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Sinopharm Covid Vaccine Seen as Less Effective in Bahrain Study

The Covid-19 vaccine made by China’s Sinopharm was less effective than others at preventing infection, hospitalization and death, especially among people over 50, according to a study by the kingdom of Bahrain and Columbia University researchers.To get more news about sinopharm update, you can visit shine news official website.

Chinese vaccines have become a key tool of Beijing’s international diplomacy, especially in developing nations unable to secure sufficient doses of U.S. and European-made shots. Despite high levels of inoculation with the Sinopharm vaccine, Bahrain in May started giving booster shots to vulnerable citizens using a different shot made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE BNTX -1.87% ▼. It now also offers booster shots for other vaccines.

The study, posted online this week ahead of peer review, shows that all the vaccines administered since December in the Persian Gulf island nation—which also include Covishield, an Indian-made version of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and the Russian-made Sputnik V—were effective in reducing severe illness compared to the unvaccinated population.

But the percentage of deaths among all PCR positive post-vaccination Covid-19 cases was 0.46% for Sinopharm recipients compared to 0.15% for Pfizer-BioNTech and 0.03% for AstraZeneca, the study showed. That trend was consistent for infection and hospitalization, even with the advent of the Delta variant. Sputnik V results were intermediate.

“They found that there is significant difference between hospitalization, ICU admission and death in favor of Pfizer compared to Sinopharm, especially in older populations and in the context of the emergence of the Delta variant,” said co-author Dr. Jaleela Al-Sayed Jawad.

“This gives a preliminary indication, but it needs further in-depth analysis to say that this is really superior,” said Dr. Jawad, who is chief executive of Bahrain’s primary healthcare centers and helped roll out its vaccination campaign. The paper is under consideration at a Nature Portfolio journal.Julian Tang, a clinical virologist and professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Leicester, said that while there are notable differences between vaccines’ effectiveness against different variants, it could be misleading to compare outcomes in sequential or overlapping rollouts without more data on comorbidities and pre-vaccination infections.

“Vaccines earlier in the rollout may have had less natural infection than vaccines later in the vaccine rollout,” said Dr. Tang, who is unaffiliated with the Bahrain study.

Sinopharm, along with another shot manufactured by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd., has already received emergency approval from the World Health Organization, though published clinical data on its efficiency among the population groups most vulnerable to severe disease remains scant.

The two vaccines are manufactured with inactivated virus, a long-used technique for making vaccines. The Pfizer-BioNTech shot relies on a new technology employing messenger RNA.

Bahrain, one of the world’s early vaccination leaders, has fully vaccinated 66% of its population, more than the 52% vaccination rate in the U.S. It has reported some 272,000 infections and 1,388 deaths in a population of around 1.5 million. The Sinopharm vaccine was deployed there earlier than other vaccines and at a rate three times higher than the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

The study acknowledges that the vaccines’ staggered rollouts and an oversampling of individuals who received the Chinese-made shot could have impacted the results, but researchers concluded that such factors were unlikely to explain the highly significant differences in outcomes.

Dr. Sayed said the direct comparison between Sinopharm and Pfizer was possible because of similar age and sex characteristics among recipients, calling the study “a unique resource on the impact of various vaccines in one population.”

Peter English, a retired consultant in communicable disease control, said the quantity of variables in the study created potential for misinterpretation but that its conclusions appeared to be sound.

China’s economy had a good first quarter.

China’s economy made a solid start to the year, recording first quarter growth that surpassed expectations. But a recent slump in consumer spending and rising unemployment suggest much tougher months ahead with dozens of cities still under Covid lockdowns.To get more economy news today, you can visit shine news official website.

China’s gross domestic product grew 4.8% in the three months to March 31, compared with the same period last year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday. That was quicker than the 4% increase the world’s second-largest economy registered in the previous quarter.

Growth was buoyed by a surprisingly good economic performance in January and February, with several indicators for those two months beating analyst predictions.

