Vodafone’s Call+ lets you share photos and maps while you chat
Regular phone calls are simple affairs: just one voice on either end of the line. If you want to share anything other than a quick natter, like a meet-up address, some other communication tool is required. Not with Call+, though, Vodafone’s new service that brings multimedia sharing to the humble phone call. Launching less than a month after Vodafone switched on seamless WiFi calling, the Call+ service lets users send images, maps and contacts in real-time, as well as start a video call on the fly. All of this is also accessible from the call log after you hang up, much like an instant messaging thread.
You can begin sharing before the call even connects, too. The “pre-call” feature lets you add a note about why you’re calling, an indication of how important the call is, and even a map or picture for added context. If the recipient doesn’t answer, you can add a follow-up text or voice message that’ll appear alongside their missed call notification. All in all, it’s a pretty neat upgrade to standard phone calls that adds some of the functionality you’d expect from a VoIP service like Skype.
Vodafone’s the first UK carrier to employ these advanced calling features, thanks to the same Rich Communication Services (RCS) standard that also powers the network’s Message+ client (a texting app with much of the functionality of IM services like WhatsApp and Google Hangouts). There is one minor barrier to entry, though, in that Vodafone customers need to download the required Android app to start using Call+ features (and both ends of the conversation will need it). Apart from owners of either the Xperia Z3 range or the Xperia Z5 or Z5 Compact (launching October 5th on Vodafone), that is. Those handsets are able to use Call+ features without the app, and will also support the real-time annotating of images and maps, too.
The Xperia handsets named aren’t the only phones that support RCS native, but Vodafone is staying quiet on when other Android smartphones might be able to use baked-in Call+ services. Regarding iOS, the network said it’s working on it, but doesn’t have anything else to share just yet.
Galaxy S7 will feature Snapdragon 820 in US and China, Exynos elsewhere: Korean report
Qualcomm has reportedly secured SoC orders for certain versions of the Galaxy S7, coming in “early 2016.”
The report comes from Electronics Times, a trusted Korean publication, via Reuters. Citing anonymous industry sources, Electronic Times reports that Samsung is once again going to use a mix of Qualcomm and Exynos SoCs for its flagship phone.
In the US and China, the world’s two largest markets, the Galaxy S7 will reportedly be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC. In other markets, including in Europe and Asia, Samsung will use its own Exynos processor.
The report cites industry sources speculating that Qualcomm was able to secure Snapdragon 820 orders for the two most profitable markets by using its chip manufacturing orders as a negotiation argument. Put simply, Samsung gets lucrative chip foundry contracts from Qualcomm, and Qualcomm gets chip orders from Samsung.
See also: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 is official, comes with new Adreno 530 GPU
Samsung and Qualcomm refused to comment the report, but the Korean giant stated that its “business and semiconductor business are totally separated, [so] supply agreement of AP and foundry business do not affect each other.”
Samsung famously snubbed Qualcomm for its flagships this year, opting for its own Exynos 7420 chip. The loss of a big client – and the Snapdragon 810 overheating PR disaster that followed – left Qualcomm bruised out. Samsung, on the other hand, avoided the overheating problems that plagued HTC, LG, or Sony, and bagged more profit thanks to the use of its own silicon.
According to older reports, Samsung may use an Exynos 8890 processor on the Galaxy S7 (and presumably S7 Edge) units sold outside of US and China.
As for the Galaxy S7 release date, rumor has it, Samsung may have something to show us in early February. Following the early release of the Galaxy Note 5, a faster release of the S7 does make a lot of sense.
Sony Xperia Z5 arrives in the UK
Right behind the arrival of the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact on Monday, the regular sized Xperia Z5 has just landed in the UK through high-street retailer Carphone Warehouse.
SIM free, the smartphone will set you back £549.99, quite a bit more than the Compact’s £450 price tag. If you are after a monthly contract, the Xperia Z5 can be yours with no upfront cost from just £41.99 per month, or you can reduce the monthly payment to £36 if you can stump up £59.99 upfront.
The smartphone is available in Black, Gold and Green colour options, and the Carphone Warehouse also has exclusive early access to the Ice White variant too.
