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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.

December 9, 2017
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.

December 9, 2017
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!

December 9, 2017
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.

December 8, 2017
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.

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

— Smerity (@Smerity) December 8, 2017

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.

December 8, 2017
Instagram Is Testing A Standalone Messaging App Called Direct

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.

December 8, 2017
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.

December 8, 2017

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.

December 8, 2017

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.

December 8, 2017
YouTube To Launch Music Subscription Service In 2018

YouTube is planning to launch a music streaming service in March next year.

Record label Warner Music Group has already signed up while Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Merlin, a consortium of independent labels, are in talks with YouTube as well. According to the report, the service is internally called Remix as of now and it will be interesting if that turns out to be the official name as well.

YouTube hired former Warner Music executive Lyor Cohen last year to help oversee its music operations and serve as a liaison to the record business. Google folded much of the staff for Google Play Music into YouTube earlier this year, and Cohen announced plans to create a new paid service.

The new service could help appease record-industry executives who have pushed for more revenue from YouTube. Warner Music Group, one of the world’s three major record labels, has already signed on, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private talks.

The new service would include Spotify-like on-demand streaming and would incorporate elements from YouTube, such as video clips. YouTube has also reached out to artists to seek their help in promoting the new service.

December 8, 2017
LG Signature Is A US $1800 Smartphone

If you are someone who believed in luxury over practicality, then the new LG Signature might be right up your alley. To only be sold in South Korea most will consider this a limited edition smartphone.

The LG Signature Edition has a shell made of Zirconium Ceramic, which the company claims won’t scratch over time. Only 300 of the LG Signature will be made and cost about 2 million won (US $1800 approx.) which is almost double the price of the 64GB variant of the iPhone X.

Barring the Zirconium Ceramic, what you’re paying for is the LG V30, LG’s new flagship which was unveiled back in August. Interestingly, the LG V30+ is scheduled to be launched in India on the 13th of December. Apart from the premium material used to make the LG Signature, there is no other difference between this and the LG V30. However, while the LG V30 ships with a pair of wired B&O earphones, the LG Signature will ship with a pair of wireless and wired B&O earphones. The LG V30 retails for US $799 which means you basically pay a thousand dollars more for a premium material and a pair of B&O wireless earphones.

To learn more about the specifications of the LG V30, you can read the entire story here.

December 8, 2017
Huawei Nova 2s Launched

Huawei has launched the new Huawei Nova 2s at an event in China. The Huawei Nova 2s will be available in two variants, 4GB RAM variant at CNY 2,699 (roughly Rs. 26,300) and 6GB RAM variant at CNY 2,999 (Rs. 29,300). Huawei has also released a special edition ‘Yixing Zhang’ variant of the phone priced at CNY 3,399 (roughly Rs. 33,100).

The Huawei Nova 2s has a 6-inch display with a 2160 x 1080 px display which translates to an 18:9 aspect ratio and a 402ppi.

Under the hood, the Huawei Nova 2s has the HiSilicon Kirin 960 chipset, Mali-G71 MP8 GPU, 4GB or 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of onboard storage which will be expandable via microSD card. Despite the thin bezels, there is a front-facing home button which also houses a fingerprint sensor, similar to the Honor V10 which was launched on the 5th of December.

Powering the device is a 3340 mAh battery which charges via a USB Type C port.

The Huawei Nova 2s runs Android 8.0 Oreo with Huawei’s custom EMUI 8.0 on top.

The Huawei Nova 2s has a dual camera setup at the back with a 16MP RGB sensor with an f/1.8 aperture and a 20MP monochrome sensor with a 120-degree wide-angle lens and an f/1.8 aperture. On the front, the Nova 2s had a wide-angle 20MP lens and a 2MP camera for portrait selfies.

You may also like: Honor Launches The Honor View10 At A Price Of 499 Euros

Huawei’s sub-brand Honor launched two new phones on the 5th of December, the Honor 7X and Honor View10. While the Honor 7X went on sale in India today, the View10 will go on sale in India in January of 2018. Both the phones offer an 18:9 aspect ratio display with thin bezels and dual camera setup at the back.

You may also like: Honor 7X Launched In India At A Price Of Rs. 12999

There is no word on the device’s availability in other markets such as India.

