iGyaan Network

Author: Vipul Vij

  • Samsung Galaxy S9 Iris Scanner Will Work In The Dark

    Samsung Galaxy S9 Iris Scanner Will Work In The Dark

    The Samsung Galaxy S9 is expected to be a revision to the Popular Samsung Galaxy S8 which was launched in early 2017. We have seen several leaks so far, including one which mentions a record-breaking screen-to-body ratio. Samsung Galaxy S9 may be an incremental upgrade as far as design is concerned but, there might be a few monumental upgrades as far as hardware and software are concerned. A new report claims that Samsung will upgrade the iris scanner on Galaxy S9 to 3MP from the 2Mp scanner found on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note8.

    An industry source familiar with the matter told the publication that the iris scanner in the Galaxy S9 will have an improved camera lens and functions to help it better recognise users’ eyes. This move, as much as it is an upgrade, can be attributed to the rise in popularity of Apple’s Face ID and Huawei’s unveiling of its own facial recognition technology.

    The source said:

    The iris lens will be improved to 3-megapixels from 2-megapixels of Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8 to capture clearer images. The scanner will better recognize users’ irises even when they wear eyeglasses, move their eyeballs or are in a too dark or too light environment.

    Samsung is expected to introduce the iris scanning feature in its upcoming mid-range phones as well, such as the Galaxy A8+. A leak revealed that the Galaxy S8+ will have an infinity display, which was exclusive to Samsung’s flagship phones so far. Introduction of iris scanner in the Galaxy A series might not be far-fetched.

    Samsung Galaxy S8+

    “Iris scanner is the safest biometric authentication (among iris, fingerprint and face recognition) and we will continue to improve the system for upcoming smartphones for safer banking transactions,” a Samsung spokesperson told the publication, without making any reference to the Galaxy S9.

    The Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are expected to be launched at either MWC in February or at a separate event in March (similar to the Galaxy S8 and S8+).

  • OnePlus Is Giving Away 10,000 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Tickets

    OnePlus Is Giving Away 10,000 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Tickets

    OnePlus burst on to the scene back in 2014 with “flagship killer” OnePlus One. Three years on, the Chinese company is preparing to launch the Star Wars limited edition OnePlus 5T in India on the 14th of December. To celebrate 3 years in India, OnePlus is giving away 10,000 tickets for the upcoming movie, Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

    Vikas Aggarwal, General Manager at OnePlus India said:

    The OnePlus 5T Star Wars Limited Edition is dedicated to the OnePlus and Star Wars fans in India. We are humbled by the phenomenal response to our smartphones this year that has made OnePlus the best selling smartphone in premium segment and has reinforced the trust that our fans have instilled in us.

    The tickets will be given away for the following cities, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore and Kochi. In order to win the tickets, one has to simply:

    • Visit oneplusstore.in and register your OnePlus IMEI number (If you have registered your IMEI previously, you can skip this step). Choose your city and confirm the movie date and time (tickets are available for 16th and 17th December at select PVR and Cinemax theatres). Click ‘Get It’ button & your ticket coupon code will be generated (Depending on availability)
    • Step 2: Once the ticket coupon code is generated, follow the link to the Paytm website, to select from the available shows and complete the checkout process

    The Star Wars limited edition OnePlus 5T will be launched on the 14th of December at an event in Delhi. While the hardware specifications will remain the same, there will be a few unique changes in the limited edition phone such as a red colour alert slider and a white coloured back panel.

    There is no word on the pricing of the limited edition variant so far and the rest of the details will be announced at the launch event.

  • Samsung Galaxy A8+ Specs Leaked

    Samsung Galaxy A8+ Specs Leaked

    Samsung introduced the first infinity display in 2017 with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ and also used it with the Galaxy Note8. In 2018, it is expected that the infinity display feature will trickle down to Samsung’s mid-range smartphones as well, and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy A8+ appears to be one of them. A new video reveals what the Galaxy A8+ will look like and the user in the video also goes through the specifications of the phone.

    In the video, the user goes through the camera app and clicks a sample photo. There is a dual-camera setup at the front of the phone, which is a first for a Samsung device. At the front is a 16MP+8MP camera setup, the 8MP camera will allow for live focus portrait shots similar to the Galaxy Note8.

    According to the video, the Galaxy A8+ will have a 6-inch 2220 x 1080 px display. We can expect it to be a Super AMOLED display similar to the previous generation Galaxy A phones.

    Under the hood, the device will have the Exynos 7885 SoC, an octa-core processor with two 2.2GHz high-performance cores and six 1.6GHz low power cores, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage which will be expandable via microSD card, presumably up top 256GB. The Galaxy A8+ will also have an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance.

