LG said to supply Flexible OLED displays for Sony smartphones

Sony has expanded its partnership with LG for OLED display panels from TVs to smartphones, according to latest reports and people familiar with LG Display's internal situations. LG is said to supply flexible OLED panels to Sony smartphones after supplying to Sony TVs. The move comes after Sony has seen big profits from large OLED TV model with LG Display. Sony has not just increased its earnings, but also made its presence felt in the premium segment. Sony's first half of 2017 net profit ran to 211.7 billion yen which is the company's the highest from the past 10 years. This made Sony more confident and made the company raise its annual TV sales target to 12.5 million units from 12 million units. However, the smartphone biz continuing its decline. However, it ranks second in Japan next to Apple. In the first half of 2017, Sony has captured a market share of 14.9%, beating Samsung Electronics (8.2%), Sharp (7.3%) and Fujitsu (8.9%). The company has been struggling to show the same level of success in the rest of the world. Observing the need for smartphones in advanced markets and the reach it has, Sony is not giving up on the smartphone business just yet. On the ...

Vivo Xplay7 renders, specifications surface – 4K bezel-less display, Snapdragon 845, 10GB RAM, 4x optical zoom

Vivo introduced its flagship Xplay6 smartphone with 5.46-inch Quad HD display, Snapdragon 820 SoC, 6GB RAM and dual rear cameras back in 2016. The company did not introduce its successor last year, now renders of the upcoming Xplay7 has surfaced along with a PPT revealing rumored specifications of the phone. Renders of the smartphone show sleek design, dual rear cameras, almost bezel-less screen and an in-display fingerprint sensor. The PPT that has surfaced in China saying that these are some of the selling points of the Xplay7 reveals that it will feature a 4K OLED display with 92.9% screen-to-body ratio, Dual IMX Sony sensors offering 4x optical zoom, in-display fingerprint sensor with face recognition 2.0, Snapdragon 845 SoC with whopping 10GB RAM and 256GB and 512GB storage versions. This is a huge jump from the predecessor - Xplay6. Some of the smartphones that have 8GB RAM include,  Asus Zenfone AR, OnePlus 5, OnePlus 5T and Xiaomi Mi Mix 2. If the specifications are true, we might see the first smartphone with 10GB RAM later this year. Since these are just rumored specifications, take it with a pinch of salt. Source 1, 2

Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ renders surface again

Last week first renders of the upcoming Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus smartphones surfaced online. Now new renders of the smartphones have surfaced showing the back with rear camera with fingerprint sensor below them along with branding, thanks to dBrand who has already started taking pre-orders for the skins for the phones. [HTML2] The Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ components surfaced soon after the renders showing the fingerprint sensor below the rear camera, and the flash and heart rate sensor next to the camera. These new renders coincide with the leak. [HTML1] Recently leaked retail box revealed key camera specifics including a super-speed Dual-Pixel 12-megapixel camera with OIS, an F1.5/2.4 variable aperture for the S9, but the S9+ is said to feature dual 12MP rear camera with fixed aperture. Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ rumored specifications S9 – 5.8-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity display with 570ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection S9+ – 6.2-inch Quad HD+ (2960 × 1440 pixels) Super AMOLED Infinity display with 529ppi, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with Adreno 630 GPU / Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 9 Series 9810 processor with Mali G72MP18 GPU S9 – 4GB LPDDR4x RAM with 64GB storage (UFS 2.1), expandable memory with ...

Paytm, AGTech launch Gamepind mobile games platform

AGTech Holdings Limited, which is the leading integrated games and entertainment company in China and Paytm today announced the official launch of Gamepind mobile gaming platform. The partnership is aimed at offering the host of popular and exciting social and casual games. Gamepind will be available as a standalone app and via the Paytm app, and is aimed at taping the significantly growing mobile entertainment market in the country. Gamepind will use the Paytm's large user ecosystem to offer a rich portfolio of games and entertainment content including casual games, contests, and sports games. The companies also said to use the Gamepind as an ideal marketing and promotional platform for merchants to engage with consumers in a truly differentiated way. AGTech is entering the Indian market and it is also the first major international initiative expanding its footprint in the country.  AGTech has a 45% stake in the joint venture while Paytm owns a 55% stake. John Sun, Chairman and Chief Executive of AGTech said: We are excited to partner with Paytm to localize this unique platform for its 300 million and growing registered customer base by combining Paytm’s local resources and our expertise in mobile games and other user engagement activities. A member of Alibaba Group and Ant Financial ...

Moto X4 with 6GB RAM Unboxing and First Impressions

Motorola just launched the 6GB RAM version of the Moto X4 in India, few months after it launched  the 3GB RAM and 4GB RAM variants of the phone in the country. Here we have the unboxing and the first impressions of the new version of the phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4mVe0QWCY4 Box Contents Moto X4 6GB RAM + 64GB storage version in Sterling Blue color In-ear headset with set of earbuds 2-pin Turbo charger (5V-3A|9V-1.6A|12V-1.2A) USB Type-C cable SIM ejector tool User manual and warranty information The phone has a familiar 5.2-inch 1080p 2.5D curved glass screen with Corning Gorilla Glass protection and is powered by Snapdragon 630 Mobile Platform with 6GB RAM that makes the phone snappy. The phone runs Android 8.0 (Oreo) out-of-the-box that brings that usual features such as Picture-in- picture mode, additional Bluetooth audio codecs and more. It has the usual features such as Moto Display, Moto Voice, Moto Actions, Moto Key and more. It has a 16-megapixel camera on the front with LED flash, f/2.0 aperture, 1um pixel size and LED flash. There is also face filters for selfies. It doesn't have capacitive touch buttons, instead it uses on-screen buttons and there is a fingerprint sensor below the screen that can be used for navigation with One Button Nav feature ...

