Feature
OnePlus TV may come with eight speakers and Dolby Atmos support
OnePlus TV launch in India is just around the corner and the company’s CEO Pete Lau can’t seem to hold his excitement. Pete Lau has been revealing a lot of key features about the OnePlus TV in the days leading up to its launch. We know that the OnePlus TV will be running on Android TV with Google Assistant and Chromecast support. We have also seen its premium and minimalistic remote. Another exciting feature that Lau has been hyping is its array of 8 speakers with Dolby Atmos sound and a new teaser shows how the speakers will be arranged.
While the OnePlus TV will be bringing many different features, it is primarily a television and the company wants to keep the focus on that. The OnePlus TV will look to take on premium televisions from the likes of Samsung, Sony and LG, and OnePlus knows that it will need to deliver in two major areas that matter – sound and display. To help with the former, OnePlus TV will bring a total of 8 speakers to deliver a combined output of 50W.
A new teaser posted by Pete Lau now reveals that 6 of the 8 speakers will be arranged in the lower panel of the TV in groups of threes. The remaining two large-sized speakers are placed on a separate panel above the smaller speakers and are expected to be subwoofers to deliver a “punchy bass to fill your living room,” as an Amazon teaser mentions.
It will be interesting to see the kind of bass the built-in subwoofers will deliver. TV manufacturers typically struggle in delivering good bass output due to the limitations of adding large speakers within a TV, which is why many people end up buying separate subwoofers. OnePlus has managed to fit 8 speakers in its TV and is promising an immersive sound experience with Dolby Atmos support.
Other OnePlus TV specs revealed so far include a 55-inch 4K QLED display with Dolby Vision support, kevlar finish design on the back and Android TV platform with Chromecast, Google Assistant and Play Store support, among other things.
Entertainment
Meghalaya Reserves Legalized Gambling and Sports Betting for Tourists
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.