Xiaomi begins a new chapter as a chipset maker with Surge S1-powered Mi 5c

Why it matters to you

With Xiaomi developing the technology that powers its devices, it could make its products better and drive competition for faster, less expensive chips.

Following some rumors and speculation, Xiaomi has finally joined the ranks of Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. On Tuesday, the Chinese company unveiled its own system-on-chip at an event in Beijing. Called the Surge S1, it represents Xiaomi’s first foray into developing proprietary silicon to power its devices and is slated to debut in the upcoming Mi 5c smartphone.

Many phone makers rely on third-party manufacturers like Qualcomm and MediaTek to supply them with chipsets. Xiaomi is steering clear of that route in an effort to more tightly integrate its hardware and software and “master the core technologies” behind its products, according to CEO Lei Jun. The announcement of the Surge S1 is the culmination of a reported 28-month long development process, from planning to production, in which the company partnered with subsidiary Beijing Pinecone Electronics.

More: Xiaomi could release a lot more smartphones in 2017

In terms of power, benchmarks shared by Xiaomi on Twitter suggest the Surge S1 may be snappier than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 635, but fall short of MediaTek’s Helio P20. The 64-bit chipset combines two quad-core Cortex-A53 processors — one clocked at 2.2 GHz for high performance, and the other at 1.4 GHz for less demanding usage. A quad-core Mali T860 GPU will handle graphics, and is claimed to consume 40 percent less power than the outgoing T760.

We’re excited to launch #Mi5c with our #SurgeS1! pic.twitter.com/KEAUsufVQm

— Mi (@xiaomi) February 28, 2017

For shooting photos, the 14-bit image signal processor, in tandem with the company’s own algorithm, aims to greatly improves light sensitivity while reducing noise. Meanwhile, the 32-bit voice digital signal processor will make the Mi 5c voice over LTE-capable.

Speaking of the Mi 5c, Xiaomi’s newest midrange offering sports an all-metal body with a 5.15-inch display featuring 2,048 levels of brightness, which the Surge S1 can smoothly adjust to ambient light conditions. The new chipset accompanies 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, along with a 12-megapixel camera at the back, and an 8-megapixel shooter up front. Xiaomi is touting all-day battery life thanks to a 2,860mAh battery that also supports 9V/2A fast charging. Perhaps best of all, the company says the use of a first-party system-on-chip will lead to more frequent Android updates.

The Mi 5c will launch in China on Friday but the industry will be watching to see how Xiaomi’s efforts shake out in the real world and speculating as to what a Surge-powered flagship might bring.

Crazy new metamaterial bricks let scientists ‘steer’ soundwaves, levitate small objects

Why it matters to you

If refined, this technology might one day allow doctors to use targeted ultrasound to destroy cancer cells

Scientists in the United Kingdom have developed a super material that allows anyone using it to focus sound waves in a way that’s no tougher than rearranging Lego blocks.

Using a grid of 16 3D-printed metamaterial bricks, the researchers showed that sound waves can be transformed into different sound fields. The results can be used for a broad range of applications, from directing complex multisource sound fields that you would normally need multiple speakers to achieve, to focusing sound waves so tightly that it can levitate a polystyrene bead.

“It’s a bit like Scrabble pieces which you can assemble into different orders to create different words,” Professor Sriram Subramanian, head of the Interact Lab at the University of Sussex, told Digital Trends.

More: This amazing sound lab can replicate the acoustics of any building that exists … or doesn’t

In another simile, Subramanian said the work was an attempt to do with sound what LCD displays do with light.

“Looking at an LCD display, you might be forgiven for thinking that there many light sources behind it,” he continued. “In fact, there’s just one light source. But we don’t do sound the same way. To create a complex sound field, you have to have thousands of sound sources. We’re trying to do is to change that — and make sound manipulation similar to light manipulation.”

The research was published this week in the journal Nature Communications, which explains how the metamaterials can be made and used.

