Samsung mass producing the industry’s first combined DRAM and eMMC ePOP memory package
Samsung has announced that it has begun mass production of the industry’s first ePOP memory, which could result in cost and space savings in future high-end smartphone production.
ePOP stands for embedded package on package. Samsung’s design combines 3GB LPDDR3 DRAM volatile memory and 32GB eMMC non-volatile storage into a single package. eMMC memory already combines the flash memory and required controller into a single module. The 3GB LPDDR3 DRAM operates at an I/O data transfer rate of 1,8666Mb/s. Essentially, Samsung’s ePOP memory is a one stop shop for all your mobile memory needs.
What makes this particularly important for smartphone design is that the new all-in-one package reduces the size taken up by various memory components. The entire package fits into a 15mm x 15mm (225mm2) area, rather than two separate chips that can take up over 374.5 square millimetres. Furthermore, the ePOP memory can also be stacked on top of typical mobile processor packages, to save on additional space.
Samsung suggests that its ePoP memory is suitable for both high-end smartphones and tablets. The company also has a similar single-package solution for wearable devices.
Samsung’s semiconductor business turned a healthy profit from mobile memory sales last year and its new package could turn out to be an equally good earner for the company.
Save 46% today on these dual-layer hard cases for Galaxy Note 4
The DILEX Pro balances next-level, hybrid protection with a slim profile and convenient design. It combines two layers of shock absorbing protection: a compact, silicone core underneath a strong polycarbonate exterior that sports a fold-out kickstand. Available today for only $18.95
Accessory of the Day: Note 4 wallet flip case, $12.95
Consolidate your credit cards, money, and big beautiful Samsung Note 4 all into this portable protective case. Designed with minimum bulk in mind, this is a great grab at only $12.95 (Prime eligible).
Join Prime and get this deal with FREE two-day shipping!
Also worth checking out:
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Sonos and Blue Note Records team up for a limited edition Play:1
Sonos released its $199 Play:1 speaker well over a year ago, and in that time, the company has been keen on improving the software experience for its audio gadgets. Tweaking that Controller app isn’t all it was working on, though, and it turns out, a limited edition release was getting its fresh coat of paint… literally. More on that in a bit, but for now, meet the Sonos Blue Note Play:1: a collaboration with Blue Note Records that celebrates the heritage of the label’s jazz roots alongside the audio company’s focus on quality sound across genres. New colors are something we see from speaker and headphone brands on the regular, and until now, Sonos kept things black and white. Why, you ask? Well, the company viewed its line of wireless-audio tech as accent pieces as well as devices for listening to tunes all over your home. This meant neutral colors that blend in rather than stand out were a must.
At first glance, a blue-hued speaker for a collaboration with Blue Note Records may seem like too obvious a choice. But when you recall some of the artwork from Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter releases, the color scheme makes sense. On the covers of those albums, a monochromatic blue image served as the main visual, and one that I will always associate with the jazz greats. Getting this limited edition Play:1 to look the way it does took a great deal of effort, and in the end, Sonos employed robots to spray the speakers’ shells in order to achieve the perfect fade from navy to cerulean. In fact, that painting process means each of these new speakers will be slightly different — kind of like an artist recording several versions of a song before going with the best take. Similar to the music that the label has published during its 75 years, that gradient is also meant to signify the deep bass and clear treble that the device uses to wrangle tunes.
The focus on software from the past few months was carried over here too, and folks who splurge for the blue device will notice an extra station in their Sonos Controller app. In addition to the Born in Blue and Blue Note 101 stations that debuted a while back, the folks at Blue Note Records will curate an Artists Selects station for the next year. That repository will be constantly updated with new tracks over the next 12 months, and it’s exclusive to Blue Note Play:1 owners. Again, the project is as much about an ongoing experience as it is a single speaker.
More often than not, when we see a limited edition of an existing product, it comes at a hefty premium price. That’s not the case here. This blue-hued Play:1 is priced at $250 — just $50 more than the original. If the blue already caught your eye, you’ll want to act fast when these go on sale, as only around 4,100 exist and they’re sure to go fast.
