FP StaffAug 18, 2022 12:31:57 IST

The rumours of a Reliance Jio 5G smartphone have been going around for quite some time now. Last year at Reliance Industry Limited’s Annual General Meeting, the telecommunications company launched the first Jio smartphone, dubbed Jio Phone Next, with 4G support.

Because the upcoming JioPhone 5G is expected to be one of the most affordable 5G smartphones in the Indian market, the buzz and excitement around the device is high. If certain rumours are anything to go by, the specifications of the upcoming device has already leaked online.

A recent rumour suggests that the JioPhone 5G is slated to get the Snapdragon 480 SoC from Qualcomm, which will be coupled with up to 4GB of RAM and up to 32GB of internal storage.

The rumour suggested that there will be two variants, one with 2GB RAM and one with 4GB RAM, with the lower specced variant coming in at Rs 12,000. However, there is a possibility that just like last year with the Jio Phone Next, this device too comes in only one variant. 

In any case, this would make Reliance Jio the first Indian brand to launch a 5G phone at such an affordable price. None of the homegrown brands, including Micromax, and Lava, among others, have launched a 5G phone around this price point.

The device is likely to come with a 6.5-inch HD+ IPS LCD display. It is also likely to get a dual camera setup at the rear, with a 13MP primary camera, and a 2MP macro camera. On the front, the phone is said to include an 8MP selfie shooter.

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The Jio 5G phone is said to be running on Pragati OS, a custom operating system that Jio has developed in partnership with Google. The Jio Phone Next also runs on Pragati OS.

As for the date of the launch, it is speculated that the upcoming Jio 5G phone will be launched during the upcoming AGM of RIL, which has been scheduled for August 29. Given how Jio plans to launch their 5G services by the end of this month, the speculated launch date of the device makes sense.

Remember in the early 2000s? Remember the “golden age” of TV?

TV’s golden age probably started with The Sopranos in 1999, but it really got rolling with shows like The Wire, Lost and Deadwood in the mid-2000s. Big-time productions that could match Hollywood in terms of budget and scale. 

But that was just the beginning. TV kept steamrolling. Toward the end of the decade it was Breaking Bad and Mad Men, later it was Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Eventually, the idea that television played second fiddle to the cinematic experience began to erode and collapse.

Television was king.

But the golden age of TV never really ended. It just kept going to the point when the phrase golden age stopped making sense. “Prestige TV,” or whatever you want to call it, was just the new normal: content that pushed the boundaries of what was possible. New ideas, great writing, world-class performances. This quality is baseline now. There are fully grown adults who have literally zero understanding of what it was like to scramble for scraps via shows like Twin Peaks or The X-Files.

For the last 20 years we’ve been swamped with incredible television. Drowning in it. 

The year 2021 was one of the best for TV that I can remember. Ever. Yellowjackets, Station Eleven, The White Lotus, Succession, Dopesick, Arcane, Midnight Mass. That’s before we even start talking about the superhero shows they keep dropping on Disney Plus. 

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That’s just one year! ONE SINGLE YEAR!

Incredibly, 2022 hasn’t let up. Which brings us — finally — to the show I want to talk about now: Severance.

Severance is a sci-fi show on Apple TV Plus, set in a barely explained universe where a process called “severance” allows employees to split themselves into two discrete entities: A work self, who exists during office hours only, and a home self, who’s completely divorced from work. The work self has no understanding or memories of what goes on outside the office, and vice versa. 

At its core Severance is a high concept show acutely focused on exploring that original idea — of split lives and artificially enforced, physically induced work-life balance. But despite its unique high concept, Severance also plays on the tropes established over the past 20 years of prestige television.

It operates on a number of levels. Severance is undoubtedly a “mystery box” show, like Lost. There’s a central mystery to be solved, and the show drip feeds the audience information, playing to the Reddit sleuths who love to figure out the twists before they unfold. 

But Severance subverts that by also being… extremely funny. It never takes itself as seriously as a show like Westworld. It never wallows in its own self-importance. In many ways Severance takes its cues from (but also parodies) shows like The Office, which celebrate the day-to-day grind of office life. The casting of Adam Scott, who spent years on Office-like Parks and Recreation, plays a crucial role here and helps play up the disparity. Severance features a stripped back, minimalist office much like the one you might see on Parks and Recreation, but not all is what it seems.

