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jeudi 4 janvier 2018

Honor View 10 Launched in India for Rs. 29,999 ($473), will be Available from January 8

Honor, a Huawei subbrand, has come a long way. It recently signaled its intention to become India's largest smartphone manufacturer, and its affordable smartphones have done well in the country. (20,000 units of the Honor 7X sold within an hour over the course of three December flash sales.) The Honor 8 Pro, which launched in July 2017, was also well-received.

Since then, though, the market has changed. 18:9 (2:1) displays are becoming increasingly commonplace in the affordable flagship market, exemplified by Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 and the OnePlus 5T. Honor was expected to follow suit by releasing its own phones with 18:9 displays, and the company delivered: The Honor V10 was unveiled in China in November, and its international variant, the Honor View 10, launched in December 5 ahead of a January 8 ship date. (The company also released the affordable Honor 7X at the same event.)

Now, the Honor View 10 has come to India for Rs. 29,999 (about $473), where it'll be an Amazon exclusive. The Indian price for the View 10 is lower than the Europe and U.K. price tags of €499/£449, and according to Honor, it's is the phone's lowest global price yet.

Source: Honor

The Honor View 10 will be available in a single variant with 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage, and it'll ship in Navy Blue and Midnight Black colors. The phone will go on sale starting January 8 exclusively on Amazon India (users can register to be alerted when the sale goes live). Honor is bundling a 9V/2A quick charger, a standard USB Type-C cable, a protective case, and a pre-attached screen protector, and every purchase will be protected by a standard 12-month service warranty.

The Honor View 10 is being marketed as the world's first affordable AI phone. It sports a HiSilicon Kirin 970 system-on-chip, which has a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that accelerates machine learning software like the camera application's Real-Time Scene and Object Recognition, which identifies different subjects and environments. According to Honor, the camera can set the best parameters by adjusting colors, exposure, brightness and contrast automatically.

Honor also worked with Microsoft to optimize its machine learning-powered Microsoft Translator for the View 10. The app uses AI-acceleration to deliver instantaneous translation without requiring users to be online, and the Kirin 970's NPU is said to translate languages more than 500 percent faster than other smartphones running the same app. (It's worth noting that this integration is also a part of the Huawei Mate 10 series).

Source: Honor

Finally, Honor's new AI Easy Talk AI tech distinguishes a user's voice from other noise during phone calls and helps to reduce ambient noise levels. According to the company, it can significantly improve voice recognition in noisy environments.

The Honor View 10's list of high-end specifications don't stop there. It has a 6-inch Full HD+ (2160×1080) 18:9 (2:1) LCD display, dual 16MP+20MP RGB + Monochrome rear cameras with f/1.8 apertures, and a 3750mAh battery, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack and a front-facing fingerprint sensor.

Software-wise, the View 10 runs EMUI 8.0 on top of Android 8.0 Oreo and supports Project Treble. It also has a special Gaming Suite that can boost gaming performance, according to Honor — the company says that it partnered with leading game developers to optimize titles for the phone's Mali-G72MP12 GPU.

The View 10 certainly seems to be well-positioned to beat the OnePlus 5T at its own game. It manages to undercut OnePlus's flagship in price (Rs. 29,999 vs. Rs. 32,999) while offering double the amount of internal storage compared to the OnePlus 5T's base model. With the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 having recently received a price cut in India, it's clear that all three companies (Honor, OnePlus, and Xiaomi) will continue to strive to become the leader in India's competitive affordable flagship segment.

Source: Amazon India

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Leak Reveals Specs of the Sony Xperia XA2, XA2 Ultra, and L2

Sony has a number of mid-range smartphones at different price points, and folks who prefer the company's affordable offerings are likely familiar with the Sony Xperia XA series, which launched in June 2016, and the Sony Xperia XA1, which hit stores shelves in in April 2017. On Thursday, a new leak revealed details about their successors: The Sony Xperia XA2, XA2 Ultra, and L2.

This leak mainly focuses on the details of the XA2 and XA2 Ultra, since the source, Evan Blass, says that less is known about the upcoming Sony Xperia L2.

First up is the Sony Xperia XA1, the flagship entry in the series. We're looking at a device that will be made available in at least four different colors, and that features a 5.2-inch 1080p display. That's an upgrade from the Sony Xperia XA1's 5-inch 720p display.