[Image credits: Blue Note Records (album covers), Sonos (factory)]
Filed under: Portable Audio/Video
Micromax is now the biggest smartphone vendor in India
Research firm Canalys has released its findings for Q4 2014 smartphone shipments in India. The data shows that Micromax has now surpassed Samsung to claim top spot in the country, as its smartphone shipments reached 4.6 million units in the previous quarter.
Overall sales in the region surged 90 percent year on year to reach 21.6 million smartphones in the last quarter. Micromax accounted for 22 percent of smartphone sales in India in Q4 2014, while Samsung’s 4.4 million units grabbed 20 percent of the regional sales. Karbonn and Lava followed behind in third and fourth place, accumulating 2 million and 1.8 million units respectively. However, sales from other retailers leapt up two million units between the third and fourth quarter, reaching 9 million in total in Q4. The Indian smartphone market is still very diverse, with a number of low-cost players all vying for market positions.
Canalys also estimates that nearly a quarter of smartphones sold in India were priced at under $100, while 41 percent of sales fell into the $100-$200 category. However, Samsung’s Tizen powered Z smartphone, which costs just $92, seems to have received a frosty reception. Micromax has done a particularly good job at “continuing appeal to mobile phone users upgrading to smartphones”, according to Canalys, but its latest Cyanogen powered Yureka is facing increased competition from other low-cost brands, such as Xiaomi and Motorola.
However, Samsung disagrees with Canalys’ report. Instead, the company quoted a report from research firm GfK, which claims that Samsung’s volume market share was 34.3 percent in Q4 2014, substantially higher than Canalys suggests. Furthermore, Samsung claims that its market share is “more than double” that of Micromax.
“Our volume market share in the smartphone market in the year was 35.7%, which is more than double than that of the next player, while our value share was 40.2%, which is more than four times the next player.” – Samsung
It’s tough to know who to believe, especially with such a large discrepancy between the estimates. We saw a similar situation last year, where different research firms again posted conflicting results for Micromax and Samsung. The true figure probably lies somewhere between the two.
India’s booming handset market is a new gold rush for savvy smartphone brands and there’s clearly plenty of competition between the regional players and the big global brands.
Game of Thrones Episode 2: The Lost Lords is now available on Xbox One
Microsoft has shared on Twitter the release of Game of Thrones Episode 2: The Lost Lords, which is now readily available for download on Xbox One. The game series (containing six episodes) of the popular TV show is by Telltale Games, offering fans a chance to enjoy a more immersive experience of the fantasy realm.
‘Canary Watch’ legally reveals when sites get national security requests
Internet service companies like Reddit and Tumblr want to be transparent about user privacy. The problem is, they’re sometimes forced by law to clam up when they receive specific national security data requests from agencies like the NSA or FBI. But there’s nothing stopping them from saying they haven’t received such requests, and that’s where a new website called Canary Watch comes in. Like the birds that show a mine is safe by not being dead, the site tracks statements by websites like Pinterest saying they haven’t received national security requests. If such “warrant canaries” suddenly disappear, Canary Watch will flag that fact, revealing that the site actually has received a request without breaking any laws.
Canary Watch was created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), NYU’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic and other privacy advocate groups. So far, it’s only tracking a handful of sites, including secure cloud platforms like Rsync.net and Spider Oak, along with social/news sites Tumblr, Reddit and Pinterest. The EFF points out that most folks don’t pay any attention to the transparency “canaries” (or even know they exist), so Canary Watch tracks any changes or disappearances and explains what they mean.
Canaries allow service providers to be as honest and transparent with their customers as they are allowed to be by law.
For instance, Reddit says that as of January 29th, 2015, it has “never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information.” Were that statement to disappear, Canary Watch would flag it, indicating that the site was likely served a warrant. There would be no way of knowing what the request was, however, unless Reddit successfully fought to unveil it (which it says it will do).
For people that follow privacy issues closely, the new site doesn’t bring anything new. However, as the EFF told Threatpost, canaries “allow service providers to be as honest and transparent with their customers as they are allowed to be by law.” More importantly, it brings the concept of canaries to the public and may help motivate sites to better protect your privacy from government overreach.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Canary Watch, EFF
MoDaCo Custom Roms flashable zip unleashes the power of your Nexus
If you’re a big-time modder and you’ve recently purchased the Nexus 6 but like me, are having trouble convincing yourself to switch to a new ROM, have no fear, MoDaCo Custom ROMs has your back with their MCR Modpack. Think of this as a gravitybox lite. If you’re using a rooted stock ROM (they warn against using this of custom ROMs for fear of unknown side-effects) you can just flash this zip in recovery and get a selection of the features you may have been missing out on running stock.
