LG G6 reportedly enjoys strong early sales in Korea

30,000 units sold in launch weekend, according to Korean press.

Western consumers may have to wait another few weeks to get their hands on the LG G6, but the new phone is already on sale in LG’s home market of South Korea — and, according to report from the local press, doing rather well.

The Korea Herald reports that the G6 sold more than 30,000 units across the country over its launch weekend, with pre-orders exceeding 82,000 since they opened on March 2. Analyst Kim Dong-won of KB Securities is quoted as saying 20,000 units were shifted during the first day alone, “a record high compared to its predecessors.”

The G6’s long-term success depends as much on Samsung as anything.

All of that bodes well for LG’s mobile business, which suffered heavy losses in 2016 off the back of weak G5 sales. Should the G6 continue to sell well, Kim says, “LG’s mobile business is likely to see a reduction of more than 1 trillion won [$872 million U.S.] in operating losses from the previous year.”

The G6’s long-term success depends on how major rival Samsung’s Galaxy S8 is received. The company took the unusual step of teasing the GS8 during a 15-second TV spot in Korea over the weekend, a move intended to take some of the wind out of LG’s sails. The Galaxy S8 will be unveiled at a launch event in New York City on March 29, with sales expected to begin globally on April 28. And while history suggests the phone may go on sale in Korea a little earlier than this, LG still has a vital few weeks to establish momentum.

LG G6

• LG G6 review!
• LG G6 specs
• LG G6 vs. Google Pixel: The two best cameras right now
• Everything you need to know about the G6’s cameras
• LG forums

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

• Latest Galaxy S8 rumors!
• Galaxy S8 announcement coming March 29 in NYC
• Galaxy S8 release date set for April 28
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

Galaxy S8 Plus: 3,500mAh battery from larger model pictured

Photo appears to corroborate rumored cell size for 6.2-inch handset.

After the Galaxy Note 7’s battery-related woes, there’s been understandable interest in the cells used in Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S8 series. Recent rumors have pegged the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus as having 3,000mAh and 3,500mAh cells respectively, in what would be a small reduction in battery capacity compared to the GS7 edge. And now it appears there’s photographic evidence to back up these claims.

The image above was retrieved from Chinese social network Weibo by SamMobile, and it reveals a few crucial details:

• The part number, EB-BG955ABA, is consistent with the expected model number of SM-G955 for the larger GS8.
• The battery is manufactured by Samsung SDI in Vietnam.
• The manufacturing date is marked as February 21, just over a week before the GS8 was reported to have entered mass production.
• Its capacity is clearly marked as 3,500mAh.

There has been speculation that Samsung is playing it safe with a smaller battery — both in terms of size and capacity — after the Note 7 debacle, which would be understandable. On the face of it, a 3,500mAh cell seems a little on the small side for a 6.2-inch phone, but given the new taller 18.5:9 aspect ratio being used, the screen area of the GS8 Plus should be more in line with a 5.7- or 5.8-incher. It’s also worth noting that the GS8 is expected to use new CPUs built on a 10nm process, which should offer greater efficiency than previous designs. The GS8’s new RBG SuperAMOLED display is expected to offer power savings too, compared to earlier panels.

Ultimately, numbers can only tell us so much about capacity — we’ll need to wait until we have the GS8 our hands sometime in April before we’ll know how its battery life measures up.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

• Latest Galaxy S8 rumors!
• Galaxy S8 announcement coming March 29 in NYC
• Galaxy S8 release date set for April 28
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

How to create and share lists in Google Maps

Google Maps lets you easily create and share lists of your favorite places.

The ability to create lists is the newest feature addition to Google Maps, and it continues the platform’s evolution from being just a navigation service to an all-in-one travel utility. Maps now shows nearby points of interest, real-time traffic information, and gives you quick access shortcuts to your home and work addresses, making it easier for you to plan your day.

With lists, you can easily create and share lists of your favorite restaurants, or make an easy-to-follow list of places to visit when traveling to a new city. There’s also a follow option, through which you can follow lists curated by others on the service.

