Mobile Devices - Page 78

Samsung is only a couple of months away from the launch of their new Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones, but we're getting drip-fed images through case renders of their new 2018 flagship smartphone.

The new Galaxy S9 will see a slightly redesigned rear, with the dual cameras on the Galaxy S9+ seeing the second camera placed under the first camera, compared to the side-by-side dual cameras on the Galaxy Note 8. The Galaxy S9 on the other hand will rock a single rear-facing camera, with both handsets seeing a repositioned rear fingerprint sensor.

Samsung should sell two different variants of the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ smartphones depending on the country their sold in, with their in-house next-gen Exynos processor powering some of the new handsets while Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon 845 will power the others.

Qualcomm is preparing their next-gen Snapdragon 845 processor that will power countless flagship smartphones in 2018, but we're already hearing news about the successor to Snapdragon 845, the upcoming Snapdragon 855.

According to PocketNow, Qualcomm could shift its weight away from Samsung for the Snapdragon 855 and ask TSMC to help with manufacturing their new chip. PocketNow reports that TSMC is rumored to "snatch orders from Samsung in 2018" and one of those would be Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 855.

We should expect Samsung's new 2018 flagship smartphones in the Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+ and even the Galaxy Note 9 to all be powered by the AI-driven, super-fast Snapdragon 845. But in 2019, I would suspect Qualcomm will unleash their next-gen Snapdragon 855 with the Galaxy S10 (I'm guessing there'll be a nomenclature change by then) and the Galaxy Note 10 (sounds like a boss).

Now that mobile phones have become a necessity in everyday life and a very large amount of the population carry the device, a common thought across peoples minds is the breaking of your precious phone screen and the annoyance of having to go and get it replaced. Luckily, we are making advancements in phone screen technology to prevent the breaking from occurring in the first place as well as now a much more possible solution, self-regenerative phone screens.

Researchers in Tokyo have discovered a new polymer that will be able to do just this and will be the future of self-healing phone screens. Professor Takuzo from the University of Tokyo published a study in Science called "Mechanically robust, readily repairable polymers via tailored non-covalent cross-linking," this new glass is called "polyether-thioureas" and will be able to heal itself with only the pressure from our hands.

This special glass was actually found by accident by a graduate student named Yu Yanagisawa, Yanagisawa thought that the material was going to turn to a glue like paste but was shocked at the discovery of the individual shard of glass reforming with each-other at just 21 degrees Celsius, hand temperature.

If there's one thing I took away from Qualcomm's tight relationship with Microsoft and their new Snapdragon-powered Windows 10-based PCs, it's that I can smell a Snapdragon 845-powered Surface Phone.

The latest rumor on the Surface Phone comes from Microsoft filing a new patent that simply teases a 'Hinged Design', which would see a hinge alongside the camera setup. There are two hinge types: magnetic and mechanical, with the latest patent talking about dual screens - which if done right, could be a game-changer.

It seems as though Microsoft is experimenting with prototype Surface Pro smartphones with dual OLED displays according to the new patent, and follows through with the future that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella saying he wanted the company to make their products stand out and not be market followers. This would be a big, big way to do that.

According to a report on Android Police, Google is rolling out an update on the Pixel, Nexus and Android One devices that will make the standard dial app feature an easily accessible video chat option - Google Duo.

Android Police are saying that when users decide to use the video chat option within the standard dial app the Duo app will open, which in turn activates the phones camera.

The video chat is counted as a standard phone call meaning that once the connection is disconnected from either hanging up or losing service the video chat will end. Resulting in two data entries that will appear in the phones call log - one for the video chat and another for the initial phone call.

If you've been using your Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ for the last few weeks and wondered when the new Android 8.0 'Oreo' operating system will hit your device, the answer is you won't be waiting too much longer.

Samsung will be pushing out Android 8.0 updates to both the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in late January, meaning we have just six more weeks to wait. The news is coming directly from a Samsung Beta community admin in the UK, who said the official Oreo update will hit the Galaxy S8/S8+ "end of Jan or maybe early Feb if we have more issues".

We should expect a late-January release considering Mobile World Congress 2018 kicks off in late-February, where we should be introduced to the new Galaxy S9 which is meant to rock Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 845 (at least in some markets). Not only that, but it will possibly be the fastest-charging smartphone in the world courtesy of Quick Charge 4 technology found inside Snapdragon 845.

Qualcomm unveiled their super-fast Quick Charge 4+ technology alongside their announcement of the Snapdragon 845 in Hawaii last week as part of their annual Snapdragon Technology Summit, and it looks like Samsung's next-gen Galaxy S9 could be the first out of the game with the super-fast charging technology.