A list of features follows.
- ‘MCR Control’ configuration application
- A one handed mode which moves the button towards the edge on the navigation bar – press and hold back or recents to toggle
- Multiple battery level display options for status bar and lockscreen
- Option to enable the stock Lollipop battery percent feature
- Option to remove carrier label from lockscreen
- Option to reverse order of navigation buttons
- Option to retain network type indicators when roaming
- Option to disable ‘4G for LTE’ indicator
- Option to disable orange colouring of status bar and navigation bar separately on battery saver
- Option to hide clock
- Option to enable am / pm indicator (two sizes)
- Option to disable icon when alarm is set
- Option to ignore priority when determining whether to show heads up notifications
- Option to disable heads up notifications altogether
- Option to double tap status bar to sleep
- Option to double tap navigation bar to sleep
- Option to enable double tap to wake (requires root, be sure to auth SuperSU after clicking the box, applies a few seconds after each boot) – NEXUS 6 ONLY
- Option to enable red / green charging LED (requires root, be sure to auth SuperSU after clicking the box, applies a few seconds after each boot) – NEXUS 6 ONLY
- Options to lock status and navigation bars to black (user request – Nexus 9 blacklight bleed mitigation)
- All options are applied in real time
- Compatible with both odexed and deodexed stock ROMs
Source: MoDaCo
XDA: Thread
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U.S. iPhone Sales Overtake Android Sales by Slim Margin in Q4 2014 with iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Launch
For the first time since 2012, sales of Apple’s iPhone overtook sales of Android devices by a slight margin during the October to December 2014 period in the United States, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel (via TechCrunch). Apple’s iPhone took a 47.7% sales share of the U.S. smartphone market while Android accounted for 47.6%, with Windows Phone accounting for 3.8% of sales.
In the US, Apple iOS overtook Android for the first time since this time in 2012, albeit by the slimmest 0.1% margin," reported Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. “While the success of the iPhone 6 and 6Plus is unprecedented, this quarter’s performance also points to Apple having its strongest portfolio ever. With a range of devices available at different price points in both contract and pre-pay Apple was able to take advantage of a weaker Android offering at the premium end of the market.
Kantar also notes that the iPhone 6 was the best selling smartphone in the United States, and that the iPhone’s market share rose 6.2% in Europe during the holiday quarter. By comparison, Android’s share declined 3.8% overall in Europe, as Italy was the only country to experience market share growth. In China, Apple grew 2.2% to claim a 21.5% market share, with the growth attributed to the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
During the company’s earnings call last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus brought more Android switchers and new customers than prior models. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sold a record 74.5 million units during the holiday quarter, with a 46% growth when compared to last year and Apple’s launch of the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.
Android 5.1 (!) spotted running on Android One devices headed for Indonesia
Now here’s something you don’t see every day: a new version of Android spotted in the wild with nary a word from Google.
Google announced a few hours ago the upcoming availability of the Android One program in Indonesia. Following India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, this is the fifth country where Google is rolling out its affordable smartphone program. So far, nothing special… except Android 5.1 is mentioned multiple times on the Indonesian Android One landing page, and there’s even a subtle reference to it in the press image (above), where time is set to 5:10.
But the more solid evidence comes from images of the device hitting Indonesia obtained by the folks at Android Police. The images show, black on white, that the software running on the Android One-powered Nexian Journey is Android 5.1.
Given this and the references from the promo site, it looks very likely that Android 5.1 is real, and, probably, coming soon to more devices. Now that the cat is out of the bag, we don’t see Google delaying an official announcement for too long.
What will be new in Android 5.1? We have no details yet, but last year, Android Pit ran an exclusive story claiming Android 5.1 would land by the end of this month, bringing fixes to several glaring problems present in Android 5.0, including the return or proper silent mode and better memory management.
It’s odd that Google is shipping updated software to new devices before even announcing it, but it happened in the past, albeit with smaller revisions. Hopefully, official info is coming soon.
What do you hope to see in Android 5.1?
AIVAnet 