TechShik - Android, iOS, Windows, Mac all tips, tricks, tutorials and tech news

Jolla launches Sailfish OS 3 new device support at MWC 2018

2018-02-27T01:14:00.000+05:30

Finnish company Jolla has just launched its third-generation operating system, Sailfish OS 3 on day one of MWC 2018 conference in Barcelona, Spain. The independent mobile operating system this time focuses on 4G phones.

“For Sailfish 3 Jolla is providing full support for regional infrastructures including steady releases & OS upgrades, services to establish independent R&D centers, local hosting, training, and a flexible feature set to support specific customer needs. Sailfish 3 will also have extended security features and options, taking the level of independence to the next level and making it a solid option for various corporate solutions,” says the firm.

The new operating system is said to start rolling out in phases during Q3 this year for all licensees and customers.

As for the devices, Jolla has announced that its Sailfish OS is now supported on over a dozen handsets and devices including feature phones, wearables, tablets and corporate solutions.
The Sailfish OS also comes with support for Sony's Xperia XA2. “In collaboration with Sony Open Device Program, Jolla will make Sailfish OS available for the Xperia XA2. Through the Sailfish X program interested tech heads can purchase an official Sailfish X license and install the OS on their brand new Sony's Xperia XA2 devices.”

Gemini PDA, a crowdfunded mobile device will also be getting the support for the Sailfish OS. A tablet coming from a Russian brand INOI is also added in the Sailfish OS portfolio. The tablet comes in two variants based on 8-inch and 10-inch screen sizes.

As for the 4G phones, Sami Pienimäki, CEO of Jolla says that “What sets Sailfish OS apart from its competitors in the feature phone segment is the capability to do low-spec hardware configurations and still run selected Android apps thanks to our unique solution. Sailfish OS is also VoLTE capable, which is coming increasingly important for the new era of this segment.”

Sony Xperia XZ2, Xperia XZ2 Compact with New Design, Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Launched

2018-02-27T01:10:00.002+05:30

Sony has once again revived its Xperia smartphone line up with two new models – Xperia XZ2 and the Xperia XZ2 Compact. The duo brings an element of freshness in the design aspect, unlike the previous models that were an upgrade to the base design that came out few years ago. Now, the fingerprint sensor is placed at the back instead on the side, embedded over the power button. The block-shaped design has been replaced with a slightly curved-shaped one.

Sony Xperia XZ2, Xperia XZ2 Compact availability

The Japanese multinational has not yet revealed the price of the smartphones but has confirmed when users can first see the device on the market. Sony says the Sony Xperia XZ2 and Xperia XZ2 Compact will be available in select countries starting March this year. India price and availability details are not yet known.
Sony Xperia XZ2, Xperia XZ2 Compact specifications

Running Android 8.0 Oreo out-of-the-box, the Sony Xperia XZ2 and Xperia XZ2 Compact differ from each other in terms of battery and screen size. Everything else stays the same.
Both run the latest chipset in the market, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor clubbed with 4GB RAM. The IP68-rated devices include 64GB inbuilt storage, which can be expanded with a microSD card by up to 400GB.

The cameras are one of the highlighted features of the two smartphones. Sony claims the handsets as the first in the world to sport 4K HDR Movie recording. While the previous flagship smartphones brought 960fps slow motion recording in HD resolution, with the new smartphones 960fps can be shot at full HD resolution as well.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Galaxy S9+ pre-bookings start in India at Rs 2000

2018-02-27T01:07:00.001+05:30

South Korean tech giant Samsung has launched the flagship smartphones of 2018, the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, ahead of the Mobile World Congress 2018 (MWC) conference at Barcelona, Spain.

At the time of the launch, the company had said that the device will be available in select markets starting March 16. Even though these markets weren't specified, it seems India is among these markets as the duo are already available for pre-booking on the Samsung e-store as well as on the select Samsung stores, just one day after the launch.

Interested users can book the device by making an initial payment of Rs 2,000. This will then be adjusted in the full payment of the device. Once the interested users pre-book the device, they will receive a notification via SMS/email, post which they will get to know the information about the balance amount and the dates by when they will be required to make the said balance payment. In case the users change their mind about the purchase of the device, and do not complete the pre-booking, they will automatically receive this Rs 2,000 within 7 working days after the closure of pre-book period.

The pre-booking is applicable on both the Galaxy S9 and S9+ for both 64GB and 256GB storage variants. All three colour options of Lilac Purple, Midnight Black and Coral Blue are available on the Samsung e-store for pre-booking. There’s another colour variant – Titanium Grey – which doesn’t seem to be available for pre-order at the moment.

In the US, the Galaxy S9 is selling at $720 (approximately Rs 46,700) and the Galaxy S9+ costs $840 (roughly Rs 55,000).

The highlight of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ is an enhanced camera experience, as well as support for AR Emoji and Bixby among other features.

The Galaxy S9 sports a 12MP Super Speed Dual Pixel camera with autofocus sensor and OIS. The smartphone’s camera has a new dual aperture lens that is said to automatically shift from F1.5 to F2.4 based on the lighting conditions. The Galaxy S9+ has an additional 12MP rear telephoto camera lens with f/2.4 aperture. At the front, you get an 8MP sensor with f/1.7 aperture.

LG V30S ThinQ, V30S+ ThinQ with AI-integration launched at MWC 2018

2018-02-27T01:03:00.000+05:30

Few days ago LG, in its typical fashion, announced a new LG V30 variant that came with more AI abilities before the MWC 2018 launch. Although the company did not reveal the specifications and the official name of the smartphone, it has done so now. A day before the onset of MWC 2018 LG has launched its LG V30S ThinQ and V30S+ ThinQ smartphones.