    Powering the device will be a 3500 mAh battery which will charge via USB Type C which suggests that it will support fast charging.

    Another major change in the design will be the fingerprint sensor placement. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note8, the fingerprint sensor on Galaxy A8+ is placed below the rear-mounted camera and it might hint at a major design change for the upcoming flagship ‘S’ and ‘Note’ lineup as well.

    The back of the phone also houses a 16MP camera. Detailed specifications of the camera were not listed in the video.

    The Samsung Galaxy A8+ is expected to be launched in January 2018 with the prices ranging from US $300 – US $350 (Rs. 21000 – Rs. 26000 in India)

    You can watch the entire video here.

  • Xiaomi Mi A1 Receives Permanent Price Cut

    Xiaomi Mi A1 Receives Permanent Price Cut

    Xiaomi launched the Mi A1 back in August at a price of Rs. 14999. Now, one of the best budget camera phones, the Mi A1 has received a permanent price cut of Rs. 1000 and will now retail for Rs. 13999.

    The Xiaomi Mi A1 offers something different than the rest of the Xiaomi phones available in India or the global market. It has stock Android OS thanks to the Android One program which means that the Mi A1 will receive Android 8.0 Oreo and Android P updates faster than other OEM phones in the same price bracket. This gives the Mi A1 a slight advantage over its closest competitor, the Moto G5s Plus which also has similar specifications and price. The price cut may also be attributed to the competition from other smartphones such as the Honor 7X which also offers a dual-camera setup and is priced at Rs 12999.

    Even though there has been no announcement for Android 8.0 Oreo update for the Xiaomi Mi A1, it is expected to be rolled out by the end of January 2018.

    The smartphone has a 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 px LTPS display with Corning Gorilla Glass on top for protection along with an aluminium unibody build.

    The Xiaomi Mi A1 has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, 8x ARM Cortex A53 2.0GHz 64-bit processor, 4GB RAM and 64GB of onboard storage which is expandable via microSD card. Handling the graphics under the hood is the Adreno 505 GPU. The pyrolytic graphite sheet will help in heat management as well, Xiaomi claims. The Xiaomi Mi A1 has an IR blaster to control appliances in your home or office. The fingerprint sensor sits at the back of the device below the camera. Xiaomi has also included a dedicated headphone amplifier for better music listening experience.

    Powering the device is a 3080 mAh battery and 2A charging through the Type C port.

    Even though the phone has stock Android 7.1.2 Nougat, Xiaomi has retained a few apps, such as the Mi camera app since the Google Camera app doesn’t support dual-camera functions right now.

    The smartphone features dual sensors at the back, a 12MP telephoto lens with an f/2.2 aperture (26mm) and 12MP wide-angle lens with an f/2.6 aperture (50mm) setup with 1.25-micron pixel size. The telephoto lens allows the user to take bokeh effect shots with blurred background and a 2X optical lossless zoom. For landscape shots, Xiaomi has introduced a wide angle lens while on the front is a 5MP camera.

    At a price of Rs. 13999, there is a lot going on for the Xiaomi Mi A1 and with the holidays coming up, this might be the ideal smartphone for you to upgrade to.

    Watch our full review to know more-

  • Samsung Galaxy S9 To Launch With The Same Display As The S8 In A Smaller Size Shell

    Samsung Galaxy S9 To Launch With The Same Display As The S8 In A Smaller Size Shell

    The Samsung Galaxy S8 is the most successful smartphone of 2017. Rumours and leaks pertaining to the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S9 and its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S9+ have just started to pick up their pace. A new report from a Dutch outlet has revealed that the Samsung Galaxy S9 phones will have the same screen size as its predecessors but, in a smaller body.

    This report corroborates a previous leak that suggested that the upcoming Galaxy S9 devices will have a whopping 90% screen-to-body ratio. However, there have been rumours that the devices will sport a 21:9 aspect ratio display which, this new report quashes. It claims that the S9 and S9+ will have the same 18.5:9 aspect ratio with a smaller footprint.

    This claim seems legitimate as the two new devices are expected to be an incremental upgrade over its predecessors rather than drastic new phones with a host of new things to offer. The Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are expected to have a 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch Super AMOLED displays, respectively.

    It has been reported earlier that the upcoming flagship phones from Samsung might be unveiled at CES 2018. However, Samsung came out and said that it is ‘unlikely‘ to happen, which means that the S9 and S9+ may be unveiled either at MWC in February or at a separate event in March, just like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+.

