Microsoft revenue up 12% YoY in FYQ2 2018, cloud platform continues to grow

  Microsoft today has reported a 12% YoY increase in revenues in FYQ2 2018 in the latest earnings report for the quarter that ended December 31, 2017. The company's total estimated revenue is close to $28.9 billion and a net income of $7.5 billion with a solid 12% increase. Cloud platform still continues to grow and fuel the earnings. GAAP net loss was $6.3 billion and non-GAAP net income was $7.5 billion. Microsoft's Azure cloud platform revenue has increased by a massive 98 percent. The company's operating income is estimated at $8.7 billion with a 10% increase. On the other hand, the Surface revenue is up by just 1%, because of just 1 Surfacebook launch; the Surface Book 2 in November.  Microsoft has also returned $5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2018. The revenue in product and business processes combined came up to $9 billion which is a good 25% increase. The Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased 10% and the Office 365 commercial revenue grew by 41% and the subscribers count increased to 29.2 million. LinkedIn in its 3rd full quarter inclusion has also posted a good $1.3 billion revenue contribution during the quarter. Windows ...

OPPO A71 (2018) with 5.2-inch display, Snapdragon 450, AI selfie tech announced

OPPO launched the A71 smartphone in India back in September last year, now the company has introduced the  A71 (2018) in Pakistan and Taiwan. This has similar specifications as the predecessor, including a 5.2-inch HD display,  Android 7.1 (Nougat) OS with ColorOS on top, 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 5-megapixel front-facing camera, but this is powered by Snapdragon 450 SoC instead of MediaTek MT6750 SoC. It also has only 2GB of RAM compared to 3GB of RAM in the predecessor. It also has A.I. Beauty Recognition technology that uses artificial intelligence to recognize skin tone and type, the gender and age of all subjects within an image and analyze environment lighting conditions by referencing other facial images from a massive global photo database, to beautify a selfie shot. It has an unibody metal design with dedicated dual nano SIM slots and a separate microSD expansion slot and packs a 3000mAh battery. It doesn't have a fingerprint sensor. OPPO A71 (2018) specifications 5.2-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display 1.8GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 450 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 506 GPU 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 256GB with microSD Android 7.1 (Nougat) with ColorOS 3.2 Dual SIM 13MP rear camera with LED Flash, PDAF, f/2.2 aperture 5MP front-facing ...

Apple confirms US govt inquiries over throttling aged iPhones

Apple today confirmed that it had received inquiries from U.S govt agencies over a software update that is slowed down aged iPhones' performance and also clarified that it is responding to them. According to the sources, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are said to be investigating Apple to see whether it has violated any securities laws concerning its disclosures. Since the inquiry is in early stages, it is too soon to conclude the outcome or if any enforcement will follow. Sources say that the Govt agencies are investigating the Apple's public statements on the situation. The major concern here is to see if Apple may have misled investors about the performance of older phones. On the other hand, there were reports yesterday saying that Apple might have postponed key software features like home screen redesign, etc. to focus on reliability and performance for iOS 12. Regarding the iPhone throttling issue, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook back in January told ABC News that  "we did say what it was, but I don’t think a lot of people were paying attention. And maybe we should have been clearer." Apple has apologized for not being transparent enough with the issue and has also ...

Huawei P20 and P20 Plus expected to be announced on March 27 in Paris

It is already known that Huawei has backed out of the MWC 2018 event with the P20 announcement and now it is learned that the flagships will be announced at a separate event in March. Press invites for the event have already been sent out to the media. The new report falls in-line with the earlier rumored information. Though the invite doesn't explicitly mention about P20, the "new flagship devices" are probably going be P20 and P20 Plus. The P20 duo is the successors to the P10 flagships that were introduced back in 2017 at the MWC 2017. The March 27th data is exactly a month after the MWC 2018 event. The rumored specifications of the P20 include a larger display and will be powered by the Kirin 970 SoC and is also said to feature a 40-megapixel triple rear camera with 5x hybrid zoom, along with a 24 MP front-facing camera. It will run on Android Oreo 8.0 or 8.1 with EMUI on top. Like the Mate 10 series, the P20 series might also pack the A.I enhancements. Though these rumored specifications might not be from credible sources, we shall know more details as we inch closer to the launch. The Huawei P20 ...

Qualcomm and Samsung expand multi-year cross-license agreement

Qualcomm today announced that the company and Samsung Electronics have signed a multi-year strategic relationship agreement over various technology areas and across a range of mobile devices. This agreement will also expand the companies relationship as technology partners.  The agreement will also cover mobile devices and infrastructure equipment and as a part of the agreement, Samsung will now withdraw its interventions in Qualcomm’s appeal of the KFTC decision against an $868m fine in 2016 over excessive” licensing fees in the Seoul High Court. Qualcomm did not disclose any terms and conditions of the amended deal but said it consistent with global-handset pricing. Both Qualcomm and Samsung are also said to work together for Qualcomm’s processors that also include the transition to 5G. Qualcomm early last week signed similar commitments with Lenovo, OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi in China. Commenting on the agreement, Cristiano Amon, president, Qualcomm Incorporated said: The announcement today underscores the importance of our longstanding strategic relationship with Samsung in driving core mobile technology into many different segments. As Qualcomm continues to lead the world to 5G, the opportunities between our companies are growing and this agreement sets us both on a path for continued success. TM Roh, executive vice president and the head of mobile R&D, Samsung Electronics said: We ...