But Beijing’s efforts to curb its worst Covid outbreak in two years have dealt a blow to activity since March, including in the country’s financial center and manufacturing hub — Shanghai. Many businesses were forced to suspend operations, including automakers Volkswagen and Tesla and iPhone assembler Pegatron.Retail sales declined 3.5% in March from a year ago, the first drop since July 2020. Industrial production grew by 5% in March, compared with 7.5% in the first two months of the year.

“The economic development is facing many difficulties and challenges now,” NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said at a press conference in Beijing on Monday.

The Covid outbreaks in March have disrupted production in some regions and hurt consumption, Fu said. In particular, catering, tourism and transportation services have been hit hard.Unemployment in 31 major cities surged to 6% in March, a record high. Among those aged 16 to 24, unemployment hit 16%, its highest level in eight months.
The Chinese government has set a growth target for this year of around 5.5%, the lowest in three decades. But the Covid outbreak, combined with the war in Ukraine — which has driven up oil and commodity prices — has already made that appear out of reach for many economists.

“Economic data in April are set to worsen further,” wrote Larry Hu, chief economist for Greater China at Macquarie Group, on Monday. He expects growth for the year to come in around 5%.Some analysts are even talking about the risk of the economy going backwards in the current quarter, as the continuing crisis in Chinese real estate piles on even more pressure.

“Activity data are set to plummet in April, as risks of recession in Q2 rise,” wrote analysts at Japanese investment bank Nomura on Monday.

“Beijing’s GDP growth target of [about] 5.5% this year is becoming increasingly challenging, and we now see significant downside risks to our annual GDP growth forecast of 4.3%,” they added.Shanghai is the epicenter of the current Covid outbreak, but it’s not alone — Nomura estimates that full or partial lockdowns are in place in 45 Chinese cities, affecting a quarter of the country’s population and about 40% of the economy.

In an attempt to ease disruption, China’s government on Friday published a “white list” of 666 companies that will be allowed to resume production. Nearly 40% are automakers, or companies involved in supplying the auto industry. It’s unclear when those companies will be able to resume production.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has repeatedly warned in the past week of the threat the upsurge in Covid cases poses to growth and employment. Last Wednesday, he promised more interest rate cuts to boost the economy. Two days later, the People’s Bank of China announced a cut to the reserve requirement ratio — which dictates the amount of cash that banks must hold in their reserves — a move meant to spur lending.

China stocks ended lower on Friday, weighed down by concerns over hawkish comments from top Federal Reserve officials, and U.S. delisting risks for Chinese companies.To get more shanghai stock market news, you can visit shine news official website.

The blue-chip CSI300 index fell 1.8%, to 4,174.57, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.2%, to 3,212.24.

The U.S. public company accounting regulator said on Thursday that it continued to engage with Chinese regulators about getting access to their auditors' records, but it remained unclear if the Chinese government would grant the access required by a new U.S. listing law.

China's securities regulator had said earlier this month that it was confident it would reach an agreement with U.S. counterparts on securities supervision, after U.S.-listed Chinese stocks tumbled as the first Chinese firms to be potentially de-listed were named.

Last week, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said Beijing would roll out support for the domestic economy and financial market, sending Chinese and Hong Kong stocks higher initially.

Following the speech, "some actions have been taken by different agencies but the market is still waiting for more concrete actions in monetary, ADRs, real estate, big tech, etc.," Citi analysts said in a note.

Chicago Fed President said on Thursday the Fed needed to raise interest rates "in a timely fashion" this year and in 2023 to curb high inflation before it was embedded in U.S. psychology and became even harder to get rid of.
Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect
The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect are cross-border investment channels that connect the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with the mainland market. Under the program, investors in each market are able to trade shares on the other market using their local brokers and clearinghouses. The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect was officially launched on November 17, 2014, and the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect was officially launched on December 5, 2016. Both channels use the RMB for transactions.

