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In 2016, Xiaomi grabbed a lot of eyeballs with its then-futuristic tri bezel-less design of the Mi Mix. in 2017, it followed that up with a more polished and flagship phone worthy Mi Mix 2 and it appears that the Mi Mix 3 which will launch in 2018 might have a different design altogether. A new leak has revealed that unlike the previous two iterations, the new Mi Mix 3 will have rounded corners and a dual-camera setup.
In the image above, the most noticeable aspect of the back panel is the vertically placed dual-camera setup. Unsurprisingly, it looks uncannily similar to the iPhone X. The fingerprint sensor cutout appears to be at its normal spot and the ‘Mix Design’ text also reinstates that this could indeed be the upcoming Xiaomi Mi Mix 3.
Mi Mix 2
This is not the first time that Xiaomi will opt for vertically placed dual cameras as it was previously found on the Mi 5s Plus as well. However, the design implementation on the Mi 5s Plus was completely different from what we see in this leaked image.
Mi Mix
It is still early days for the Mi Mix 3 rumours and this image might as well be a prototype of the Mi Mix 3.
Last week, it was reported that Apple was on the verge of acquiring of Shazam. On the 11th of December, Apple confirmed the acquisition of the popular music recognition app, Shazam. While neither of the concerned companies disclosed the value of the deal, a report by TechCrunch claims that the deal is worth US $400 million and that Snap and Spotify were potential buyers as well.
Acknowledging the acquisition, Apple said in a statement:
We are thrilled that Shazam and its talented team will be joining Apple. Since the launch of the App Store, Shazam has consistently ranked as one of the most popular apps for iOS. We have exciting plans in store, and we look forward to combining with Shazam upon approval of today’s agreement.
Shazam, one of the most popular music recognition app was launched back in 1999. Since then, the company has claimed that the Shazam app has been downloaded over 1 billion times and its users have used the app to recognise songs over 30 billion times. Shazam released a statement as well, seemingly confirming that the standalone Shazam app will continue functioning:
Shazam is one of the highest-rated apps in the world and loved by hundreds of millions of users and we can’t imagine a better home for Shazam to enable us to continue innovating and delivering magic for our users.
Shazam was one of the first few services that took advantage of AI and offered it to a broader audience. As Apple prepares to invest big in AI and make its AI assistant, Siri smarter than the competition, this acquisition might go a long way in doing so.
Google Assistant, of all the AI assistant, might be the smartest in terms of music as of now, but, with Shazam onboard Siri can definitely compete and even come out on top in the battle of AI assistants. Even some analysts believe that Shazam could add significant value not only with its own service but also by making Siri smarter about music.
Music is an important part of Apple’s business, particularly as the company prepares to launch its HomePod smart speaker. Slated for a late-2017 launch, the smart speaker will now be launched in early 2018. Apple Music, Apple’s subscription-based music streaming service has roughly 30 million subscribers which is not even a half of what its direct rival Spotify has. Spotify has 60 million paying users as of July and 80 million more on its free service.
Apple HomePod
Analysts are saying that this acquisition is similar to one that Spotify made in 2014 when it purchased a music intelligence firm called The Echo Nest. The Echo Nest creates technology that generates music recommendations which is one of the most important features of Spotify.
Apple’s entry into AI and now the acquisition of Shazam means that Apple is willing to take on Spotify for the number one spot. As of now, the Shazam app redirects users to either Apple Music or Spotify to listen to the recognised song but, that might change in a bit and that might lead to a potential user acquisition.
Harman International has announced the launch of its new smart speaker, the Harman Kardon Allure in India at a price of Rs. 22,490. The smart speaker will be available exclusively via to Amazon Prime members as of nowThe Alexa powered, Harman Kardon Allure can be controlled via voice commands, much like several other speakers in the market. i.e. Google Home, Amazon Echo etc.
