progress further. This overview by W3school.com is one of the most comprehensive guides to JavaScript for beginners. You can get an applied knowledge on each of the stages. The overview is divided into different sub-sections so you will be able to easily navigate through the menu. This is a great place to get started if you are looking for beginner courses in JavaScript. Read The Difference between a Startup and a Small Business Free Ruby Tutorial If you are looking to get started with an object-oriented programming language, then Ruby should be the first choice for you. we wouldn’t say this is exactly a beginner's course, rather for someone already familiar with HTML and CSS who wants to venture into a scripting language. This course will give you all the necessary introduction to Ruby, how it works, how the scripting language integrates with other programs and a host of other stuff. You can complete this self-paced introductory course from Code Conquest. Read Graphic Designer Salaries: How Much Can You Earn from Graphic Design? Learn Python Python is one of the most intuitive programming languages out there. The sheer number of diverse use cases with this language makes it one of the best and popular programming languages out there. Code academy has several courses on python but as a beginner, you should definitely check out the learn python course. It’s a 30-hour long course that will get you through from the beginner to intermediate level in Python. Read Taxation of Bangladeshi Freelancers in 2021 Introduction to Programming Offered through Udacity, this programming introduction course covers all the fundamental basics of programming. From introducing you to programming languages, giving a brief overview to taking you to an intermediate level in all of them, this is one of the most comprehensive all-in-one courses out there. The course covers the basics of Java, Python, HTML, and CSS, all the popular languages that are. With about 10 hours per week, you can expect to finish this course in about 4 months. Bottom Line The demand for programming and programmer will simply rise in the coming times as we move forward with increased automation. If you see yourself being a part of that journey, then these free online computer progranning courses are definitely a great starting point. Read 20 Most Promising Education Start-Ups in Bangladesh