After the smooth implementation of the Shanghai-Hong Kong stock connect and Shenzhen-Hong Kong stock connect, the internationalization level of the mainland stock market has been greatly improved, and nearly RMB 2 trillion (US$308 billion) of mainland capital has been brought to the Hong Kong market, according to Cai’s speech at the Boao Forum this year. Hypothetically, if we regarded the Shanghai/Shenzhen/Hong Kong Stock Connect as a single independent exchange, its trading volume in the first quarter of 2021 would rank seventh among the global exchanges.

Shanghai-London Stock Connect
The Shanghai-London Stock Connect was launched on June 17, 2019, at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to facilitate a new level of capital cooperation between China and the UK, two of the world’s largest economies. Under the Shanghai-London Stock Connect, qualified companies satisfying the listing qualifications in both markets may issue depositary receipts and list and trade on the other markets.

Political tension between the two countries came to a head in 2019 due to the British government’s response to anti-government protests in Hong Kong, leading to rumors that the Stock Connect program had been halted. However, despite rumors that the Shanghai-London Stock Connect was suspended, the China Securities Regulatory Commission affirmed that the Connect was in fact operating normally since its inception.

Shanghai reportedly aims to have zero COVID-19 cases outside of its quarantine centers by Wednesday, in what could be a turning point for the city’s strict “no tolerance” lockdowns that’ve left residents increasingly frustrated.To get more news about shanghai covid cases, you can visit shine news official website.

The target will allow the city to further ease its lockdown and start returning to normal life, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

In order to meet the goal Wednesday, officials will accelerate COVID testing and the transfer of infected residents to quarantine centers, according to a speech by a local Communist Party official.Shanghai imposed strict lockdowns in response to an outbreak driven by the Omicron variant. Since the surge began in early March, the city has counted 320,000 cases.

Under the “no tolerance” policy, only healthcare workers, volunteers, delivery personnel and those with special permission are able to move freely.

The strict rules mean that quarantined residents have to order in food or wait for government drop-offs of vegetables, meat and eggs, BBC reported.Frustrated Shanghai residents, however, have expressed anger on social media over what they say are shortages of food and other items.

Footage posted to Twitter showed people in the locked-down city banging pots on their balconies and chanting, “We want supplies,” France24 reported.Shanghai reported the first fatalities from the city’s current wave of Covid-19, just as local authorities embarked on a plan to gradually restore production and business activity in China’s commercial centre after more than two weeks of lockdown.
New cases in Shanghai fell 10.4 per cent to 22,248, according to data released on Monday, while those showing symptoms declined by 25 per cent to 2,417 cases. The three deaths were among 16 “severe cases” of Covid-19 infections, all of them unvaccinated elderly residents with underlying ailments.
Declining daily cases for the second time in six successive days undergird the government’s push to restore transport links between provinces to ease the pressure on supply chains in the world’s second-largest economy.
Shanghai is on track to resume production at key manufacturing sites after a 16-day citywide lockdown, succumbing to pressure from foreign diplomats, business groups and multinational firms calling for an easing of anti-coronavirus control measures.
Major companies in the fields of automobiles, semiconductors and biomedicines are to submit detailed plans about guarding against the spread of Covid-19 for the local health authorities to review before they are given the go-ahead to resume operations in the so-called closed-loop conditions, the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Information Technology said on Saturday evening.
Saturday’s statement is the first step taken by mainland China’s commercial and financial capital to relax controls on manufacturers, most of which have idled facilities since the beginning of April.
“Shanghai’s anti-coronavirus control and prevention measures have dealt a huge blow to the automotive industry alone,” said David Zhang, a researcher at the North China University of Technology. “The lockdown brought nearly all the thousands of automotive supply-chain firms based in Shanghai to a standstill. This is a serious problem that needs to be tackled as soon as possible.”
The decision to ease the lockdown comes despite the continued spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19. Shanghai added 24,820 new Covid-19 cases, 3,238 of them symptomatic, on Sunday. The city’s total number of infections has now topped 350,000 since the outbreak began on March 1.
Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai health commission, told a press briefing on Sunday that another round of mass testing would be conducted in the coming days to detect infections and cut transmission chains, as the city remained adamant about achieving its zero-Covid goal. The city has conducted at least nine rounds of citywide mass testing on all of its 25 million residents since April 3.
The city’s government has vowed to detect all Covid-19 cases outside “lockdown areas” and quarantine them to cut transmission chains in a five-day campaign that started on Saturday, said two local government officials who did not want to be identified. The lockdown areas comprise hospitals, quarantine sites and high-risk residential compounds sealed off because at least one infection was found there in the previous seven days.