Google Flights can now predict airline delays, gets new fare type options

Google Flights has received two new features to help your travel experience. One among them is the ability to predict flight delays, and another is the new fare type option to show cheap fares. The new fare type feature includes options like "Basic Economy" for those who are traveling on a budget. To make it more comfortable, Google will also include additional charges like overhead bin space, ability to select your seat and baggage fees. This feature is available for flights on American, Delta, and United. On the other hand, Google will now use historic flight status data, and machine learning algorithms to predict delays even when this information isn’t available from airlines yet and Google says that it will flag a delay status if it is at least 80% confident. However, Google advices you to reach the airport beforehand. To know the status, one simply needs to search for the flight or the airline and flight route, and these details will appear right in your search results. This really is a nifty little feature to have, but the availability seems to be limited to selected regions right now. Source

Xiaomi Redmi 5A Rose Gold variant launched in India, available from today starting at Rs. 4999

After teasers, Xiaomi has launched the Rose Gold variant of the Redmi 5A  smartphone. The smartphone was introduced back in November last year in Dark Grey, Champagne Gold and Rose Gold colors, but only the Gold and Grey color variants of the smartphone went on sale starting from December. Earlier this month the company said that it has sold over 1 million or 10 lakh units of Redmi 5A smartphones in India. Apart from the color, other specifications are similar, including a 5-inch HD display, quad-core Snapdragon 425 SoC, MIUI 9 based on Android 7.1 (Nougat), 13-megapixel rear camera with PDAF, LED flash, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, dedicated SIM slots, unibody design with matte finish and a 3000mAh built-in battery. Xiaomi Redmi 5A specifications 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS display with 1000: 1 contrast ratio, 72% (typ) / 68% (min) color gamut 1.4GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 425 Mobile Platform with 500MHz Adreno 308 GPU 2GB RAM with 16GB internal storage,3GB RAM with 32GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD Android 7.1.2 (Nougat) with MIUI 9 Dual SIM 13MP rear camera with PDAF, LED Flash, f/2.2 aperture, 1080p video recording 5MP front-facing camera, f/2.0 aperture Infrared sensor Dimensions: 140.4 x 70.1 mm x 8.35 mm ;Weight: 137g 4G ...

Reliance Jio denies launch of Jio Coin app, warns people against fake apps

After reports of Reliance Jio launching Jio Coin soon, several fake apps with the name JioCoin started cropping up on the Google Play Store and  in recent weeks soliciting investments in crypto currencies from people. Reliance Jio today confirmed that it has not launched any JioCoin App and said that any such apps using the JioCoin name are fake. Some of these fake apps were seen downloads between 10,000 and 50,000, while most were downloaded less than 1,000 times. There were also some fake Jio Coin websites that cropped up recently asking people to register with their name and email address. Jio also said that it takes a serious note of such fraudulent attempts by unscrupulous persons to misguide the public in the name of Jio and will take appropriate legal action. Reliance Jio did not confirm if it has plans to launch its own cryptocurrency and blockchain products in future.

UFS 3.0 standard released, offers 2x faster performance than UFS 2.1

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association today announced the new UFS 3.0 standard making it the first to introduce MIPI M-PHY HS-Gear4 with a data rate of up to 11.6 Gbps per lane which is a 2x performance increase over UFS 2.1. The new UFS 3.0 standard brings along two new features specifically designed for the automotive market. It brings the ability to function at an extended temperature range (-40°C to 105°C) and refresh operation. UFS high-speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant improvements in throughput and system performance. JEDEC's UFS leverages the industry-leading specifications from the MIPI Alliance to form its interconnect layer in order to achieve the highest performance and most power efficient data transport. JEDEC 3.0 standard's  single lane can carry up to 11.6 Gbps. For more speed, two lanes can be used for a total of 23.2 Gbps. The new version is also moved to 2.5V operation compared to the previous generation which worked on 2.7V to 3.6V. JEDEC's 3.1 defines the use of MIPI M-PHY v4.1 and the recently released MIPI UniProSM v1.8 specification to form the Interconnect Layer. It also takes advantage of the Adapt support in MIPI M-PHY v4.1 and QoS support from the recently released MIPI UniPro v1.8 specification to support more reliable link ...

What Is a Super Blue Blood Moon and How to Watch It

A once in a 150-year phenomenon, the Super Blue Blood Moon is here. As the name suggests, the moon is going to look super-sized and much brighter than usual. Blue and bloody? Not so much. We explore why it is named Super Blue Blood Moon and how you can watch it on your television, computer or even your phone.  A Super Blue Blood Moon is simply put a fancy lunar eclipse. If you go back to high school science class, you'll remember that a lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth is perfectly positioned between the sun and the moon. Perfect positioning would result in the Earth throwing its shadow on the moon. Occurring only on full moon nights, a lunar eclipse lasts for a much longer duration than a solar eclipse and is usually visible from anywhere on Earth. Well, anywhere where the moon is visible at that hour! Scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as a Blood Moon. The term has come into pop culture due to the way the moon adopts a reddish hue. The reddish hue is of course due to the phenomenon of Rayleigh scattering. Rayleigh scattering is once again, a throwback to high school physics. Think of ...