Samsung Galaxy S8 to launch 29 March, huge leak and pic reveals all

The Galaxy S8 will be “significantly different” from previous Samsung flagships, according to a report, which has revealed everything you need to know about the phones, including when they’ll launch.

VentureBeat’s Evan Blass has published several leaked details and a photo of the upcoming pair of Galaxy S8 phones, following The Guardian’s piece from Wednesday, which also leaked features we can expect to see, such as an “infinity display” with a nearly bezel-less design. Blass’ report said the phones will lack traditional navigation buttons. They will also feature larger displays than what the Galaxy Note line has offered, as well as an aspect ratio of 18.5:9, thanks to 5.8- and 6.2-inch QHD Super AMOLED screens that curve on both edges.

They will be Android Nougat-powered phones and may feature different processors — such as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or Samsung Exynos — depending on region. Either way, they will both have processors made using 10-nanometer fabrication, and they’ll be roughly 11 per cent faster than the Galaxy S7. They’ll also have improved graphics processing, energy efficiency, and power consumption, which is crucial, considering they’ll only have 3000mAh and 3500mAh battery capacities for the 5.8-inch model and 6.2-inch model, respectively.

Other features include the same 4GB of RAM from the past few models, 64GB of entry-level internal storage, a 256GB-capable microSD slot, a USB-C charging port at the bottom next to a standard 3.5-millimeter jack, stereo speakers, a 12-megapixel main camera, and a 8-megapixel selfie camera with iris-scanning capability. Also, both cameras boast f1.7 focal ratios, and the main camera has a new visual search feature that can do OCR-like reading on photographed text or even search captured products for you, among other things.

The fingerprint sensor has been moved to the back (next to the rear camera lens, rather than underneath). Blass noted this placement “may prove to be problematic” for some users. There is also no Home button on the front. And finally, he said you will be able to connect the handsets to a monitor for a desktop view of Android, and both models will have pressure-sensitive technology similar to Apple’s Force Touch — but only on the lower part of the display, allowing the the phones to recognise and respond to your different types of screen presses.

• Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus: What’s the story so far?

The Galaxy S8 will also come with Bixby, Samsung’s version of Siri and Cortana and Alexa and Assistant. It can supposedly process complex commands and multi-part instructions. To launch it, however, you’ll need to press a button on the side of the devices.

Samsung will debut its next flagships on 29 March in New York City. In Europe, the Galaxy S8 will cost €799 (about £678) for the 5.8-inch model and €899 for the 6.2-inch model when they release on 21 April.

Researchers create first viable hybrid human-pig embryo

Researchers have created a viable hybrid part-human, part-pig embryo for the first time in history. According to a study published in the journal Cell Thursday, researchers were able to successfully inject human stem cells into a pig embryo and grow tissue that would form the early stages of human organs like the heart, liver and neurons. Although it’s in the very early stages, experts believe the human-pig chimera could one day be used to grow transplantable human organs in farm animals.

Adding to the promising scientific breakthroughs, a separate study published in the journal Nature earlier this week details how an international team of researchers successfully performed an interspecies organ transplant using a similar method to create a hybrid mouse-rat embryo. In that study, researchers grew a mouse pancreas inside a rat embryo, which was then transplanted into diabetic mice. As the Washington Post reports, the new pancreatic tissue cured the mice’s diabetes without being rejected by the host. The mice only required a few days of recovery and immunosuppressive treatments before they were able to resume normal, healthy lives.

While the technology is moving forward, the ethics of harvesting human organs from animals — or even creating human-animal chimeras in general — is still a touchy subject. Aside from the symbolic and philosophical questions that come from mixing human and animal genetics, there is a fear that stem cells could one day be used to create an animal with a human brain. For now, however, the authors of the Cell study point out that the system is “highly inefficient,” but the two papers together show the possible benefits of this sort of controversial research.

Via: Washington Post

Source: Cell, Nature

Facebook Slideshows are slowly rolling out on Android

Last June Facebook launched the Google-Photos-like Slideshow feature on iOS and now the social network is ready to spread the love. Android Police reports that the feature is in a slow rollout, so you might not be able to upload photos into a mini-movie of sorts yourself just yet. To see if you have it, make a new status update within the app and hit the “Slideshow” button. It’s denoted with an orange movie camera should reside between the “feeling/activity” and “tag friends” options. And that’s about it. Jealous that you still might not have it? Well, you could always draft a colorful status update to express your discontent.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Android Police

Google Maps warns you about parking woes before you leave

A parking difficulty icon popped up in an Android beta for Google Maps earlier this month, but now the feature is officially rolling out. However, there are a couple of caveats. First, the parking warnings are only available in the Android version of Google Maps for now. The new tool will also only warn you about potential parking headaches in 25 US metro areas.