     

  • Another Hint That Google Is Working On A Touch Enabled Google Home

    Another Hint That Google Is Working On A Touch Enabled Google Home

    A new job listing by Google spotted online suggests that the company is indeed working on a touchscreen Google Home. The job listing reads:

    In this role, you’ll work on the next generation of Google Hardware to enable the best multi-touch user experience.

    Google might be working on a multi-touch Google Home as a rival to Amazon’s Echo Show.  Multi-touch gestures could also find their way to speakers like the next revision of the Home and Home Max.

    Google has not had the best of times with its hardware this year. Back in October, its Google Home Mini speaker forced the company to permanently disable the touch sensor at the top of that device. That happened because of some bug, the Home Mini was recording everything around it even when no command was given. And while the decision to protect the customer privacy was the right one and to Google’s credit, it worked on the fix right away but, doing so crippled some of the Google Home Mini’s capabilities and appeal.

    Even Google’s Pixel phones have received a lot of flak for its under-performing hardware. It will be interesting to see Google’s approach to its products from now on and the integration of AI and machine learning in it upcoming smart devices.

  • New Samsung Patent Reveals A Different Foldable Phone Design

    New Samsung Patent Reveals A Different Foldable Phone Design

    As the smartphone industry moves toward a bezel-less era of phones, the fears of a stalemate in terms of design are slowly creeping up. Samsung, however, will soon launch a phone which might be the next big thing in the smartphone industry. The foldable Samsung Galaxy X is expected to be launched early in 2018. While there have been concepts and patent leaks which reveal a futuristic design for the Galaxy X, this new patent of a foldable phone from Samsung might not be an ideal design.

    According to the patent, when in an open position, the device looks like someone placed two similarly sized phones next to each other. The frame joining the two displays is made of metal, so it’s not part of the screen. The design is nowhere near the futuristic design that we expect from the Samsung Galaxy X and somewhat resembles the recently launched ZTE Axon M.

    ZTE Axon M

    While this patent is new, there have been previous leaks that reveal a more impressive design of the Samsung Galaxy X.

    A report from the South Korea Herald suggested that the production of the Galaxy X would be on 100,000 orders, making it an extremely limited edition device. If this happens, the Galaxy X would be the most difficult Galaxy phone to get your hands on.

    The foldable smartphone is being touted as the “next big innovation” in the smartphone industry, which has been stagnant for a while in terms of exciting innovations.

    Samsung is most likely to start small, with a smartphone that folds halfway like a wallet. Another design, in line with Samsung’s prototype unveiling, could see the phone unfold into a full-size tablet.

    Samsung is expected to launch the Samsung Galaxy X either with the Galaxy S9 phones or before them at CES 2018 in January.

  • Apple To Acquire Music Recognition Service Shazam

    Apple To Acquire Music Recognition Service Shazam

    A new report claims that Apple is nearing a deal to buy the song identification app, Shazam, which could be on announced on the 13th of December.

    One source describes the deal as in the nine figures; another puts it at around £300 million ($401 million). We are still asking around. Notably, though, the numbers we’ve heard are lower than the $1.02 billion (according to PitchBook) post-money valuation the company had in its last funding round, in 2015.

    Shazam was founded in 1999 and has long been one of the most popular song identification apps on all platforms. Shazam announced last year that it had reached one billion downloads on smartphones. But, only recently did it start seeing profitability by incorporating advertisements and tying up with music streaming apps such as Spotify and Apple Music. It essentially directs the traffic from its app to these music streaming services by providing streaming links to a recently identified song.

    It will be interesting to see how Apple implements Shazam into Apple Music and how it’ll affect the Spotify integration within the core Shazam app since Spotify is Apple’s biggest music streaming rival right now.

    Apple said in September that its music streaming service had more than 30 million subscribers, a rapid rise but still trailing industry leader Spotify which said it had 60 million paying users as of July and 80 million more on its free service.

     

  • New Leak Reveals The Fingerprint Sensor On Galaxy S9 Will Have A Better Placement

    New Leak Reveals The Fingerprint Sensor On Galaxy S9 Will Have A Better Placement

    While Samsung has had a financially successful year thanks to its hugely popular Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note8, the company has had to deal with a very consistent criticism. All the three flagship phones launched by Samsung in 2017 had an awkwardly placed fingerprint sensor which baffled critics and consumers alike. However, a new leak reveals that Samsung will change the position of the fingerprint sensor on the Samsung Galaxy S9, at least.