Shanghai reports a record 2,573 symptomatic COVID-19 cases

China's financial hub Shanghai has reported over 27,000 coronavirus cases, setting a new record. On Thursday, Shanghai reported a record 2,573 total symptomatic cases for the previous day, up from 1,189 a day earlier.Asymptomatic cases, meanwhile, reached 25,146, up from 25,141.To get more news about shanghai covid update, you can visit shine news official website.

The numbers came a day after President Xi Jinping said the country must continue with its strict "dynamic COVID clearance" policy and pandemic control measures.Shanghai is battling China's worst COVID-19 outbreak since the virus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019.

The city's 25 million residents remain largely under lockdown, though restrictions were partially eased in some areas this week.Raising hopes for a shift in policy, on Wednesday the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a guide on home quarantining on its social media.

Under China's tough rules, even people without symptoms must go into quarantine at centralised facilities, where many people have complained about poor conditions.Video provided to Reuters on Thursday by an occupant of a quarantine facility showed more than 100 people crammed on a floor of what looked like an office building.

"This centre is so crowded, everyone is less than a metre apart," said the woman, aged over 60, who filmed the video.While state media shows hospitals with just two or three patients per room, people sent to Shanghai's exhibition centres live side by side with thousands of others, without walls or showers, and with ceiling lights on around the clock.

The CDC's guide on quarantine at home — in a well-ventilated room stocked with masks, sanitiser and other gear — raised hopes that the rule for quarantine at state facilities might be relaxed.However, when asked by a social media user in an online comments section about who might be eligible for home quarantine, the CDC referred to the old rules.

Shanghai authorities also gave no hint of any change in approach during a Thursday briefing.

A city official said that cases continued to rise despite the lockdown, in part because of a backlog of test results and because of ongoing transmission among family members.On Wednesday, Mr Xi said China must stick to its strict "dynamic COVID clearance" policy while the global pandemic remains very serious, promising those enduring lockdowns that persistence will win out in the end.

Speaking during a visit to South China's Hainan island, Mr Xi indicated there would be no immediate change of approach in pandemic control measures.He said the country must stick to its approach, which has all but shut China's borders to international travel, and not relax prevention measures.

China's zero-COVID policy has been increasingly challenged by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, putting millions of people under various forms of lockdown and disrupting supply chains.Other countries have thrown off restrictions even though the virus is still spreading.

An April 7 study by Gavekal Dragonomics found that 87 of China's 100 largest cities by GDP have imposed some form of quarantine curbs.On Thursday, authorities in the coronvirus-hit north-eastern province of Jilin said they had stamped out local spread of COVID-19 after battling to bring cases down since mid-March.But the southern tech hub of Shenzhen appeared to be seeing a resurgence after quashing its own outbreak last month.

China tightens controls as Shanghai reports record Covid cases

Shanghai reported a record number of symptomatic Covid-19 cases on Saturday and other areas across China tightened controls as the country kept up its “dynamic clearance” approach that aims to stamp out the highly transmissible Omicron variant.To get more news about coronavirus update china, you can visit shine news official website.

