Wind Mobile beefs up network coverage in Calgary area

If you’re a Wind Mobile customer in the Calgary, Alberta area, you should begin seeing better cellular coverage and faster LTE speeds across the board. That’s because Wind Mobile has announced the completion of a major network upgrade that should improve overall performance for customers in the area.

Wind Mobile notes that this completes its second major network upgrade in its Western market. The carrier isn’t done, however, as it says that work has already begun on network upgrades in the Edmonton area.

Press Release:

WIND MOBILE COMPLETES SECOND MAJOR WESTERN NETWORK UPGRADE WITH CALGARY AREA

Additional wireless spectrum now means better, faster network for WIND Mobile customers in Calgary area; Edmonton network enhancements are underway

CALGARY, April 27, 2016 – WIND Mobile customers in the Calgary Area are now enjoying better network coverage, faster data speeds and improved call quality following completion of a major network infrastructure upgrade.

“We are really pleased to have completed the second Western market in our continuing network upgrade journey. It is so exciting to hear customers tell us that they are experiencing a noticeable improvement in their service,” said Alek Krstajic, President and CEO, WIND Mobile.

With the Calgary Area upgrade now complete, similar enhancements have started in Edmonton.

WIND Mobile will continue to expand capacity and enhance its network, including bringing LTE service to the markets it serves across Canada.

About WIND Mobile

WIND Mobile is Canada’s alternative wireless carrier, dedicated to bringing affordable wireless service to Canadians by offering simple and fair plans with no overage charges and no hidden fees. Learn more about WIND Mobile at WINDmobile.ca or follow online at facebook.com/WINDmobile or twitter.com/WINDmobile.

Samsung is testing a new TouchWiz launcher leveraging the Vulkan API for power savings

Vulkan isn’t just for gaming — it has real-world benefits in daily phone use.

If it wasn’t clear by now, the Vulkan API is a very big deal when it comes to gaming and graphical performance on mobile devices. Samsung was early to the game when it announced the Galaxy S7 would have Vulkan support, and since then several devices have joined in; and now the Android N Developer Preview includes operating system-level support for Vulkan.

While the gains in terms of gaming performance are very well known, Samsung is also using it in another way. Speaking at SDC 2016, principal engineers demonstrated a new TouchWiz launcher being developed with Vulkan that not only improves performance but offers a notable battery life boost to your phone.

This new so-called “TouchWiz-like” (as in, this is not production-ready) launcher isn’t fully baked and doesn’t yet leverage everything that Vulkan has to offer, but the initial test case is very interesting nonetheless. This new launcher can offer the same performance as the current TouchWiz version (or better, in many cases), but it can do so at a lower power draw. The Vulkan-powered launcher performs normal tasks like scrolling pages and opening the app drawer with a 6% savings in power compared to the current version that uses GL ES.

That 6% savings may not sound like a lot, but when you consider how often the launcher is used throughout the day and how many times those actions are taken, it really adds up. In their internal testing, Samsung’s engineers note that battery life on a 3600 mAh battery — like the one found in the Galaxy S7 edge — could be extended by 40 minutes just by moving to this new launcher built with Vulkan.

Now obviously Samsung isn’t ready to roll this out or turn it into a real app just yet, but it does show that Vulkan can be leveraged for more than just hardcore gaming and graphics. The power savings that Vulkan provides while offering the same or better performance can be applied to multiple areas of the phone experience.

Apple iPhone 7 Pro: Schematics leak shows phone design with dual cameras

Apple might have three phones to unveil this autumn, including a Pro edition of the iPhone 7 with a dual-lens camera setup and no headphone jack, according to recently-leaked design schematics.

Last month, an image surfaced showing a new 5.5-inch flagship device from Apple. It’s thought to be called iPhone 7 Pro and will presumably sit above both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. Judging by the image leak, its stand-out feature could be a dual-lens camera setup. Now, Japan-based Mac Fan has attained detailed schematics of this mystery handset.

The schematics reveal the device is the same size as the iPhone 6S Plus. It is 7.3mm thick, which is the exact same as the iPhone 6S Plus but thicker than the 7.1mm-thick iPhone 6 Plus. It’s been widely rumoured that Apple wants to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack in favour of a thinner design, and although the iPhone 7 Pro hasn’t lost any thickness, it does indeed lack a headphone jack. Interestingly though, it has dual iSight cameras on the back.

