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Mobile Premier League (MPL) has become India's second gaming unicorn after Dream11 in 2019, raising funds at a $2.3 billion valuation (the term 'unicorn' refers to any startup that reaches the valuation of $1 billion, laying emphasis on the rarity of such start ups). The Bangalore-based start-up connects game publishers with players on its app. Users in India, Indonesia and the U.S. can access dozens of free titles - ranging from sudoku, speed chess and puzzles to shooting, fantasy and strategy games and participate in gaming contests and prize money tournaments. India is one the world's largest markets for game downloads with 840 million installs in June 2021, and the country has 400 million gamers. "Gaming is the only entertainment content where language is no barrier," says MPL founder Sai Srinivas Kiran. "Young India will make gaming so mainstream that one day soon gaming could become more popular than watching movies," he adds.

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YouTube Shorts lets you record 15-second videos and upload them. Open the YouTube app, tap on the plus icon at the bottom-centre and then on 'Create a Short'. On the recording page, tap on the 'Add Music' button at the top and choose one from YouTube's top trending songs or search for your favourite tracks. Hit the red record button to start recording. If you like a song and want to use it in the future, tap on the save icon beside it for easy access.

Once you've found the YouTube Shorts section on the app's homepage, you'll see a selection of thumbnails for popular Shorts. Clicking on any of those videos brings you into the vertical video player, where you can watch the clip. You can like or dislike the video while it's playing by tapping the thumbs up or thumbs down icon. 

You can also share the Short or comment on it from within the player, although that will pause the video. At the bottom of the clip, you can subscribe to the Short creator's channel. You can also click on their channel name to see all of that creator's YouTube Shorts.

If the clip uses a song or sound from another creator, a waveform button will appear on the right-hand side of the screen. Tapping that button will show the original source video for the audio and all the other Shorts that use that song or sound in their clip.

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Designer Ben Vessey has created an alternative to the small battery icon on an iPhone's screen. Dynamic iPhone Battery Wallpapers or Dynamo utilize the built-in Shortcuts app to change dynamically based on your iPhone's battery life - turning your phone into a giant battery indicator. The wallpapers automatically switch to a design warning low battery life when the charge level hits 20%, and also change if the battery is in need of a charge or actively charging. Dynamo is available in four different packs, each containing three sets of dynamic wallpapers - the Mac pack (inspired by classic Mac wallpapers and the Finder symbol), the Album pack (inspired by album covers from artists like David Bowie and Pink Floyd), the Apple pack (easily-recognizable Apple designs and colour palettes) and the Faces pack (cartoon characters and the iconic black and yellow smiley face). Dynamo is optimized for every iPhone from the 65 onwards.

How do they work? Each collection, which go for about $5.50 each, includes video and PDF instructions for setting up four separate automations using the iOS Shortcuts app that automatically changes your iPhone’s background based on how much charge is left. There’s no jailbreaking involved and the setup is promised to take about 10 minutes. iOS 14 is required, but the dynamically changing wallpapers should work on devices dating all the way back to the iPhone 6S.

The wallpapers automatically switch out to a design warning low battery life when the iPhone’s charge level hits 20%, and each collection also includes a version that clearly indicates when the device is charging, to avoid those times when you think you’ve plugged in a power cable correctly, or have positioned it properly on a wireless charger, when in fact you haven’t and you return a half-hour later to find your device completely dead.

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Using underwater robots, Teleportal lets anyone swim through Australia's natural wonder - the Great Barrier Reef - from the comfort of their homes. Teleportal operates a fleet of underwater robots on the Reef, which can be controlled day or night using a web browser. Users can log into the online portal, buy credits to pay for a dive, and use their keyboards to take one of the remote-controlled bots around the reef (upto 328 feet in any direction). The bot captures live video with its wide-angle 1080p camera and streams it to the user's computer screen. The robots are solar-powered and have sonar obstacle avoidance, ensuring this fragile ecosystem's protection while users enjoy an eco-friendly experience. Multiple robots and dive sites are available on Teleportal so that users will always have a new coral reef to discover and plenty of passing fauna to make each dive unique.

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Google's new accessibility feature will let users control their phone with different facial expressions. The feature has been added to the Android Accessibility Suite as part of the upcoming Android 12 update. The Camera Switches feature will support setting gestures to specific controls. For example, the app can detect when a user opens their mouth and then map that to open the notifications panel. Alternatively, users can raise their eyebrows to return to their home screen. Possible face gestures include smiling, opening the mouth, and looking right, left or down. Users can set up these facial gestures and assign a task for each of them including select, next, previous, touch and hold, scroll forward and backward, home, back, notifications and more. Users will also be able to select how sensitive the gesture will be while recognising the facial expression by adjusting the gesture size and duration.

On Android 12, Google is offering different facial gestures such as open mouth, smile, raise eyebrows, look left, look right and look up. You can set up these facial gestures and assign a task for each of them. There are also options to choose the size of the gesture. For example, how big you want your smile to be so that the gesture can be recognised. Once you set up the gesture you can set an assignment for it.

There are different actions that you can perform through Camera Switches, and these include select, next, previous, touch and hold, scroll forward and backward, home, back, notifications and more.

When the feature is enabled, your Android phone will detect when you look into the front camera and make these gestures. A persistent notification is also shown when the Camera Switches feature is active to indicate that the camera is in use. XDA Developers also found this feature working on Android 11 devices by sideloading its APK, which means Google could make it available for devices running Android 11 or below.

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The Tesla Bot is a humanoid robot designed to perform tasks considered repetitive or too dangerous for humans. It stands 5'8" tall and weighs 57 kgs. It can deadlift 68 kgs, reach a top speed of 8 km/h, carry 20 kgs, and lift 4.5 kgs with its arms extended. It has a screen where it displays "useful information" in lieu of a face, along with eight cameras. The robot, code-named "Optimus", is based on the same chips and sensors that Tesla's cars use for their self driving features. The bot is at the concept stage currently, but Tesla hopes to unveil a working prototype next year. Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, claims that the robot will have a personality "intended to be friendly, of course". He also stated that people must be ready for robots to undertake menial chores and, eventually, work alongside them, if not completely replace them in the workplace.

The robots will be designed to handle “tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring,” the company’s website reads, but little else, at least at first. (There, the bot is simply called “Tesla Bot.”) “I think essentially in the future, physical work will be a choice, if you want to do it you can,” Musk said.

Musk revealed drawings of the robot near the tail end of his company’s “AI Day” event, where it showcased some of the artificial intelligence and supercomputer technologies that it’s working on with the goal of one day powering self-driving cars. The company also had a mannequin version on the stage, which wasn’t working.

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