Those areas include San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Diego, St. Louis, Tampa, the DC area, Cleveland, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Phoenix, Portland and Sacramento. In other words, a lot of the major cities in the US are covered.

Google explains that it calculates parking difficulty in a similar fashion to how it measures Popular Times and Visit Duration for businesses and other points of interest. You’ve likely seen those two tools pop up when you search for a place. When it comes to parking, Maps will show you a rating of difficult, medium or easy based on “historical parking data” for the area you’re about to visit. The icon is displayed near your estimated travel time as well, so you’ll know if you need to leave a few minutes early.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Google

Pokémon Company caught almost 6,000 ‘Sun’ and ‘Moon’ cheaters

Cheating in online games is awful because it creates an uneven playing field against those who do play by the rules and those who do not. The Pokémon Company (TPC) noticed some irregularities in Pokémon Sun and Moon online matches and has laid the law down for 5,954 folks using modified save files, according to a translated post from the Company.

As a result, their entries into online tournaments, rating battles and game sync in the Global Link multiplayer portion have been “limited.” The wording is rather vague, perhaps intentionally so, our in-house translator notes. Perhaps that’s to expand upon what deserves punishment in the future.

There’s always the chance that TPC could create a cheater’s pool for the game that keeps the various offenders playing amongst themselves of course, but that seems highly unlikely. Remember: cheaters never win and winners never cheat. Just because it’s trite doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Well, unless we’re talking about politics or the New England Patriots.

Via: Polygon

Source: The Pokemon Company (Japanese)

LG’s G6 reportedly packs Google Assistant instead of Alexa

LG’s G6 smartphone is a leaky flagship: CNET is reporting some good and bad points about the company’s incoming G6 we’ve already heard. It will be water-resistant. Great! But it won’t have a removable battery. Not so great. While phones with batteries that can be removed (and often swapped out by power-hungry power users), are increasingly rare, it’s recently given LG a notable selling point.

What’s more, CNET says the handset will feature Google Assistant as its virtual companion instead of Amazon’s Alexa. According to the report, LG planned on using Alexa like it does in a number of other products, but the integration wasn’t ready for prime time. If you prefer Amazon’s virtual assistant, CNET says LG will still likely ship phones with the feature at some point in 2017.

Now it’s appears that the G6 going to be an awful lot like the rest: slender bezels, curved corners, metallic shimmering finish, inside and out. The battery choice was done to ensure that water resistance happened, apparently. Given how its unusual modular experiment didn’t set the world on fire, it’s hard to blame them… from a business view at least.

Is it a case of can’t beat them, join them? LG’s smartphone arm still weighs down its financial figures, and it’s selling less phones than recent years. The teasers and leaks don’t suggest anything game-changing, but it might be the right time for LG to strike with a populist, more normal, smartphone that can draw in anyone still wary of buying a Samsung smartphone upgrade. That said, LG still has to fend of cheaper Chinese rivals, Google’s own phones, and of course, the iPhone. With what seems like an unremarkable design and water-resistance be enough cut it? Let’s see the full reveal first: perhaps the company has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

Source: CNET

Ludacris releases new ‘Slang N’ Friendz’ crossword app

If you’ve ever been disappointed when Words With Friends refused to accept “bae” as a real word, then noted actor, rapper and pun aficionado Ludacris has a new app for you. The wordsmith behind Word of Mouf and Back for the First Time has partnered with filmmaker and startup founder Edwin Benton to create Slang N’ Friendz, a remixed Scrabble and Words With Friends app with a much less rigid view of the English language.

That’s pretty much the main draw of Slang N’ Friendz: players get bonus points for peppering the board with slang words. And there’s a little dose of Urban Dictionary in there too: if the game doesn’t recognize your new term, you can suggest it be included in the game’s dictionary with your own definition and region of origin. Visually, the game doesn’t look much different than the board game and app it’s based on, but it does allow players to customize the letter tiles and background to keep things from getting too stale.

“I feel like pop culture dictates what is considered as cool in this world,” Ludacris, who is also an occasional tech investor and admitted video game fan, told TechCrunch. “And I think bringing people together and not limiting them to what everyone feels the dictionary is in terms of the english language, brings people closer together. It’s a cool element to it.”

Slang N’ Friendz is currently live on the App Store and Google Play.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Slang N’ Friendz

Samsung’s Galaxy S8 will likely debut on March 29th

It’s almost time for Samsung’s traditional February unveiling of a new Galaxy flagship, but, as we already learned, we might have to wait a little longer this year. We now have a clearer idea of when to expect the new handset, though. VentureBeat is reporting that the Korean electronics giant is preparing to show off the anticipated Galaxy S8 on March 29, and that the flagship will see its fingerprint sensor moved to the rear, among other updates.