It’s still early stages, but the work has a broad range of potentially exciting applications. These could include obviously sound-based use-cases like directing sound so that it can only be heard in one specific hotspot, or to follow a person as they move. Another use-case might be in haptic technology. It could even be used in a medical context, with high-intensity ultrasound waves used to target tumors in the body.

Some of these are “much further down the line” than others, but there’s no doubting that this is work that Subramanian and his colleagues at the University of Sussex and University of Bristol will be building on in the months and years to come.

That noise you hear is the sound of progress being made!

Dirac Research makes any stereo handset sound like top-of-the-line headphones

Why it matters to you

With Dirac Research’s algorithms, you can listen to an album as though the band’s right in front of you.

If you’re like us, you probably aren’t familiar with Dirac Research. The Swedish audio company prefers to operate under the radar, partnering with smartphone makers like Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, and OnePlus, high-end auto manufacturers like Rolls Royce and Volvo, and home theater brands to enhance existing products. But be that as it may, the spunky 15-year-old firm sure knows how to give a demo.

In a sequestered room off of the bustling Mobile World Congress convention center floor in Barcelona, Dirac walked us through a demo of what it calls Dynamic 3D Audio. “It enables transparent sound reproduction,” Dirac Research CEO Dr. Mathias Johansson said. “For example,  if in a VR environment a helicopter is hovering 10 yards in front of me, regardless of which way I turn my head, that helicopter [stays] perfectly fixed.”

More: Sonos’ smart speakers could one day integrate with all digital assistants

It’s startlingly realistic. Imagine playing your favorite album and hearing the instruments in front of you, as if on stage. Or picture a virtual surround sound system that simulates a real one: When you point your head in the direction of one “speaker,” it becomes louder, clearer, and more distinctive than the rest.

During our demo, we heard a firework whiz from the left-back corner of the tiny demo room to the front-right. And we nearly jumped at the sound of a booming voice near the back of the room.

Dirac Research’s secret sauce, so to speak, is head-related transfer functions, or HRTFs. As a company spokesperson explained it, they’re a function of how the human ear perceives a particular sound from a fixed point in space — like how a subwoofer sounds from across the room. Dirac Research’s Dynamic 3D Audio platform considers height, cranial proportions, and ear dimensions in each individualized HRTF, ensuring the most accurate reproduction of sound possible.

More: Apple patent describes headphones that flip upward to double as speakers

Those calculations feed a reverberation engine and a head-tracker. For the purposes of the demo, they were a pair of open-ear Sennheiser headphones with a taped-on bundle of wires. But Dirac Research has partnered with headphone manufacturers to build the sensors into a high-end model.

Just as impressive as Dynamic 3D Audio was Dirac Reasearch’s next demo, Panorama Sound. A rep handed us a Huawei Nexus 6P smartphone with specially modified software and enabled the effect via a checkbox, and the difference was revelatory. Held just about six inches from our ears — the sweet spot for Panorama Sound, a Dirac Audio rep told us — it was just like wearing a pair of high-end earphones, but without the headphones. We heard the strings of a guitar plucked to the far right of us, and during a clip of Gravity, mission control’s panicked transmission to Sandra Bullock was mere inches from our inner ears.

The convincing effect is thanks to patented algorithms that fine-tune not only the source of the audio’s frequency, but impulse response and phase as well. The end result is a perfectly coordinated speakers that deliver an ultra-wide sound stage, rich bass, and unbelievable crispness.

More: Transform your desktop into a concert hall with these computer speakers

Panorama Sound remains a demo for now — the technology requires integration at the operating system level. But one product the company confirmed is bound for market is Dirac Connect, an “optimization engine” that enhances the sound quality of existing headphones by widening the sound stage, improving sound reproduction, and simulating a home theater setup. “It makes a $20 pair of headphones sound like a $200 pair of headphones,” a Dirac spokesperson said.

Each profile is available for a limited-time trial, after which they can be purchased for a nominal fee. Chinese smartphone maker Smartisan is the first to feature the tech.