Moto X4 6GB RAM version launched in India for Rs. 24999

Motorola launched the Moto X4 smartphone in India back in November last year in 3GB RAM with 32GB storage and 4GB RAM with 64GB storage variants. As expected, the company has launched 6GB RAM version of the smartphone in the country that comes with Android 8.0 (Oreo) out of the box. Other specifications are similar, including a dual 12MP and 8MP rear cameras to take images with blurred background, portraits, selective black and white and has dual Autofocus Pixel technology for faster focus in low light, 5.2-inch 1080p screen, Snapdragon 630 SoC and 16MP front camera with 4MP adaptive low light mode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4mVe0QWCY4 Moto X4 specifications 5.2-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD LTPS IPS display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection 2.2 GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 630 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 508 GPU 6GB / 4GB RAM with 64GB , 3GB RAM with 32GB storge, expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD Android 8.0 (Oreo) Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano/microSD) 12MP primary camera with Dual Autofocus Pixel sensor, PDAF, f/2.0 aperture, 1.4um pixel size, 8MP ultra-wide angle secondary camera with 120-degree field of view, f/2.2 aperture, 1.12um pixel size, dual-tone LED flash, 4K video recording 16MP Front-facing camera with LED flash, f/2.0 aperture, 1um pixel size Water and dust resistant ...

Nokia ReefShark chipsets with AI, nanometer chip technology and Future X 5G Architecture announced

Nokia today has unveiled the new ReefShark chipsets which are aimed to take leverage of the in-house silicon expertise and reduce the size, cost and power consumption of operators' networks and meet the radio requirements of 5G. The company has also outlined its implementation of Future X network architecture for 5G. The chipsets also incorporate the Nokia's artificial intelligence (AI) and nanometer chip technology. The ReefShark chipsets also leverage on the company's capabilities in antenna development for mobile devices and base stations. The chipsets for RF (radio frequency) are also said to significantly improve the radio performance and also results in reducing the size of massive MIMO antennas. ReefShark chipsets also reduce power consumption in baseband units by 64%, compared to such units in use today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdIPlXy_JsI The ReefShark chipsets for compute capacity are delivered as plug-in units for the commercially available Nokia AirScale baseband module which is a software upgradeable to full 5G functionality. These plug-in units also results in triple throughput with upto 28GBps to 84 Gbps per module AI in 5G networks enables real-time radio monitoring and optimization and brings in the ability to apply techniques such as network slicing to meet the service level demands of new business cases. The company is working on common toolkits ...

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 MIUI 9.2 update starts rolling out

Xiaomi announced the lightning fast MIUI 9 Global ROM back in November 2017, most of the devices already got the MIUI 9 update followed by MIUI 9.2, but Redmi Note 3, Redmi 3S/Prime, Redmi 4A and some old devices didn’t get MIUI 9 update. As per users, Xiaomi has started rolling out  a new MIUI 9.2 update (still based on Marshmallow) for Redmi Note 3, it seems that company decided to skip the MIUI 9 update for Redmi Note 3 and roll out MIUI 9.2 directly. The new update comes as MIUI 9.2.4.0.MHOMIEK and is of 290 MB in size, this update also brings January security patch to Redmi Note 3. Note that this is a Nightly build, Xiaomi releases Stable Nightly updates to random users to get feedback and the same update is rolled out to all users as a Stable build if feedback goes well, which is expected in 2 to 3 days, in case you wish to read more about Nightly ROMs refer to this post. This update brings Interactive and Fresh UI changes, New Gallery App, Calendar Cards, App Vault, Mi Video App, New Mi Explorer and Mi Drop to Redmi Note 3. Xiaomi might also enable Split ...

Google Clips goes on sale briefly, shipping excepted from March

Google's A.I powered clips camera was introduced back in October at the Pixel event. The tiny camera can be hooked onto your daily things like shirt, table, chair and will automatically record a seven-second video. The Clips hands-free camera is now on sale from the Google Store in the USA.  While the sale lasted for a brief period, deliveries aren't expected until March. Also, the sales of the Clips camera are now halted may be because Google sold its stock or wanted to resume the sale after a while, but the Google Clips listing on the Store now says to 'Join the waitlist.' Google Clips can record the moving image using machine learning technique without any human intervention. Connectivity features include Bluetooth LE and WiFi Direct which helps It to sync with Android and iOS and in quickly recording spontaneous moments. There is an option to create short movies using the recorded clips. It comes with a 12-megapixel sensor with f/2.4 aperture, 1.55 µm pixel size and 130-degree wide-angle lens and also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. It has 16GB internal storage. Google claims that it can offer up to 3 hours of smart capture on a single charge. Clips use USB Type-C port to ...

HTC files patent for mobile VR headset with magnetic phone case

HTC has filed a patent for a mobile VR headset with magnetic phone case according to the documents listings found in the database of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The VR headset is said to be bundled with a magnetic phone. The company originally filed the patent in July 2016 with the United States Patent. However, the patent was rejected last November for failing to explain the nature of the device, and its working, i.e., the features of the VR headset that allow it to be categorized as a new invention. HTC then following some modifications and now received the approval from the USPTO earlier this month. The creation of the device is described as an “accessory and lens system” consisting of two parts, a protective case to house a smartphone which has a rear magnetic plate and a foldable dual-lens setup that can be magnetically attached to the accessory. Once the smartphone is removed, it can be folded out to a small VR module reliant. Users can still slide in the phone into the device from the bottom and hold it in one or two hands while experiencing VR content. The foldable nature of the VR headset should make it extremely compact and easy to transport. While the build ...