Huawei Mate 9 and Mate 9 Pro shown off in ‘official’ images
What appear to be official product images for Huawei’s two upcoming flagship smartphones have appeared online, and they have us salivating. The Huawei Mate 9 is expected to come in two variants: the Mate 9, known internally as Manhattan, and Mate 9 Pro, known as Long Island, which will have more premium specs compared to the regular Mate 9.
- Huawei Mate 9: Specs, release date and everything else we know so far
There’s also expected to be some design differences between the two, with the Mate 9 coming in a flat-screen design, shown by Evan Blass on Twitter, while the Mate 9 Pro will have curved edges, much like the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge. An official image for the Mate 9 Pro has apparel on Venture Beat.
Venture Beat reports that both phones with have a 5.9-inch screen, but the Mate 9 will settle for full HD resolution while the Mate 9 Pro will bump it up to 2560 x 1440 Quad HD resolution so it can work with Google’s Daydream VR headset. However there are reports saying the Mate 9 Pro will only be sold in China, while the Mate 9 will be released globally.
Both phones are expected to be powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 960 processor with 4GB RAM and onboard storage ranging from 64GB up to 256GB. As also speculated before, both phones will come with a similar dual-lens camera system as the one found on the Huawei P9.
Huawei will be unveiling the Mate 9 and Mate 9 Pro at an event next week on 3 November and Pocket-lint will be there to bring you all the latest announcements and hands-on reviews.
UK games retailer charges for its PSVR demos
Still not sold on VR? Got a PS4? But still not sure? Then you should probably test it out before laying down the hundreds of dollars (or pounds) the peripheral costs. But you probably shouldn’t have to pay to do so. But that’s exactly what UK retailer Game is doing, charging £5 (just over $6) for ten minutes of neck-craning and open-jawed gaming. You can also pay £15 for 30 minutes. Deal?
It makes sense that PlayStation VR demos are supervised: most people will need assistance fitting the Sony headset. But to the tune of five pounds, for just ten minutes?! That’s harder to excuse, especially if it includes getting fitted in — and working your way through initial tutorials in the demos themself. It certainly won’t help endear people to the beleaguered gaming chain.
Given that the basic headset costs $350 in the UK, if you think you’re going to play it more than 35 times (in five-minute intervals), you could just buy it. Or, find somewhere that lets you test if for free. Enterprising early adopters are already stepping up:
.@GAMEbromley hey lads, I’ll charge £2.50 for a go on mine. 16 minute sessions. #BeatThat pic.twitter.com/zYMKQfLDP6
— Ben Potter (@Confused_Dude) October 22, 2016
Via: Kotaku
Source: Game (Twitter)
Microsoft to raise some UK prices by up to 22 percent over Brexit
Like it or not, the outcome of the Brexit vote has caused a lot of financial uncertainty in the UK. The government has yet to decide which course to take when it invokes Article 50, effectively triggering an exit from the European Union, but some major tech companies have already moved to reduce the impact of the falling pound. In a recent blog post, Microsoft shared that it too will soon amend prices, confirming that from January 1st, 2017, business software pricing will rise by 13 percent and cloud services will see a 22 percent increase.
Microsoft’s changes come as part of a periodic assessment of its local pricing “to ensure there is reasonable alignment across the region.” The fall in the value of the pound resulted in Apple hiking hardware prices in September, although the Redmond company says that consumer software like Office 365 and cloud services will not be impacted. However, because Microsoft doesn’t set the pricing offered by resellers, partners could still decide to implement their own increases.
For customers with existing agreements, they’ll likely be protected from Microsoft’s price hikes until they renew their subscription. “Customers with Enterprise Agreements have price protection on previously ordered enterprise software and cloud services, and will not experience a price change during the term of their agreement,” the company says. “Similarly, business customers with cloud commitment subscriptions such as Office 365 also receive price protection during their subscription term, which is normally twelve months from the start of paid subscription.”
Via: Telegraph
Source: Microsoft
Samsung’s hurried Note 7 recall may have led to the phone’s downfall
It’s nearly two weeks since Samsung discontinued the Galaxy Note 7, and the company is yet to determine why several units caught fire. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, the hasty recall process initiated by Samsung following reports of the first Note 7 units catching fire in late August may have exacerbated the issue.