The Zhengzhou airport economic zone, a central Chinese manufacturing area that includes Apple supplier Foxconn, announced a 14-day lockdown on Friday “to be adjusted according to the epidemic situation”.

In north-western China, the city of Xi’an urged residents to avoid unnecessary trips outside their residential compounds and encouraged companies to have employees work from home or live at their workplace, after dozens of Covid infections this month.

A Xi’an government official, responding to residents’ concerns over potential food shortages, said on Saturday that the announcement did not constitute a lockdown and that the city would not impose one.

The city of Suzhou, near Shanghai, said all employees capable of working from home must do so, and residential compounds and company campuses should avoid unnecessary entry of people and vehicles. It has reported more than 500 infections in its latest outbreak.
Shanghai itself, which is at the centre of China’s recent Covid surge starting in early March, reported a record 3,590 symptomatic cases for 15 April, as well as 19,923 asymptomatic cases. The asymptomatic case number was up slightly from 19,872 cases a day earlier.

The city’s case tally makes up the vast majority of cases nationwide even as most of its 25 million residents remain under lockdown.

China’s “dynamic clearance” policy aims to quickly contain sporadic outbreaks as they occur. On Saturday, a commentary in the Communist party’s official People’s Daily newspaper said the approach was the “best choice at this stage based on China’s current epidemic situation”.

But ongoing restrictions prompted Japan’s consul general in Shanghai to call for the local government to address concerns of Japanese businesses in a letter posted on the consulate’s website on Saturday.Domestic support for a zero-Covid policy has worn thin in recent weeks as virus-related restrictions have triggered food shortages, family separations, lost wages and economic pain.

Analysts say broad supply chain disruptions are likely to lead to delays in shipments from companies including Apple, and to weigh on the country’s economic growth rate this year.

China’s central bank on Friday evening cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves, aiming to cushion a sharp slowdown in growth, though the cut was smaller than had been widely expected.

Goldman Sachs analysts called for further policy easing. “Policymakers might lean towards using more fiscal measures [such as acceleration of major infrastructure project construction] and targeted monetary easing [such as relending and rediscounting] as the main policy lever going forward,” they said in a note.

At the Zhengzhou economic zone, only personnel with valid passes, health codes and proof of negative Covid tests would be able to leave during the two-week period, although “special vehicles” would be able to travel normally for work reasons, local authorities said in a post on an official WeChat instant messaging account.

Overall, China reported 24,791 new coronavirus cases on 15 April, of which 3,896 were symptomatic and 20,895 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Saturday.

While the main schedule for Shanghai Fashion Week concluded this week, with the first presentations beginning in mid-March and stragglers such as Windowsen still to show at the end of April, the season was truly more than a month.To get more fashion news today, you can visit shine news official website.

Enjoying the luxury of fully physical showcases — the Dior pre-fall 2021 show alone had a guest list of 1,000 people for its disco-themed night — there was a strong chorus from event to event to highlight Chinese creativity, from the announcement of the winners of the inaugural Yu Prize to the creation of a new award, the Hu Fashion Forward prize, by the retailer LMDS and actress Fan Bingbing.

In particular, Shanghai Fashion Week organizers espoused its new direct-to-consumer initiatives tapping China’s top livestreamers Viya and Austin Li in multidesigner, see now, buy now fashion showcases. In her event, “Seeing the Future,” Viya picked the work of 15 designers — among them Lost General, Shine Li and Masha Ma — and racked up 410 million renminbi, or $62.8 million, in sales. Austin Li similarly supported 11 designers in a Tmall-streamed fashion show. Balabala, the leading children’s wear brand in China, who this season did a crossover with Jason Wu, livestreamed its show from the Shanghai Children’s Art Theatre, which drove $26.9 million in sales and attracted more than 1.2 billion views on Weibo. Even Dior got in on the see now, buy now action, showcasing a pre-fall collection that — while the imagery had been made public earlier — was the first time it was shown on a runway, with pieces available for order immediately after the show.
“At present, many young Chinese designers still use the ‘showroom plus buyer plus wholesale’ format from the West as their first choice for commercial development. Brands that launch this way may not encounter problems but over time, with China’s rapid development, it’s easy to be eliminated,” said Xiaolei Lv, vice secretary of Shanghai Fashion Week.