Read more: Sony Xperia Z5 hands-on and first look
For a quick recap of the phone’s hardware, the Xperia Z5 features a 5.2-inch 1080p display and is powered by a Snapdragon 810 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of internal memory and a 2,900mAh battery. The phone’s 23MP rear camera also just topped the DxoMark table of best smartphone cameras. For extras, the phone is IP68 rated against water and dust resistance, has a microSD card slot for 200GB of extra storage space and features a fingerprint scanner.
The Xperia Z5 should be available from other retailers in the UK next week.
Why the quad-core Snapdragon 820 won’t bring an end to the core wars
2015 has been an interesting year for mobile processing technology and the overarching trend in products has been wide-spread adoption of hexa-core and octa-core processors. The Snapdragon 810, 808 and Exynos 7420 are powering a range of flagship smartphones this year, while MediaTek announced the world’s first deca-core mobile SoC with its Helio X20 a few months back.
Qualcomm is looking to buck this trend with its new Snapdragon 820, which is scheduled for an early 2016 appearance in mobile products, including the Galaxy S7. The Snapdragon 820 will move back over to a quad-core CPU setup, making use of Qualcomm’s new Kryo CPU design that will try to match, and hopefully exceed, the performance and energy efficiency offered by today’s ARM Cortex based processors.
Cortex v Kryo
Qualcomm is boasting double the peak performance and energy efficiency of the Snapdragon 810, but the company hasn’t been quite so clear about the day to day CPU performance boost heading our way with the 820. A blanket two fold increase in performance seems unlikely, but certain scenarios could see a big boost.
The move over from Cortex to Kryo will likely net some performance improvements thanks to Qualcomm’s own optimizations with its new CPU. However, a significant portion of the chip’s improvements will come from the move from a 20nm to 14nm FinFET manufacturing process. Personally, I’m expecting general CPU performance improvements closer to the 30 percent mark, but I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
The Snapdragon 820 promising big performance and energy gains over the 810, but Qualcomm hasn’t revealed exactly how much extra performance will be provided solely by its Kryo CPU.
What is perhaps going to be more interesting is to see how Cortex based mobile SoCs that utilize big.LITTLE and Kryo stack up in terms of energy efficiency, as Heterogeneous Multiprocessing (HMP) optimization has come on quite a way from the days when the first big.LITTLE designs competed against Krait. Qualcomm is dropping back to four equal quad-core CPUs in the Snapdragon 820, and will therefore by relying solely on frequency scaling and core gating to save on power. The power consumption differences between Cortex core classes has already been well documented, and I would imagine that Kryo will struggle to drop its energy usage down as low as a Cortex-A53.
While the CPU core race may be over for Qualcomm with the 820, we are going to have to delve into some serious performance and battery benchmarking to find out if this chip can outperform the current batch of cluster designed SoCs that aim to balance performance and efficiency.
While Qualcomm’s flagship drops back to 4 cores in 2016, MediaTek’s Helio X20 Tri-Cluster SoC wants to hit the perfect balance of performance and power with 10 CPU cores.
It is equally important to recognise that Qualcomm isn’t the only company selling high performance mobile processors. Samsung, HiSilicon and MediaTek look set to continue to make use of ARM Cortex CPU and GPU components for their processors in the near future, although Samsung may switch back to Qualcomm if the 820 shows significant gains. MediaTek has made it quite clear that HMP is a big part of its future plans, having recently unveiled its deca-core Helio X20 SoC for the high-end market.
While Qualcomm may be the most popular mobile SoC manufacturer, its rivals have a much more competitive feature set these days. Integrated LTE, optimized ISP techniques and high resolution peripheral support can be spotted in a range of mobile chips these days. New big.LITTLE designs that make use of the more power efficient ARM Cortex-A72 CPU core, such as the MT8173 SoC, are also heading to devices next year, so 2016 may see greater diversity in SoC adoption once again.
Mid-range efficiency
One of the big wins for high core count processors has been in the mid-tier and the Snapdragon 820 is not going to change much in this market. MediaTek was one of the first to make use of multiple lower power Cortex CPU cores and has seen fast adoption in the mid and super-mid tiers of the market. This type of wide CPU design can also be spotted in chips from Huawei’s HiSilicon and the likes of the commonplace Qualcomm Snapdragon 615.