By default, Maps offers three lists — “Favorites,” “Starred Places,” and “Want to Go,” and you have the option of creating custom lists that are public (viewable by all) or private. You can also create lists and share them via a link.

The feature itself has been available for some time now for Local Guides — contributors and power users on Google Maps — and is now available for all users on the platform. Your lists are also available offline, and if you downloaded the particular area that covers your places, you can browse them entirely offline.

How to create lists in Google Maps

Open Google Maps from your app drawer or home screen.
Enter the name of the place you want to add to the list from the Search here text box.

Pull up from the bottom of the screen to access the location’s information.

Tap the Save button.
To add the location to one of the default lists, just select that list. For now, we’re going to create a new list, so hit the New list option.

Name the list.

That’s all there is to it. Now that you have a list ready, you can easily add places to it:

Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) to the left of the textbox or swipe in from the left of the screen.
Select Your places.

Go to the Saved tab.

Select the list that you just created.
Tap the floating action button (the + sign) located at the lower right corner of the screen.

Add a new location from the textbox.

Follow the same steps to continue adding places to the list. Once you’re done, it’s time to share it with your friends via a link, or make it public so anyone searching on Google can find it.

How to share lists in Google Maps

Tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) to the left of the textbox or swipe in from the left of the screen.
Select Your places.

Go to the Saved tab.

Select the list you want to share.
Tap the Share button on the top right corner.

Hit Continue to create a shareable link, and share the link using your messaging service of choice.

To create a public list, select the action overflow button (the three vertical dots) from the top right corner.
Select Sharing options.

Tap Public.

Shareable lists come in handy if looking to organize oft-visited places, or if you want to create a curated list of places as a recommendation for out-of-towners. Let us know what you think of the feature in the comments below.

Gold Galaxy S8 Plus surfaces in latest leaked image

Latest Galaxy S8 Plus live leak shows off curved display and dialer.

The Galaxy S8 leaks are coming in thick and fast now, and the latest live photo shows off the gold color option of the Galaxy S8 Plus. We get a good look at the dialer, the on-screen navigation buttons, and the general curvature of the display.

The Galaxy S8 will feature a tall display much like the LG G6, and the phone is set to offer ultra-fast facial recognition — as evidenced by the bevy of sensors above the display. A leak from over the weekend showed off the standard model of the Galaxy S8 next to the S8 Plus, with the sizes roughly matching up with what we’ve seen last week.

While we don’t have a release date yet, Samsung aired a 15-second commercial over the weekend in Korea highlighting its upcoming flagship just as the G6 made its debut. The brand will unveil the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus in New York on March 29, and the phones could be available starting April 21.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

• Latest Galaxy S8 rumors!
• Galaxy S8 announcement coming March 29 in NYC
• Galaxy S8 release date set for April 28
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

In an 18:9 world, we need a new way to quantify screen size

As the aspect ratio of phone screens changes this year, trusted diagonal measurements are becoming misleading.

With the arrival of the 5.7-inch LG G6, we have entered the era of 18:9 smartphones. Taller displays are set to become a major trend in phones in 2017, with Samsung rumored to use an even taller “18.5:9” configuration in its upcoming Galaxy S8, which looks set to come in 5.8- and 6.2-inch flavors. Apple, too, may switch to a taller display with on-screen controls for its upcoming iPhones, which have also been rumored to use 5.8-inch panels.

In the smartphone world, we’ve become reliant on diagonal measurements of the screen as a way to quantify the size of a device — 4.7- to 5-inchers were small, 5.7 and up was “phablet” territory. For the most part, it worked, because we were dealing with the same aspect ratio across the board — standard 16:9, same as the majority of TVs.

But as phones with 18:9 panels start to ship, it’s tempting to directly compare the diagonals with their 16:9 forerunners That can be misleading.

The size difference is hilarious here. pic.twitter.com/Lq4BtbaqHR

— Andrew Martonik (@andrewmartonik) March 8, 2017

Consider the two phones above, the HTC U Ultra and LG G6. Both have 5.7-inch screens, meaning, corner-to-corner, the active portion of the display measures around 5.7 inches (with whatever rounding up or down the manufacturer wants to factor in there.) But it’s plain to see in the photo that the U Ultra has a way larger screen, and that’s because of the basic geometry of the thing — its screen area is bigger.