“In context of China’s fast-developing economy, society, culture, digital infrastructure and increasingly mature consumer perception, following the international model step by step could see the wave of new industry consumption patterns overwhelm creative designers,” said Xiaolei.

But at traditional showrooms, too, feedback was that business was brisk as the market enjoyed repatriated spending from consumers that translated into buyers’ bigger budgets and more daring selections. On Thursday, government data showed that retail sales nationally in the first quarter of the year surged 33.9 percent year-over-year, albeit off a low base.

Julio Ng, director of the showroom Seiya Nakamura 2.24, said one of his top concerns was how to manage the demand coming in.

“Compared to the last year, this new autumn-winter probably we hit a 200 percent increase [in orders],” he said. “Of course, money is an issue but to grow the brand in a very healthy way, it’s a main challenge. In the Chinese mentality everyone’s looking into the short-term return and especially in this great moment of China right now, it’s easy to lose sight and to look into just maximizing the profit.

“In China, all the domestic brands are equipped to do a lot of restocking…but at the same time, if they go up so fast, you know they probably die out very fast as well. So we don’t want that kind of hype for our brands. We want our brands to be more sustainable as a business.”
The Chongqing-born but Beijing-raised Chen was one of the most hotly anticipated names on the circuit this season after having his graduate collection at Central Saint Martins spotted by Labelhood founder Tasha Liu. His first proper show, “Debutante,” was a theatrical debut of 35 looks that mixed an impressive range of materials — mechanical parts, rubber and metal — with soft fabrics like lace, cashmere and silk.

“There are many textures and textiles in the collection,” Chen said. “For example, there are dresses made by packing tapes, which is very experimental, there are dresses and skirts embroidered with recycled metal beads — for sustainability but also I like the roughness of those materials. There are lots and lots of colors in this collection because of how much I like colors, very aggressive color combinations.”

According to a recent blog post by Microsoft Teams VP Nicole Herskowitz, more than 270 million people rely on Teams for hybrid work and over 50% of organizations have standardized on Teams, according to a recent Morgan Stanley CIO survey.To get more microsoft latest news, you can visit shine news official website.

With the shift from remote to hybrid work, active Teams Rooms devices more than doubled year over year, and Teams Phone now has nearly 80 million active users, while usage of Teams by frontline workers has doubled year over year.

Microsoft has now announced a number of upgrades that are on the way, some of which were unveiled over the past few months. Taken together, the new additions aim to make hybrid and remote working easier.
1. Outlook RSVP
One of the hardest things to decide in the hybrid context is when workers should work from home or when they should report to a central office. Citing its recent workplace research, Microsoft noted that 38% of hybrid employees say their biggest challenge is knowing when and why to come into the office, while only 28% of companies have established team agreements about who will be working from where.

Microsoft is introducing Outlook RSVP in an effort to coordinate this. Outlook RSVP allows users to indicate when responding to a meeting invite whether you plan to join in person or virtually. These new RSVP options are expected to be available in public preview in Outlook on the web in the second quarter of 2022.

2. Teams Phone: Operator Connect Mobile
More than 50% of hybrid workers are considering going fully remote in the year ahead, according to Microsoft data. With that demand for more flexibility and mobility, the days of a fixed desk phone in a fixed office are over.

Teams Phone will soon offer a mobile-first experience with Operator Connect Mobile. The service acts in partnership with some of the world’s biggest telecom operators including BT, Rogers, Swisscom, Telia and Verizon. The result is a single phone number, whether sitting at a desk in a central office or working remotely on your mobile device.