These smartphones heavily focus on the artificial intelligence abilities for the device’s camera and voice commands. The price and launch details are not yet out though. The difference between the LG V30S ThinQ and the V30S+ ThinQ lie in their inbuilt storage. Everything else stays nearly the same as the last year’s LG V30 smartphone.

Vision AI

LG V30S ThinQ and V30S+ ThinQ come with ‘Vision AI’ that claims to enhance the camera experience. It brings some new camera modes onboard like AI CAM, QLens and Bright Mode. AI CAM is said to analyze subjects in the frame and recommends the best possible shooting mode across eight categories - portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise, and sunset. The result comes as the AI takes into account several factors such as the viewing angle, colour, reflections, lighting, and saturation level.
QLens uses the AI capabilities to scan QR codes, improving the shopping experience to a certain level. It also includes image search for easy search online.
The Bright mode, as the name suggests, improves the low light shooting ability by measuring the ambient light and brightening images by a factor of two.

Voice AI

The Voice AI in LG V30S ThinQ and V30S+ ThinQ lets you run several apps using voice commands. LG says that it has worked with Google to bring 32-exclusive Voice AI commands only for LG devices. You can simply say ‘Ok Google’ followed by commands like ‘take a picture on a wide angle’ or ‘open camera in Cine video’ and more.

LG has even promised to bring these AI abilities to ‘certain’ smartphones as an OTA update in future. The update will reach smartphones that have capable hardware and other factors.
LG V30S ThinQ, V30S+ ThinQ specifications

The LG V30S ThinQ runs Android 8.0 Oreo (UX 6.0+) out-of-the-box and has a 6-inch QHD+ (2880 x 1440 pixels) resolution FullVision display with 18:9 aspect ratio. Powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, the smartphones will boast of 6GB RAM. While the V30S ThinQ will include 128GB storage, the V30S+ ThinQ will have 256GB storage. Both however, support microSD card up to 2TB.
At the back you get a 16MP standard angle camera with f/1.6 aperture along with a 13MP wide angle (120-degree) camera with f/1.9 aperture. At the front there is a 5MP wide angle (90-degree) camera with f/2.2 aperture.

Backed by a 3000mAh battery, the LG V30S ThinQ and V30S+ ThinQ will come in two new colours - Moroccan Blue and Platinum Gray. They are IP68 certified, which makes them dust and water resistant.
Some of the other features included are 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC support, HDR10 support, Google Daydream, fingerprint sensor and Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 Technology. Wireless charging is also supported.

Apple iPhone X next-gen may sport a different design

2018-02-27T00:58:00.001+05:30

It has been hardly four months since the arrival of the Apple iPhone X and analysts have already started making claims on its upcoming version this year. While KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has already predicted some changes, a new report from Barclay’s analysts talks about the change that we may see in the upcoming smartphones ‘notch’.

According to the analysts Andrew Gardiner, Hiral Patel, Joseph Wolf, and Blayne Curtis (via MacRumors), the upcoming Apple iPhone X’s TrueDepth system may ‘evolve slightly’. The upgraded component may result in the 2018 smartphones to feature a ‘smaller notch’. Like last year, Apple is expected to introduce three models this year as well. The list includes the next-gen iPhone X, a larger iPhone X and a 6.1-inch LCD model.

“We do expect the sensor to evolve slightly, potentially reducing in size (i.e., smaller notch) and improving in specificity […] helping to further drive very strong growth [for some Apple suppliers] in 2H18 as the second generation of sensor ships in this year's new iPhones,” said the analysts.

On the other hand, some rumours contradict the claims made by Barclay’s analysts. It is being said that since Apple doesn’t want the delay it faced with the iPhone X last year, it may refrain itself from trying something new and may go ahead with the same set of components, keeping the size and the look of the notch the same.

Barclay’s analysts also predict that Apple is working hard on a rear-facing TrueDepth camera for the future iPhone devices. It is not for sure if this year’s handsets will sport this particular feature or not. The tech is said to arrive in 2019.

“Our discussions with suppliers suggests Apple and its partners are working hard on a world-facing solution, but development is ongoing and with over 18 months to go until the 2019 iPhone cycle, not all is yet determined,” they said.

Dating app helping couples cheat on each other

2018-02-27T00:54:00.001+05:30

The popular dating app Tinder, which is supposed to help people form new relationships, is increasingly helping youngsters cheat on their romantic partners, a study claims.

However, the app also makes it easier to catch cheaters, researchers said. Scientists from the Texas Tech University in the US showed that a significant number of college students are using Tinder to meet what they called ‘extradyadic partners’ — that is, a partner outside of and in addition to the partner in a committed, romantic relationship.

“A couple of years ago, one of my students shared the story that she had come across a friend’s boyfriend on Tinder, and she was not sure whether she should tell her friend,” said Dana Weiser, an assistant professor at Texas Tech. “So, although Tinder may make it easy to meet potential partners, the potential for exposure may be high,” Weiser said.

Among the 550 students who participated in the study, 12.5% had spent time with someone they met on Tinder, 17.1% had messaged someone on Tinder, 8.9% had been physically intimate and 7.2% reported having sexual relations with someone they met on Tinder while in an exclusive relationship.
“We know infidelity is quite common among college-aged adults as they grow and learn about relationships, not to mention there is quite a bit of opportunity,” Weiser said. “Our results suggest Tinder may be one way college students meet extradyadic partners,” he said.

Ironically, although the numbers show college students are using Tinder to find partners outside their relationships, many s said they were not sure Tinder was a good way to do so.

Vodafone mobile data to be deployed to fight epidemics in Ghana

2018-02-27T00:51:00.001+05:30

Mobile data will be used in Ghana to track and control epidemics, helping prevent a repeat of the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, in a pioneering programme announced by Vodafone Foundation on Monday.