The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra, on the other hand, will reportedly retain its predecessor's 6-inch 1080p display.

The leak also indicates that the memory configurations of the Sony Xperia XA2 and the XA2 Ultra will remain unchanged at 3GB/4GB of RAM and 32GB/64GB of storage.

Both devices are getting better cameras and system-on-chips, however. The Sony XA2 is rumored to get a 21MP rear-facing camera paired with a 7MP front-facing camera, and the Xperia XA2 Ultra will reportedly have a 21MP rear camera along with a pair of 15MP front-facing cameras. And both will pack Qualcomm's Snapdragon 630, a transition away from the MediaTek processors in last year's mid-range Xperia phones.

The Sony Xperia L2, for its part, is said to have a 5.2″ 720p display and run Android Nougat.

There's speculation that Sony will unveil the new smartphones at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show at CES next week, but there's also chance they won't see the light of day until February, at Mobile World Congress 2018 in Barcelona.

Source: VentureBeat

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HMD Global’s Nokia 6 2018 Leaks Ahead of Launch

When HMD Global began selling Android smartphones with Nokia branding, it started with safe bets, and the strategy paid off — the 2017 Nokia 6 received a lot of attention for high-end specs and affordable price tag. And this year, it seems that HMD Global's iterating on the work it started.

On Thursday, a Chinese retailer prematurely leaked the 2018 version of the Nokia 6.

Source: NokiaMob

We've been hearing about a 2018 variant of the Nokia 6 for a couple of months now, and the product listing fills in the remaining gaps. The Nokia 6 2018 weighs in at 172 grams, and comes equipped with an aluminum unibody, a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, and a 5.5-inch 1080p display. Under the hood, it packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 system-on-chip paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB/64GB of storage (plus a microSD card slot), depending on the model.

The Nokia 6 2018's other highlights include a 16MP camera sensor on the back with a f/2.0 aperture, phase detection autofocus, and dual LED flash, and an 8MP front-facing shooter, which support Nokia's signature Bothie and OZO Audio features. The phone has a USB Type-C charging port and a 3.5mm headphone port as well, and a 3,000mAh battery.

Source: NokiaMob

In terms of software, the Nokia 6 2018 ships with Android 7.1.1 Nougat. An Oreo update's said to be coming later.

The Nokia 6 2018 will be made available in two different color options — black and white — when it ships later this month in China, and will be priced at €191 (about $230) for the 32GB version and €216 (about $260) for 64GB model. Pre-orders are expected to start January 10.

Via: NokiaMob Source: Suning

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Razer Confirms Razer Phone Bugs, Promises Fixes Soon

The Razer Phone isn't bad for a first attempt. It's Razer's first phone, and its innovative 120Hz display won it early praise from reviewers. But a few glaring bugs with the camera, screen, and fingerprint sensor have held it back. Fortunately, Razer's looking to fix all that.

One bug automatically applies filters to photos even when the filters are disabled. Users report filters being applied without choosing them, leading to unintended results. Factory resetting the phone doesn't seem to fix the issue, and it's unclear if it affects all camera applications or just Razer's first-party camera app.

Source: Razer Forums

A reply from a Razer staff on the official Razer Phone forums states that bug reports will be passed on to engineers, and that the issue is being investigated.

Source: Razer Forums

Another bug has to do with the Razer Phone's screen: It sometimes dims after about a half hour of gaming. It's also being investigated by Razer's dev team, according to a spokesperson.

Those aren't the Razer Phone's only problems, though. Fingerprint sensor options randomly disappear from the Security section in the Settings menu, and the phone's maximum volume sometimes reduces inexplicably.

Source: PiunikaWeb

Razer engineers have been made aware of both bugs, and have promised factory images that'll address them soon.

Hopefully, we'll have a fix for the Razer Phone's issues before long.

Source: PiunikaWeb

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Dive into Deep Learning and AI with this Introductory Training

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You'll learn how probability theory makes it possible to form incredibly accurate predictions, how linear regression acts as a key tenant of deep learning principles, how to utilize logistic regression (one of the most fundamental techniques used in machine learning) in Python, how to build the artificial neural networks that fuel Google's search functions, and much more.

