A Galaxy S6 Edge is assembled from bits and pieces in this new Samsung video
The team at Samsung Tomorrow seems bent on taking the jobs of tech bloggers and YouTubers everywhere: following the bend test video and the drop test video, Samsung has now released a sort of reverse teardown/unboxing video showing how a S6 Edge can be assembled by hand.
To be clear, this isn’t a full assembly guide – the operations are sped up and some steps are missing (like the crucial gluing that adheres the display to the battery). With that said, it’s a nice look at what goes inside and a reminder about the huge amount of complex work that goes into fabricating our beloved devices. For a more technical look at the innards of the G6 Edge, see the iFixit teardown.
Check it out and let us know what you think.
Rovio to add local multiplayer to Angry Birds Go! so you can race against friends
Rovio today announced a new mode for Angry Birds Go! The new party mode will enable players to race against their friends on multiple devices, all connected through Wi-Fi. Local multiplayer gameplay allows for a more competitive and social experience compared to playing against the AI.
Mophie’s ‘Space’ battery cases bring more storage to iPhone 6, iPad Mini
Last year Mophie, a company best known for its mobile battery offerings, stepped into slightly new territory: A battery-toting case for the iPhone 5 with external storage dubbed the “Space Pack.” Now, as if on cue, Mophie has revealed new entries in the Space Pack line for the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPad Mini. And there’s also a new standalone battery pack with additional storage called the “Spacestation.” They all look very similar to Mophie’s existing battery solutions, but they include anywhere from 32GB to 128 GB of flash storage, which could be useful for anyone stuck with a paltry 16GB iPhone or iPad Mini. But, as is typical for Mophie, that convenience won’t come cheap. The iPhone Space Packs and the Spacestation start at $150 for 32GB of storage, and jump up to $200 for 64GB and $300 for 128GB. The iPad Mini pack, meanwhile, runs from $200 to $400.
Just like before, all of the storage-toting cases work together with Mophie’s Space app, which lets you manage and play media. iOS doesn’t recognize external storage like Android, so you won’t have access to the files on Mophie’s cases from any other apps. The company has also updated the Space app for managing files already on your iPhone — you won’t even need to own a Mophie case to use it. That allows you to create playlists that include media on both your iOS device and the Space case.
As for additional battery life, Mophie’s bread and butter, the iPhone 6 case will double your battery life, while the iPhone 6 Plus case will give you another 50 percent of juice. If you don’t need a case, the Spacestation might be the best overall deal, since it can full recharge an iPad Mini and plug into a variety of devices.
You can preorder all of Mophie’s new Space products now, and they’re expected to ship in May.
Filed under: Mobile
Vertical videos are here to stay thanks to apps like Snapchat
If you despise vertical or portrait video as much as some of us do, bad news: according to recent comments from ad agencies and media executives, you’ll be seeing a lot more of them. The awkward format has been in our crosshairs since the iPhone 4 came out in 2010 and we felt the need to explain how to fix it. It’s used by cellphone-wielders who are either too lazy to turn their phone 90 degrees or are just unaware that they should. The result is video that’s okay on smartphones but horrible on computer screens or TVs due to unsightly vertical bars. In addition, Snapchat and new livestreaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat will soon make the format seem normal for many users.
For instance, Daily Mail North America‘s CEO Jon Steinberg recently said that “we need to move even more aggressively to develop vertical content, (because) vertical video ads have up to 9x more completed views than horizontal video ads.” As to why that might be, he added that “the whole notion of turning your phone on its side to watch a video is awkward and a bit of a hassle.” As a result, the Daily Mail will create free vertical ads for companies with a “reasonable media buy” on its Snapchat Discover channel.
Another kick to the head of horizontal video is from Periscope and Meerkat. The popular new livestream video feeds from the apps are only available in vertical mode to make them more convenient for one-handed viewing. Neither app supports horizontal (landscape) video at all, but Periscope’s CEO thinks most users would stick with portrait video even if it added the capability.
Critics say the vertical format limits the artistic possibilities of video and doesn’t match how our vision works. However, ad agency creative director Tom Westerlin told Digiday that those people might as well get over it now. “Haters are gonna hate. People love to talk shit. That’s great, good for them. It basically just fuels the buzz around the future of (new video formats).”
Filed under: Cellphones, HD
Apple Expects Apple Watch Demand to Exceed Supply at Launch
Apple issued a reminder on Thursday that Apple Watch pre-orders and try-on appointments begin April 10, with retail chief Angela Ahrendts claiming that the company believes “tremendous interest” in the Apple Watch will result in demand exceeding supply for the wrist-worn device at launch.
““We are excited to welcome customers tomorrow and introduce them to Apple Watch, our most personal device yet. Based on the tremendous interest from people visiting our stores, as well as the number of customers who have gone to the Apple Online Store to mark their favorite Apple Watch ahead of availability, we expect that strong customer demand will exceed our supply at launch,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores. “To provide the best experience and selection to as many customers as we can, we will be taking orders for Apple Watch exclusively online during the initial launch period.”