It’s not like the Galaxy S8’s specs are much of a secret – most of them, such as a potential edge-to-edge display and an embedded AI assistant, have been leaked. In addition to a virtual home button instead of a physical one under the display, we’ve also heard that the S8 will sport a side button that triggers the assistant.

We won’t know the full story on the Galaxy S8’s features until Samsung announces the phone, of course. But while it’s disappointing that we’ll have to wait a few weeks longer than usual to get the details, it’s also probably a good thing that Samsung is getting more time. Hopefully, that can be put towards more conscientious testing and prevent another exploding-phone fiasco.

Source: VentureBeat

PlayStation is still getting away with ‘minimum funding’ charges

When game consoles stumbled into the modern era, their digital content stores were a mess. Nintendo’s Wii locked its customers to an annoying point system. The Xbox 360 obfuscated the value of Microsoft Points by using an odd 0.8 conversion rate. Sony’s PlayStation Store listed its items in real, local currency, but still forced users to load up digital wallets with a minimum amount before purchasing anything on the marketplace. Over the years, Nintendo and Microsoft fixed their digital currency problems — aping Sony’s up-front pricing and even improving upon it by allowing users to buy content without requiring them to add funds to a wallet system. Sony, on the other hand, hasn’t changed. If you don’t promise to spend at least $5 on the PlayStation store, you’re not allowed to buy anything at all.

This nagging problem has plagued the PlayStation Store for years. Want to pick up a $2 PSOne Classic during a Flash Sale? You’ll be charged $5 for the privilege — two for the game and three to linger in your PSN wallet. Just because. It’s a policy that encourages consumers to return to the PlayStation Store to spend their leftover money, but it only accomplishes that by forcing customers to add more funds to the wallet system than is needed for certain purchases. These leftover funds can even compound the problem: If you have $7 in your wallet, but want to buy a $10 game, you’ll need to add that same minimum $5 to your account to buy it, two bills more than the total cost of the game.

It’s a hostage situation. Sony’s wallet allows it to hold its customer’s’ own money over their heads as a means of forcing them to spend more in the PlayStation Store. It’s also a haven for refund management, allowing disputed purchases to be returned to the PSN wallet, but not the customer’s bank accounts. It’s true, Sony’s competitors once employed this tactic as well — but Nintendo and Microsoft’s days of hoarding consumer cash ended when they retired their anachronistic point systems.

So, why the minimum price? One possible reason is an effort to avoid merchant transaction fees by passing on the cost of running a credit card to the consumer. This practice actually used to be prohibited by most card networks, but became legal in 2010 when the right to require a minimum charge was included in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Sony’s minimum wallet policy is completely legal. It just also happens to be frustrating and completely anti-consumer.

On the other hand, some DLC add-ons can sell for as little as $0.49. Without a minimum purchase threshold, Sony would run the possibility of losing money on some sales. Still, when even Nintendo recognizes that mandatory buying thresholds creates a bad online experience, you have to wonder if Sony is making the right choice.

It’s possible that I’m just a whiner. Maybe the majority of PlayStation customers don’t buy content under $5 and never encounter this niche problem. Maybe I’m just not patient enough. After all, consumers can get around it by timing purchases carefully or, in some cases, buying redemption codes for PSN content at GameStop — but these workarounds shouldn’t be necessary. The PlayStation Store used to be the best online marketplace for console gamers, a beacon that showed its competitors a better way to serve a customer base ravenous for digital content. Now, it’s hamstrung by a single, archaic policy. It’s not a reason to buy an Xbox over a PlayStation, but Sony’s customers deserve better. The PlayStation Store can be the best digital marketplace again. All it needs to do is make one crucial change.

HBO GO App Gains Support for Single Sign-On and TV App

HBO today updated its HBO GO app for iOS devices and the Apple TV with support for Single sign-on, allowing subscribers to access HBO content more quickly.

With Single sign-on, HBO customers will no longer need to enter their cable credentials separately when logging in to the HBO GO app. Instead, the app will use universal credentials that are stored by Apple. HBO GO is also now available in the TV app, with full support for “Watch Next” tracking functionality.

Single sign-on, introduced in December, is one of the first steps Apple has made towards streamlining the television watching experience on the Apple TV and iOS devices. It’s designed to allow all cable subscribers to sign in once with their cable credentials to gain access to all cable-restricted content available within apps.

Single sign-on is limited to the United States and requires both service providers and app developers to implement support for the feature. Along with HBO, more than 20 popular television apps support the Single sign-on, with a full list available via a Single sign-on support document.

Not all cable providers are offering support for Single sign-on yet, so the feature is limited to Cable ONE, CenturyLink Prism, DIRECTV, Dish, GVTC, GTA, Hawaiian Telcom, Hotwire, MetroCast, Service Electric, and Sling TV.

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