The initiative will use aggregated anonymised mobile data to track real-time trends in population movement, the charitable arm of the British mobile operator said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The level of activity at each mobile phone mast will provide a heat map of where people are and how far they are moving during an outbreak, while the data gathered will be used for decision-making in a number of areas - including health, agriculture and transportation, it said.

Vodafone Group External Affairs Director Joakim Reiter said the company would use its mobile technology and data to measure human mobility and model how infections spread.
"This has the potential to save thousands of lives," Reiter said.

The programme, which will launch later this year, will be funded by the Vodafone Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Vodafone Foundation said.

MediaTek launches Helio P60 with dual 4G VoLTE, AI capabilities

2018-02-27T00:47:00.001+05:30

Chipmaker MediaTek on Monday unveiled Helio P60 system-on-chip (SoC) with dual 4G VoLTE and the company's "NeuroPilot" Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology at the ongoing Mobile World Congress 2018 (MWC) here.

It is the first chipset platform featuring a multi-core AI processing unit and will enable device makers to bring to market smarter, more capable mid-range smartphones.
"Building on our legacy of innovative technology, the new MediaTek Helio P60 changes everything about what consumers can expect in a smartphone," TL Lee, General Manager, MediaTek Wireless Communication Business, said in a statement.

Helio P60 also packs a 4G LTE WorldMode modem and TAS 2.0 smart antenna technology to give users seamless global connectivity.

"Packing big core power and performance with a processing unit purpose-built for AI applications, MediaTek Helio P60 chipset brings consumers flagship features like deep-learning facial detection, object and scene identification, fluid gaming experiences and smarter camera functions," Lee added.
MediaTek Helio P60 chip features four Arm A73 2.0 GHz processors and four Arm A53 2.0 GHz processors in an octa-core big.LITTLE configuration.

ARM big.LITTLE is a heterogeneous computing architecture developed by ARM Holdings, coupling relatively battery-saving and slower processor cores (LITTLE) with relatively more powerful and power-hungry ones (big).

The SoC is fabricated on the TSMC 12nm production process and is the company's most power-efficient Helio P series chip.

Compared to the previous generation Helio P23, MediaTek Helio P60 is up to 12 per cent more efficient and up to 25 per cent more power efficient when it comes to gaming.
Smartphones powered by the Helio P60 processors will be available globally starting in the second quarter of 2018.

New smart lens for diabetics can monitor blood sugar levels

2018-02-27T00:43:00.001+05:30

Scientists have developed a smart contact lens that can monitor blood sugar levels from tears in the eye in patients with diabetes, spelling an end for painful needle pricks.

For diabetics, monitoring and controlling blood sugar levels are extremely important because having high blood glucose levels for extended periods of time can lead to a host of diabetes complications.
An enzyme based finger-pricking method is the most commonly used technology in diabetic assessment. However, such approach has been said to reduce compliance among diabetic patients.

The smart lens, developed by researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), has built-in pliable, transparent electronics that can monitor glucose levels from tears in the eye.
Although the device has not yet been tested in humans, researchers expect it will offer diabetics a pain-free way to measure their glucose levels with the blink of an eye.

In the last several decades, many attempts have been made to monitor glucose levels in tears with smart contact lenses, but they are often not used due to poor wearability.

To solve contact lens discomfort issues, the team led by Jang-Ung Park of UNIST have unveiled a new smart contact lens that uses electrodes made up of highly stretchable and transparent materials.
The clear, flexible lens also contains a glucose sensor that sends electrical signals to an LED.
With this sensor, patients can transmit their health information in real-time using the embedded wireless antenna in the lens.

In the study, the research team has successfully tested their prototype lens on a live rabbit via non-invasive in-vivo testing.

The rabbit showed no signs of abnormal behaviour during repeated eye blinks and the LED pixel turned off when tear fluids with glucose concentration was over the threshold.
In addition, during the wireless operations, this smart contact lens could still maintain the eye temperature stably without abrupt heating.

"These smart contact lenses are made made of transparent nanomaterials and therefore do not obstruct the wearer's view," said Jihun Park, first author of the study published in the journal Science Advances.
"Besides, because the system uses wireless antenna to read sensor information, no separate power source, like battery is required for the smart contact lens sensors," Park said.

"Our smart contact lens provides a platform for wireless, continuous, and noninvasive monitoring of physiological conditions, as well as the detection of biomarkers associated with ocular and other diseases," said Park.

"It also offers the potential for expanded applicability in other areas, such as smart devices for drug delivery and augmented reality," he said.

Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears

2018-02-27T00:39:00.001+05:30

When Apple Inc begins hosting Chinese users' iCloud accounts in a new Chinese data center at the end of this month to comply with new laws there, Chinese authorities will have far easier access to text messages, email and other data stored in the cloud.

That's because of a change to how the company handles the cryptographic keys needed to unlock an iCloud account. Until now, such keys have always been stored in the United States, meaning that any government or law enforcement authority seeking access to a Chinese iCloud account needed to go through the U.S. legal system.

Now, according to Apple, for the first time the company will store the keys for Chinese iCloud accounts in China itself. That means Chinese authorities will no longer have to use the U.S. courts to seek information on iCloud users and can instead use their own legal system to ask Apple to hand over iCloud data for Chinese users, legal experts said.

Human rights activists say they fear the authorities could use that power to track down dissidents, citing cases from more than a decade ago in which Yahoo Inc handed over user data that led to arrests and prison sentences for two democracy advocates. Jing Zhao, a human rights activist and Apple shareholder, said he could envisage worse human rights issues arising from Apple handing over iCloud data than occurred in the Yahoo case.

In a statement, Apple said it had to comply with recently introduced Chinese laws that require cloud services offered to Chinese citizens be operated by Chinese companies and that the data be stored in China. It said that while the company's values don't change in different parts of the world, it is subject to each country's laws.