Snapdragon 845 will support Quick Charge 4+ which will see Samsung's new Galaxy S9, or at least the Snapdragon 845-powered versions, with super-fast charging. Samsung will also make in-house Exynos-powered Galaxy S9 smartphones, which will not support Quick Charge 4+ technology.

Quick Charge 4 will charge smartphones up to 15% faster, while being 30% more efficient and keeping the Snapdragon 845-powered smartphones up to 3C cooler at the same time.

Apple has shared reports on their App Store support page showing statistics of their of their current devices and the percentages of which devices are using specific operating systems. According to the statistics shown 59% of Apples devices are currently using the new iOS 11, this is an increase of 7 percent from last months calculations of 52%.

This adoption of iOS 11 has been slower than that of iOS 10, according to Apple's official App Store statistics iOS 10 was adopted much quicker after its release with 54% of users downloading the update. This 2% decrease in installation despite Apple's efforts to update iOS 11 with focus of solving bug fixes that are throughout iOS have not caused a increase in installation rates.

Keep in mind though, Apple have just released their new software for iOS 11.2, Apple Pay Cash was suppose to be rolled out to devices over the course of the weekend but instead the update was released early to fix a bug that caused it to crash. Now that bug has been fixed by Apple may see a increase in users updating to the new iOS 11.2 update as more and more people adopt the new Apple Pay Cash system.

Google has now moved its focus to the 'entry-level' smart-phone market by accompanying it's release of Andriod 8.1 with Andriod Oreo, the new OS that Google will be rolling out to those who cannot afford higher-end smart-phones. The operating system is targeted for those that use pre-paid plans, phones such as the Samsung Galaxy J3, Motorola MOTO G and any phone under the $400 mark.

This move by Google is mainly to hit the Indian market as the company has their focus on supplying the 'billions' of people that don't have a smart-phone yet. Google is also releasing new 'GO' apps that are specifically designed to lessen data usage and use 50% less storage than the full-sized siblings.

The apps that are included in this specific 'GO' format include: YouTube Go, Google Maps Go, Gmail Go and Files Go. These GO versions, according to Google have the potential to save 600MB of Internet data per year, that might not sound like a lot to Western society but this feature could save a lot of entry-level smart-phone users from capping their pre-paid plans early.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2017 - Qualcomm used the morning of day two of its Snapdragon Technology Summit to announce and detail their next generation Snapdragon 845.

Inside, the new Snapdragon 845 features eight CPU cores and a refreshed Adreno 630 graphics processor that is joined by Qualcomm's impressive Spectra 280 image signal processor (ISP). The new Spectra 280 ISP will allow for "Ultra HD premium" video capture, at up to 4K 60FPS.

Qualcomm spent a considerable chunk of time talking about XR (extended reality) and AI (artificial intelligence) as the new Snapdragon 845 is the most feature-packed chips on the planet - and that's even with Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA in the market.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2017 - Qualcomm had one surprise after another today, but one of the standouts was having AMD Corporate VP and GM for Client Computing, Kevin Lensing, on stage announcing a large collaboration between AMD and Qualcomm.

As some of you might know, AMD is set to release their Mobile Ryzen with Vega graphics in the New Year, and took the opportunity during Qualcomm's Snapdragon Tech Summit to surprise us with the announcement of AMD using the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem on their new APU.

This means we'll have the worlds of the Ryzen CPU architecture, Vega GPU architecture, and Qualcomm's industry-leading Snapdragon X16 LTE technology all on a single design.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2017 - Qualcomm changed the technology world today with the announcement and product unveiling of Snapdragon 835-powered Windows 10-based notebooks, but the company also took a few minutes out of its day announcing their next-gen Snapdragon 845 processor.

Qualcomm didn't spend much time covering the Snapdragon 845 but we should expect the company to partner up with Xiaomi since they had the company founder and CEO, Lei Jun, on-stage today at the Snapdragon Tech Summit here in Maui, Hawaii.

The new Snapdragon 845 will be maed on the 10nm process, with the inclusion of the super-fast X20 LTE modem which is capable of gigabit speeds on the right network. We should hear more information on Snapdragon 845 as the conference continues, so I'll update this post when I can.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit 2017 - Qualcomm flew out over 300 tech press and analysts to the beautiful island of Maui in Hawaii for their annual Snapdragon Technology Summit where this year they've put their foot down firmly onto the ground that has always been dominated by Intel.

Until now, Intel had an undeniably strong Superman-like grip on the laptop market but had always suffered from mediocre battery life and virtually no mobile connectivity apart from Wi-Fi and the handful of laptops with 4G access.

That all changes today with the introduction of always-on, always-connected PC powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon technology, and Windows 10.

Google has silently updated all of their Google Home devices this week, giving Google Assistant the ability to be able to perform multiple tasks on-the-fly. Originally a single minded device only capable of performing and completing one mission at a time now has the ability of simultaneously completing two.