Mid-range chips from the likes of MediaTek are likely to continue making use of the beneficial cost to performance ratios of using lots of little CPU cores, rather than silicon hogging high performance CPU designs.
Qualcomm has also recently announced that its new mid-range Snapdragon 617 and low-end Snapdragon 430 will also be making use of eight Cortex-A53 CPUs.
These SoC designs have a smaller silicon footprint and lower power consumption per core, while still offering competitive performance against larger, high-performance designs. The lower production price point has enabled a new market for inexpensive smartphones and Kryo is not going to have much on an impact on this segment, which is currently growing very quickly in emerging markets.
Qualcomm is reserving Kryo exclusively for its high-end SoCs, at least for the first generation, so the core wars are set to continue in the mid-tier smartphone market throughout 2016.
Heterogeneous Compute
The other big announcement alongside the Snapdragon 820’s various components has been a renewed focus on Heterogeneous Compute. We’ve already covered the topic in depth before, if you need a primer on the subject.
Although Qualcomm may be dropping back to just four CPU cores, heterogeneous compute will make use of other processing parts built into the Snapdragon 820 to bulk up its processing capabilities and improve energy efficiency for certain tasks. For example, Qualcomm states that it can make use its Hexagon DSP to assist with image processing and can be used to manage always-on applications at lower power costs that you would see by using the main CPU or GPU.
Qualcomm is boasting big performance gains using GPU compute, but these type of results are heavily reliant on developer implementations.
We have seen a similar idea to use low power components for some tasks with MediaTek’s Helio X20, which features an integrated Cortex M4 processor for lower power implementations of always-on applications, such as MP3 playback and voice activation commands.
The goals with HC are similar to the HMP CPU designs that we have become accustomed to this year, balancing performance and power efficiency against the components and thermal limits that are available. Although Qualcomm may have turned its back on the CPU core-count wars, the company and its rivals still have a very active interest in the practical uses of multi-processor SoC designs. Heterogeneous Compute and HMP are ideas that we are likely to hear quite a bit more about in the future.
Read more: Qualcomm Kryo and heterogeneous computing explained
Wrap Up
Although Quacomm may be dropping back to a quad-core CPU design with Kryo, it is not going to end the need for and use of high-core counts in the mobile space, especially from Qualcomm’s competitors.
Many flagship smartphones may no longer feature hexa- and octa-core CPU designs in 2016, but more powerful GPUs and the use of heterogeneous compute still means that the number of available processing parts will continue to remain relevant. At the mid and low ends, the cost to performance ratio of octa-core designs means that they are unlikely to disappear from this segment either. For better or worse, the core wars aren’t over yet.
Microsoft persuades ASUS to install Office on its Android phones
ASUS will install Office apps and other “innovative product solutions” from Microsoft on its Android phones thanks to a new patent licensing deal. The arrangement builds on an existing, private deal over Android phones between the two companies, according to ZDNet. Despite holding most of the patent cards, Microsoft magnanimously said the pact “opens the door to the kind of collaboration between Microsoft and ASUS made possible only through mutual respect and alignment on intellectual property.” ASUS joins Samsung, LG, Sony and 20 or so other manufacturers that signed deals with Microsoft to bundle Office apps on Android devices.
Last year, ASUS dropped several laptop/tablet hybrids that dual-boot Windows and Android, reportedly at the behest of Microsoft. Redmond has not been afraid to flex its patent muscles as the head of the Rockstar patent consortium that includes Apple, BlackBerry and Ericsson. The group also sued Google over phones (and Google sued it back over Xbox video), but the two tech giants recently decided to resolve all 20 ongoing patent disputes.
So why all the peacemaking from Microsoft? CEO Satya Nadella recently resolved to stop stop focusing on beating Google in the smartphone OS arena, as former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer did. Instead, he wants to get Microsoft products onto as many Android phones as possible, a strategy that’s clearly working out better.