3. Teams Connect Shared Channels
In late 2021, Microsoft announced Teams Connect shared channels, which enable collaboration with people inside and outside the organization in a shared workspace. Participants can communicate, schedule a meeting, share files and collaborate on apps without switching accounts. Shared channels for Teams Connect will enter preview at the end of this month.

One other upgrade worth mentioning is the new Inspiration library, which will be available in preview through the Viva Insights app in Teams. The Inspiration library provides access to curated content on common workplace challenges. The Inspiration library preview will begin rolling out to Microsoft 365 users with the Microsoft Viva Insights app in Teams later this month and will be available worldwide in 11 supported languages by the end of April.
Over the last few years, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google has been adding new functionality and features to Gmail to make it a place to work, and not just an email app.

A new release this week focuses on the interaction of Google Docs and Gmail. Google Docs email draft template allows multiple users to draft emails. Once complete, there is an export to Gmail option with the relevant fields automatically populated.

But the release is bigger than just Gmail and ties back to Google's development of its Smart Canvas. The company introduced Smart Canvas at Google I/O last year. Smart Canvas pulls together a number of collaborative tools aimed at improving how Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides work together. Make no mistake, Smart Canvas is not a suite of new products but is what Google describes as a 'new product experience' that enhances the already existing features in Google apps.

"We are making it easy to collaborate on an email draft in Docs with the new email draft template,” Google stated in a blog post about the new feature. The feature was first teased in February and is now starting to roll out to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers.

The email draft template follows other recent releases to Smart Canvas. For example, last month it added automated document summaries and the ability to embed Google Maps into documents.

It also introduced “pageless format” in Docs last month, which removes the boundaries of a document page, while it suggested that formula corrections in iSheets spreadsheets were on the way. Workspaces is not Microsoft 365, but it has most of the collaboration tools an average worker needs. With Smart Canvas developing rapidly, it continues to offer organizations a viable alternative to Microsoft with a much lower price tag.

In a market that is constantly evolving with new products and even new players, the incumbent leader Intel has just announced two new P and U-series mobile processors. We spoke to Daniel Rogers, Senior Director, Mobile Product Marketing and Intel, to understand the new processors better. Edited excerpts from the interview:To get more intel news, you can visit shine news official website.

How is the P and U series different from the rest of Intel’s portfolio?
Daniel Rogers: The P series is a new segment for us somewhat. We have had a 28 Watt thin and light design point for a few years, but the reality in the market was that most systems were built to 15 Watts traditionally. So this generation, we did something a bit different, we actually offered two product lines, a P series at 28W, and a U series at 15W. We did this really to drive more performance. P series is similar to our H series and is derived from that fundamental architecture, but we have optimised that for lower power for thin and light designs, so we can bring an enthusiast-class or a high-end creator type performance into that thin and light form factor.

Is there a specific target audience and how you sort of are planning to target them?
Daniel Rogers: The most important audience for P-series is creators on the go, folks who are doing video editing, but still need a thin and light form factor. So maybe they are not looking for a 16-inch with discrete graphics, they are maybe looking for a 14-inch, maybe a system that has great battery life with a nice camera, but they still need some horsepower to get those video editing workflows and photo editing workflows done. So that’s probably the most direct use of a piece or the perfect customer for the P-series.
Daniel Rogers: Certainly with fans. In general, it’s somewhere around 12 Watts and below for fanless. So here we are talking 20 to 28 Watts, sometimes 35 Watts. But the thermals are well managed so they won’t be extraordinarily loud or with poor skin temperatures. Like with our Evo program we put a lot of work in with our partners to make sure these are well-built, and they are still meeting the promise of a thin and light.

How are the two series different from each other?
Daniel Rogers: The P series starts with 14 cores. So it’s 14 cores and higher power. Our U series is more tailored. So it’s 10 cores, two performance cores and eight efficient cores and lower power. Other than that, at the technology level, they are very similar. The IO is similar. The breakouts are similar.

