Samsung Galaxy A8+ (2018) launching in India soon exclusively on Amazon

Samsung introduced the Galaxy A8 (2018) and Galaxy A8+ (2018)  smartphones last month. Now Amazon India has started teasing that the Galaxy A8+ (2018) will launch exclusively on Amazon soon. It packs a 6-inch Full HD+Infinity Super AMOLED  18.5:9 display, is powered by Octa-Core Exynos 7885 14nm processor, runs Android 7.1.1 (Nougat),  has 16-megapixel rear camera with f/1.7 aperture, and a 16-megapixel and 8-megapixel dual front cameras, both with f/1.9 aperture. Dual front cameras let you switch between them for close-ups with the background to portrait shots and the Live Focus feature lets you adjust the bokeh effect before or after you take the picture. It comes with IP68 ratings for water and dust resistance and packs a 3500mAh battery with support for fast charging. Samsung Galaxy A8+ (2018) specifications 6-inch (1080×2220 pixels) Full HD+ Super AMOLED display Octa-Core (2.2GHz Dual + 1.6GHz Hexa) Exynos 7885 14nm processor with Mali-G71 GPU 6GB RAM with 64GB storage, 4GB RAM with 32GB storage, expandable up to 256GB via micro SD card Android 7.1.1 (Nougat) Dual SIM 16MP rear camera with LED flash, f/1.7 aperture 16MP front camera with f/1.9 aperture, secondary 8MP camera with f/1.9 aperture Fingerprint sensor Water and dust resistant body (IP68) Dimension: 159.9×75.7x 8.3 mm Weight: 191g 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2.4/5GHz), Bluetooth v5, NFC, USB Type-C ...

Instagram testing a feature to let users post stories directly to WhatsApp

Instagram is said to be testing a feature that will let users post Instagram stories directly to WhatsApp. Like rest of the WhatsApp, an Instagram story posted as WhatsApp status becomes encrypted and disappears after 24 hours.  The feature is currently in testing with a small group of users and it is based on publicly available code which is made available by WhatsApp for third-party apps to integrate WhatsApp messaging. In this feature, users will an get an option to share to WhatsApp from the Instagram sharing screen and will have to press “send” in WhatsApp app to post the story. An Instagram story posted as WhatsApp status will have an Instagram icon on the bottom. This move might add more functionality and also increase the usage of Instagram which as of last June were outstripped Snapchat. As of November, there were more than 300 million daily active users of Instagram Stories. Adding WhatsApp sharing ability will boost the traffic of Instagram stories especially in countries where WhatsApp is very popular. This will also indirectly boost the usage of WhatsApp status feature which currently enjoys 300 million active users daily. Since the feature is currently under testing, we're not sure when it might be available for a global roll ...

Google app v7.18 beta hints at image donations to Google Lens, Quartz screen resolutions and more

Google app is the first to receive an update after the holidays season, and the V7.18 beta doesn't bring many changes to the table. However, a quick teardown by Android Police have revealed hints at image donations to Google Lens, Quartz Google Home device with a screen gets its resolutions leaked and more.  Firstly, the beta update bought changes to the Calender U.I; there are fewer whitespaces and most of the labels and text line up cleanly and also has divider lines between list items. We've known that Google is currently working on a 'Google Home' device with screen codenamed 'Quartz,' now the latest beta update strings hint at different screen size group from 640dp to 1280dp. It looks like there will be support for multiple screens going by the resolutions starting from 640dp which is about a standard for a 7-inch tablet in landscape orientation. It is possible that Google might release a family of Quartz-powered devices in different screen sizes. Another possibility is where Google apart from launch one or two Quartz-powered devices might design the software for partner OEMs to release their own versions. Google Lens is one powerful feature of the Pixel phones. However, the feature still needs refinements to become mainstream. With ...

WhatsApp users exchanged record 75 billion messages on New Year’s Eve

WhatsApp; the biggest chat application in the world with over 1 billion active users daily has seen a recording breaking 75 billion messages sent on December 31st night on the occasion of New Year 2018. It was 63 billion for the last new year's eve. In fact, the servers went down on December 31st night which made WhatsApp unusable for quite some time. Apart from just messages, over 13 billion images and 5 billion videos were exchanged between users on the New Year's Eve. The company had a good run in 2017 where the company introduced a bunch of new features including Video calling, Live Location tracking, ability to delete message even after sending with 'Delete for Everyone' feature, Status which currently has over 300 million daily active users, New Album View for Photos. Apart from these features, WhatsApp also announced a Business app and said that it is building and testing new tools via a free WhatsApp Business app for small companies and charge big companies operating at a large scale.

LG said to rebrand G-series smartphones to compete with Apple and Samsung

LG is said to be re-branding its G-series flagship phones in order to compete with Apple and Samsung according to a new report. The G-series smartphones which debuted in 2012 with the launch of Optimus G has seen six smartphones in the line-up including the last year's flagship G6.  According to the sources, LG is said to be preparing a new brand strategy for the G series in the first half of the year and will number the phone with a two-digit number and rebrand the phone with a new name are some of the options. The company currently has two flagship models; the G-series and the V-series which launch in first and second half of the year respectively. The company is slated to launch a new flagship at the Mobile World Congress in February where the previous G5 and G6 got launched in 2016 and 2017. The move comes with an aim to compete with Samsung and Apple. Commenting on the same, LG officials have said: "Rebranding flagship models is nothing new, and Samsung and Apple have done so for their own flagships." Source

Meltdown and Spectre security flaw on Intel, AMD, ARM CPUs affect most computers and phones

While it is known that Intel chips are facing a bug that is affected by serious Kernel memory leak issue on modern computers including Windows, Linux, and macOS, the exact problem and explanation for this bug remained a mystery. Windows and Linux have already started pushing the updates that will fix the issue, we now have what the flaw is and they have been named 'Meltdown' and 'Spectre'. The Meltdown was independently discovered by three groups; researchers from the Technical University of Graz in Austria, German security firm Cerberus Security, and Google's Project Zero. On the other hand, 'Spectre' was found by Project Zero and independent researcher Paul Kocher. These bugs allow programs to steal data which is currently processed on the computer. Since programs are not allowed to read data from other programs, any malicious software or program can exploit Meltdown and Spectre to gain access to passwords, browser data, your personal photos, emails, instant messages, etc. stored in the memory of other running programs. These bugs can work on personal computers, mobile devices, and can even steal cloud data. The 'Meltdown' attack allows a program to access the memory, and gain access to secrets, on the other hand, Spectre allows an attacker to trick error-free programs, which are ...