Source: Microsoft
Patreon donation site’s user data published online after hack
Patreon, the crowdfunding platform for artists, has been hacked recently, and almost 15 gigabytes of data stolen from the site is now available online. Security researcher Troy Hunt of have I been pwned? told Ars Technica that he found 2.3 million email addresses (including his own) in the data dump, along with password and donation records, private messages and even the website’s source code. Note that some screenshots of the data dump that surfaced online indicate that part of the data stolen was generated as recently as September 24th.
While Patreon uses a hashing algorithm called “bcrypt” that’s normally tough to crack, identity thieves could use vulnerabilities in the source code to help them decrypt passwords associated with your email addresses. Ars says that’s what hackers did to decode the sensitive info they took from Ashley Madison, the cheaters’ dating website that was revealed to have very few female users. To protect yourself, make sure to change the password not just for your Patreon account, but also for your email and for any other website where you used the same details.
@troyhunt dm me if you want the @Patreon dump 
pic.twitter.com/C19XseLEmn
— amlolz (@amlolzz) October 1, 2015
The dollar figure for the Patreon campaigns isn’t the issue, it’s supporters identities, messages, etc. Everything private now public.
— Troy Hunt (@troyhunt) October 2, 2015
[Image credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto]
Via: Ars Technica
Gearbest.com, great prices on high-tech gadgets
Over the past month we have featured deals from gearbest.com. Some of the deals seem too good to be true, but they’re not. I had the chance to interview gearbest.com’s head of marketing, Melanie Yu, and here are the answers to the questions I had for her. Even though we do get many review units for free, the deals at gearbest.com were so good I found myself ordering goods with my own money. Learn about them for yourself:
What city is gearbest.com headquartered?
Shenzhen, China – Also known as China’s Silicon Valley due to the concentration of high-tech companies
When did gearbest.com open?
February of 2014
How many products do you carry?
We focus on all things tech from RC vehicles to unlocked smartphones with seven day battery life, gearbest.com has your needs covered. We have hundreds of products and continue to expand our portfolio.
What area is your main focus? (cell phones, accessories, ???)
We focus on all things tech, cellphones, smartwatches, tablets and more. We specialize in bringing high quality products with low prices. Brick and mortar stores such as Best Buy and Target have high overhead costs like store sales people and managers. At gearbest.com we keep overhead costs to a minimum by eliminating the middle man and can pass on the discounts to the customers.
How do you keep prices low?
By shipping direct to customers and eliminating the middle sales person, we can dramatically cut expenses. At gearbest.com we pride ourselves in offering high-quality products at Black Friday prices year around by streamlining costs and minimizing overhead. Customer satisfaction is our number one priority.
What are typical shipping times to the US?
About 2-3 days(from us warehouse to us)
Where is the warehouse in the US?
New York, New York
Will you have a store or just a warehouse stateside?
GearBest.com is an online electronics seller, and we’re trying to develop more and more overseas warehouses to spread our discounts worldwide.
Tell me one or two things you want your customers to know about gearbest.com.
1. GearBest.com provides FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE on every single order.
2. We offer extremely competitive pricing with excellent customer service.
I have found gearbest.com to be highly competitive and even found myself ordering a few products like the DOOGEE F5 smartphone for $139.99 which comes loaded with Android 5.1 and other great specs. Look for deals that will be featured on Androidguys.com in the coming weeks and let us know if gearbest.com works out for you. We anticipate offering reviews on some of their budget and mid-range devices which we expect to compete with the likes of the Moto G, Moto E, and similar devices.
If you’re interested in gearbest.com check them out today. If you would like to contact them with further questions, click here.
The post Gearbest.com, great prices on high-tech gadgets appeared first on AndroidGuys.
YouTube Kids app updated with new features
Everybody loves YouTube, especially little kids, thanks to the YouTube Kids app launched back in February. YouTube have recently announced it will introduce new features for both their kid viewers and their parents, making it easier for the whole family to enjoy their favorite videos.
YouTube Kids now supports casting, so that videos on the app can now also be watched on the big screen including Chromecast, Apple TV, gaming consoles and smart TVs. The update also introduces guest-curated playlists, featuring guests like National Geographic Kids, Kid President and Geena Davis, with more planned from the likes of Vsauce and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.