"While we advocated against iCloud being subject to these laws, we were ultimately unsuccessful," it said. Apple said it decided it was better to offer iCloud under the new system because discontinuing it would lead to a bad user experience and actually lead to less data privacy and security for its Chinese customers.
As a result, Apple has established a data center for Chinese users in a contractual arrangement with state-owned firm Guizhou - Cloud Big Data Industry Co Ltd. The firm was set up and funded by the provincial government in the relatively poor southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou in 2014. The Guizhou company has close ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party.

The Apple decision highlights a difficult reality for many U.S. technology companies operating in China. If they don't accept demands to partner with Chinese companies and store data in China then they risk losing access to the lucrative Chinese market, despite fears about trade secret theft and the rights of Chinese customers.

BROAD POWERS

Apple says the joint venture does not mean that China has any kind of "backdoor" into user data and that Apple alone - not its Chinese partner - will control the encryption keys. But Chinese customers will notice some differences from the start: their iCloud accounts will now be co-branded with the name of the local partner, a first for Apple.

And even though Chinese iPhones will retain the security features that can make it all but impossible for anyone, even Apple, to get access to the phone itself, that will not apply to the iCloud accounts. Any information in the iCloud account could be accessible to Chinese authorities who can present Apple with a legal order.

Apple said it will only respond to valid legal requests in China, but China's domestic legal process is very different than that in the U.S., lacking anything quite like an American "warrant" reviewed by an independent court, Chinese legal experts said. Court approval isn't required under Chinese law and police can issue and execute warrants.

"Even very early in a criminal investigation, police have broad powers to collect evidence," said Jeremy Daum, an attorney and research fellow at Yale Law School's Paul Tsai China Center in Beijing. "(They are) authorized by internal police procedures rather than independent court review, and the public has an obligation to cooperate."

Guizhou - Cloud Big Data and China's cyber and industry regulators did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Guizhou provincial government said it had no specific comment.
There are few penalties for breaking what rules do exist around obtaining warrants in China. And while China does have data privacy laws, there are broad exceptions when authorities investigate criminal acts, which can include undermining communist values, "picking quarrels" online, or even using a virtual private network to browse the Internet privately.

Apple says the cryptographic keys stored in China will be specific to the data of Chinese customers, meaning Chinese authorities can't ask Apple to use them to decrypt data in other countries like the United States.
Privacy lawyers say the changes represent a big downgrade in protections for Chinese customers.
"The U.S. standard, when it's a warrant and when it's properly executed, is the most privacy-protecting standard," said Camille Fischer of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

WARNED CUSTOMERS

Apple has given its Chinese users notifications about the Feb. 28 switchover to the Chinese data center in the form of emailed warnings and so-called push alerts, reminding users that they can choose to opt out of iCloud and store information solely on their device. The change only affects users who set China as their country on Apple devices and doesn't affect users who select Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan.
Apple doesn't require an iCloud account to set up and use an iPhone. But if the user enables iCloud during set up, the default settings on the iPhone will automatically create an iCloud back-up. Apple declined to comment on whether it would change its default settings to make iCloud an opt-in service, rather than opt-out, for Chinese users.

Apple said it will not switch customers' accounts to the Chinese data center until they agree to new terms of service and that more than 99.9 percent of current users have already done so.
Until now, Apple appears to have handed over very little data about Chinese users. From mid-2013 to mid-2017, Apple said it did not give customer account content to Chinese authorities, despite having received 176 requests, according to transparency reports published by the company. By contrast, Apple has given the United States customer account content in response to 2,366 out of 8,475 government requests.
Those figures are from before the Chinese cyber security laws took effect and also don't include special national security requests in which U.S. officials might have requested data about Chinese nationals. Apple, along with other companies, is prevented by law from disclosing the targets of those requests.
Apple said requests for data from the new Chinese datacenter will be reflected in its transparency reports and that it won't respond to "bulk" data requests.
Human rights activists say they are also concerned about such a close relationship with a state-controlled entity like Guizhou-Cloud Big Data.

Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, said the Chinese Communist Party could also pressure Apple through a committee of members it will have within the company. These committees have been pushing for more influence over decision making within foreign-invested companies in the past couple of years.

Telefonica launches Aura voice assistant in six countries

2018-02-27T00:29:00.002+05:30

Spanish mobile operator Telefonica on Sunday launched a voice-activated assistant, called 'Aura', in six countries, using artificial intelligence to interact with its customers.

The announcement, on the eve of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, comes a year after Telefonica promised a makeover in response to U.S. tech giants like Amazon, whose interactive aide Alexa has become a big seller.

Telefonica, present in 17 markets across Europe and Latin America, is offering its assistant in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Spain and Britain.

"A year ago we said we wanted artificial intelligence to be the basis of our clients' relationship with us and we are delivering on our promise," Chairman Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete said on Sunday.
"Digitalization is the core of our business and thanks to the deep internal transformation that we have undergone in the last eight years we have become a company of smart platforms."

European telecoms have struggled to grow as regulators crack down on roaming fees, data prices erode, and opportunities to achieve economies of scale by merging fade because markets are already concentrated.
They also face a struggle to keep up with so-called platform companies like Amazon, Google or Facebook that have proven highly adept at using customer data to sell products, services or advertising online.

Aura won't seek to compete - instead it will operate as a branded app in Argentina, Brazil and Britain, will run on Telefonica's pay-TV platform in Spain, while being available via Facebook Messenger in Chile and Germany.

It will soon be integrated with Google Assistant, as well as Microsoft's Cortana in 2019, Telefonica said.
Telefonica, which has invested 56 billion euros ($69 billion) in its digital upgrade since 2012, forecast last week that sales would grow by 1 percent this year - slower than the high double digits achieved by U.S. players.

