Apple’s Jeff Williams: Native Apple Watch Apps Coming This Fall, Apple Watch Sales are ‘Fantastic’
Apple’s Vice President of Operations Jeff Williams today took the stage at Re/code‘s Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, to speak about Apple’s recently released wearable device, the Apple Watch.
Williams is the person who oversees Apple’s supply chain, much like Tim Cook used to before he became Apple’s CEO, and he was described by Walt Mossberg as the “quiet figure” behind many of Apple’s popular products like the iPhone and the Apple Watch. Williams says he oversees 3,000 engineers in addition to the supply chain, and offered a tidbit on Apple’s recent 74 million iPhone sales in the holiday quarter — if you stack them like pancakes, they’d reach higher than the International Space Station.
According to Williams, who declined to give specific sales figures on Apple’s wearable, the Apple Watch is doing “fantastic.” When asked by what metric, he went on to say that customers “love the Apple Watch” even more than he expected. The Apple Watch, he said, is “gathering momentum” even in a market where other products aren’t doing as well, because many millennials don’t wear watches.
When pressed for details on Apple Watch sales numbers, Williams said that Apple would “rather spend time making great products” than focusing on the numbers, but he did say Apple had sold “a lot” of them.
On the topic of Apple Watch apps, Williams says third-party apps will get better when developers are able to release native apps and when access to native sensors is permitted. He gave an example of what a native Apple Watch app might do, suggesting an app like Strava will be more full featured as it would have direct access to sensors.
The native Apple Watch app SDK will be previewed at WWDC, according to Williams, suggesting full featured Apple Watch apps that can access health sensors, the Digital crown, and more, will be available when iOS 9 is released to the public in the fall.
Williams also spoke on working conditions at its supplier’s factories in China, reiterating Apple’s efforts to improve the lives of factory workers, and he talked about ResearchKit, Apple’s platform for enabling researchers to obtain health-related data from iOS users for studies and research.
Apple’s already learned “some amazing things” with ResearchKit. Using Parkinson’s disease research as an example, Williams says that Apple discovered a set of the control group participants in that study had Parkinson’s but didn’t know it. When it comes to Apple Watch, its medical contributions will be “huge,” says Williams, but true medical features may take awhile because of the need for health studies and regulatory approval. “We’re just beginning,” he said, commenting on Apple’s health efforts and ResearchKit, and in a later comment, he said that Apple has a “great interest” in helping people.
Williams also hinted at Apple’s interest in the car. When asked about what industries Apple’s looking at for its next amazing product, Williams referenced the car as “the ultimate mobile device,” but then clarified he was speaking of CarPlay. He went on to say that Apple’s “exploring a lot of interesting areas.”
Additional details on Williams’ interview can be found over at the full Re/code live blog, and when video clips of his interview become available, we’ll update this post to include them.
Pebble Time review: an underdog among smartwatches
For two years, Pebble was the smartwatch company to beat. In 2012, it raised over $10 million on Kickstarter for its simple, monochrome e-paper wristwatch, putting itself and the crowdfunding site on the map. But things move quickly in the technology world. Google has since come out with Android Wear, prompting a slew of smartphone companies to suddenly turn into watchmakers. Not to be outdone, Apple joined the fray as well, positing its own wearable as a timepiece premium enough for high-end boutiques. So when Pebble debuted the Time, its second-generation $199 smartwatch, on Kickstarter three months ago, it was facing much stiffer competition. Surprisingly, that too made crowdfunding history, raising more than $20 million in just over a month. Did 78,471 backers make the right decision? I attempt to find out.
Hardware
If you’re looking for a stylish fashion-forward smartwatch that can double as a luxury timepiece, look elsewhere. With its square display, polycarbonate shell and wide silicone bands, the Pebble Time is decidedly more geek than chic. Yet, the Time has a charm all its own, with a casual, sporty look that I rather like. Sure, it’ll probably look out of place at a fancy cocktail party, but for a simple everyday watch, I think it’s alright.