For our ears’ sake, we can only hope that Dirac Research’s magical suite ships more widely soon.

Microsoft and Qualcomm promise first Windows 10 ‘cellular PCs’ later this year

Why it matters to you

The cellular PC will be a new kind of always-connected, highly portable Windows 10 machine, and it’s coming in 2017.

One of Microsoft’s more exciting announcements at its 2016 WinHEC conference was that Windows 10 will run on ARM processors, breaking Intel’s lock on the platform. This isn’t the smartphone-focused Windows 10 Mobile or the severely limited Windows RT, either, but the same version of Windows 10 that runs on PCs.

Not only will Windows 10 run on ARM processors, but full desktop apps like Office 2016 and Adobe Photoshop will run on them as well. By various accounts, Windows 10 will first arrive on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 processor sometime in late 2017, and that company has offered up some additional details, as PC World reports.

More: Supply channels hint that ARM-based Windows 10 machines are due in 2017

ARM support for Windows 10 is important because it makes a wider range of device types possible. ARM processors are usually more power-efficient than Intel’s PC processors, and system-on-chip (SoC) solutions like the Snapdragon 835 include cellular communications and LTE data connectivity built-in. Because battery life is improved, smaller devices can be designed that perform well and still last a reasonable time on a single charge.

Adam Shah/IDG News Service

In fact, Microsoft and Qualcomm have already collaborated on a new “cellular PC” concept that will bring extremely thin and light PC notebooks with LTE data. By all accounts, the Snapdragon 835 will be fast enough to support both the core Windows 10 operating system and the emulation engine that will allow it to run full desktop Windows applications.

According to Qualcomm, a number of major PC manufacturers are on board, with a number of Windows 10 machines set to use the Snapdragon 835 SoC arriving later in 2017. These will be midrange devices in terms of price, and there won’t be that many of them. As Keith Kressin, Qualcomm’s senior vice president or product management, puts it, “It’ll start, and you’ll see more headed into 2018 and 2019. It’s a patient move into the market, and establishing a new value proposition.”

While nobody expects these ARM-based Windows 10 machines to perform like high-end Intel-based PC gaming systems and workstations, they should provide good enough performance for the majority of productivity and general computing tasks. It’s reasonable to expect cellular PCs to arrive at some point in smartphone-sized packages, which would seem to describe Microsoft’s Surface Phone concept. If Microsoft extends its Windows 10 Mobile Continuum concept to running desktop apps when the smallest cellular PCs are attached to external displays, keyboards, and mice, then the holy grail of a single computing device that can meet all of a user’s computing needs could eventually be realized.

Other possibilities include support for Windows 10 Holographic, for virtual reality (VR) applications based on the new VR and mixed-reality capabilities built into Windows 10 Creators Update. The Snapdragon 835 supports the majority of PC components such as USB, and cellular PCs should enjoy robust peripheral support as a result.

The details remain sketchy, but Qualcomm and Microsoft are clearly committed to bringing new power-efficient, thin, and light Windows 10 machines to the market starting in late 2017. With full support for Windows desktop applications, the new cellular PC platform should avoid the Windows RT debacle that saw Microsoft’s original Surface PC fail in the market, while ushering in a new kind of PC that lets users work anywhere without compromise.

HTC Ocean leaks, news and rumors

Rumors of a few new HTC devices, code-named the “Ocean series,” have surfaced, but they were initially brushed off by the company as concepts created by HTC designers that would ultimately never come to fruition.

Now, it looks like that has changed. A number of rumors have been surfacing over the past few months suggesting that the HTC Ocean is, in fact, a series of phones. Here’s everything we know about the HTC Ocean so far.

A radical design shift

It looks like the Ocean series will aim to push the boundaries a little and shake things up — which makes sense in the new year, given HTC’s somewhat lackluster 2016. The latest leak, from Mobile01, suggests the phone’s edge-like display will make use of a new feature called “Edge Sense,” which is basically the official name of the edge on the phone and how it functions. This comes from a series of screenshots of the phone’s settings menu.