Apple Watch launches April 24 in the United States and other first wave launch countries.
Samsung’s Inboxing video shows the Galaxy S6 Edge being put together one piece at a time
Just because tomorrow (April 10th) is the day that the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge go on sale doesn’t mean that Samsung’s marketing department will slow down in its efforts to hype the Korean manufacturers’ latest flagship devices. Moving away from the destructive drop and pressure-tests, Samsung has instead released an inboxing video showing the S6 Edge being put together and then boxed up.
It’s a different way of doing things from the usual unboxing videos that we are sure to be inundated with in the coming days. It’s much easier on the eyes than watching someone try to obliterate an S6 Edge by slamming it into the ground or trying to drown the life out of it. In the video below we get to watch a Samsung engineer put together all the various components of a Galaxy S6 Edge, ending with the device being placed in its retail box with its accessories. The video also shows the various parts named and details how it all fits together.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Source: Samsung Tomorrow
Come comment on this article: Samsung’s Inboxing video shows the Galaxy S6 Edge being put together one piece at a time
HTC One M9 to launch in India on April 14?
HTC’s new One M9 flagship handset could launch in India on April 14th after the company issues invites to an event in Delhi. The invite says that the company is “unveiling brilliance” and is “going to showcase the most exciting revelation in the history of smartphones” which suggests the company will announce the One M9 for India at the event.
The HTC One M9 was announced at MWC and features a 5 inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) display with HTC’s trademark front-facing BoomSound speakers. Under the hood, there’s a 2GHz octa-core 64-bit Snapdragon 810 chipset, 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage which can be expanded using a microSD card.
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As we covered in our One M9 review, the biggest change over the One M8 is in the camera department with HTC opting to replace the Ultrapixel rear camera from the One M8 with a 20MP Sony sensor, dual LED flash and 4K video recording. Sadly the One M9 also drops the dual camera functionality of the One M8 but the Ultrapixel camera does stick around, instead making its way to the front of the One M9.
The rest of the One M9 specs include 5.1 Dolby Surround sound playback, LTE Cat 6, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1 and a 2840 mAh battery. The One M9 runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with HTC’s Sense 7 UI on top which brings new features including a theme manager and separate work and home modes.
The event in India could also be the launch of the One M9+ which was announced yesterday but with this handset limited to China at the moment, it’s unlikely it’ll be released alongside the One M9 in India on April 14th.
Apple Pay Now Accepted By T-Mobile, GameStop, NBA Teams and More
Apple Pay is now accepted by ten additional stores and partners in the United States, including T-Mobile retail stores, GameStop and a trio of NBA franchises in the Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns. The mobile payments service, compatible with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and soon Apple Watch, can now be used at 68 participating stores throughout the country as Apple continues to add new partners.
The full list of newly added participating stores and partners:
Apple Pay is a NFC-based mobile payments service that debuted on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus last October, enabling customers to make contactless payments by holding their smartphone up to a payments terminal at participating vendors. The service is secured by Touch ID and will also be compatible with the iPhone 5 or later when paired with an Apple Watch, which is available for pre-order April 10 and goes on sale April 24.
Xiaomi sells over 2 million smartphones in a ‘fan festival’ sale to celebrate its birthday
Xiaomi is certainly a force to be reckoned with after the company managed to sell more than two million smartphones during a 12-hour event on Wednesday.
IBM starts testing AI software that mimics the human brain
We haven’t talked about Numenta since an HP exec left to join the company in 2011, because, well, it’s been keeping a pretty low-profile existence. Now, a big name tech corp is reigniting interest in the company and its artificial intelligence software. According to MIT’s Technology Review, IBM has recently started testing Numenta’s algorithms for practical tasks, such as analyzing satellite imagery of crops and spotting early signs of malfunctioning field machinery. Numenta’s technology caught IBM’s eye, because it works more similarly to the human brain than other AI software. The 100-person IBM team that’s testing the algorithms is led by veteran researcher Winfried Wilcke, who had great things to say about the technology during a conference talk back in February.
Tech Review says he praised Numenta for “being closer to biological reality than other machine learning software” — in other words, it’s more brain-like compared to its rivals. For instance, it can make sense of data more quickly than competitors, which have to be fed tons of examples, before they can see patterns and handle their jobs. As such, Numenta’s algorithms can potentially give rise to more intelligent software.
The company has its share of critics, however. Gary Marcus, a New York University psychology professor and a co-founder of another AI startup, told Tech Review that while Numenta’s creation is pretty brain-like, it’s oversimplified. So far, he’s yet to see it “try to handle natural language understanding or even produce state-of-the-art results in image recognition.” It would be interesting to see IBM use the technology to develop, for example, speech-to-text software head and shoulders above the rest or a voice assistant that can understand any accent, as part of its tests. At the moment, though, Numenta’s employees are focusing on teaching the software to control physical equipment to be used in future robots.
[Image credit: Petrovich9/Getty]
Filed under: Science
Source: Technology Review
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