Additionally, while most smartwatches tend to be oversized and bulky for my slender wrists, the Time’s 40.5 x 37.5mm case isn’t too big or too small; it fits me just right. It’s a hair thinner than its predecessor at 9.5mm (the original Pebble was 11.5mm thick) and has a slight bend to better hug the curvature of the wrist. The stainless steel border surrounding the display also gives it a touch of class that I really appreciate — it’s certainly better than the original’s all-plastic styling.
The real differentiator between the Time and the original Pebble, however, is the display — it’s now in color. But instead of going with an OLED panel, Pebble opted for a color e-paper display. Yes, this means that the screen isn’t quite as bright and luminous as the Apple Watch and most Android Wear devices. The colors of e-paper are also a lot more muted than what you would see on an OLED display. But e-paper gives the Time a few significant advantages.
For one thing, the display is on all the time; there’s no need to press a button or flick your wrist to see what time it is. The 2.5D Gorilla Glass display is also very readable even under really bright sunlight, which isn’t what we can say about some of the other smartwatches. If you do want the display to be brighter, there’s an LED backlight that you can turn on momentarily, but there’s unfortunately no backlight timer to make it last longer than a few seconds. The biggest advantage, though, is battery life. While the Apple Watch and Android Wear devices might manage a day or two on a charge, the Time is slated to last up to seven days before running out of juice.
Unfortunately, however, the Time has a very thick bezel, which is made even worse by the aforementioned stainless steel frame. As a result, the 1.25-inch e-paper display looks positively diminutive on the Time’s watch face. Most Pebble apps are made for that screen size, so I understand the rationale for it, but it just seems like a lot of wasted space.
As for the rest of the watch’s controls, they’re pretty similar to the original Pebble — that’s right, there’s no touchscreen interface. Look around and you’ll find a back button on the left, along with up, down and select buttons on the right. The up and down buttons lead to “Past” and “Future” spots in Pebble’s new timeline interface (more on this later), although you can also map them as quick-launch shortcuts to certain applications if you press and hold down on them. The buttons are raised above the surface and are really tactile; I could find them just by feeling around. It doesn’t seem like much, but I really appreciate that I could press a button to dismiss my alarm without even looking at the watch. As a bonus, they also have some nice “give” when pushed.
Flip the watch around and you’ll notice a couple of metal pins that attach to a proprietary magnetic charging cable. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to use the charging cable from the original Pebble with the Time; you’ll simply have to use the new one. Aside from acting as charging pins, the magnetic will also work as a smart accessory port with upcoming “smartstraps” that add additional functionality to the watch. They’re not available just yet, but a few of the proposed ones add GPS, a heart rate monitor and NFC. While I wasn’t able to test these smartstraps, the idea itself is intriguing: Imagine a smartwatch that gets better over time as new smartstraps emerge. This could potentially make the Pebble Time the first-ever futureproof smartwatch.
Also on the rear of the watch are a couple of quick-release triggers so you can easily swap straps, which is a good thing because the Time has a standard 22mm lug that is compatible with a wide variety of third-party straps. Other notable hardware specs include an accelerometer (if you like, you can enable the backlight whenever you lift your wrist), a vibrating motor for alerts, a compass, a microphone for voice commands (more on this later) and an ambient light sensor that adjusts the brightness of the LED backlight depending on your surroundings. The Pebble Time is also water-resistant up to 30 meters. And, of course, it has Bluetooth 4.0 LE for connecting to your phone.
Software
Just like with the original Pebble, you’ll need to pair the watch with a phone in order for it to work. In order to do that, you’ll need to download the Pebble Time app, which is available on both Android and iOS. Once that’s done, simply go through the instructions of pairing your phone to the watch, and then you’re ready to start customizing. The software lets you add watch faces and a variety of apps, just like before. Indeed, the Pebble Time is backward-compatible with nearly 6,500 apps that are already in the Pebble app store.
