Halide camera app to bring portrait mode support for objects and pets on iPhone XR

The low-cost iPhone XR features some decent hardware including face unlock, edge-to-edge design, A12 Bionic chipset and more. However, when compared to the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, it falls short due to the lack of proper Portrait mode. It currently only works on people and not objects. However, the developers of popular camera app Halide, have found depth data on the iPhone XR and can enable Portrait mode for non-people. With the stock Camera app on iOS, if you try to take an iPhone XR Portrait mode image of your pet or an object, a message will appear that reads “no person detected.”  This seemingly is a software limitation, as Apple is relying heavily on software to mimic the camera features of dual-camera iPhones on the single-lens iPhone XR. Depth on iPhone XR vs iPhone XS. The XR has 1/4 the depth data. (Ignore color differences.) pic.twitter.com/WMkDtznY5o — Ben Sandofsky (@sandofsky) October 27, 2018 Halide developers in a Reddit post revealed that they currently have Portrait mode working on pets through their app. The post reads: “with some more tooling,” they’ll likely be able to release a version of the Halide app that enables iPhone XR Portrait mode that should work on other subjects ...

Reliance Jio offers 8GB free data Jio Celebration Pack for users

Reliance Jio is back with the free data offer. Last month it announced that users will get 16GB of data as a part of 2nd anniversary celebration since Reliance Jio launched its commercial operations in India. As promised it has offered second voucher with 2GB data per day, valid for 4 days as a part of its 2nd anniversary celebration. Regarding the free data offer, the second voucher of 8GB (2GB/day for 4 days) free data, will be credited to you within this October 2018. You can check usage by visiting “My plans” section in MyJio once they are credited. You can check out more details on Jio.com and MyJio app. You can also call 1299 toll-free number to confirm via SMS, if you have received Jio Celebration data add-on pack. Last month Reliance Jio partnered with Cardbury Dairy Milk to offer users 1GB of free data just by uploading a photo of an empty Dairy Milk wrapper on MyJio app.

Google might be planning on replacing Android voice unlock with ‘Lock screen personal results’

Google introduced the ability to unlock the phone with a voice when interacting with Google Assistant. After being removed on Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, Google might be ending the support and might be finding a replacement on all other Android devices given how insecure the feature is. “Unlock with Voice Match” allowed users to have their voice act as a device passcode. Even Google considers the feature, less secure as it warns users with prompt warning users that this was the case before allowing you to enable it. Google, with the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, replaced it with “Lock screen personal results.” This meant that Voice Match could only show email, calendar, and contacts through the Assistant interface, but any further action would require a password or fingerprint unlock. The Google Assistant features when the device is locked shows a lock icon on top to reflect the state of your device. The Google app V8.39 update includes a reference to a feature dubbed “Updated Voice Match” prompt that details the replacement and that “Lock screen personal results” will be the “more secure way” going forward. The end of “Unlock with Voice Match” and replacement with “Lock screen personal results.” is not yet enabled as of ...

Google Discover starts rolling out on Google.com mobile web

Google rebranded Feed to 'Discover' which is part of the company’s efforts to surface information without users actively having to ask for it. Google Discover is now beginning to roll out in the web search on smartphones. It is available to the left of your home screen on Android, it surfaces articles based on your interests from sports, entertainment, and Search history. According to Google, it is used by 800 million users every month. Google Discover brings new visual design and features. However, on the web, Discover shows a feed of cards below the Search field, exactly like in the Google app on Android and iOS. Above each story is a topic header that features Discover’s star icon that can be clicked to see more related articles. These cards feature a cover image, title, and brief summary, as well as the site name and published date. There is also an overflow menu in the upper-right corner which allows users to dismiss. The content types that appear include live sports scores and YouTube videos. Some stories will feature a carousel of more cards underneath that include a summary or the actors in a show. This feature is now rolled out widely and it seems ...

Qualcomm says Apple still owes $7 billion in device royalty payments

Qualcomm Inc. in its ongoing federal dispute with Apple on October 26th, in a San Diego federal court, said that the Cupertino company is $7 billion behind in patent royalty payments to the mobile chip firm. While this claim doesn't mean that Apple owes Qualcomm that much, but reveals the scale of fines in the legal dispute. On the other hand, Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices. Qualcomm accused Apple of patent infringement. The San-diego based chipmaker made its comments about the size of Apple’s unpaid royalties in a hearing in federal court in San Diego. Apple has disputed the number of royalties that it owes to Qualcomm. Apple has argued that Qualcomm said to have charged once for the actual royalties, and again when the chips were used in iPhones. Qualcomm has argued that its practices are legal and that Apple is seeking to destroy Qualcomm’s business model after agreeing to it for years. According to the dispute, royalty payments to Qualcomm were five times higher than the rest of Apple's payments combined. Apple is said to have been withholding royalty payments to Qualcomm since the dispute began. In 2017 April, it was reported that Apple and its suppliers had withheld some ...