We also finally have a better look at what the Ocean will look like thanks to a promo leaked by @evleaks. The video shows a very interesting phone with which apps can be launched through a soft-touch control on the side. Some suggest that this feature will finally bring some serious functionality to the “edge” display.

Remember the HTC Ocean? (https://t.co/q5ghm3vQ8Z) pic.twitter.com/GtpqowETjM

— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 8, 2017

New images of the Ocean Master have also leaked on Chinese social media network Weibo, showing what appears to be a phone with a glass frame like the Galaxy S7 and a second display like the LG V10 and V20.

That second display would be used for things like app shortcuts and notifications, exactly like the LG V20, but it’s possible that LG would also have something special planned for the phone. In general the phone looks very sleek, and marks a pretty radical design shift for HTC, which has long stuck with an aluminum unibody design for its flagship phones.

The images have a date stamp of January 5 with the location being Las Vegas — so it seems as though HTC may have had them at CES.

Release date

Rumors about the phone have been swirling for months, but it’s still been unknown when exactly the phone would be launched. Now, a little more info has surfaced.

According to Taiwanese news outlet ePrice, HTC will launch the Ocean phone or phones on January 12. In fact, HTC has scheduled an event for that date — an event it’s calling “For U.” The company has yet to confirm the purpose of the event. According to ePrice, the phone will go on sale on January 24, but it’s unknown exactly where it will go on sale.

Is Ocean a series of three phones?

The latest rumors, from Taiwanese news outlet ePrice, suggests that Ocean is indeed a series of three phones, called “Master,” “Note,” and “Smart,” which back a previous leak from Twitter user LlabTooFer. Presumably, the “Note” will have a larger display, the “Master” will offer higher specs, and the “Smart” will be the base model. The Note will offer storage options of 64GB and 128GB, ePrice says, but that’s all we know about the phone’s specs.

More: Best HTC Phones

Not much else is known about the new devices just yet, however a HTC designer seems to have posted a concept video highlighting some of the best features of the phone. In particular, the video shows off what appears to be a touch-sensitive frame, which would make it possible to control the phone’s software in a similar way to how the edge is used on Samsung’s Galaxy Note Edge series.

Codenames

OCEAN MASTEROCEAN NOTEOCEAN SMARThttps://t.co/r4FY9I0Ske

— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) September 21, 2016

HTC has been pretty busy lately, not only manufacturing the Google-designed Pixel and Pixel XL, but also unveiling a few new Desire phones — called the Desire 10 Pro and Desire 10 Lifestyle. The two phones are largely design-focused and sport a black-and-gold aesthetic similar to the other devices in the Desire 10 lineup.

To check out what the HTC Ocean series may look like, take a look at the video below.

Updated on 02-28-2017 by Christian de Looper: Added news that phone would use “Edge Sense” feature.

Meet Moondrop: A gravity-defying fidget toy that leverages a fascinating quirk of physics

To paraphrase Zoolander, fidget toys are so hot right now. Ever since Fidget Cube took Kickstarter by storm and raised a bajillion dollars (okay, $6.4 million against a stated goal of $15k) it seems that a veritable biblical plague of similarly-focused fidget-oriented desk toys have flooded crowdfunding platforms.

Fortunately, Moondrop, a.k.a. one of the latest in the genre, looks a worthy addition to the genre.

Based around the principle of Lenz’s law — which *deep breath* states that the current induced in a circuit due to a change or motion in a magnetic field will create a field that opposes the charge that produced it — Moondrop is a gravity-defying fidget desk toy that imitates the differential gravitational free fall on Mars and the Moon.

More: Addicted to fidgeting? This versatile desk toy is everything you’ve dreamed of

It’s just about the only fidget toy you get to flip, slide, spin and generally mess around with at work, while still looking smarter than your colleagues — provided you can reel off the correct scientific explanation.