There are also more features for parents. Whenever a parent user opens YouTube Kids, the app will explain how the system works in choosing and recommending content and how to flag inappropriate videos. Parents can also customize their own pass codes in parental controls, rather than using a generated spelled-out code.
These new features for YouTube Kids add great piece of mind for the parents of young children, who are free to watch all the Stampy Cat they want without being exposed to any inappropriate content.
Source: YouTube Official Blog
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WSJ: Sprint’s cutting budgets by $2.5 billion, layoffs inbound
Plenty of digital ink’s been spilled over Sprint’s financial woes of late, and sadly here’s some more. The Wall Street Journal‘s reporting that the Now Network is prepping to cut some $2.5 billion in costs that will “inevitably result in job reductions.” However, Reuters says that its a bit early to start talking numbers regarding the latter bit. The company’s also stopped outside hiring and apparently any money spent has to go through the carrier’s finance department for approval from here on out. Maybe don’t expect to see more $1 iPhones or free DirecTV service anytime soon, then.
Via: Reuters
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Huawei starts rolling out Lollipop update for the Ascend Mate7
Huawei has begun rolling out the long-awaited Lollipop update to all unlocked International variants of the Ascend Mate7. In terms of added functionality, this upgrade brings the latest version of the open-source operating system to the handset, in addition to the refreshed EMUI 3.1 user interface.
Hit the break for the full changelog.
- Material Design: You will quickly notice a whole new colorful look and feel to your device – from fluid animations to new application and system themes, colors and widgets.
- Notifications UI & Priorities: In order to alert you to the mosttimely and relevant information, the format and behavior of notifications have evolved:
- notifications will appear on the lock screen and are intelligently ranked by type and who sent them.
- you double-tap to open one, swipe left or right to clear one, or clear all notifications from the bottom of the list.
- you can set the priority and privacy of notifications for each application.
- very high priority notifications will pop up briefly over other applications so that you can take action.
- when you dismiss a notification on one device it will be dismissed on your other Android devices, if they are connected to the Internet.
- you can further tailor how notifications behave with the new Downtime and Ambient Display settings (see below).
- New Interruptions & Downtime Settings: You can tailor how interruptions behave, choosing to allow all, none, or only priority interruptions. You can personalize what counts as a priority interruption (reminders, events, calls, messages) and even tailor them to be from only contacts you specify. The Downtime setting will allow only priority interruptions during the times and days that you specify. e.g. allow only priority interruptions on the weekend.
- Recent Apps (Multi-tasking): The redesigned Overview space (formerly called Recents) will include both applications and separate activities within those applications. For instance, each open tab in Chrome will also appear here along with recent applications; both your Gmail Inbox and a draft email message will appear as separate cards. This provides a consistent way to switch amongst tasks.
- Flashlight: Lollipop includes a new flashlight option as part of Quick settings (swipe down with two fingers from the status bar to see it).
- Pin a view/app: Screen pinning allows you to keep a specific app or screen in view. For example, you can ‘pin’ a game and your child will not be able to navigate anywhere else on your phone.
- Battery: The Battery settings panel now shows an estimated projection for how much time you have left while discharging or charging. You can also enable a new battery saver mode that will save power by reducing performance and most background data operations to extend your battery life.
- Smarter Internet Connections: With Android Lollipop, your phone will not connect to a Wi-Fi access point unless there is a verified Internet connection. This feature improves hand-offs between Wi-Fi and cellular connections, helping to maintain your video chat or voice-over-IP (VoIP) call as you switch.
- Performance: Your phone now uses the new Android Runtime to help optimize application performance. After upgrading to Lollipop, your applications will undergo a one-time optimization process. Note that the optimization for ART requires more space.
- Security: Encryption can now use a stronger 256-bit key to help protect your data. Note that the stronger key willonly be used after you perform a factory reset on Android Lollipop. Otherwise encryption will continue to use 128-bit key. You can turn on encryption in the Security settings menu.
As is the norm, the update is being pushed out in stages. To see if it’s ready for your device head into Settings, scroll to the bottom and tap on “About Device”, hit “System Updates”, then select “Check for updates”.
Come comment on this article: Huawei starts rolling out Lollipop update for the Ascend Mate7
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