It also said it was working with Deutsche Telekom of Germany, Dutch KPN and Orange of France on a so-called data-portability initiative.
This comes before new European Union rules that enter force in May - called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - that give customers greater rights over how their personal data is handled by companies.

Data portability foresees allowing people to receive or transfer data collected about them online, in an accessible form, as part of a wider policy agenda of shielding citizens from corporate surveillance.

Nokia 8 Sirocco the most-powerful Android One smartphone with 2K pOLED display and 6GB RAM launched

2018-02-27T00:26:00.001+05:30

HMD Global, the company who owns the licence to manufacture Nokia smartphones, today unveiled a slew smartphones at an event held just a day before the world's biggest phone tradeshow, Mobile World Congress 2018 (MWC 2018), held in Barcelona, Spain. HMD's new smartphones portfolio includes Nokia 8 Sirocco, the most-powerful Android One smartphone launched so far.

Nokia 8 Sirocco specifications

The all-new Nokia Sirocco succeeds the company's current flagship smartphone -- Nokia 8 -- that launched in September last year. The new flagship smartphone sports 5.5-inch curved edge-to-edge pOLED 2K display (1440x2560 pixels) with 3D Corning Gorilla Glass 5 coating. The smartphone is built of single piece of dual diamond polished stainless steel, which the company claims is 2.5 times stronger than 6000 series aluminium. It measures 140.93x72.97x7.5 mm. The nano-SIM smartphone will come powered with Android Oreo operating system out of the box.

The smartphone has 12/13MP dual rear camera with ZEISS optics and 2x optical zoom. On the front, there's ultra-sensitive wide-angle (84 degree FOV) camera for low-light photography; Pro Camera mode, ISO, and Dual-Sight technology.

Nokia 8 Sirocco has 6GB RAM, 128GB internal storage and finger-print scanner at the back. The smartphone, however, runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, which is same as the current-generation Nokia 8.

All-new Nokia 8 Sirocco supports Qi wireless charging and comes with IP67 rating, which makes it dust and splash-resistant. The connectivity options in the smartphone include 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (MIMO), BT 5.0, GPS/AGPS+GLONASS+BDS, NFC, ANT+, ALS/PS, g-sensor, e-compass, gyro, hall sensor and barometer.

Nokia 8 Sirocco

As for availability and pricing, the smartphone will hit retail stores in April and has been priced at 749 euros (Rs 60,000 approximately). The company, however, did not reveal the smartphone's India pricing as well as when it will hit the stores in India.
HMD Global also launched Nokia 1, Nokia 7 Plus, Nokia 6 (2018) and Nokia 8110.

Samsung and Qualcomm collaborate to produce chips for 5G mobile technology

2018-02-27T00:22:00.000+05:30

Samsung Electronics Co. has announced that it will cooperate with Qualcomm Technologies Inc to produce 7-nanometre chips for fifth-generation (5G) network service amid rising demand for semiconductors.

The two companies will expand their decade-long cooperation into Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) lithography process technology, including the manufacture of future Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets using Samsung's 7-nanometre Low Power Plus (LPP) EUV process technology, said the South Korean tech giant.
Samsung and Qualcomm have been maintaining close ties through foundry business in the production of 10 nm and 14 nm technologies, Yonhap News Agency reported.

"We are pleased to continue to expand our foundry relationship with Qualcomm Technologies in 5G technologies using our EUV process technology," Charlie Bae, Executive Vice President of the Foundry Sales and Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement.
He added that the collaboration is an "important milestone" for the firm's foundry business.
Foundry business refers to making chip designs for other companies that do not have a semiconductor fabrication plant.

Using the 7LPP EUV process technology, Snapdragon 5G mobile chipsets will offer a smaller chip footprint, giving more usable space inside upcoming products to support larger batteries or slimmer designs, it said.
Samsung introduced 7LPP EUV, its first semiconductor process technology to use an EUV lithography solution, in May 2017.

16-year-old UP girl’s app tops charts on Apple App Store

2018-02-27T00:18:00.000+05:30

Sixteen-year-old Saharanpur girl Harshita Arora's app that updates users about price fluctuations in more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies in 32 countries has become one of the most sought-after paid apps on Apple’s App Store. What’s more, she launched it just on January 28 this year.

Daughter of a local financier and a homemaker mother, Harshita, who dropped out of school at 14 as she was "not cut out for common courses", told TOI on Friday that she had her "fundamentals" very clear from the beginning. “I don’t underestimate school education in India but these common courses are not for me. My computer teacher introduced me to the wonderful world of technology. I have a different goal in life that the current education system may not provide. I am being home schooled. Computer technology must be given its due in school curriculum.”

The first time she heard about cryptocurrencies was in 2016. She soon got into Bitcoin mining, the basic underlying technology and cryptography. Not that the sudden stardom has come easy. When Harshita introduced the iOS app, she was at the receiving end of a lot of cynicism, with some doubting that a girl her age could build an iOS platform like that and others accusing her of plagiarizing the app.

All that is behind her now. “Ever since I was 13 and was introduced to designing concepts, I began reading IT magazines and the latest developments in the field. I learned about cryptocurrency and how it worked. Then I interacted with my internet friends and real investors in the currency to understand what they wanted in an app,” Harshita said.

She attended MIT Launch (a high school entrepreneur programme) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US some time back, which she said helped her a lot. This was a four-week long entrepreneurship programme for people between 15 and 19 years of age. “I met like-minded people who helped me build this app,” Harshita said.
Gericke Potgieper, managing director of Artifex Knowledge, a firm that provides technology based business solutions, who has been mentoring Harshita, said, “She is full of energy that she draws from her passion for solving problems and generating ideas in IT. She has this impeccable propensity to learn very fast. I can predict that she will go places.”