But the similarities end there. Pebble didn’t just change up its hardware with the Time. Oh no, it actually created a whole new operating system for it as well. Simply called Timeline, Pebble’s new watch interface is based around the concept of, well, time. All your app notifications, reminders, events and news are now laid out in chronological order. Press the up button and you’ll see items like calendar events and sports scores from a couple hours ago. Press it again and you’ll see items from yesterday, like your total step count if you have a pedometer app installed. Inversely, pressing the down button will give you a peek at future events — say, an upcoming appointment or the weather forecast.
The idea behind this timeline metaphor is that you no longer need to launch an app to find out desired info. Simply go into the Pebble Time app on your phone and select the “Timeline pins” toggle to “pin” that particular app. So if you pinned the ESPN app, for example, you would see the scores of last night’s games if you scrolled into the “Past” (you’d need to select your favorite teams so that it knows which games to keep track of). You’d also see the time of tomorrow night’s games if you scrolled into the “Future.”
But that doesn’t mean you won’t still have access to apps. Selecting the center button from the main watch screen opens up the App Menu, which essentially lists all of the apps that you’ve installed. The default apps include Notifications, Music, Alarms and Watchfaces. Notifications is simply a list of all of your recent phone notifications; Music is a remote control for the music player on your phone; Alarms lets you set a vibrating watch alarm (duh); and Watchfaces is simply a list of different watch faces that you’ve installed and can choose from. You can also access the settings menu from the app tray, which lets you set options like your time zone, choose which app you want to use for activity tracking (more on this later) and enable or disable vibrating alerts. I especially like the ability to set a Do Not Disturb time schedule so that your watch doesn’t go crazy with notifications in the middle of the night.
As far as the number of apps that you can install, well, that depends. According to Pebble, the Time is capable of storing more than 50 apps and watch faces — it depends on how large each app/watch face is. If you install more than the watch can hold, it’ll just offload the apps you don’t use as much. If you do want to call up those old apps, it will simply reload them over Bluetooth when requested. The idea is akin to storing your music on the cloud instead of on your device. That said, I probably wouldn’t install more than a dozen or so; scrolling down the long list of apps in the app tray gets tiresome.
Of course, you can get all kinds of apps in the appstore, from funny watch faces (my favorite is the Nyan Cat one that actually shows an animated, rainbow Pop Tart cat flying through space whenever the watch is activated) to activity trackers. There is one caveat, however: You can only really have one activity-tracking app at a time. This means that if you have three similar apps, you can only assign one of them to be the one that tracks your steps.
As I alluded to earlier, there are a few big-name apps in the store already. My favorites include ESPN (so that I can keep track of how the San Francisco Giants are doing), an app called Transport that lets me hail an Uber from my wrist and FitCat, which is sort of a Tamagotchi game and an activity tracker all-in-one (the more you walk, the happier the cat becomes).
Like other smartwatches, the Time also lets you receive text messages. As for what you can do with those, well, that depends on which OS you use. Due to iOS app restrictions, you can’t really do much with messages aside from dismissing them. If you’re on Android, however, you’re able to reply to a message in a number of ways — you can either choose from a list of canned responses, one of many emojis or decide to respond by voice. If you select voice, you can then simply speak your reply and the watch will translate your voice to text as best it can. I only tested this on a few occasions, but it was pretty accurate most of the time. According to a company rep, Pebble is working hard to enable voice replies (to email at least) and note-taking on iOS as well.
About those voice commands — they’re really pretty limited to just replies and notes. You won’t be able to use them for Google Now queries or Siri commands. Pebble says that’s intentional, because it doesn’t believe those commands really work all that well. But it seems a bit like an oversight to us that you wouldn’t at least offer it as an option.
A final note about software before I move into the next section: Though it’s not a specific feature, per se, I really enjoy the touches of animations and transitions that the new interface offers. Dismissing a notification reveals a puff of smoke as it disappears; removing a pinned timeline item shows a graphic of a skull before it’s gone; and adding a new watch face prompts an animated star. Each notification also has its own unique animation and art style as it pops up. Instagram has a camera icon; Gmail has an envelope; and so forth. There are probably more that I haven’t noticed yet. It might seem a little cartoony if you’re used to the finesse of Android or Apple’s Watch OS, but it’s these small bits of whimsy that I find endearing.