Mac Fan

These dual cameras could explain why the new iPhone isn’t thinner than the iPhone 6S Plus. If the phone does have this sensor setup, it’s unclear how it will work. It could be for switching between different focal lengths or maybe as a way of bringing Live Photos to the next level with simultaneous recording of stills and videos. It’s hard to say.

Lastly, the schematics show a Smart Connector, which is currently only found on the iPad Pro line of slates, and it seems to justify why the “Pro” moniker was given to this iPhone. With a Smart Connector, you can transfer both data and power at the same time, and you can hook up iPad Pro-like accessories, like external keyboards without batteries.

The last thing to mention here is that the iPhone 7 Pro appears to have the same design as the iPhone 6, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6S Plus. That’s kind of boring, but maybe Apple is waiting to overhaul the iPhone in 2017, when the phone will be celebrating its tenth anniversary.

MacRumours / Bastille Post

HTC likely making Google’s next Nexus devices, M1 (Marlin) and S1 (Sailfish)

We now know which company might be making Google’s next Android N devices and what they’re internally called, thanks to two new reports.

Evan Blass, who often writes for Venture Beat and is a well-known leakster, has claimed that Google’s next Nexus devices will be made by HTC. The Taiwanese manufacturer is actually building a pair of Android N devices, and they are internally dubbed M1 and S1. Android Police has followed-up this report with its own news about the phones’ codenames.

Google is reportedly calling the upcoming phones Marlin and Sailfish. M1 is for Marlin and S1 is for Sailfish, apparently. The Mountain View-based company tends to name Nexus devices after aquatic life, with past devices going as Bullhead, Angler, Shamu, Hammerhead, etc. Of course, all of those devices were renamed before being unveiled to the public.

HTC is building a pair of Android N devices for Google internally dubbed M1 and S1 #nexus

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) April 27, 2016

There are currently two Nexus phones: the Nexus 5X, which is the cheaper and smaller of the two available and manufactured by LG, and the Nexus 6P, which is the larger and more premium device made by Huawei. Both debuted in September 2015, so expect a similar timeframe for 2016’s Nexus devices.

Check out Pocket-lint’s round-up for more details about the next Nexus devices. Apart from who is making them and what they’re called internally, there are reports about the design and hardware specs for both devices. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820, for instance, is rumoured to make an appearance in at least one device.

Facebook is killing it: 1.5 billion monthly active users log on from mobile devices

Facebook has posted its first-quarter results for 2016, and it’s clear from the report that the company is absolutely killing it.

Revenues for the period that ended on 31 March hit $5.4 billion, up 57 per cent from the year-ago quarter, when Facebook reported just $3.3 billion. It’s also about 10 per cent more than what Wall Street forecasted. It also made $1.51 billion in net income during Q1, a massive spike from the $512 million it made during the year-ago quarter.

Beyond the financial stuff however, Facebook reported some impressive stats in terms of user growth. Monthly active users were 1.65 billion, a 15 per cent year-over-year increase, while mobile monthly active users, which are users who are actively logging on from mobile devices every month, were 1.51 billion, an increase of 21 per cent year-over-year.

For comparison, Twitter added only 5 million users this quarter. Facebook also said that Messenger now has 900 million users and Instagram has 400 million, and that users of these apps spend an average of 50 minutes per day on them.

These strong results drove Facebook’s stock up more than 9 per cent in after-hours trading. Tune into Facebook’s conference call at 5 pm EST to hear comments from the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

Build the next Instagram or Uber with The Complete Android Developer Course

If you have an idea for a great new app or simply a desire to learn to code, Android is a great place to start.

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Samsung’s 360-degree camera will arrive on April 29th

Samsung unveiled its 360-degree camera, aptly called the Gear 360, earlier this year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Today, the company announced its ship date. The tiny ball-shaped camera will be available for purchase on April 29th this year. As a reminder, the Gear 360 packs in two F/2.0 fish-eye lenses, with a 15-megapixel sensor on each. It’ll capture 3,840 x 1,920 video at 30 frames per second and still images at a rather large 7,776 x 3,888 resolution (that’s 30 megapixels). It doesn’t have on-board storage, but there is a microSD card slot that can accommodate up to 128GB of storage.