That’s what makes Severance special. It gets to be compelling like Lost and funny like The Office. It gets to wax lyrical about the human condition, but also manages to parody the era it’s part of. In many ways Severance is the first post-prestige TV classic. It does everything.

Severance isn’t flashy, it doesn’t have to establish its greatness with self serious monologues or soaring orchestral soundtracks. It’s a show that gets to have its cake and eat it. Severance is informed by the classics that preceded it but feels distinct from them. A show that swallows and digests everything we’ve been consuming for the past 20 years and vomits it up as a fully formed, barf masterpiece that subverts the type of television we’ve become accustomed to over the past two decades.

Yet Severance is only one season deep. Promising shows have fallen apart before. Even a show as fully formed as Severance could crumble beneath audience expectations. They could screw it up. 

But I have a lot of faith in Severance. It has the example of shows like Lost and Westworld to learn from. We know what could go wrong. If Severance keeps its narrative tight, and stays true to what made the show so compelling to begin with, we could be witnessing greatness. At the very least, Severance is my favorite show of 2022 so far and — for my money — the best show on Apple TV.

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Dodge revealed Wednesday an EV concept that looks — and even sounds — like the gas-powered Charger muscle car that will be discontinued next year.

The two-door Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept — the Daytona name a nod to its gas-powered ancestor’s 200 mph NASCAR track milestone — is not just a design exercise, according to the Stellantis brand. The Charger EV concept unveiled at M1Concourse in Pontiac, Michigan during Dodge Speed Week event series is a placeholder of sorts for the production version coming in 2024. Dodge has been talking about this day since at least last summer, but now consumers are starting to see exactly what the automaker has in mind.

It’s unclear just how much of the concept shown Wednesday will make it to the final production version. A company spokesperson did tell TechCrunch that “we call it a concept … it is very close to production.” Which means it’s worth taking a closer look at the concept that will replace the gas-powered version.

Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept

Like so many concepts, the automaker didn’t share details on pricing. It did share lots of specs and design details, which clearly uses some of the original Dodge Charger DNA.

Dodge emphasizes three main areas that it says will “rewrite the rules” of the battery electric segment: a front R-wing that acts as an aerodynamic pass-through, a multi-speed transmission with electro-mechanical shifting and finally, an exhaust that can reach 126 decibels. Yes, the automaker put an “exhaust” on an EV and gave it a dB that will make it as loud as a Hellcat-powered Dodge by pushing sound through an amplifier and tuning chamber located at the rear of the vehicle.

The Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept’s R-Wing is an homage to the original Charger Daytona design. It is incorporated into the hood and allows air to flow through the front opening, enhancing downforce. Image credit: Dodge/Stellantis

Tim Kuniskis, CEO of the Dodge brand under Stellantis, didn’t mince words in a statement when he said “Charger Daytona does more than define where Dodge is headed, it will redefine American muscle in the process.”

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That’s an ambitious target and Dodge’s bar for success appears to start with the upcoming EV exceeding the power, performance and sound of the gas-powered Dodge SRT Hellcat.

Like its gas-powered brethren, the propulsion system in the Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept even gets some special branding. The 800v propulsion system, dubbed Banshee, makes the EV faster than a Hellcat in all key performance measures, according to Dodge.  The Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept also has a standard all-wheel drive and on push-button on the steering wheel called PowerShot that will produce an extra burst of horsepower.

Dodge Charger Daytona SRT EV Concept has an lluminated three-pointed Fratzog badge, Image credit: Dodge/Stellantis

Dodge pulled from its past when it designed the Charger EV concept even though it has lots of modern elements, like the R-wing, a more aerodynamic shape and its panoramic glass roof. Some of the historical nods include a white illuminated three-pointed Fratzog badge that was originally featured on Dodge muscle cars from 1962 through 1976. Then there is the front grille with its vertical details that are reminiscent of the 1968 Dodge Charger. The automaker’s designers took that 1968 grille design and pulled into the interior textures as well.

Inside the vehicle are many of the modern touches one expects in a new EV, including a 12.3-inch center screen, a curved 16-inch instrument cluster and a 8-by-3-inch Head-up Display (HUD).