Google has promised the adding of Routines to Google Home, Routines is the creation of predetermined voice commands that cause the device to perform a select amount of actions once heard. This new update from Google allows for two of those actions to be completed on-the-fly without having to pre-load the device.

Unfortunately, Google Home can't take on board more than two commands at once and also won't understand two tasks said in the same sentence, this means that the tasks have to be said separately in order for the device to correctly understand them. This is quite a downside but then again could provide a much more handier experience than pre-loading voice commands to your device.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has had quite an increase in net worth over the course of the Black Friday sales, mixed in with Alexa sales taking off, Amazon have now added a subscription fee for Alexa's in-skill purchases.

In-skill purchases is the app store of voice commands for your Alexa device, allowing for third-party developers to contribute to the new platform is setting the foundations for a future mainstream adoption into voice commanded devices.

Games that will be featured on the new subscription side of Alexa will be Match Game, Heads Up and a trivia game from the History Channel. These in-skill purchases and the subscription are currently both in preview and will be made available to a larger number of people sometime next year.

Samsung is expected to unveil its next-gen Galaxy S9 smartphone sometime in early 2018, but what SoC will it be powered with? The company usually goes with its usual one-two punch of outsourcing to Qualcomm for their Snapdragon line of chips, while using their own in-house Exynos processor for different markets.

But according to the latest rumors, Qualcomm will be providing their Snapdragon 845 processor on the 10nm FinFET LPE node while the Exynos 9810 powered model will be made on the better 10nm LPP process. The difference between LPE and LPP nodes? Around 10% performance, and 15% better power efficiency, which when we're talking about smartphones - is a lot.

The additional performance and savings in battery life will be great, especially for those shooting 4K 60FPS video or smartphone users who are multi-tasking constantly. We will have to wait and see what Samsung does, and what SoC that Qualcomm provides in early 2018.

It won't just be Samsung with a foldable phone out on the market, and while the South Korean giant might be first, a foldable smartphone will only be real once Apple does it. Right?

Apple has filed a new application for a US patent on a foldable electric device with a flexible display, but the application does state that the device could be a "may be a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a cellular telephone, a wristwatch, or other electronic device". I don't see foldable laptop screens or a tablet being worthy just yet, but a foldable iPhone makes sense.

Remember that Apple hasn't received the patent, and it could be years and years before anything comes from it.

Google built a special next-gen photography chip that laid dormant inside of the new Pixel 2 smartphone, something that has just been activated for the first time ever in the new developer preview of Android 8.1.

The secret photography chip inside of Pixel 2 is called Pixel Visual Core, and is the first processor designed by Google in-house, with the search giant also having some help from Intel. The 8-core processor speeds up the software side of photography, providing Pixel 2 owners with impressive HDR+ processing and other AI-powered tasks.

Google says that the Pixel Visual Core inside of Pixel 2 is capable of being "five times faster" handling HDR+ photos then traditional processors, like the Snapdragon 835 from Qualcomm - the SoC inside of Pixel 2. Third-party developers will be able to tap into the Visual Pixel Core, meaning apps like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat could be updated to handle the additional camera horsepower and abilities.

Samsung had quite the troll with its ad that stabbed directly into Apple's iEye (geddit?!) but now Motorola wants to get in on the trolling fun with its new 'Up-upgrade to Motorola' ad that is very, very similar to the one Samsung released.

It's an alternate ending to the Samsung troll, with the long-time iPhone user upgrading to the Galaxy Note 8 to come home to his partner using Motorola's new Moto Z2 Play smartphone. Motorola offers an accessory that provides the Moto Z2 Play with a built-in projector, because we all know how much we'd use that (answer: not much).

Motorola doesn't even mention its competitors in the ad which is smart, but I have to think: who would buy the Moto Z2 Play over a Galaxy Note 8 or iPhone X?

According to VentureBeat, Samsung is set to give an early sneak peek at their newest installment into the Galaxy series, reports saying that we will see not only the Galaxy S9 but also the S9+ revealed at CES 2018 in early-January.

The report was written by Evan "@evleaks" Blass, the notorious leaker that now writes for VentureBeat, who said he talked to "someone briefed on the company's plans" and explains that Galaxy S9 and S9+ are Codenamed Star 1 and Star 2 and go by model numbers SM-G960 and SM-G965.

The Galaxy S9 and S9+ will feature a 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch curved Super AMOLED panels, just like their predecessors. The difference though is the Galaxy S9 and S9+ will not be like the near-identical nature of the S8 and S8+ which shared everything but the display size. Instead, the S9+ will be featuring more RAM (6GB vs 4GB) and also a second rear camera just like the Note 8.