“Moondrop is made from a pure copper or aluminum ring, aluminum body, and strong neodymium magnets inside the thin aluminum tube,” creator Kristaps Krisjans told Digital Trends. “Copper and aluminum are nonmagnetic materials, however they are great conductors of electricity, while each magnet is surrounded by its own magnetic field. When the magnet moves through the conductor its magnetic field induces an electric current in the copper. According to Lenz’s law, that current creates an opposite magnetic field which adds a certain resistance to the moving magnet. This makes the slider move slower than it would normally do if made from other materials. Depending on the proportions between magnet and conductor, different sliding speed can be achieved.”

Krisjans said he was inspired to create the product based on a lifetime love of space exploration, and a desire to find some way to recreate the “strangeness, wonder, and beauty that astronauts experience” in the form of a desk toy.

“I believe that Moondrop is a pretty cool way to learn about the amazing physics laws and science of our universe,” he continued. “I think anyone who likes to explore how things work will be enchanted by the gravity-defying movements. It is much more exciting to actually see and feel the process, instead of only hearing theory and numbers.”

You can currently pre-order the Moondrop on Kickstarter in either “Lunar” or “Mars” edition for £19, which translates to around $24.

Shipping is set to take place in June. By our reckoning, that’s around 4.392065 lunar rotations — but who’s counting?

Google adds Keep to G Suite to make it easier to capture and share ideas

Why it matters to you

It’s now easier than ever to create and capture information and share it in Google’s G Suite.

G Suite is Google’s cloud productivity and collaboration suite for businesses. It combines a number of Google apps and services, including Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Calendar, into an integrated solution that competes with Microsoft’s Office 365 suite of products.

Google also offers Keep, its notetaking and information organization tool for notes, ideas, and to-dos. Now, Google has integrated Keep into G Suite and made it easier than ever to grab information and use it in Docs for easier content creation and brainstorming.

More: Google brings custom templates for Docs, Sheets, and Slides to G Suite customers

Keep is similar to other information capture and management tools, such as Evernote and Microsoft’s OneNote, in that information can be entered directly in the app or captured from other sources such as websites, external files, and others. Users can create and access Keep notes via the web or dedicated Android and iOS apps.

With the G Suite integration, Keep notes can also now be accessed via the Tools menu in Google Docs and they’ll show up in a side panel within the Docs app. Some of the ways that Keep and Docs are integrated include:

• Notes can be easily dragged from Keep directly into documents
• Keep notes can be easily searched from within Doc for pertinent project information
• New notes can be created from within the Keep notepad or by selecting text from documents via the new right-click menu item “Save to Keep notepad.” A link will be created within the note that directs back to the source document.

G Suite is available to organizations on a subscription basis, and the various apps and services can be accessed on iOS, Android, and via the web on virtually any platform. Current G Suite customers will gain access to the new Keep app and integration automatically and without additional charge.

Walmart’s app updates aim to help you get more done in less time in its stores

Why it matters to you

If standing in line at Walmart really grinds your gears, we’ve got good news. Walmart’s updated app will help you get more done in its stores in less time.

Your time is money, and it’s not to be wasted in a Walmart line. And Walmart couldn’t agree more. So on Tuesday, the retail giant announced a number of new capabilities in its mobile app that promise to “create a faster, easier, and more convenient experience for pharmacy and money services customers.”

Equally important is Walmart’s promise of a new store experience that will allow customers to forgo lines altogether by using so-called express lanes, which simply require busy individuals to scan their Walmart app, pay using Walmart Pay, and receive an electronic receipt.

More: Walmart launches free two-day shipping on more than 2 million items

“These capabilities are the latest example of how we’re bringing together all of the conveniences of Walmart – great stores, convenient pickup, easy checkout and a top-notch app – to deliver one seamless shopping experience for customers,” said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president for Walmart Services. “We’re delivering a new and better experience in areas of our business that are essential for busy families. By making them faster and easier, we’re living up to our promise – to save customers money and time.”