Performance and battery life
The Pebble Time is a fairly basic smartwatch — it’s not trying to be a smartphone shoehorned into your wrist. As such, the performance is pretty snappy — a stark contrast to the Apple Watch, for example, which has been criticized for being a bit sluggish. There’s not much noticeable lag when shifting through menus and changing watch faces only takes a second or so. Whenever I altered some settings on the Pebble Time app, I saw those changes reflected almost immediately on the watch.
I only received the Pebble Time a few days ago, and the battery test is, well, it’s still ongoing. After about three days of constant use, it’s currently at 40 percent battery life. And that’s with all my notifications turned on — even email. I get literally hundreds of emails every day, so this is an impressive feat. I suspect that lighter use will make it last longer, but even so, the battery life is pretty impressive.
The competition
Style-wise and feature-wise, the Pebble Time doesn’t quite compare to most modern smartwatches. It doesn’t have a touchscreen; it doesn’t have NFC support; it doesn’t have a heart rate monitor; and it doesn’t have GPS. Which is why the Pebble Time’s price is problematic — it retails for close to $200. For that same money, you can get a really nice ASUS ZenWatch that’s high on style and function. For about $20 less, you can get the star of last year’s Google I/O, the Moto 360, which has seen a number of improvements since its debut (and who knows, we might see a successor at this year’s I/O). And if you’re an Apple fan, well, you have the option of the Apple Watch, which will set you back a cool $349 just for the entry-level Sport model.
The big trump card that the Pebble Time has, then, is its battery life — most of these other watches last about a couple days at most — that always-on display, its compatibility with both Android and iOS, and its smart-strap potential. The ability to tack on additional hardware features as time goes by is pretty powerful stuff, and could be the ace up Pebble Time’s sleeve. And hey, if you’re looking for a sexier-looking watch instead, that higher-end Pebble Time Steel ($299) is just around the corner.
Wrap-up
No, the Pebble Time won’t win any fashion contests with its toy-like design and cutesy animations. And no, it won’t win over those who yearn for tons of high-end features in their wearables. But if your idea of a smartwatch is that it should be more of a watch than a smartphone accessory, then the Pebble Time could be it. Its always-on display, long battery life and compatibility with both Android and iOS are attributes that most other smartwatches can’t match. The Timeline interface puts your events and app notifications in easy-to-access, chronological order, reducing the need to launch apps every time you want information. And the ability to swap out modular smartstraps means the Time could have far greater functionality than its rivals over the long term. The Pebble Time certainly isn’t for everyone, but if you’re tired of the hubbub over Android Wear and Apple Watch and want a decent alternative, then it could be well worth your time.
[Image credit: GIF courtesy of Pebble]
This pizza box doubles as a movie projector
Movie-and-pizza night usually means having to retreat to the TV in the living room, but not if you live in Hong Kong. Ad firm Ogilvy & Mather HK has built the Pizza Hut Blockbuster Box, a pizza box that turns into a projector at the drop of a hat. All you do is pluck a lens out of the protective stand, mount it in the side of the box and use your smartphone (conveniently perched on the stand) as the video source — any video that plays on your phone suddenly becomes room-sized. There’s no mention of whether or not this cardboard theater will reach other countries, but it’s hard to imagine this concept being limited to one city for very long.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/128447033?byline=0&portrait=0
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, HD
Via: PSFK
Source: Blockbuster Box, Ogilvy & Mather (Vimeo)
Transform parts of your screen into Mario levels with Screentendo
You know what’s a good cure for office boredom? A Mac app that changes parts of your screen into a playable level straight out of Super Mario Bros. Thanks to Aaron Randall’s Screentendo desktop add-on, a similar process to that of taking a screenshot can have you playing a unique Mario level in seconds. In this case, game building is a two-step process that first determines the underlying structure of the image before generating those bricks on top. Randall admits that the app isn’t without flaws, and that it’s more of a proof-of-concept than anything else. For example, the image rendering works best on images with high contrast — like the Google logo captured in the video after the break.