Samsung conducted laboratory tests of faulty units and found “a protrusion in Note 7 batteries supplied by Samsung SDI,” whereas batteries from another supplier didn’t have the bulge. Facing increased pressure from customers and carriers, Samsung’s mobile chief DJ Koh initiated a recall of the 2.5 million units after consulting with heir apparent Lee Jae-yong.
The decision to recall units based on “incomplete evidence” turned out to Samsung’s detriment when “safe” units of the Note 7 also started catching fire:
Messrs. Lee and Koh believed they had all the evidence they needed to conclude the problem lay with Samsung SDI’s batteries, these people said. They argued it was more important for Samsung to do “the right thing” and act, in the words of one of the people familiar with the matter, rather than wait for more information. Doing so would have left customers in the dark longer and potentially allowed the crisis to get worse.
On Sept. 2, Mr. Koh entered a news conference room in downtown Seoul to address reporters. Without providing names, he said the company had identified a problem with one of its suppliers and it would shift production to another supplier it believed hadn’t caused the problems.
With the second batch of units also turning out to be defective, Samsung had no recourse but to discontinue the phone. According to a Samsung spokesperson:
We recognized that we did not correctly identify the issue the first time and remain committed to finding the root cause. Our top priority remains the safety of our customers and retrieving 100% of the Galaxy Note 7 devices in the market.
While there isn’t a definitive answer on what caused the Note 7 to burst into flames, it looks like the battery case designed for the phone may have been too small to house the 3500mAh battery. The WSJ’s sources reveal that Samsung has delayed work on the Galaxy S8 by two weeks while it finds the root cause of the Note 7’s battery woes.
Meanwhile,
UK spies paid a New Zealand firm to help tap key internet lines
It’s no longer a secret that the UK’s GCHQ was expanding its mass surveillance in the years before Edward Snowden’s leaks. However, it hasn’t really been clear as to who was helping it upgrade its spying campaign… until today. The Intercept and Television New Zealand have obtained documents showing that GCHQ purchased large amounts of “data acquisition” systems and “probes” from Endace, a New Zealand company that specializes in network data recording. The agency wanted to step up its monitoring of high-speed internet cables from 87 10Gbps lines in 2009 to 800 by 2013, and buying loads of Endace technology helped it edge closer to that goal.
This wasn’t off-the-shelf gear, either. A lot of it was “bespoke,” or custom-made for GCHQ’s operations. In one case, Endace developed a data capture system named Medusa that could intercept data flying by at up to 100Gbps.
It’s crucial to note that GCHQ isn’t Endace’s main customer, or that its products are all intended for unfettered network spying. It has a slew of financial, government and telecom clients, including Verizon (Engadget’s parent company), AT&T, Sprint, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley — and many of them don’t have much of a say as to whether or not they use this kind of equipment. Sprint bought a “lawful intercept” system to obtain private customer data only when the police demand it, for instance. The Endace connection is more an explanation of how intelligence agencies like GCHQ can scoop up so much data. It’s not necessarily a matter of developing exotic technology in-house. Sometimes, it’s just about finding companies whose tech is close enough and asking them to make something more spy-friendly.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: The Intercept, Television New Zealand
Adult Swim’s latest game embraces cassette glitches
Does something look slightly off with picture you see above? Don’t worry, that’s on purpose. Adult Swim Games and Fire Face are launching the surreal puzzler Small Radios Big Televisions on November 8th for PC and PS4, and its hook is a time-traveling cassette deck that lets you “reconstruct the past” of abandoned factories through tapes. Only here, reality is just as fragile as the tapes in question — expect plenty of distortion, discoloration and other glitches that could play havoc with your head. Complete them and you’ll find retrowave tunes from Owen Deery (also available on Bandcamp) as a reward. Given Adult Swim’s solid track record with releasing off-kilter titles like Headlander and Westerado, it could be worth a try just to see how well this analog-meets-digital premise turns out.
Source: Steam, Bandcamp
Elon Musk’s Mars colony would have a horde of mining robots
If it wasn’t already clear that Elon Musk has considered virtually every aspect of what it would take to colonize Mars, it is now. As part of his Reddit AMA session, the SpaceX founder has revealed that his vision of a permanent colony would entail a huge number of “miner/tunneling droids.” The robots would build large volumes of underground pressurized space for industrial activity, leaving geodesic domes (made of carbon fiber and glass) for everyday living. As a resident, you might never see the ‘ugly’ side of settling the Red Planet.