Google said to be working on a subscription service called ‘Play Pass’

Google might be working on a new paid subscription service in Google Play which might be called "Play Pass." Google hasn't made any changes to PlayStore in the recent times and slightest of changes might take few months to roll out. Back in late June, there were reports about an in-development Play Store feature called "Play Pass." Forcing the feature flag to “true” didn’t show anything new in the Play Store, but decompiling the code showed that Play Pass had something to do with a subscription. However, today, a quick survey in the Google Opinion Rewards there was a question where the user is asked to imagine an "unnamed “app store” that “has a subscription to paid apps and games for a monthly fee." The question also asks the user to describe how well "Pass" describes the name for such a service. Since this survey corroborates to the findings in the Play Store app a few months back, it gives more evidence that Google is indeed working on a paid subscription service in Google Play. Google usually sends surveys about new products or services in testing, as Google back in March of 2016, asked users about tasty foods that start with the letter "N." One of ...

Android Oreo adoption rate climbs to 21.5%, Nougat is now on 28.2% devices

Google is out with the latest Android distribution numbers for the month of October. The Oreo adoption rate is now at 21.5% compared to 19.2% in September. This includes both Android 8.0 and 8.1. Much like previous month, Pie didn't make it to the final list despite it rolling out.  The Nougat adaption is at 28.2% compared to the 29.3% in September. The Android 6.0 Marshmallow is now at 21.3% which is a slight decline from 21.6% compared to September. The Lollipop operating system adoption now stands at 17.9% down from 18.3% in September. KitKat OS now on 7.6% devices compared to 7.8% from the month before The listing also shows adoption of Jellybean is at 3% down from 3.2% in September. Gingerbread and Ice cream sandwich are at 0.2% and 0.3% respectively. The data was collected before 7-days ending on October 26, 2018, said Google. With the company slowly ending support for older OS, we should see a slight growth in the latest and upcoming Android P adaption. Source

New icon in iOS hints at iPad Pro with no home button, slim bezels and more; iOS 12.1 with eSIM functionality could launch tomorrow

Back during iOS 12 beta 5, we have seen an icon that indicated the iPad with no Home button, rounded corner, and no notch. It was a small icon designed to be used in the battery widget. However, now we are getting to see more details and clearer look at the 2018 iPad Pro redesigned within iOS.  The new icon found within iOS offers a more detailed view of the 2018 iPad Pro, which we are expecting to be announced at a special event on October 30th. This icon shows an iPad with rounded corners, no Home button, and no notch. An interesting aspect of this icon is how large the bezels look when compared to the recent iPhones and this could be because of how the icon is constructed, sometimes thicker lines are required for it to be “readable” at smaller sizes. The sleep/wake button is still at the top and the presence of a sleep/wake button instead of a side button could be just a design decision for the new iPad. However, it is possible the 2018 iPad Pro might still have a side button as this can be an unfinished asset. All things aside, we should know more details tomorrow ...

OPPO completes first 5G Internet access on a customized R15, will be one of the first to launch 5G smartphones in 2019

OPPO has announced that it has successfully completed 5G Internet access for the first time on a mobile phone, and said that it has laid a solid foundation for commercially launching 5G phones next year. This was announced by Brain Shen, OPPO Global Vice President and President of China Business Department on Sina Weibo on October 27th. OPPO's VP detailed how OPPO made the connection successfully between an R15 smartphone terminal and the 5G network, in their 5G communication protocol laboratory environment. The connection was carried out on a pre-commercially available 5G smartphone developed on the basis of OPPO R15. It was customized with fully integrated 5G components including System board, RF, RFFE and antenna. The "5G" logo also appeared in the top right corner of the screen. As a pioneer of 5G, OPPO said that it is committed to be one of the key contributors to the 5G standard and has become an important promoter of 5G product development and commercialization. Brain stated they would strive to become the first brand to release real commercial 5G smartphones as well. Recently at the Beijing 2018 Qualcomm China Technology and Cooperation Summit, OPPO announced the partnership with the Qualcomm Technologies', also known as “5G Pilot” ...

IBM to acquire Red Hat in a deal valued at $34 billion

IBM today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement with Red Hat, under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion. IBM belives that the acquisition will enable companies to securely move all business applications to the cloud, since research shows that 80% of business workloads have yet to move to the cloud, held back by the proprietary nature of today's cloud market. Both the companies will be strongly positioned to address this issue and accelerate hybrid multi-cloud adoption. Red Hat was founded in 1993 and the first release of Red Hat Linux was on Oct. 31, 1994. IBM’s and Red Hat’s partnership has spanned 20 years, with IBM serving as an early supporter of Linux, collaborating with Red Hat to help develop and grow enterprise-grade Linux and more recently to bring enterprise Kubernetes and hybrid cloud solutions to customers. IBM and Red Hat also will continue to build and enhance Red Hat partnerships, including those with major cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Alibaba and more, in addition to the IBM Cloud. At the same ...