The smart speaker lets you order pizza, play music, read the news, control your smart home appliances, make purchases from Amazon, and much more. Harman Kardon Allure features far-field voice technology which allows the speaker to hear commands even from a far distance. The speaker’s 360-degree ambient lighting that glows in tune with the music is a nifty little feature as well.
The Harman Kardon Allure was first launched at IFA 2017 in August at a price of US $249.95 (Rs. 16,000 approx.) and the Indian variant has all the same features as the global variant of the smart speaker.
Amazon Alexa was officially launched in India in October. The service brings a lot of India-specific skills from sectors like Travel, Food, Sports & Entertainment updates, News and Education, and Home Services and much more.
Key Features of Harman Kardon Allure
Amazon Alexa Voice Control
Dual-band WiFi
Far-field Voice Recognition
Built-in four microphones with advanced noise cancellation
Goa chief minister Mr Manohar Parrikar launched the country’s first ever mobile food testing laboratory. The vehicle, worth Rs 41 lakh was unveiled in Goa in the presence of the Goa Food and Drugs Administration minister Vishwajit Rane. Mr Parrikar said:
It is entirely funded by the Centre, which will also bear the maintenance cost for five years.
The laboratory, mounted on a bus will travel across the state and check food samples on the spot. Mr Parrikar said this would be the first ever ‘Food Safety on Wheel’ vehicle in the country. The laboratory will help in the on-the-spot testing of food items and curb adulteration. He continued:
Besides this, it will also educate people about nutrition and importance of safe food. The mobile lab will do away with the need to get the food samples to the FDA laboratory near Panaji for tests. It will cut the delays. As the time would be reduced, action can be initiated immediately, if the food samples are found unsatisfactory.
The laboratory, even though mobile, doesn’t slim out on the technology that it needs to function daily. The van comes fully equipped with gadgets such as a milk analyser, hot air oven, hot plate, mixer grinder, digital weighing scale, power generator, air conditioner, and more. It will be used to conduct tests for common adulterants in milk, water, edible oils and other food items, and make it possible to draw on-the-spot samples and generate instant reports of the analysis.
This is the first ever mobile food testing laboratory in India, and it might prompt the rest of country to launch more of such labs in the country to try and curb the problem of adulterated food.
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 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 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 two2.2GHz high-performance cores and six1.6GHz 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)
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.
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+.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Even if half of all new produced vehicles are autonomous, it's 2%/year that would be pushed to unemployed. @elonmusk thinks AGI is going to be an issue before self driving unemployment – thinks five to ten years before AGI beats humans generally. Insanely optimistic estimate O_o
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.
Instagram, one of the largest social media platforms in the world is testing a new standalone messaging app called Direct. Many are considering this the first step in removing the direct messaging service from the core Instagram app.
The app is available to download on Android and iOS in only six countries as of now-Chile, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Turkey, and Uruguay. Once the app is downloaded, it removes the direct messaging feature from the Instagram app. Similar to Snapchat, the Direct app also opens to the camera. This means that if and when Direct is made globally available, it will be the third popular messaging app under the Facebook umbrella, apart from Messenger and WhatsApp.
Hemal Shah, a product manager at Instagram told The Verge:
We want Instagram to be a place for all of your moments, and private sharing with close friends is an important part of that. Direct has grown within Instagram over the past four years, but we can make it even better if it stands on its own.
We can push the boundaries to create the fastest and most creative space for private sharing when Direct is a camera-first, standalone app.
This move sounds familiar because back in 2014, Facebook shut off messaging services inside the Facebook app, in turn forcing users to download another app for that purpose, Messenger. At that time, Mark Zuckerberg justified the decision by stating:
On mobile, each app can only focus on doing one thing wel. Asking folks to install another app is a short term painful thing, but if we wanted to focus on serving this [use case] well, we had to build a dedicated and focused experience.
It will be interesting to see how Instagram handles Direct, in that it might not be as necessary as Facebook Messenger was and probably is. One downfall here is that people will have to juggle between two apps in order to get full Instagram experience and while that may sound easy in new phones, it will be a different case for older phones.