Musk also explained how his colony would get to the point where it can reliably refuel spacecraft all by itself. Dragon capsules would serve as scouts, helping find the “best way” to extract water for fuel reactions. An unmanned Heart of Gold spaceship would then deliver the basics for a propellant plant, while the first crewed mission would finish that plant. After that, SpaceX would double the number of flights between each ideal Earth-Mars rendezvous (every 26 months) until the colony can reliably produce fuel by itself.
Oh, and don’t worry about today’s Falcon 9 rockets being consigned to the history books. Although the main booster for interplanetary travel will “have an easier time of things,” Musk believes that the final iteration of Falcon 9 (Block 5) could be used “almost indefinitely” if properly maintained. Production on Block 5 should fly in the next 6 to 8 months.
SpaceX is still a long way from explaining the nuts and bolts of large parts of the Mars mission. You won’t learn about the Interplanetary Transport System’s habitation section for “a year or two,” for one thing. However, this at least shows that Musk and team have thought about the minutiae of their plan — the big challenge is following through on all those promises.
Source: Reddit (1), (2), (3)
iPod marks its 15th birthday in a changed world
If you’re a gadget fan of a certain age (cough), you’re about to feel ancient: Apple’s iPod just turned 15 years old. Steve Jobs unveiled the first version of the media player at an event on Apple’s campus on October 23rd, 2001. To say that it had a wild ride after that would be an understatement. Many credit the iPod as the device that took Apple from niche PC maker to one of the largest companies on the planet, only to fade away as smartphones took over. But how did it get to where it is now? And is there any room left for the iPod 15 years later? Let’s take a quick look back at how the iPod has evolved through the years.
We like to think of the iPod’s 2001 introduction as a watershed moment these days, but at the time it left many scratching their heads. This was a risky side project for a company that had been on the brink just a few years earlier, and the number of caveats seemed to be a mile long. Mac-only, a $399 price and ‘just’ 5GB of storage? Many didn’t expect it to sell well… and for the first couple of years, it didn’t. While the iPod found an audience among the faithful, those steep initial requirements ruled out both Windows users (even the 2002 model’s Windows support was a kludge) and many casual Mac listeners. Competitors like Creative and Rio had little to fear at first. Still, it was a glimpse at a future where you could quickly and easily sync your whole music collection, rather than painstakingly copying songs over an abysmally slow connection.
But then something happened. In 2003, Apple not only released an iPod built with Windows users in mind, but launched both iTunes for Windows and the iTunes Music Store. It was as if a puzzle had been solved. Suddenly, most computer users could buy whatever songs they liked, sync them with an iPod, and start listening within a few minutes — no CD ripping or dodgy peer-to-peer sites required. It’s easy to complain about how unwieldy iTunes can be today, but it was a minor revelation at a time when most MP3 players had truly clunky sync processes and few (if any) ways to integrate with digital music services.
And for the next few years, it seemed as if Apple could do no wrong. iPod sales exploded, helped in no small part by falling prices and more accessible models. The iPod mini, shuffle and nano transformed the device from a near-luxury item into something virtually anyone could own. Apple grabbed such a dominant foothold in the market that no competitors posed more than a temporary threat. Even Microsoft’s Zune, with its iPod-like software integration and gobs of marketing money, couldn’t loosen Apple’s grip. The iPod’s white earbuds (and the matching silhouette ads) became iconic. With the help of iTunes, it ushered in an era where digital music was an everyday fact of life instead of a novelty. Podcasts owe both their success and very name to Apple’s pocket player — you wouldn’t be listening to Serial otherwise.
All technology has a finite lifespan, though, and Apple took the relatively radical step of hastening the iPod’s demise itself. When Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, he wasn’t shy about treating it as a do-it-all device that could help you avoid buying an iPod. Why get something separate when all your music can live on the phone you’re already carrying? The media player soldiered on for a while, in part thanks to the iPod touch (which satisfied the urge if you couldn’t buy an iPhone), but its days were clearly numbered. It’s telling that Apple unveiled the first iPod classic mere months after the iPhone arrived, indicating that the days of music-first hardware were coming to an end.