Samsung Exynos 9 Series 9810 SoC with 2.9GHz 3rd-gen custom CPUs, AI enhancements announced

Samsung has officially announced the Exynos 9 Series 9810 SoC, as it had promised, after it was revealed in CES 2018 Innovation Awards announcement. It is the successor of Exynos 9 Series 8895 SoC that powers the Galaxy S8 series and the Galaxy Note8. It is based on the 2nd generation 10-nanometer (nm) FinFET process technology, and has new eight-core CPU with four of the company's powerful 3rd generation custom designed CPU cores along with other four optimized for efficiency and an industry-first 6CA LTE modem and deep learning processing capabilities. Highlights of Samsung Exynos 9 Series 9810 SoC Based on the 2nd generation 10-nanometer (nm) FinFET process technology Octa-Core CPU with 4x 2.9GHz custom Exynos M3 CPUs for performance and 4x ARM A55 CPUs for optimized for efficiency Mali G72MP18 GPU LTE Cat.18 6CA-supported modem has support for up to 6x carrier aggregation (CA) for maximum download speed of up to 1.2Gbp (Cat.18) and 200 megabits per second (Mbps) uplink. Modem supports 4×4 MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) and 256-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) scheme, and utilizes enhanced Licensed-Assisted Access (eLAA) technology. Single-core performance is enhanced 2x and multi-core performance is increased by around 40% compared to its predecessor Neural network-based deep learning and stronger security allows it to accurately recognize people or items in ...

ACT Fibernet revises plans across four cities in Andhra Pradesh

ACT Fibernet has revised its plans for its customers in Vizag, Vijayawada, Eluru and Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. This is the second time these cities are getting an upgrade after an upgrade in August last year. In Vizag, ACT SILVER plan has been upgraded to 200 GB FUP limit with 20 Mbps speed from 140 GB FUP limit and 10 Mbps speed. ACT Gold is upgraded to 300 GB FUP limit with 40 Mbps speed from 200 GB FUP limit and 25 Mbps speed, ACT Diamond is upgraded to 400 GB FUP limit with 60 Mbps speed from 250 GB FUP limit and 50 Mbps speed and ACT Platinum is upgraded to 600 GB FUP limit with 100 Mbps speed from 350 GB FUP limit and 75 Mbps speed. In Vijayawada, Eluru and Guntur, under the monthly retail broadband plans, ACT Silver is upgraded to 250 GB FUP limit with 30 Mbps speed from 150 GB FUP limit and 20 Mbps speed, ACT Gold is upgraded to 400 GB FUP limit with 60 Mbps speed from 250 GB FUP limit and 50 Mbps speed, ACT Diamond is upgraded to 600 GB FUP limit with 100 Mbps speed from 300 GB FUP limit and ...

10.or D Unboxing

10.or (pronounced Tenor) launched the 10.or D its third smartphone and its most affordable smartphone exclusively on Amazon India starting at Rs. 4999 last month. Here we have the unboxing of the smartphone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xSiRNzuztM&t=1s Box Contents 10.or D in Beyond Black color 2-pin charger (5V-2A) micro USB cable SIM ejector tool Quick start guide It has a 5.2-inch HD display and is powered by a Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 mobile platform with 2GB or 3GB of RAM depending on the model. It runs on Android 7.1.2 (Nougat), and the company has promised an upgrade to Android 8.0 Oreo. It has 5-megapixel camera on the front with f/2.0 aperture. It has a smooth matte finish, features a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash, f/2.0 aperture and a fingerprint sensor below it. It has a dedicated SIM and microSD card slots arranged in a single tray. It comes with 4G VoLTE support and packs a 3550mAh battery. It also comes in Aim Gold color and is priced at Rs. 4999 for the 2GB RAM with 16GB storage version, while the 3GB RAM with 32GB storage version costs Rs. 5,999. It will be available exclusively from Amazon.in starting from January 5th. We will bring you the complete review of the phone soon.

Trails for Panic button on mobiles to begin from Uttar Pradesh on January 26

Union minister Maneka Gandhi has announced that the trails for the Panic button on mobiles to begin from Uttar Pradesh on January 26 to ensure women safety. Though the projected had to kickstart back in January 2017, it got delayed by a year.  The Department of Telecommunications has released a gazette notification, back in April 2016 has made it mandatory for mobile manufacturers to include panic buttons in cell phones by January 2017. The order says that the phones will have to rock the panic button in the form of numeric key 5 or 9 to invoke emergency calls, while the smartphones without the emergency call feature will have to have some provision. Gandhi said the earlier trial of the project was delayed due to a large number of prank calls and now all the new phones in the country now have a panic button, but the back-end architecture is being implemented in Uttar Pradesh said Chetan Sanghi, Joint Secretary, WCD. Smartphone user needs to download a mobile application which will send alerts when a victim long presses the panic button on the phone. On the other hand, feature phone users just need to press the designated key. But the Govt is yet to be notified by the mobile manufacturers which button on a phone would function ...