Qualcomm’s 2015 chips may make you regret getting a new phone this year
Thanks to Moore’s Law, anybody can predict that even the most powerful smartphones and tablets coming out right now (the HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy S5, for instance) will be made obsolete by whatever flagships get announced in 2015. These predictions fortunately don’t have to be based off of speculation anymore, since Qualcomm just revealed the Snapdragon 810 and 808, a pair of 64-bit high-performance chipsets slated to show up in flagship Android devices early next year.
Both new Snapdragons come with 64-bit support, but they won’t be the first Qualcomm chipsets to have it: the Snapdragon 610 and 615, announced at Mobile World Congress in February, will hit the market just in time for the 2014 holiday season. The difference, however, is in the rest of the package; the 810 and 808 will come packed with plenty of other powerful goods.
Qualcomm claims that both 20nm chips will be smaller, lighter and more power efficient. The octa-core 810 is the more appealing of the pair. It’ll sport four Cortex-A57 cores for power-intensive tasks and four lower-power Cortex-A53 cores for those times you don’t need the extra oomph. Additionally, it will come with support for 4K displays, LPDDR4 RAM (which is faster and more efficient than LPDDR3), voice activation and dual Image Signal Processors for better imaging. The included Adreno 430 GPU is supposed to be 30 percent faster than the 420, which isn’t even out in today’s flagships yet (we’re expecting it in the Snapdragon 805, which will debut later this year). It will also support Cat 6 LTE-Advanced (the modem is integrated directly into the chip this time) and 2-stream multi-user MIMO; this basically means that your WiFi connection will be significantly faster and more efficient than what you’ve got on your phone or tablet right now. If Qualcomm can deliver exactly what it’s promising here, next year’s high-end devices will be incredibly impressive.
The 808 shouldn’t be ignored either, and not just because it bears the same name as a famous drum machine. This chipset will come with six cores (two A57 and four A53), 2K display support, LPDDR3 RAM and an Adreno 418 GPU, which claims to be 20 percent faster than the Adreno 330 (which can be found in today’s flagships). We’re not entirely sure how this chip will be positioned when compared to the 810 and 610/615, but naturally we’re expecting it to be somewhere in between.
Interestingly, Qualcomm’s sharing the roadmap to its premium Snapdragon chipset lineup much earlier than it usually does; the 810 and 808 won’t be available on devices until the first half of 2015. This is largely due to competitive pressure: MediaTek, Intel and NVIDIA are going big by pushing out chips with 64-bit support and, in some cases, eight cores. Given how fast the industry is iterating, it’s not hard to see that Qualcomm — which currently dominates much of the mobile chipset market — doesn’t want to lose momentum or popularity.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Wireless, Mobile
LaCie Unveils Three New Thunderbolt 2 Storage Solutions for 4K Video Editing [Mac Blog]
LaCie unveiled three new and updated Thunderbolt 2 storage solutions at the annual NAB trade show this weekend, with the 8big Rack, 5big and 2big geared towards 4K video editing and other professional media uses.
The LaCie 8big Rack is the company’s first Thunderbolt 2 rackmount storage solution, featuring up to eight 6TB 7200RPM hard drives and delivering speeds of up to 1330 MB/s. The 8big Rack also features easy access to components and tool-free maintenance of the included power supplies units, fans, and disks, all while offering a cooling system with three fans that conducts heat away from vital components. The 8big Rack will be offered in 4-disk (12TB) or 8-disk (24TB and 48TB) configurations.
Meanwhile, the new LaCie 5big is up to two times faster than the previous version, featuring multiple 6TB 7200RPM hard disks with speeds of up to 1050 MB/s by way of Thunderbolt 2. Three separate LaCie 5bigs can be connected to a Mac Pro to create a single high-storage workstation, with every device featuring two Thunderbolt ports to daisy chain up to six Thunderbolt devices. An innovative cooling system that composes of a heat-dissipating aluminum enclosure, heat exhausts and a Noctua cooling fan is also included, as the new 5big will be offered in 10, 20, or 30TB capacities.
Finally, LaCie has also refreshed its 2big, with the device sporting a new design, speeds of up to 420 MB/s with the included Thunderbolt 2 technology, and fast performance with USB 3.0 support. The device also offers the ability to hot-swap disks through an easy access panel on the front, while status LEDs on the side allow users to track disk health and RAID build status. The LaCie 2big will be offered in 6, 8, or 12TB capacities.
According to LaCie, all three storage devices are expected to be available this quarter through the LaCie online store and the company’s resellers, with pricing yet to be determined. The company announced its Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 external hard drive this past January at CES, which is available in a 1TB SSD capacity.
Yahoo could make original TV shows like Netflix and Amazon
Looks like it’s not just Microsoft that wants in on Netflix and Amazon’s turf. The WSJ is reporting that Marissa Mayer wants Yahoo to produce sitcoms to air on its rumored new video service. According to those persons familiar with the matter, the CEO wants well-known names from TV to produce four, ten-episode series, each one budgeted between $700,000 and a few million dollars — the going rate for the average network comedy. We won’t have long to wait and see if the rumors are true, as Yahoo is said to announce the shows at an event on April 28th. Maybe this is the moment to get pitching our modern-day remake of The Facts of Life that’s gonna make us all stars.
