BFI focuses on movie classics with £5 streaming service
If you’re a serious movie buff, it doesn’t take long to burn through Netflix and Amazon Prime Video’s best titles. Within a couple of months, many of us are left mindlessly scrolling through the app, just waiting for either company to add something new. Instead of heading to the cinema, the British Film Institute (BFI) hopes you’ll consider a subscription to its new BFI Player+ streaming service. With it, you get access to 300 movies — BFI says more are being added all the time — which include classics and contemporary hits from around the world. The organisation is hand-curating its library into useful collections, like Japanese classics, “award-winning” and “unavailable on DVD.” English film critic Mark Kermode will also pick a movie every week and do a video piece explaining its significance. The streaming service is designed to supplement, rather than replace, the existing BFI Player which lets you buy and rent individual titles. Its biggest flaw? Device support. BFI Player+ is only available on desktop, tablet and phones, which could make TV viewing a little tricky.
Source: BFI Player+
Toyota’s tiny robot companion fits in your car’s cup holder
It’s another animated friend to add to your collection of ‘bots that might not ever appear in the US — although it might make it into space.Toyota’s Kirobo mini is tiny. In fact, it’s small enough as to ‘install’ into your auto’s cup holster — if you’re willing to part with your commuter latte. The robot forms part of Toyota’s AI and human interaction research that it and several Japanese universities are working together on. Like its smartphone relative, the Mini gesticulates, can respond to voice requests and apparently even detect a drivers’ emotions. (There’s a camera built into the little guy. He’s not psychic. Yet). Slideshow-335679
Source: Kirobo Mini (Toyota)
Spotify really does reduce music piracy, but at a cost
Spotify swears up and down that its free music streaming helps curb piracy. But does it really? Yes, if you ask the EU… but it’s not the cure-all that the company might suggest. A European Commission study claims that there’s “clear evidence” of Spotify reducing illegal downloads, with every 47 streams leading to one fewer bootlegged track. However, that’s offset by the lost revenue from people who might otherwise buy songs outright — there’s one lost song sale for every 137 streams. The service is ultimately “revenue-neutral” for the music business, according to the study.
Via: TorrentFreak
Source: European Commission
Samsung’s absurdly large Galaxy View tablet is official
After being teased and leaked multiple times over the past few weeks, Samsung today officially revealed its supersized 18.4-inch tablet, the Galaxy View. As you might expect, the company’s pegging this as the perfect device for people who consume heavy amounts of media — you know, through Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and other streaming services. Aside from its absurdly large screen, which features a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, the Galaxy View comes with a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, an undisclosed 1.6GHz octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD). There’s also a nano-SIM slot for LTE connectivity, while the decent 5,700mAh battery promises up to 8 hours of video play. Unfortunately, Samsung hasn’t announced pricing or availability yet, but we’ll likely learn those details in the coming days.
Source: Samsung
Apple and Huawei Close Gap on Samsung in Global Smartphone Market
The latest numbers from research firm IDC show that Samsung and Apple continue to lead the worldwide smartphone market, but Chinese handset maker Huawei is placing increasing pressure on the industry giants after experiencing strong 60.9% growth compared to the year-ago quarter.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker reveals that Samsung continues to be the top smartphone vendor with 23.8% market share, shipping an estimated 84.5 million smartphones in the third quarter of the calendar year, compared to 23.9% market share and 79.6 million smartphones shipped in the year-ago quarter.
Apple trailed in second with 13.5% market share after shipping 48 million smartphones in the calendar third quarter, compared to 11.8% market share and 39.3 million smartphones shipped in the year-ago quarter — a 22.2% year-over-year increase, which cut away at Samsung’s market lead.
Apple’s growth can be attributed to strong iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus sales, which Apple says has led to the highest rate of Android switchers it has ever measured. The new smartphones set a record with 13 million sales over their September launch weekend. Apple released its complete FY Q4 financial results yesterday.
Huawei also closed the gap on Samsung and Apple due to strong growth in China and Europe. The Shenzhen-based company was the third-largest smartphone vendor, a position that previously belonged to Chinese rival Xiaomi, with 7.5% market share and 26.5 million smartphones shipped in the third quarter.
Lenovo and Xiaomi rounded off the top five largest smartphone vendors with nearly equal 5.3% and 5.2% market share respectively. Lenovo shipped an estimated 18.8 million smartphones, while Xiaomi shipped an estimated 18.3 million smartphones. All other vendors combined to ship an estimated 159.1 million smartphones.