Midhun V Manikkath, her former school teacher who introduced her to computer programming, said, “I had the pleasure of teaching Harshita in class VIII at Pinewood School in Saharanpur. She always impressed me with her thoughts which she brought to the field of computing.”

Harshita now has plans to move to America to broaden her horizons. “In June I will move to the US and eventually establish myself as an entrepreneur launching startups. Currently, I am working on a new app, Snap Food. It will aim at providing exhaustive information on a particular food item,” she said.
The teenager has the full support of her family. “My daughter is my true inspiration. She is a highly focused child full of confidence,” said her father Ravinder Singh Arora.

Mobile industry promises smarter everything at Barcelona show

2018-02-27T00:14:00.000+05:30

Two words - artificial intelligence - promise to upstage familiar technology industry themes like 5G, the Internet of Things and virtual reality at next week's Mobile World Congress, Europe's biggest annual technology industry gathering.

Telecom operators are looking to artificial intelligence as a potential money-spinner to combat stagnating mobile service revenues as once-lucrative features like text messaging have become commoditised and customer growth wanes as almost everyone who can afford a phone and a data plan already has one.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, uses computers to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as taking decisions, recognising text, speech and images, or translating foreign languages.
Several big-name telecom providers are launching own-brand home digital assistants which are two-way speakers such as those used by Amazon's Alexa or Google's Home.
France's Orange has Djingo; Germany's Deutsche Telekom Magenta and Spain's Telefonica Aura, market research firm Ovum said.

Device makers also spot a marketing opportunity for their latest glass-and-metal phones by including AI features inside to help cameras take smarter pictures or to anticipate the interests of their users.
But the industry needs to show it can do more with AI than play buzzword bingo, Ben Wood, a consumer electronics analyst at CCS Insight, said.

"Although we're hugely enthusiastic about the technology itself, we're increasingly concerned about the way in which it's being marketed," he said.

Barcelona will feature a series of announcements by mobile operators which want to reinvent themselves as digital 'platforms' - offering apps such as video messaging; music streaming or mobile video on demand on top of their traditional voice- and data-driven services.
Turkcell, for example, aims to offer its Lifecell platform, which includes a range of apps for messaging, entertainment, music, TV and e-commerce, to foreign partners at the event.
The industry also wants to do much more with the data it collects from its users which will give network operators insights into spending patterns. Processing new streams of data from networks of industrial or road sensors also holds promise.

Yet this pits them against the likes of U.S. tech giants Amazon, Google or Facebook that have proven adept at recruiting users and exploiting their data to sell products, services or advertising.

4-eyes phones and real 5G

Asian smartphone makers will launch an array of new phones this weekend, but many are international versions of models already on sale in China, which with 1.4 billion subscribers is, by far, the world's biggest mobile market.
The big smartphone launch on Sunday evening by Samsung of its new flagship phone, the Galaxy S9, ahead of the conference will have a focus on dual camera features, Wood said.
Cameras, the more the merrier, are all the rage, with some phone models boasting four to five built-in cameras, said.
The exhibition halls in Barcelona will be full of talk of ultra-fast mobile video, connected cars, factory automation, digital health and smarter cities.
Also, 5G, long the subject of arcane technical debates and an elusive search for concrete applications, is finally getting down to business. The first commercial 5G roll-outs begin this year and next in the United States, Korea and Japan, creating new revenue streams for operators and beaten-down equipment makers.
But 5G remains an abstraction for consumers, Forrester analyst Thomas Husson wrote in a blog post ahead of the show.

Early 5G devices are set to go on show next week after smartphone chip maker Qualcomm earlier this month announced 5G-ready chips with 18 network operators and 19 device makers, analysts said.

This AI tool may accelerate diagnosis of eye diseases, pneumonia

2018-02-27T00:08:00.001+05:30

A novel image-based diagnostic tool, developed using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques, may potentially speed up diagnoses and treatment of patients with retinal diseases and pneumonia among children, researcher say.

The findings showed that the new tool uses big data and AI to not only recognise two of the most common retinal diseases -- macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema -- but also to rate their severity.
It can also distinguish between bacterial and viral pneumonia in children based on chest x-ray images.
"Macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema are the two most common causes of irreversible blindness but are both very treatable if they are caught early," said Kang Zhang, Professor at the University of California-San Diego.

"Deciding how and when to treat patients has historically been handled by a small community of specialists who require years of training and are concentrated mostly in urban areas."
"In contrast, our AI tool can be used anywhere in the world, especially in the rural areas. This is important in places like India, China and Africa, where there are relatively fewer medical resources," Zhang said.
For the study, published in the journal Cell, the team studied over 200,000 optical coherence tomography (OCT) images using a technique called transfer learning, where knowledge gained in solving one problem is stored by a computer and applied to different but related problems.

The researchers also used occlusion testing, which allowed them to show areas of greatest importance when reviewing the scan images.
"Machine learning is often like a black box where we don't know exactly what is happening," Zhang said.
The researchers then compared the diagnoses from the computer with those from ophthalmologists who reviewed the scans.

The results showed that the tool "could generate a decision on whether or not the patient should be referred for treatment within 30 seconds and with more than 95 per cent accuracy", Zhang said.
Besides eye diseases, the tool was able to differentiate between viral and bacterial childhood pneumonia with greater than 90 per cent accuracy.

It can also discern between cancerous and non-cancerous lesions detected on scans, Zhang said.

New iPhone app to aid heart attack survivors

2018-02-27T00:04:00.000+05:30

A new iPhone-based app may help patients who survived a heart attack to maintain their health and reduce the number of hospital readmissions, according to a study.

The "Corrie" app is the first cardiology app for the Apple CareKit platform and is designed to help patients navigate the hospital discharge process by educating them about heart disease.
The app allows them to keep track of medications, follow-up appointments and lifestyle changes needed after a heart attack.

