Xiaomi 16 and Xiaomi 16 Pro Camera Upgrades Leaked; Tipped to Get 50-Megapixel Selfie Cameras

The Xiaomi 16 and 16 Pro are expected to feature 50-megapixel front cameras with a wide field of view, autofocus, and support for 4K 60fps video recording. Both are expected to have 50-megapixel 1/1.3-inch primary rear sensors, with the Pro adding ultra-high dynamic range and a ToF sensor. The handsets may also come with upgraded Leica features. The Xiaomi 16 may launch in September with the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 SoC and a 7,000mAh battery.

Amazon Plans to Expand Same-Day Grocery Delivery Service in Over 2,300 US Cities

Amazon, in a recent statement, announced that its customers in over 1,000 cities and towns in the US will now be able to get same-day delivery of perishable goods, such as fruits, vegetables, cereals, and other groceries. The US-based e-commerce giant will charge a fee for same-day delivery. However, customers with an Amazon Prime membership will be able to avail of the service free of charge for orders above $25 (approximately Rs. 2,186).

Apple Reportedly Planning to Launch an AI-Powered Tabletop Robot That Can Interrupt Users, Other Devices

Apple is reportedly planning to launch a range of artificial intelligence (AI)-powered devices and features in the next few years. As per the report, the Cupertino-based tech giant remains bullish on generative AI and aims to catch up to the rest of the market as soon as possible. The company reportedly plans to introduce a tabletop robot with a display, a speaker with a smart display, and a security camera.

Katabasis by RF Kuang review – a descent into the hellscape of academia

The bestselling author’s sixth novel is far from perfect, but this journey into the underworld is delivered with heretical glee

The more academia has broken your heart, the more you’ll love RF Kuang’s new novel. Katabasis knows the slow grind of postgrad precarity: the endless grant grubbing and essay marking; the thesis chapters drafted, redrafted and quietly ignored by a supervisor who can’t be bothered to read – let alone reply to – an email. Living semester to semester, pay shrinking, workload metastasising, cannon fodder in a departmental forever war. Katabasis knows how it feels to spend your best thinking years doing grunt work to further someone else’s ideas, clinging to the bottom rung of a ladder you will never be allowed to climb: less an ivory tower than a pyramid scheme.

Academia is a hellscape; Katabasis just makes it literal. The American author’s sixth novel is an infernal twist on the campus farce: David Lodge with demons. Kuang’s previous book, 2023’s Yellowface, satirised the publishing industrial complex with an irresistible mix of gallows humour and gossip. A tale of toxic allies, commodified identity and hollow moralising, it was lapped up – with predictable irony – by the very people it skewered, like a real-life version of the stunt novel in Percival Everett’s Erasure. The year before Yellowface, in the cult hit Babel, she invented an elaborate, counter-historical version of Oxford University – and then blew it up. A literary Rhodes Must Fall.

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