You may well know what happened next. Modern smartphones, including the iPhone, rendered dedicated players almost obsolete within just a few years. Apple increasingly shifted the iPod toward niche uses like fitness (the current iPod nano and shuffle are practically designed for runners) and away from the mainstream. Sales fell from nearly 55 million iPods per year in 2008 to a number so low that Apple no longer breaks them out in its fiscal results. To compound matters, streaming music has practically eliminated the need for a tiny jukebox. You don’t need capacious storage when you can listen to seemingly everything on services like Spotify or Apple Music. The death of the iPod classic in 2014 was less of a tragedy and more a sign of progress, when you think about it.
As such, the iPod at 15 is really in its twilight years. There’s just not much room for it. Unless you need a mountain of offline music without paying a premium, you’re usually better off using your phone. It can access a wide array of services, and you don’t have to sync it with a computer. Even the iPod nano and shuffle are facing pressure from smartwatches, which can hold or stream enough music to last your whole run.
This isn’t to say that the iPod is a footnote in history, however. In hindsight, it was a stepping stone — a way of leaving CD players and record stores behind in favor of a world where any song you want is just a heartbeat away, wherever you are. You can also see it as ushering in the mobile revolution, since the iPod’s success helped drum up interest in the iPhone and other smartphones that weren’t just about checking email or making calls. As sad as it is to see the iPod treated like an afterthought today, there’s no question that its legacy will last well beyond the day the last units leave store shelves.
Image credits: Reuters/Mike Blake; AP Photo/Eric Risberg
Samsung’s hurried Galaxy Note 7 recall doomed the phone
You knew it was just a matter of time before some of the drama behind the death of the Galaxy Note 7 came to light, and what we’re seeing isn’t all that pretty. Wall Street Journal sources claim that Samsung’s mobile chief DJ Koh thought there was enough evidence (protrusions in the batteries from one supplier) to go ahead with the speedy initial recall. He thought it was best to do “the right thing” and start a recall, insiders say, even though there was incomplete evidence. The company didn’t want to leave people in the dark, worrying what was wrong. And while there was a debate about the seriousness of the issue (some even suspected the fires were fake), it’s not as if Koh was a lone wolf. Company heir and vice chairman Lee Jae-yong was also in favor of the hasty recall, possibly due to his push for greater transparency at a company known for its secrecy.
The company still doesn’t know what led to the Note 7’s propensity to catch fire, although both Koh and Lee are now known to have shared responsibility for cancelling the phone after facing pressure from carriers like Verizon. An unnamed executive echoes a previously mentioned theory that the battery housing might have been too small for the power pack’s capacity.
The consequences of the recall don’t just extend to Samsung’s reputation, either. The tipsters report that Samsung has delayed work on the Galaxy S8 by two weeks while it tries to pin down the nature of the Note 7’s battery woes. That’s not a huge gap, but it could lead to the company missing the S8’s originally intended launch schedule. Samsung has recently taken to introducing new Galaxy S models at Mobile World Congress in February or early March, but it may have to miss the event if it doesn’t have enough breathing room.
A spokesperson didn’t comment on the backroom reports other than to tell the WSJ that Samsung is “committed to finding the root cause” and recalling every last Note 7 still in the wild. However, it’s reasonable to expect that Samsung will take its time on the S8, even if it means missing out on potential sales. The Note 7 is already going to cost Samsung billions, and that’s before you count the damage to its reputation. The S8 has to show that Samsung is back to its usual self, and can make a top-flight phone without compromising on safety.
Via: The Verge
Source: Wall Street Journal
Elon Musk answers your SpaceX questions on Reddit at 6PM Eastern
SpaceX has raised more questions than it has answered as of late. Just how will it finance its plan to colonize Mars? Can it improve the reliability of its rockets? And exactly when will it reuse a rocket? You might just get some answers. Company founder Elon Musk is holding a Reddit Ask Me Anything session for SpaceX today (October 23rd) at 6PM Eastern. There’s no guarantee that he’ll produce any stunning revelations, but we wouldn’t rule out a few surprises… or at least, answers to questions that don’t usually come up at media events. Just be sure to get in your inquiries quickly, since the AMA is bound to get plenty of inquiries.
AMA at <ahem> 3pm California time
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 23, 2016
Via: The Verge
Source: Reddit (not the AMA), Elon Musk (Twitter)
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