In the case of architecture, how are these mobile processors different from the other processors that you have?
Daniel Rogers: So we started with our desktop, which is an LGA socket, pins out, so end users can populate it. And so that’s a 16 core — eight performance, eight efficient cores. Then we moved on to our H Series product line or Halo mobile product line, generally paired with discrete graphics. So that’s just a one-click lower — 14 core with six performance cores and eight efficient cores. It has extra IO to attach to the discrete graphics. Then the mobile, we call it thin and light P series and U series, it goes all the way down to 9 Watts in very small package, very low power optimised for battery life, but of course, still great performance.
Daniel Rogers: Yeah, we are seeing quite a few new designs. There will be some sort of experimentation in the market, although P-series does sit in between our H series and U series. It is a value proposition, and it is delivering a level of performance that has not been offered previously.

Daniel Rogers: In 10th Gen, we started with, our VNI instructions, which has some nice speed-ups for some AI workloads and in 11th Gen, or Tiger Lake, we added our DB4A, which is another nice instruction on the GT side which gives an important acceleration in the like ML performance. These are accessed through the Intel one API framework. Many applications are using that today, like Gigapixel photo for example. Aside from that, it is essentially a similar implementation to 11th Gen. With our upcoming generation next year, we are bringing some specific IPs for AI.

Daniel Rogers: It is an exciting time in the silicon industry. Certainly, it’s an exciting time in the PC and other operating systems space as well. It’s a competitive world and I sort of love it. But we are very proud of what we brought with the 12th Gen and you will notice this in our launch materials where we share some of those performance comparisons. You can see how we sort of stack up this generation.

Chinese dissident artist Badiucao opened his first solo show in the northern Italian city of Brescia on Saturday, with works criticizing China's human rights record.To get more art in the news 2021, you can visit shine news official website.

Chinese officials tried to put pressure on the city to cancel the event - but organizers went ahead anyway in a bid to "support freedom of expression."

What makes it so controversial?
The exhibition, which bears the title "China is (not) near - Works of a dissident artist," is on display at the Museum of Santa Giulia.

"Because my art is always focusing on human rights issues in China ... it makes me almost the type of No. 1 enemy,'' Badiucao told reporters.

"So that is why, for me, it is really hard to actually having an exhibition in an established gallery, a museum like this," he added.

One of the more provocative works is a hybrid portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam - highlighting the decline of rights in the former British colony.There is also a series of 64 paintings of watches that the artist created with his own blood. The work references the watches given to Chinese soldiers who took part in the brutal Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

The exhibition also includes a torture device that has been re-designed as a rocking chair. For the first few days of the exhibit, Badiucao will sit in the torture chair and read from a diary that was sent to him by a resident in Wuhan. The work details 100 days of records from the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

"Anyone who tried to tell the truth or some story different from China's government's narrative would be punished," Badiucao said.

He put out an appeal on social media for people in Wuhan to share their stories, saying: "I'd like to share the burden and risk with you, if you trust me you can send your information."Ahead of the show's premiere, China urged Italian officials not to let the exhibition go ahead.

The Chinese Embassy in Italy sent a letter to the city of Brescia, issuing veiled threats concerning Italy's trade ties with China.

Badiucao's works are "full of anti-Chinese lies" that "jeopardize the friendly relations between China and Italy," the embassy wrote in its letter.City officials and museum curators, however, pressed forward with the plans for the show.

"None of us in Brescia, neither in the city council nor among the citizens, had the slightest doubt about this exhibition going ahead," Deputy Mayor Laura Castelletti told news agency AFP.

Still, museum officials wanted to emphasize that exhibition "has no intention of offending the Chinese people or Chinese culture and civilization", the president of the Brescia Museums Foundation, Francesca Bazoli, said.