    The image was leaked on the Chinese social media website, Weibo. It is a screenshot of the demonstration of the heart rate sensor in S Health app. The screenshot also reveals a single camera setup on the supposed Galaxy S9. While a few publications believe it could be the Galaxy S9 Mini, previous reports have suggested that Galaxy S9 will have a single lens camera while the Galaxy S9+ will have a dual-camera setup at the back.

    From L to R – S Health app on Galaxy S9, Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note8 

    The positive sign here is that Samsung has listened to the multiple consumer complaints and tried to rectify it. While the authenticity of the leak can be questioned, with the launch of the Galaxy S9 just over two months away, it might as well be the Galaxy S9 which means the company will have one less criticism to face, if it nails the placement of the fingerprint sensor.

    This leak also corroborates with a previous report that suggested that the fingerprint sensor will be moved below the camera. Although that leak showed a dual-camera setup, it is sensible to believe that Samsung will change the position of the fingerprint sensor on both its new devices.

    The Samsung Galaxy S9 will be a revision to the popular Galaxy S8, with the new Snapdragon 845 chipset (in the US and South Korea) or the Exynos 9810 (rest of the world). While the screen size is expected to be the same on the Galaxy S9 and its bigger sibling, the Galaxy S9+, the bezels will be smaller which means the footprint of the phone will decrease while maintaining the same screen real estate.

    A report claims that the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will have a record-breaking 90% screen-to-body ratio!

  • LG G7 To Have An Enhanced Iris Scanner

    LG G7 To Have An Enhanced Iris Scanner

    The LG G7 is the next flagship smartphone that the company will launch early next year. A LG patent has been discovered which reveals that LG is preparing an advanced iris scanner that might arrive in time for the launch of the LG G7. The iris scanner is supposed to be secure enough to not just unlock the device but, also protect sensitive information such as bank account details to rival Apple’s Face ID.

    The iris scanner checks the biometric characteristics of the eye and sets up with a light screen and a dark screen, since the iris changes in size, depending on how much light gets to it. Then the sensor will check what are you looking at and if you are the owner of the phone, the sensitive app will be available for opening.

    Iris Scanners normally work with infrared light but, LG has developed a camera which can switch from infrared to a regular one. This means that there will be fewer sensors which will lead to a smaller bezel on top which means no more notch.

    There isn’t much know about the LG G7 except the fact that it will launch close to the Samsung Galaxy S9 which means that similar to 2017, it will be powered by a year old chip while the Galaxy S9 will have the new and improved Snapdragon 845 unless circumstances change in 2018.

     

  • Tesla Is Working On Its Custom AI Chips Says Elon Musk

    Tesla Is Working On Its Custom AI Chips Says Elon Musk

    AI is the next big thing in the tech world, and big companies like Apple and Google have embraced that. According to multiple reports, Tesla CEO Elon Musk was talking up the company’s custom AI chips at machine learning conference NIPS, telling attendees that Tesla is “developing specialized AI hardware that we think will be the best in the world.”

    According to The Register, Musk said, “I wanted to make it clear that Tesla is serious about AI, both on the software and hardware fronts. We are developing custom AI hardware chips”.

    This report corroborates another report from back in September which claimed that about 50 people in Tesla are working on a custom AI chip. These include respected industry veteran Jim Keller, who previously worked at AMD and Apple, and joined Tesla in January 2016 as vice president of Autopilot Hardware Engineering.

    Currently, the company uses Nvidia’s graphics cards to power its self-driving functionality but, with its own AI chip, it will be able to produce the main chip for its self-driving cars in-house. It would also mean improved performance since the company would be able to customise the chip according to its own usage.

    AI chips might Tesla to achieve its goal of full autonomy faster than one would have expected. At the same conference, Musk conceded his ambitious timeline of two years to get to Level 5 self-driving, that is the level at which humans can go to sleep in the back seat.

    These tweets from AI researcher Stephen Merity claim that Elon Musk predicts that AI might become exponentially smarter than humans in just five to ten years.

  • iPhone X Notch Will Come To Huawei P11 Suggest Leaks

    iPhone X Notch Will Come To Huawei P11 Suggest Leaks

    The notch on the iPhone X has divided opinions ever since it was unveiled back in September. Now, it appears that Huawei is ready to embrace the notch life as well with its next flagship phone. XDA Developers took a look at some firmware files acquired by FunkyHuawei and re-created an overlay image that was found in the files.