Break into the future of data science, deep learning, and AI without spending a fortune on a traditional computer science education with The Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence Introductory Bundle. It's on sale for just $39, and when you enter the coupon code NEWYEAR18 at checkout you'll get an additional 18% off.

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Samsung Unveils the Exynos 9810: 3rd Generation Custom CPU Cores and Mali-G72MP18 GPU

In November, Samsung teased the announcement of the Exynos 9810, which had been selected for the CES 2018 Innovation Awards. At that time, details about the new system-on-chip were scarce. A few days ago, Samsung confirmed via Twitter that it would officially unveil the next Exynos SoC on January 4, and now, it has published the details of its newest chip.

The background: Ever since the Galaxy S, Samsung has used Exynos SoCs in its flagship phones. Notably, the Galaxy S featured a single-core Exynos 3110 SoC, which was followed by the dual-core Exynos 4210 and the quad-core Exynos 4412 in the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy S III, respectively. In 2013, Samsung used a different strategy, though. It adopted ARM's big.LITTLE tech with the Exynos 5410, which had four ARM Cortex-A15 performance cores and four ARM Cortex-A7 efficiency cores.

The Exynos 5410 was relegated to 3G versions of the Galaxy S4, which meant that it was replaced by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 600 chip in the West. As it was early days for big.LITTLE, the Exynos 5410 was troubled with issues, including a non-functioning cache coherent interconnect (CCI) and the inability to use all eight cores at once due to the use of cluster migration (instead of heterogeneous multi-processing). It was soon succeeded by the Exynos 5420, but it took the Exynos 5422's release in the Galaxy S5 to enable the use of all eight cores simultaneously thanks to HMP.

Since then, Exynos chipsets have steadily matured. 2015 was a notable year, when Samsung skipped the Snapdragon 810 in favor of using the octa-core Exynos 7420 (4x Cortex-A57 cores and 4x Cortex-A53 cores) for all markets, including the US. The Exynos 7420 was also the first mobile SoC to be manufactured on a 14nm FinFET process, giving it a competitive advantage against its rivals in the Android world.

In 2016, Samsung moved to custom cores with the Exynos 8890. The SoC had four high-performance Exynos M1 custom cores combined with four Cortex-A53 efficiency cores, paired with the Mali-T880MP12 GPU. The performance of the Exynos M1 custom core was roughly on par with ARM's Cortex-A72.

Samsung kept using custom cores with last year's Exynos 8895. The Exynos 8895 had second-generation Exynos M2 cores along with Cortex-A53 cores, with a wider Mali-G71MP20 GPU. The single-core performance of the Exynos M2 was roughly on the same level as the ARM Cortex-A73 and Qualcomm's semi-custom Kryo 280 (which was based on the A73).

Exynos 9810: On Thursday, Samsung unveiled the Exynos 9810, its second chip in the Exynos 9 series. The Exynos 9810 is built on Samsung's second-generation 10nm FinFET process (10nm Low Power Plus), and has third-generation custom CPU cores.

To be precise, the Exynos 9810 has four high-performance custom cores clocked at up to 2.9GHz, and four ARM Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 1.9GHz. It also uses ARM's DynamIQ tech, which was announced last year as an improvement to big.LITTLE.

Put simply, the CPU upgrade here is a major one. Samsung states that the chip has an architecture with a wider pipeline and improved cache memory, which increases its single-core performance twofold over its predecessor. According to the company, multi-core performance is improved by around 40 percent compared to its predecessor. The SoC is also said to enable "seamless multitasking" with faster loading and transition times between apps.

The twofold single-core performance improvement claim is interesting, as it's one of the biggest performance jumps across Samsung SoC generations. If it plays out in practice, the Exynos 9810 may have a lead over the competition (and further close the performance gap between Apple and Android devices), but it's difficult to determine anything at this stage without access to benchmark data.

Moving on to the GPU, the Exynos 9810 has the Mali-G72MP18 GPU, though its clock speeds weren't disclosed. It's worth noting that the GPU core count is decreased from the Exynos 8895's Mali-G71MP20, but performance should still be faster overall. The Heimdall Mali-G72 from ARM is also featured on the Kirin 970 SoC, though that chipset opts for a 12-core configuration. While we don't know the clock speeds of Samsung's implementation, we typically see the company's Mali GPU results consistently outperforming those found in Kirin chipsets, which have traditionally featured lower core counts (though higher per-core frequencies).