Filed under: Gaming
Via: VentureBeat
Source: Aaron Randall
Apple is reportedly working on its answer to Google Now
Apple has made some efforts to give you relevant info when you need it (such as iOS’ Today screen), but it hasn’t really had a response to Google Now, which brings you everything from timely directions to cheap flights. According to 9to5Mac‘s sources, however, that’s going to change soon. The crew at 1 Infinite Loop is reportedly working on Proactive, an effort to unite Siri, contacts, schedules and apps in a way that surfaces info at just the right time. A revamped Spotlight search screen in iOS will automatically fill with content based on your schedule and habits. If you’re going on a trip, for example, it’ll pop up your Passbook ticket when it’s time to go; if you always check Facebook in the morning, you’ll get an app shortcut. There are also promises of restaurant suggestions showing up at meal time.
There are other projects in the works that could help out Proactive, too. Maps is believed to be getting an augmented reality tool, Browse Around Me, that will help you learn more about points of interest — look at a coffee shop and you’d get its menu. There would also be a shrunk-down version of Siri’s voice recognition service that would let it dive into apps without risking the privacy issues that arise when you’re sending personal data to third-party software.
Whether or not Proactive and its companion features show up in iOS 9 isn’t clear. The tipsters understand that Apple is still focused on quality for the next mobile OS release, and it may cut back on features for the initial launch in favor of expanding them over time. It won’t be shocking if Tim Cook and company show up at next month’s Worldwide Developer Conference with only a few Proactive features, if they even discuss it at all. Given how rough iOS 8 was in its early days, we wouldn’t blame the iPhone maker for holding off.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Apple
Source: 9to5Mac
The DJs of Silicon Valley who are changing music
Before Silicon Valley had an app for everything, and before the halcyon years preceding the dot-com bubble, Richard Quitevis and Ritche Desuasido were teaming up and making waves in the DJ industry. Disrupting, even. As DJs QBert and Yogafrog, respectively, both came up in the Bay Area mobile DJ scene of the early ’80s. In 1996, they formed their own company, Thud Rumble, to help drive their craft forward with affordable gear created by and for DJs. From the early days launching cutting-edge records, to designing mixers for some of the biggest names in music and teaming up with Intel to create low-cost, low-latency instruments, Thud Rumble has had a huge impact on the technology used in the DJ world, all while living in the shadow of larger Silicon Valley companies.
It recently stepped out of that shadow at Maker Faire when it showed off its wares at the Intel booth. Children and adults alike crowded around the Thud Rumble tables for a chance to put on headphones and try out the three instruments developed using the Intel Edison chip: a drum machine, a keyboard and a mixer connected to a turntable. They tapped out beats, scratched records and played that one song they know on the piano. What most of the attendees probably didn’t realize is that all those devices have an incredibly low latency of 0.5 millisecond — something musicians clamor for when playing digital instruments attached to computers. In this regard, latency is the time between a key being pushed or a record scratched and the sound emitting from the speakers. Currently, DJ’s with digital gear are routinely adjusting their setups to get between two and seven milliseconds of latency. When you’re scratching quickly to the beat, a few milliseconds can throw your timing off. In fact, when a song requires extremely quick scratching, most professionals opt for scratching on analog, skipping the computer all together because digital just can’t keep up.
People can’t help but want to make music. Give them an instrument and they’ll try to play something even if it’s for a few moments before giving up. But children — children will stick around a bit longer.
“We want to make it really focused for the kids,” said Desuasido. “We want to develop it more so the kids can get in.”
“And at a low-ass price,” Quitevis injects from the company’s unassuming storefront in Millbrae, California. The office is a reminder of what’s at the heart of this empire: the love of a craft that in some clubs has been replaced almost entirely by an app. Turntables, mixers, keyboards and drum machines fill nearly every crevice. In the back of the office lies the Octagon a table where four DJs can scratch, hang out and share tips about their craft. It’s communal. Everyone in the office is a DJ in addition to whatever their job title is. Lead Developer Rich Johnson (aka DJ Hard Rich) demoed the Edison-powered mixer by scratching. His love of DJing as a kid ran parallel with his love of developing.