    The resulting image shows a cross-over of iPhone X’s and Essential Phone’s notch which will house the front-facing camera, sensors and ear-piece. This also might be the result of Huawei’s latest facial recognition technology, which it claims is better and faster than Apple’s Face ID.  back in 2016, Huawei launched the Honor Magic which had Face ID-like features long before Apple launched the iPhone X.

    It used the IR sensor in the phone to scan the face of the user and similar to what Face ID does now, it had a feature of displaying notifications on the lock screen only if the phone recognised the face. So, it is possible that Huawei has improved that technology and with AI being an integral part of Kirin 970 chipset, we might see a Face ID competitor very soon.

    The files also pointed to a certain level of inconsistency in the phone’s screen resolution. Even though a configuration file revealed that the phone will have a 6.01-inch 2160 x 1080 px LCD display, other files indicate the same-sized screen with a 2244 x 1080 px resolution. That discrepancy might have something to do with the notch, with the higher resolution probably reserved for apps that take advantage of that space.

    Notch on the iPhone X

    It is likely that the device in question is the Huawei P11. Recently, an advertisement leak revealed that an upcoming Huawei phone will have a triple-lens 40MP camera co-engineered by Leica.

    If this device is indeed the Huawei P11, then it might be launched at next year’s Mobile World Congress which will happen in late February.

  • Nvidia Titan V GPU Is Here And It Costs $2999

    Nvidia Titan V GPU Is Here And It Costs $2999

    Nvidia has announced the new Titav V GPU priced at US $2999. The company claims that the Titan V is “the most powerful PC GPU ever created.”

    The Titan V sells for $2,999 and is focused on AI and scientific simulation processing. Nvidia claims 110 teraflops of performance from its 21.1 billion transistors, with 12GB of HBM2 memory, 5120 CUDA cores, and 640 “tensor cores” that are said to offer up to 9x the deep-learning performance of its predecessor.

    Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement:

    Our vision for Volta was to push the outer limits of high performance computing and AI. We broke new ground with its new processor architecture, instructions, numerical formats, memory architecture and processor links. With Titan V, we are putting Volta into the hands of researchers and scientists all over the world. I can’t wait to see their breakthrough discoveries.

    Here are all the specs you need to know about the Titan V:

    Graphics Processing Clusters 6
    Streaming Processors 80
    CUDA Cores 5120
    Texture Units 320
    Base Clock 1200 MHz
    Boost Clock 1455 MHz
    Memory Clock 850 MHz
    L2 Cache Size 1.7 Gbps
    Total Video Memory 12288 MB HBM2
    Transistor Count 21.1 Billion
    Connectors 3 x Displayport, 1 x HDMI
    Form Factor Dual Slot

    With lots of big titles expected to be launched in 2018, this new GPU will add to the gamer rush. If you are willing to splash the cash, then you can buy the Titan V here.

  • Sony Bezel-Less Xperia Smartphones For 2018 Leaked

    Sony Bezel-Less Xperia Smartphones For 2018 Leaked

    Sony has followed a similar design language for all its flagship phones since the launch of the Xperia Z. There were reports that Sony was working on a smartphone with a tall display and thin bezels and new leaked images appear to shed some more light on the design of the phones.

    The leaked images show two phones with two different design aesthetics but, both with front-firing stereo speakers. It appears that stereo speakers are gaining popularity with the Pixel 2 and Razer Phone having front-firing stereo speakers as well. Of the two phones, one has a more recognisable Sony Xperia-like box shape while the other one has more rounded edges.

    The back of the phones is where it gets even more interesting. It appears that Sony will be re-imagining its whole smartphone lineup come 2018. At the back of the phones, the device with squared off edges has a mix of glossy and matte finish. The matte finish on the back forms two semi-circles at the top and the bottom while the middle area is covered with a glossy finish material. The two camera modules are oddly spread apart, which probably means one is just a depth sensor as this much spacing would result in much larger parallax for any other arrangement. It also appears that this phone will have a fingerprint sensor housed inside the lock button like previous Sony Xperia phones.

    The other phone has a more uniform matte finish at the back with a fingerprint sensor in the middle and a dual-camera setup at the top left corner. Both the phones are touted to have a 5.7-inch 18:9 4K displays. They’ll also be one of the first devices to have Snapdragon 845 and have 6GB of RAM and run Android 8.0 Oreo.

    The credibility of the leak can be questioned but, the bizarre design of the two phones almost validates the leak. It does seem questionable that the two phones will have the Snapdragon 845 chipset since Samsung will have early access to the chipset similar to last year. Sony might unveil the two devices at MWC 2018 but, that will mean that the devices will have to make do with the 2017 Snapdragon 835 chipset.

iGyaan Network
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.