"We have found there are many gaps in care in patients recovering from a heart attack," said lead author William Yang, from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US.

"We wanted to engage patients in their own care, and help them transition from the hospital to home using existing technology," Yang added.

Heart attack patients "may suddenly have new doctors and more medical visits, including cardiac rehab, and the app helps them track and centralise all those appointments", he said.

The app helps patients to keep track of all their medications, including how much to take and at what time.
It also syncs with the Apple Watch to monitor heart rate and keep track of how much they are walking and with a Bluetooth blood pressure monitor.

Yang said the app has also proven useful to patients even while they were still in the hospital as it allows patients to store important medical information on the app.
The results were presented at the American College of Cardiology's Cardiovascular Summit in Las Vegas.

Google Assistant will learn to speak in Hindi this year

2018-02-27T00:01:00.000+05:30

Google said Friday its digital assistant software would be available in more than 30 languages by the end of the years as it steps up its artificial intelligence efforts against Amazon and others.

Google Assistant, the artificial intelligence software which is available on its connected speakers, Android smartphones and other devices, will also include multilingual capacity "so families or individuals that speak more than one language can speak naturally" to the program, according to a Google blog post.
"By the end of the year (Google Assistant) will be available in more than 30 languages (including Hindi, Danish, Indonesian and others), reaching 95% of all eligible Android phones worldwide," Google vice president Nick Fox said in the blog post.

The move aims to help Google, which has been lagging in the market for connected devices against Amazon's Alexa-powered hardware, ramp up competition in new markets.

While Alexa currently operates only in English, Google Assistant works in eight languages and the new initiative expands that.
"In the next few months, we'll bring the Assistant to Danish, Dutch, Hindi, Indonesian, Norwegian, Swedish and Thai on Android phones and iPhones, and we'll add more languages on more devices throughout the year."

The multilingual option will first be available in English, French and German, with support for more languages coming "over time," Fox wrote.
The move comes amid intense competition for artificial intelligence software on smartphones and other devices by Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung and others.

Amazon took the early lead with its Alexa-powered speakers and is believed to hold the lion's share of that market, with Google Home devices a distant second.

Apple got a late start in the speaker segment with its HomePod, which went on sale this month in the US, Britain and Australia.

Huawei to showcase AI smartphone-driven car at Mobile World Congress

2018-02-26T23:56:00.000+05:30

In a first, Huawei has unveiled a technology that uses Artificial Intelligence-enabled smartphone to drive a car that can not only identify objects on the road but take smart decisions to avoid collisions or hitting someone.

In a video released by the China-based technology giant, the driverless Porsche Panamera is controlled by Huawei's flagship "Mate 10 Pro" smartphone that can "understand its surroundings".

"Our smartphone is already outstanding at object recognition. We wanted to see if in a short space of time we could teach it to not only drive a car, but to use its AI capabilities to see certain objects, and be taught to avoid them," said Andrew Garrihy, Chief Marketing Officer at Huawei Europe.

According to a report in theinquirer.net on Friday, Huawei's 'RoadReader' project "pushed the boundaries of its object recognition technology and put the learning capabilities, speed and performance of its AI-powered devices to the test".
During the test, the smartphone-driven car did not hit a real dog sitting right in the middle of the road and moved on from the side.
The camera app on the "Mate 10 Pro" can tell the difference between food, pets, landscapes and more.
Huawei will showcase its "RoadReader" project at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain on February 26-27.

Instagram to terminate its global community team

2018-02-26T23:54:00.001+05:30

Popular photo-sharing app Instagram is terminating its veteran Global Community Team that worked to build deep ties with photographers and promote the service around the world as part of restructuring in the company, media reported.

"As part of a reorganisation at the company, about 12 jobs currently located in cities around the world will be eliminated, with affected employees being offered jobs elsewhere at Instagram or at its parent company, Facebook," The Verge reported on Thursday.

The move was designed to eliminate duplicate efforts among some members of the team and consolidate the company's marketing and communications efforts into a single team headquartered in Menlo Park, California, a former employee was quoted as saying.
The Facebook-owned company's community efforts date back nearly to its founding 2010, when fans of the app would visit the company's small office in San Francisco and go on photo walks with its founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.

"We recently integrated the Community group into the broader Outreach organization to better support our growing Instagram community this year and beyond.

"There were a small number of people affected by the change who didn't make the move into other departments and our priority is helping them find other roles at Instagram or other parts of the Facebook family. Both companies are growing and have many job openings," Gabe Madway, Spokesperson, Instagram was quoted as saying in The Verge.

Ultrathin, elastic skin display developed

2018-02-19T22:55:00.001+05:30

Scientists have developed an ultrathin elastic display that fits snugly on the skin and can show the vital signs of the body recorded by an integrated sensor. Combined with a wireless communication module, this integrated biomedical sensor system, called "skin electronics," can transmit biometric data to the cloud.

Thanks to advances in semiconductor technology, wearable devices can now monitor health by measuring vital signs or taking an electrocardiogram, and then transmitting the data wirelessly to a smartphone. The readings or electrocardiogram waveforms can be displayed on the screen in real time, or sent to the cloud or a memory device where the information is stored. The newly developed skin electronics system goes a step further by enhancing information accessibility for people such as the elderly or the infirm, who tend to have difficulty operating and obtaining data from existing devices and interfaces.

It promises to ease the strain on home healthcare systems in aging societies through continuous, non-invasive health monitoring and self-care at home. The new integrated system combines a flexible, deformable display with a lightweight sensor composed of a breathable nanomesh electrode and wireless communication module. Medical data measured by the sensor, such as an electrocardiogram, can either be sent wirelessly to a smartphone for viewing or to the cloud for storage. In the latest research, the display showed a moving electrocardiogram waveform that was stored in memory.