The team found their passion early in life. They want to ignite that same love of music in children with their latest venture. But adult musicians, especially DJs, will also be excited to try out a mixer that stores all their music and tracks in nearly real time. Because the set up doesn’t require a computer, Thud Rumble is talking to manufacturers about placing a display directly on the mixer to mimic the UI found in many DJ apps. It would mean the end of dragging a laptop to a show. If multiple DJs are on the bill, you just arrive with a USB stick with your tracks. Or better yet, a platter.
Like the Thud Rumble guys, ThinkLive CEO Charles Spencer is a DJ. But he’s also a hardware developer. Spooner created and patented a turntable that houses three sensors to track vinyl, platter and tone-arm movement. It removes the need for vinyl records with timecode to interact with digital audio. The turntable will actually work with any piece of vinyl and track, as well as vinyl with timecode tracks. But it’s what it does with that tracking data that’s impressive.
Because it’s tracking even the slightest movement in near real time, the system outputs a digital scratch waveform of a session. Those waveforms can be used to add different samples and filters, to the audio. If you’re recording a mix and the audio feels hollow, you can change the sound attached to the waveform. And like the Edison-powered devices, its latency is lower than systems that go through a computer and mixer. As for DJing, all music would be stored on the platter. Instead of switching out a computer, DJs would just swap out the platter and start scratching. The setup was impressive enough to get the Thud Rumble guys on board as soon as they saw it. When Spooner met with QBert at a recent NAMM, he made if halfway through his PowerPoint presentation when Quitevis stopped him. “This is the future of DJing,” he said.
Like DJing itself, the desire to guide the future of the turntables starts with vinyl. Thud Rumble first created records that have a series of samples for DJs. Then the company made that record unskippable, with each track’s grooves along the X-axis containing the same repeated sample. That way if the needle jumps out of the groove but still lands on the same track, it will still pick back up at the exact same point. With each new product, Desuasido said they told themselves, “that idea really came to life; let’s keep doing this.”
Then Desuasido and Quitevis met Japanese musical instrument manufacturer Vestax. “That’s when we started designing for a big DJ company and eventually turned them into the main DJ company in the ’90s and early 2000s,” Desuasido said. The company designed the PMC-05, 06 and 07 series of scratch mixers, which became the industry standard. It also designed the direct-drive Vestax PDX-2000 turntable, which, like the mixers, became an industry standard along with the Technics SL-1200 turntable line.
Eventually Thud Rumble started designing for Pioneer, Native Instruments, Ortofon, Casio and others. QBert started an online DJ school: QBert Skratch University. The company is about to launch its own mixer in partnership with DJ Tech Pro. The TRX will be available at Guitar Center, Amazon and on ThudRumble.com in July. It also has four apps in the App Store and Google Play Store. QBert also released an album and companion animated movie (produced by Yogafrog), which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. Quitevis and Desuasido’s one-stop site for the DJ community sells clothing, slipmats, stickers, DVDs, CDs, cartridges and, of course, vinyl.
It is commerce tied to an earnest enthusiasm for a craft that’s tough to find at most startups in Silicon Valley. It’s an idea factory where it’s not unusual to get texts from QBert or Yogafrog because they thought of something while sitting next to someone on a plane. Those ideas no longer revolve exclusively around DJing. The team is tapping into the technology available now to think about the future. Desuasido says: “We plan to do this with every musical instrument, really. There’s so much out there that’s untapped.”
Filed under: Misc, Software, Intel
Source: Thud Rumble
Facebook tests a new Security Checkup to keep your account safe
Over the last few years Facebook has made a number of tweaks to make it easier to protect your account from hackers, but that doesn’t mean individual users are keeping up. Since there’s no point to security features if people don’t use them, and hacked accounts are annoying for everyone (why are they always selling sunglasses? Who wants cheap Oakleys that much?) it’s testing a new Security Checkup feature. The idea is that it’s a simple and straightforward walkthrough for some of the things everyone should keep an eye on in regards to their account — update the password, double check connected apps and devices, activate login alerts — and if the response is good, more people will see the prompt soon. If you (or your friend/relative with the account that’s constantly pushing spam) aren’t seeing it yet, a visit to the Privacy Basics page is another way to make sure things are locked down.