Source: WSJ
Microsoft already has six TV series lined up for Xbox and more are coming
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Microsoft
Source: Bloomberg
30 years of mobile phones, all jamming together (video)
In the technological equivalent of Band Aid, minus the charitable fundraising, Korea’s SK Telecom has celebrated 30 years in the carrier business, by composing its current jingle from yesteryear’s cellular hits. Stars include several car-phones from the eighties, the Motorola StarTAC and more recent smartphones like the, er, LG Optimus Z. Well, we were long overdue another K-Pop ear-worm.
Filed under: Cellphones
Who is the number two smartphone manufacturer in India? Sony, that’s Who!
India is one of the largest emerging smartphone markets in recent years (China of course being the other), so it stands to reason that many smartphone manufacturers are vying for the attentions of the Indian population. While the global market distribution of devices seems to be relatively stable in its rankings, the story is not as simple in India; While Samsung is predictably first in market share, if you asked the question ‘who is the number two smartphone manufacturer in India’, you might be surprised to hear the answer is actually Sony.
Driven by sales of the Sony Xperia M Dual and the Sony Xperia C, Sony achieved a market share of 9.1% (by sales) to end 2013, which was particular impressive as they leapfrogged Apple, who had 7% in the same quarter, for second place. Seeing as Sony generally has a lackadaisical showing in Western markets, it is probably Sony’s intention to try and secure their position in this growing and lucrative market before fully committing to the more competitive markets. The road isn’t going to be easy, however, as Apple has re-launched the iPhone 4 at an entry-level price point of $375, and Nokia’s super-budget device, the Nokia X, is likely to make waves in this budget smartphone arena.
What do you think about Sony’s fortunes in India? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: XperiaBlog via Phone Arena
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AcDisplay Brings a Unique Active Display to Your Device – APP OF THE WEEK
The Active Display on the Moto X won over a lot of us when we first saw it in action. To have a feature that faintly shows your notifications on your lockscreen, without even having to touch the phone, is something we all could get behind. Since that feature was shown off, developers out there have tried their very best to replicate that function, and some have been pretty successful, and some have fallen short. AcDisplay strives to give you Active Display on your device, but they have added some twists to it.
Right off the bat, once you get a notification, you will notice the circle around the icon has a countdown. This is because you can set up the active display to only show you the notification for one second, or you can show it for thirty seconds. This is pretty different from from the rest, which I dug. Also what is different about this app, is once you have looked at your notification, and your screen has been shut off, the active display disappears. I guess the developers felt that if it wasn’t important enough to open, you don’t need to see it anymore. Some people will like this feature, some will not.
Other ways to rid your lockscreen of a notification, is to swipe left or right. Pretty standard when it comes to getting rid of notifications, and of course swiping up will up will open the notification, and swiping down will unlock your phone. I found that this function was iffy at times, and it would get stuck on the active display. Just a minor bug I know the devs will remedy in a future update.
AcDisplay is free in the Play Store, so I suggest giving it a try. If you want to see the app in action, check out my video run-through below so you can determine if its for you or not. Let us know if you downloaded it, and if you like.
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Apple Expands iPhone Trade-In Program to Germany [iOS Blog]
After expanding to France and Canada last month, Apple’s iPhone trade-in program is now available in Apple Retail Stores throughout Germany, reports Apfelpage.de [Google Translation]. The launch of the program was spotted through the Apple Store app.
The program allows customers to trade in an older iPhone model and receive a gift card worth up to €230, which may be used towards the purchase of a new iPhone. Apple promises customers that phones traded in will be responsibly recycled, offering a more environmentally friendly option than just simply throwing away a device.
Apple’s iPhone recycling program debuted in the U.S. before the launch of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c last year, and was established in the UK a few months later. The company also offers a mail-in recycling program that allows customers to send in their iPhone to receive credit.
Thanks, Dominik!
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eBay plans for the future of commerce: more wearable integration and your own personal shopper
While outlining its plans for the future of retail, eBay has announced a new tea, within its Innovation and New Ventures group, aimed at cramming commerce interfaces into any device that’s smart enough and preparing for the future of shopping. The team has already launched apps for both Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and the Pebble, and while its next target is connected glass (like interactive touchscreen storefronts), according to TechCrunch, it has more up its sleeve than mere augmented reality parlor tricks. The team is working to fold in personalization, historical behavior and connected home sensors to make the shopping experience as smooth, swift (and dangerously easy) as possible, and it’s calling it zero effort commerce (ZEC). According to the team head, Steve Yankovich, ZEC will anticipate what you’re shopping for and sort out the rest for you.
“I have a friend who has a personal assistant who keeps track of his needs. His personal assistant replaces ceiling fan light bulbs, replaces shirts that she noted show wear, constantly fills the fridge, changes the wiper blades in cars, and on and on. In this person’s world everything he needs and wants automatically happens. We can work towards building a virtual personal assistant… to do much the same thing but for all of us.”
Filed under: Internet
Source: TechCrunch
C Spire will carry the Samsung Galaxy S5 in May
C Spire customers had to wait months after the initial launch to get the Galaxy S 4, but they won’t have to be nearly so patient with the Galaxy S5. The southern US carrier has revealed that it will be carrying Samsung’s Android flagship in May, just weeks after the biggest networks get their turn. While there’s no mention of pricing so far, it won’t be surprising if the GS5 costs the same $200 on contract that we’ve seen at the largest providers. The relatively quick launch may not have an immediate effect outside of C Spire’s core markets, to be sure. Still, it suggests that Galaxy fans nationwide won’t have to leave their favorite regional carriers just to get Samsung’s latest and greatest in a timely fashion.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung
Via: C Spire (Facebook)
Source: C Spire
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