Samsung's newest SoC also has a new modem. The Exynos 8895 featured the world's first Gigabit LTE modem, and the Exynos 9810 has an industry-first 1.2Gbps Gigabit LTE modem, with LTE Cat 18 1.2Gbps downlink and LTE Cat 18 200Mbps uplink. It supports up to 6x carrier aggregation (6CA), which is said to enable stabler data transfers at faster speeds. It supports 4×4 MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) and 256-QAM scheme, and also uses enhanced Licensed-Assisted Access (eLAA). According to Samsung, the new technologies make it easier to broadcast or stream videos at up to UHD resolution, or even 360-degree video.

The Exynos 9810 has a dedicated image processing and upgraded multi-format codec (MFC). It's said to have faster and more energy efficient image and visual processing, which enables advanced stabilization of photos and video at up to UHD resolution. It will also allow real-time out-of-focus photography at higher resolution and brighter photos in low light with reduced noise and motion blur. And it supports up to 24MP rear and 24MP front cameras, and dual 16MP+16MP cameras.

The upgraded MFC can record and playback video at up to UHD resolution at 120FPS (though it's unlikely that we'll see this offered in the upcoming Galaxy S9 due to a disparity with the Snapdragon 845's capabilities). It also supports HEVC and VP9 codecs, which enables the MFC to render 1024 different tones for each primary color (red, green and blue). That means 1.07 billion colors can be rendered, or 64 times the previous 8-bit color format's 16.7 million.

Finally, the Exynos 9810 is said to enhance neural network-based deep learning. According to Samsung, it introduces sophisticated features that allow the processor to "accurately recognize people or items in photos for fast image searching or categorization, or through depth sensing, scan a user's face in 3D for hybrid face detection". The hybrid face detection uses both hardware and software to enable realistic face-tracking filters and stronger security when using face unlock. The SoC also has a separate security processing unit to safeguard vital personal data such as facial, iris, and fingerprint information.

"The Exynos 9 Series 9810 is our most innovative mobile processor yet, with our third-generation custom CPU, ultra-fast gigabit LTE modem and, deep learning-enhanced image processing," said Ben Hur, vice president of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics. "The Exynos 9810 will be a key catalyst for innovation in smart platforms such as smartphones, personal computing and automotive for the coming AI era."

Samsung states that the Exynos 9 Series 9810 is currently in mass production. It'll be exhibited at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which runs January 9 – 12, and it's SoC is expected to ship in international variants of the Galaxy S9 and the Galaxy S9+, which may be announced next month.

Source 1: Samsung (press release)Source 2: Samsung

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Report: Google and Amazon Likely Lost Money on Smart Speaker Sales Over the Holidays

There seems to be an ebb and flow when it comes to consumer tech, and nowhere is it more apparent than the smart speaker market, where Amazon and Google are competing for dominance. The competition's fierce enough that neither's afraid to forgo profits — according to a Reuters report, in fact, Google ended up losing money on the Google Home Mini and Amazon the Amazon Echo Dot over the holidays.

Both Amazon and Google took advantage of the holiday season to bolster sales. The Amazon Echo Dot and Google Home Mini were discounted to as little as $29 (from $50 and $35, respectively), which put them in "impulse buy" territory. But neither turned a profit — analysts estimate that the companies broke even or took small losses on sales.

Analysts at ABI Research estimate that the Amazon Echo Dot's bill of materials is about $31, and that the Google Home Mini's parts total $26. But that doesn't take into account advertising, manual labor, shipping, and research and design costs. Amazon and Google try to recoup revenue through other means, like commissions on sales items and customer data-sharing arrangements. But those aren't guaranteed.

Amazon has a head start in the smart speaker market, and that can tough to beat — the retail behemoth currently leads the pack, and is making headway in emerging markets such as China. But Google's nabbed the second-place spot, and it's been doing a lot of work to help close the gap.

In any case, it shows how committed both companies are to the smart speaker market and the lengths they're willing to go in order to grow their customer base.

Source: Reuters

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