Overall smartphone shipments totaled 355.2 million worldwide in the third quarter, up 6.8% from the 332.6 million units shipped in the year-ago quarter, marking the second highest level of smartphone shipments for a single quarter ever. The growth was driven by new flagship devices such as the iPhone 6s, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note5.
Apple and Huawei Close Gap on Samsung in Global Smartphone Market
The latest numbers from research firm IDC show that Samsung and Apple continue to lead the worldwide smartphone market, but Chinese handset maker Huawei is placing increasing pressure on the industry giants after experiencing strong 60.9% growth compared to the year-ago quarter.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker reveals that Samsung continues to be the top smartphone vendor with 23.8% market share, shipping an estimated 84.5 million smartphones in the third quarter of the calendar year, compared to 23.9% market share and 79.6 million smartphones shipped in the year-ago quarter.
Apple trailed in second with 13.5% market share after shipping 48 million smartphones in the calendar third quarter, compared to 11.8% market share and 39.3 million smartphones shipped in the year-ago quarter — a 22.2% year-over-year increase, which cut away at Samsung’s market lead.
Apple’s growth can be attributed to strong iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus sales, which Apple says has led to the highest rate of Android switchers it has ever measured. The new smartphones set a record with 13 million sales over their September launch weekend. Apple released its complete FY Q4 financial results yesterday.
Huawei also closed the gap on Samsung and Apple due to strong growth in China and Europe. The Shenzhen-based company was the third-largest smartphone vendor, a position that previously belonged to Chinese rival Xiaomi, with 7.5% market share and 26.5 million smartphones shipped in the third quarter.
Lenovo and Xiaomi rounded off the top five largest smartphone vendors with nearly equal 5.3% and 5.2% market share respectively. Lenovo shipped an estimated 18.8 million smartphones, while Xiaomi shipped an estimated 18.3 million smartphones. All other vendors combined to ship an estimated 159.1 million smartphones.
Overall smartphone shipments totaled 355.2 million worldwide in the third quarter, up 6.8% from the 332.6 million units shipped in the year-ago quarter, marking the second highest level of smartphone shipments for a single quarter ever. The growth was driven by new flagship devices such as the iPhone 6s, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note5.
Report: Samsung Exynos 8890 with custom CPU for the Galaxy S7
Rumors about Samsung designing its own CPU and GPU parts certainly aren’t new, but the latest report from Korea has once again brought the subject to the fore. According to anonymous industry sources, Samsung is preparing to mass produce its Exynos 8890 chip in time for the launch of the Galaxy S7. Interestingly, the SoC is said to feature a custom CPU core designed by Samsung itself.
Apparently, the custom core is known as the M1. We don’t have any specific details about the CPU, but it will surely be based on the ARMv8 architecture, just like custom processors designed by Apple and Qualcomm’s upcoming Kryo CPU. The Exynos 8890 will be mass produced at Samsung’s Giheung plant starting December, at the latest.
“Designing its own mobile core will allow Samsung, which produces both smartphones and semiconductors, to gain competitive edge over Apple and Qualcomm in reducing cost and optimizing chip products for smartphones.” – anonymous industry official
Mention of an Exynos 8890 SoC destined for the Galaxy S7 originally appeared back in September via benchmarks. This listing suggests that the processor will feature eight custom ARMv8 CPU cores and the latest reports mention a peak clock speed around 2.3GHz, although none of this has been confirmed. Samsung’s current high-end Exynos 7420 SoC makes use of four Cortex-A72 and four Cortex-A53 CPU designs that are licensed from ARM, along with an ARM Mali-T760 GPU.
Samsung’s semi-conductor business has become an increasingly important asset for the company, especially as revenues from smartphone sales have taken a hit in the past few quarters. Manufacturing an in-house CPU design could save Samsung money in the long run, but may also be a strategic move to raise the profile of its semiconductor business.
The Galaxy S6 range were all powered by Samsung chips, but the company may re-partner up with Qualcomm for the Galaxy S7, to prevent supply issues.
Samsung has seen success with its 14nm FinFET manufacturing process for mobile chips this year and designing its own core components would put the company in a very strong position against rivals Apple and Qualcomm, which both rely on factories from the likes of Samsung and TSMC to manufacture their chip designs. Not to mention, Samsung may be looking to optimize its future products with specially designed chips, bringing features and/or performance that cannot be found in competing SoCs.