In terms of pharmacy updates, the retailer promises easier refills through the Walmart app. Patients will be able to quickly refill medications, track order status, and view pricing and pickup details. “What our pharmacy business is likely most well-known for is our $4 prescription program that has saved our customers nearly $5 billion,” said Paul Beahm, senior vice president for Walmart Health and Wellness Operations. “Starting today, we’ll be known for saving them more than just money. By developing and combining the best of our app with a service that our customers depend on daily, we’re driving change that makes living better easier.”

As for money services, Walmart says it’s going green, allowing customers to avoid messy paperwork and instead enter information securely in the Walmart app before heading to the store. Once they’re ready to complete a transaction, they need only to open the Walmart app and tap “money ready to send,” then enter a PIN or use Touch ID to activate a phone camera. Then they can just scan the code displayed at the register to verify information and make a payment.

So the next time you plan a trip to Walmart, just know that you won’t have to plan on too much time.

Google launches business-friendly video-calling version of Hangouts called Meet

Why it matters to you

While Google may have hung up on Hangouts for consumers some time ago, Meet, which is aimed at businesses, shows that it’s not done with the service just yet.

Google Hangouts may be on its way out of most people’s lives, but Google hasn’t given up on it yet. In fact, the company has just launched a new app called Meet by Google Hangouts, which is designed to allow businesses to conduct HD video calls.

The new app is the latest in Google’s G Suite lineup of business products, and while the app isn’t up and running just yet on the App Store, the website meet.google.com does seem to shed some light on the new service.

More: Howdy, neighbor! Google’s new Mountain View office will be open to the public

The Meet landing page looks something like the landing page for Google Hangouts, but it doesn’t allow users to start a call or chat. Instead, it simply allows users to enter a code to join a video call, and it shows meetings that you’ve already scheduled. While Hangouts has a 10-person limit, Meet supports HD video with up to 30 people.

The app itself seems to be built to make video calling on the go easy. For example, it offers dial-in numbers for travelers, and shows details about upcoming calls, including time, location, subject, and so on. A big, green “join” button also helps users attend a meeting straight from the phone.

Google has yet to officially announce Meet, but it’s likely we’ll hear more about the service in coming days. Google may publish a blog post about the new app, which will likely detail some more of the service’s features.

Give your friends a Glympse of your location with this helpful GPS app

Why it matters to you

This real-time location-sharing app helps people quickly share their current location, making it easier to meet up and stay safe in the outdoors.

One of the handier features of any modern mobile operating systems is the ability to share your exact location with friends and family at any given time. Unfortunately, a lot of smartphone users don’t know how to use this functionality, or worse yet don’t even know that it exists. Glympse (available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) is hoping to not only change that but make location sharing so quick and easy.

The free Glympse app was built to make cross-platform location sharing as simple as possible. It allows users to select which of their contacts can see where they are at any given moment and even allows them to grant tracking privileges for a limited amount of time as well. Additionally, you can select specific destinations on the map, and have Glympse share estimated arrival times and speed of travel via text message with individuals or whole groups of people. The app even allows you to request the location of others so you will know when to expect them as well.

More: Have a safe adventure with the mountain conditions report app

So how does the location-sharing software help while taking part in our favorite outdoor activities? Well, it provides a nice safety net should an emergency situation arise while we’re in the backcountry. For example, if someone happens to get hurt or lost, they can simply take out their phone and share their current location and condition with one of their contacts. Knowing their exact whereabouts will help search-and-rescue efforts immensely.

Beyond that, there are a number of other ways Glympse can come in handy for outdoor enthusiasts. For instance, if you’re going skiing with friends and get separated on the hill, the app makes it easier to find one another. Or, if you’re out riding snowmobiles or ATVs, Glympse will allow you to keep tabs of your party at all times. If you’re planning on meeting friends at a trailhead prior to setting out on a hike or mountain bike ride, the app will let everyone know where and when to meet.

Glympse can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and computers. The service is free and locations can be shared with anyone, even if they don’t happen to have the app installed on their device.

Find out more at glympse.com.