December 7, 2017
Some iPhone Variants In 2018 To Miss Out On Wireless Charging

In November, Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities indicated that Apple would unveil a new 6.1-inch iPhone next year with the iPhone X design, but a traditional LCD display instead of OLED. A new report from Nikkei claims that the LCD iPhone will feature a metal back similar to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

The 6.1-inch LCD model will likely sport a metal back [like older iPhone handsets] that will come in several colors, and that the two OLED handsets will come in two sizes: one either 6.2 or 6.3 inches long, and the other 5.8 inches.

A move back to a metal body will mean that the new iPhone might be available in a few more colour options than the iPhone 8 or iPhone X. It’s believed that it’s harder for Apple to produce additional colour options in the glass back design, hence why this year’s phones are available in fewer colour variants than last year’s.

The iPhone 7 came in five different colour options-Rose Gold, Gold, Silver, Jet Black, and Matte Black. Meanwhile, the iPhone X only comes in Silver or Space Gray and the iPhone 8 in Silver, Space Gray, and Gold.

It has barely been over 2 months since the iPhone 8 and iPhone X were launched and we already have multiple reports of what the iPhones launching in September of 2018 will look like. It is too early to call anything as of now but, we will keep you posted on all new developments.

December 7, 2017
OnePlus And Project Treble Explained

Android phones apart from Pixel and Nexus devices have been known to receive slow software updates over the years. OnePlus recently conceded that its devices do not support Project Treble. Here is the reason:

Partitions were not required for Android N and previous versions of Android, all of our current devices do not feature a partition. According to our tests, if we were to modify the partition layout via OTA there is a risk that devices will brick during the partitioning.

The reason appears to be valid as the company decided to weigh the pros and cons of this major change and then decided against it. Even without Project Treble, OnePlus believes that it can still quickly and efficiently release Android updates. The good news for some, however, is that most, if not all, OnePlus devices in 2018 should support Project Treble by shipping with Android Oreo and the new partition scheme.

Project Treble is Google’s effort at reducing the time it takes for OEMs to receive the new OS and optimise it for its devices and then push out the update. A few months ago, Android received a new Vendor Interface, which is largely what Project Treble is about. The VI’s aim is to separate the “Vendor Implementation” (that is, “the device-specific, lower-level software written in large part by the silicon manufacturers”), from the Android OS framework.

The new VI is supposed to sit between the Android OS framework and Vendor Implementation. And the new VI will be validated by a Vendor Test Suite (VTS), which is analogous to the Compatibility Test Suite (CTS) that Google has been using for API testing of apps. The VTS ensures forward-compatibility of the VI.

What all of this means is that if a phone supports Project treble, it is more likely to receive fast software updates as compared to other smartphones that don’t.

December 7, 2017
Samsung Galaxy S9 Will Not Launch At CES 2018

Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ have long been rumoured to be unveiled at CES 2018 in late-January of 2018. All these rumours might amount to nothing as Samsung has said that unveiling the new flagship phones at CES seems ‘unlikely’. This also means that instead of the Galaxy S9 and S9+, the South Korean tech giant might unveil its foldable Galaxy X at CES.

That leaves two separate occasions for the Galaxy S9 and S9+ might be unveiled. It could either be in February during the Mobile World Congress (like the Galaxy S5, S6, and S7) or at a dedicated event in March, like the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

There have been multiple reports chronicling the specifications and new features of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus.

The display size of both the phones will be identical to their 2017 counterparts with the Galaxy S9 sporting a 5.8-inch Super AMOLED display while the Galaxy S9+ will have a 6.2-inch display. The bezels will be thinner than the previous generation devices with the infamous curved edges and “Infinity Display.” It is also reported that the Galaxy S9 series will have a 90% screen-to-body ratio.

Unlike 2017, where there were barely any differentiating factors between the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, Samsung is planning something different for 2018. It appears that the Galaxy S9 will have a single camera at the back while the Galaxy S9+ will have a dual camera setup at the back.

Samsung is developing a new software to make facial recognition on the Galaxy S9 faster than the Galaxy S8. However, Samsung is planning to introduce a host of software tweaks to reduce the delay in recognising the face and scanning the iris of users. Contrary to popular belief and some reports, the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will not have a screen-embedded fingerprint sensor.

Recently, the Snapdragon 845 chipset was unveiled and the Galaxy S9 series will be the first of the many smartphones which will be powered by the new flagship chipset.

As far as pricing is concerned, it won’t be a surprise if the Galaxy S9+ surpasses the Galaxy Note8 price and touch the thousand dollar mark, similar to the iPhone X. The Samsung Galaxy S9 is expected to be priced similarly to the Galaxy S8+.

December 7, 2017