The Galaxy S7 is also expected to ship with Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 820 SoC in some regions, possibly to make sure that Samsung has enough chips to meet demand for its next flagship smartphone.
Samsung refused to comment on productions plans for its next-gen mobile processors.
Sony rolling out new update to Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact Marshmallow beta
Android Marshmallow has overall been a great update, bringing upgrades to battery life and more. Unfortunately, only one new device has launched with it onboard so far, with others simply planning timelines to have it ready. However, Sony is hard at work, as the company has just released its first update to the Marshmallow beta for its Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact smartphones.
Sony initially released the Marshmallow ROM for these devices earlier this month in hopes that the community would help the company test out Marshmallow. And already, Sony has released this new update to it. That’s certainly more initiative than other manufacturers have shown.
This update will give you a build number of MRA58K.Z1.2085, and brings double tap to wake functionality, MIDI support via USB, updates to the keyboard, and support for higher bitrate flac audio. If you’re in the beta, expect to see this update hitting your device soon.
Sony is well on its way to getting Android 6.0 on many of its devices. For a company that doesn’t get much love, that’s a noble need.
source: Xperia Blog
Come comment on this article: Sony rolling out new update to Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact Marshmallow beta
Official build of TWRP is now available for the Nexus 6P, no decryption support as yet
Well, that hasn’t taken long. The Huawei-made Nexus 6P (codename: Angler) only started shipping a couple of days ago, but an official build of TWRP’s customer recovery is already available for the handset.
The official build of TWRP’s custom recovery doesn’t support data decryption just yet, but it is possible to format data and install a boot image with force encrypt already disabled. Other than the lack of support for decryption, the build has all the functions that TWRP normally does. If, somehow, you do make a hash of things, you can always install a factory image from here, and start from scratch again.
Source: TWRP
Via: AndroidPolice
Come comment on this article: Official build of TWRP is now available for the Nexus 6P, no decryption support as yet
Apple Rejects Weight Measuring 3D Touch App ‘Gravity’
App developer Ryan McLeod and a few of his friends have been working on a new application for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus since the devices were announced in early September. Their app, dubbed Gravity, would harness the power of 3D Touch, letting users place a spoon onto the face of the iPhone and weigh the measurement of items like powders, drink mixes, and small fruit.
Once they got the new iPhones in their hands, the team working with McLeod began calibrating the sensitivity of the weight measurements with a few coins placed on a spoon. Following the launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, McLeod and his partners had the app finished in under four days, along with some basic marketing materials, and submitted it to Apple. They were rejected about a week later due to “having a misleading description,” which they took to be confused with a handful of fake scale apps on the App Store (via The Verge).
Gravity unfortunately got rejected for having a misleading description and we immediately knew why: There are a couple dozen “scale” apps on the app store. The thing is that 80% of them are joke apps, “for entertainment purposes only” and the other 20% try to weigh things using the tilt of your iPhone once it’s been balanced on top of an inflated bag and calibrated using a single coin. Gravity was most likely confused with the prank apps and rejected for claiming it was a real working scale.
Setting out to clear any confusion, McLeod made a demonstration video of Gravity in action and filed an appeal to ensure Apple that the app was legitimate and not one of a handful of “joke” apps found on the App Store. In the end, McLeod was told over the phone by Apple that “the concept of a scale app was not appropriate for the App Store.”
The developer weighed a few options for the possibility of Apple’s rejection of the app. The first was the possibility of damage to the iPhone, which would be difficult for the average person since the API for Gravity (and 3D Touch) limits the weight accepted onto the iPhone to ~385g (0.85lbs), the app flashing a bright red light when exceeding that force. McLeod also suggests the app’s advantageous use of 3D Touch is simply too early to be widely accepted, not to mention the possible negative connotation with drug use and measurement that could be associated with the app.
McLeod and his team said they have a “strong respect” for Apple’s selection and rejection process on the App Store, but still remain positive that one day when 3D Touch apps become a bit more widespread, Gravity could be revisited as a potential candidate to “be one of the hand-picked, who-knew-a-phone-could-do-that-apps anyone can download on the App Store and have in their pocket.” For now, he’s back to working on the iOS puzzle game Blackbox.
Check out McLeod’s entire post on the creation and rejection of Gravity on Medium.
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