The Gear 360 is just the latest in Samsung’s VR efforts. Its Gear VR headset has been very popular and the company gave a hint at its developer’s conference that a standalone headset (usable without a phone) is also in the works. “VR is amazing, but the industry is still in infancy,” said Injong Rhee, Samsung’s executive VP for Research and Development, adding that the camera is for consumers in addition to professionals. “We’re enabling more people to create more VR content.”

Update: We’ve learned that the Gear 360 will be available only to select regions, including Korea, where it’ll be available for 399,000 won (that’s around $347 USD). US pricing and availability is still to be determined.

‘Electronic Voyager’ to document the life of synth pioneer Bob Moog

The synthesizer documentary I Dream of Wires debuted on Nextflix back in August, offering a look at the history of the instruments and their influence across genres of music. The director/producer duo film are at it again, and this time the story is the legacy of a synth pioneer. Electronic Voyager: Retracing Bob Moog’s Sonic Journey will chronicle the life of a key figure in music history by following his daughter as she visits the people and places that influenced her late father.

Filmakers Robert Fantinatto and Jason Amm are teaming up with with Bob Moog’s daughter, Michelle Moog-Koussa, and the Moog Foundation to make the documentary. According to the Kickstarter page for the film, the duo have been given “exclusive access to unseen family photos and rare historical artifacts from the Bob Moog Foundation archives.” What’s more, a number of iconic musicians and fellow pioneers have expressed interest in contributing to the project. That list includes Rick Wakeman (Yes), Gary Numan, Roger Powell (Utopia), Steve Porcaro (Toto), Herb Deutsch and Moby.

If you’re looking to support the film, the Kickstarter campaign for Electronic Voyager is live. With a pledge of $25 or more, you’ll receive a digital download of the documentary that’s expected to debut in spring 2017.

Via: Fact Magazine

Source: Kickstarter

Otto is Samsung’s cute personal assistant robot

Samsung unveiled a big new push into Internet of Things at its developer conference today, and it’s using a cute little robot to demonstrate it. It’s called the Otto, a reference design for what is essentially an Amazon Echo clone. It has microphones and speakers so it can answer questions like “What’s the weather?,” plus you can use it to control various connected gadgets in your home like light switches and refrigerators.

Unlike the Echo though, it also has an HD camera on the face of it that can recognize faces or act as a security camera. There’s also a small screen on it that displays a semblance of a face, plus it shows a variety of animations as well. If the weather is “rain,” it’ll show animations of rain drops, for example. As you can see in the video demo here, it can also “sing” and “dance” by bobbing its head around.

Otto isn’t a real product just yet; it’s just a prototype at the moment. It’s being shown off at Samsung’s developer conference to demo Samsung’s ARTIK Internet of Things platform, which got the official nod from the company today as developers are now encouraged to create apps and devices to support it. Part of the effort is the introduction of the ARTIK Cloud, which stores a lot of the data that could be useful to run devices like the Otto.

Stanford’s humanoid robot diver explores its first shipwreck

A group of underwater archaeologists exploring the sunken remains of King Louis XIV’s flagship La Lune added a very special member to their dive team recently. OceanOne, a Stanford-developed humanoid diving robot with “human vision, haptic force feedback and an artificial brain,” made its maiden voyage alongside human divers to recover 17th-century treasures from bottom of the Mediterranean.

Stanford’s five-foot “virtual diver” was originally built for studying coral reefs in the Red Sea where a delicate touch is necessary, but the depths go well beyond the range of meat-based divers. The “tail” section contains the merbot’s onboard batteries, computers and array of eight thrusters, but it is the front half that looks distinctly humanoid with two eyes for stereoscopic vision and two nimble, articulated arms.

Those arms are what make OceanOne ideal for fragile reef environments or priceless shipwrecks like La Lune, which sank off the coast of France over 350 years ago and hasn’t been touched until now. Force sensors in each wrist transmit haptic feedback to the pilot, allowing them to feel the object’s weight while staying high and dry on a dive ship. The robot’s “brain” works with the tactile sensors to ensure the hands don’t crush fragile objects, while the navigation system can automatically keep the body steady in turbulent seas.

With such a nimble platform, OceanOne will also prove useful in dangerous undersea environments like the Fukushima Daichi site that claimed five other robot divers. Suddenly, the imploded ghost of Nereus is looking downright clunky.