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Posted by Facebook Security on Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Filed under: Internet, Facebook
Source: Facebook Security
Galaxy S6 to gain better manual exposure control in Android 5.1 update
Whether you’re an Apple fan or a Samsung fan, one thing is certain – the iPhone has offered one of the best camera experiences on a smartphone for quite some time now. Though, just recently, that may have changed for some users after the launch of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. Samsung’s two newest flagships not only brought a much-improved camera experience over their predecessor, but they were arguably the first Android phones to give the current iPhone offering a run for its money. To make the experience even better, Samsung is supposedly bringing a handy feature to the Galaxy S6’s camera that has only been implemented on iPhone cameras so far.
Read more: Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge camera shootout
Just about every smartphone camera out there has an option to adjust exposure, but on Apple devices, users have the ability to manually adjust the exposure at the point of focus in the viewfinder. For instance, when there is an abundance of light behind the subject of the photo, using the stock camera on the iPhone will let you increase or decrease the exposure amount by simply dragging your finger up or down on the subject. According to SamMobile, this easier method of adjusting exposure is making its way to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge in the update to Android 5.1 Lollipop. The publication has been testing out an early build of the software for a little while now, and they have confirmed that the feature is in fact present in the 5.1 update.
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Along with an easier way to control exposure, both Samsung devices should also receive support for RAW image capture and shutter speed control in the update to Android 5.1. The Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are expected to receive the update sometime in June, so users don’t have much longer to wait.
Samsung improving exposure control on Galaxy S6 smartphones
When Samsung rolls out the Android 5.1 update to the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge, users will find a new camera feature that should make it a little bit easier to grab a great shot in challenging light conditions. Similar to a feature found in Apple’s camera app on iOS, users will be able to vary the exposure setting dragging their finger on the screen. What will make this extremely useful though is that the adjustment can be made while the user is preparing to take the picture and they will see a live preview on their screen.
Probably the two biggest uses of this feature will be when shooting a poorly lit scene or when shooting something with lots of backlight. In the case of low light situations, users will be able to lengthen the exposure to brighten things up while framing their shot. Likewise, when shooting a subject with lots of background light that may be fooling the camera sensor into shortening the exposure leaving the primary subject underexposed, users will be able to fix that before ever taking the shot.
Adjusting exposure in post-processing is nothing new, but this feature will help users avoid that additional step. It also means users can take proactive steps to make sure they capture all the detail they need. Samsung is expected to roll out some other new camera features in June when Android 5.1 is released, including shutter speed control. So we should see even better shots from users who know their way around manual camera settings, although most users should benefit from the touch-based exposure control.
source: SamMobile
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Cloud computing growth in 2015 to be big says Xaiomi
Most smartphone users are familiar with cloud-based storage providers like Dropbox, Google Drive or on other platforms, iCloud. These are joined by several other options as companies try to get in on the action, resulting in services like Verizon’s cloud storage solutions for their subscribers. Since they are not yet a big name outside of China and other Asian markets, Xaiomi’s cloud storage service is not yet well-known. However, Xiaomi is expecting growth in revenues from the services it provides to grow by 4 to 5 times for 2015 compared to the prior year.
To meet the demand for cloud storage, Xiaomi invested $1 billion USD to develop cloud storage services in cooperation with partner Kingsoft. Xiaomi says they now have 97 million users on the platform who have stored 40.5 billion photos and 504 million videos. The demand for space is expected to grow by 600% just this year.
Xiaomi chairman Lei Jun shared this data regarding the growth of cloud storage at the Global Big Data Era Guiyang Summit 2015. Lei indicated one of the big challenges the entire industry faces is how to mine all the data that is being stored and then developing commercial models based on that.
source: DigiTimes
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