The skin display consists of a 16x24 array of micro LEDs and stretchable wiring mounted on a rubber sheet. "Our skin display exhibits simple graphics with motion. Because it is made from thin and soft materials, it can be deformed freely," said Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo in Japan. The display is stretchable by as much as 45 per cent of its original length.

It is far more resistant to the wear and tear of stretching than previous wearable displays. It is built on a novel structure that minimises the stress resulting from stretching on the juncture of hard materials, such as the micro LEDs, and soft materials, like the elastic wiring - a leading cause of damage for other models. It is the first stretchable display to achieve superior durability and stability in air, such that not a single pixel failed in the matrix-type display while attached snugly onto the skin and continuously subjected to the stretching and contracting motion of the body.

The nanomesh skin sensor can be worn on the skin continuously for a week without causing any inflammation. Although this sensor, developed in an earlier study, was capable of measuring temperature, pressure and myoelectricity (the electrical properties of muscle), it successfully recorded an electrocardiogram for the first time in the latest research.

Essential Phone with built-in Amazon Alexa launched

2018-02-19T22:52:00.001+05:30

A new variant of Essential Phone has been launched with built-in Alexa (Amazon's virtual personal assistant), offering an alternative to Google Assistant that is already available on all other variants.

"Just one day after unveiling three fresh colour variants of the Essential Phone, the company announced yet another new version of the handset. Called 'Halo Gray', the new model is unique because it comes with Amazon Alexa built in," tech website Phone Arena reported late on Friday.

The new variant is not too different from the "Stellar Gray" model that was introduced earlier.
The new version of the device can be pre-ordered on Amazon and is scheduled to be released on February 21.

Unlike the "Stellar Gray" variant which is priced at $599, the "Halo Gray" device is offered for $449.
Both devices come unlocked and have identical specifications.

Essential has sold less than 90,000 units of its debut handset in the six months following launch, The Verge reported, quoting IDC data.

The phone features an edge-to-edge display and a modular system that lets users attach accessories such as a 360-degree camera and a 5.7-inch LTPS display with 19:10 aspect ratio instead of the regular 16:9.
It features dual primary cameras with two 13MP sensors. One is a standard RGB sensor while the other is monochrome.

The device is powered by a 2.45 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset clubbed with Adreno 540 GPU.

Google testing new technology to improve 911 system

2018-02-19T22:47:00.000+05:30

Google has conducted a trial of a new technology that will help 911 operators figure out the location of cellphone callers more accurately, media reported.
The test included tens of thousands of 911 calls over the span of two months in several states in the US and had encouraging results, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday.

The 911 system, which turns 50 this month, has often struggled to locate cellphone callers.
Saving a minute in response times can save up to 10,000 lives a year, according to the federal regulators.
With the help of Google's new technology, about 80 per cent of the 911 calls could more accurately locate data within the first 30 seconds.

The tech giants' data also dramatically reduced the estimated radius of a call's location from 522 feet down to 121 feet and arrived faster than carrier data, the report said.

This improvment in tracing the location data can also help dispatchers in cases where the caller might not speak English, or in a state of panic, gives the wrong address.

The test, which included 50 call centres that cover around 2.4 million people in Texas, Tennessee and Florida, was done in conjunction with two companies that have connections into 911 centres, West Corp and RapidSOS.

For the test, Google sent location data from a random selection of 911 callers using Android phones straight to the people taking those calls.

Google's location technology is currently available in 14 countries, and the company has said it hopes to bring it to the US this year, the report said.

Facebook to roll out fix for bug in two-factor authentication

2018-02-19T22:38:00.001+05:30

After several people received non-security-related notifications from Facebook after giving the social network their phone numbers for two-factor authentication (2FA), the company admitted there was a bug and has promised to roll out a fix soon.

People who responded to these notifications saw them appearing as status updates on their Facebook accounts for all to see.
"It was not our intention to send non-security-related SMS notifications to these phone numbers, and I am sorry for any inconvenience these messages might have caused," Alex Stamos, Facebook Chief Security Officer, said in a post late on Friday.

People asked Facebook why their responses to these notifications appeared as status updates on the social media platform.
"For years, before the ubiquity of smartphones, we supported posting to Facebook via text message, but this feature is less useful these days. As a result, we are working to deprecate this functionality soon," Stamos added.

Facebook has promised to roll out a fix soon that will stop non-security-related notifications.
"We are working to ensure that people who sign up for two-factor authentication won't receive non-security-related notifications from us unless they specifically choose to receive them. We expect to have the fixes in place in the coming days," the Facebook executive said.

"To reiterate, this was not an intentional decision; this was a bug," he added.
According to Engadget, until Facebook rolls out a fix, those affected by the bug can go to Settings and then to Notifications to switch off text notifications.

Heres another proof of Apples Google Glass rival

2018-02-19T22:33:00.000+05:30

Rumors on specialist websites suggest that Apple could be working on a pair of smart glasses, with no more details for the moment, other than a patent recently filed by the firm.

The rumor stems from an Apple patent filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) detailing an optical system for a head-mounted display based on mirrors and lenses. The patent details the optics involved in an integrated display system, possibly as part of an augmented reality project. Indeed, Apple CEO Tim Cook has already spoken out in favor of AR technology and Apple could be working on some kind of AR glasses linking directly to an iPhone over Bluetooth.

In 2017, Apple launched its ARKit platform of tools for developers creating augmented reality applications. This has since given rise to various projects currently in development.

At the moment, Apple isn't expected to release any kind of smart glasses or headset before 2020. However, rumors have piqued the interest of graphic designers, who are already imagining what form Apple's eyewear could take. Check out iDrop News for some ideas on Apple Glass plus concept images.