After taking out a tape measure and taking some readings, here are the screen areas for these “5.7-inch” devices:

• LG G6: 865cm²
• HTC U Ultra: 901.5cm² (not including the second screen)
• (And for good measure let’s throw in the Nexus 6P: 900.7cm²)

The diagonal measurement alone doesn’t tell the full story. In this instance, the 16:9 phones have a larger display area. Of course they’re also much wider, which may be undesirable for one-handed use. But the point is they aren’t truly the same size.

A 16:9 display at 5.7 inches is absolutely not the same as an 18:9 display at 5.7 inches

By the same token, don’t expect a 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 to offer the same phablet-class real estate as a Note 5 or GS6 edge+. It’ll be taller, and you may see more emails or lines of web content at once, but the screen area will be substantially different. The same argument applies to the Galaxy S8 Plus, which is around the same physical size as a Note 7.

Things become even more confusing when you recall that the G6 has software keys eating into that 5.7-inch diagonal, whereas the U Ultra, with its capacitive buttons, does not. If you exclude the portion of the screen lost to soft keys, the G6’s screen area is reduced to 805.2cm². (Though admittedly, many apps can clear away the soft keys and use the full display size.) This factor alone should make the 5.8-inch GS8 feel a lot like a 5.2- or 5.5-inch phone to Galaxy owners used to off-screen keys.

That’s not to say talk of phones like the LG G6 (and its contemporaries) delivering more screen in a smaller form factor is total BS. The G6 is substantially smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus, while also managing to deliver a slightly larger screen area — 865cm² to the 5.5-inch iPhone’s 845cm².

Bottom line: A 16:9 display at 5.7 inches is absolutely not the same as an 18:9 display at 5.7 inches, because geometry. Equating the two is misleading at best. Screen area is a much more accurate way to pin a number on how large a screen is. So until manufacturers start printing area measurements on device boxes, we’ll just have to use common sense to cut through the marketing.

LG G6

• LG G6 review!
• LG G6 specs
• LG G6 vs. Google Pixel: The two best cameras right now
• Everything you need to know about the G6’s cameras
• LG forums

Luxury phone maker Vertu is now owned by a Turkish businessman

Vertu’s Chinese owners sell the company for £50 million.

Luxury smartphone manufacturer Vertu is once again switching hands, with the erstwhile Nokia brand now owned by an exiled Turkish businessman. According to The Telegraph, Vertu’s owners have sold the company to an investment fund headed up by Hakan Uzan for £50 million.

Uzan has been in exile since 2003 following judicial persecution after his family’s telecom venture Telsim ran into financial troubles. The Uzan family borrowed money from Nokia and Motorola to set up Telsim in 1994, but the dotcom crash led to severe financial difficulties, which led to the operator defaulting on loans amounting to over $2.1 billion.

There were also allegations that the Uzan family diverted money — over $1 billion — to pay for private jets and other luxury items, and as a result Nokia and Motorola sued the Uzan Group and won damages in excess of $4 billion. The Uzans have received political asylum in France, but their current whereabouts are unknown.

As for Vertu, the luxury brand has suffered its own share of pitfalls after Nokia sold the brand to Swedish equity group EQT VI back in 2012 for £175 million. The company was then sold to Hong Kong-based fund Godin Holdings in 2015 for an undisclosed amount. The most recent financial results for Vertu date back to 2014, when the brand recorded a loss of £53 million on sales on £110 million.

It looks like Uzan has grand plans for the luxury brand, based on his comment to The Telegraph delivered via a spokesman:

Vertu is a powerful brand with an acknowledged market niche. I look forward to working with the team and providing the investment to enable Vertu to realise its full potential.

Galaxy S8 colors: Our first look at most of the colors together

More colors of the Galaxy S8, all in one place.

The Galaxy S8 has been leaking hot and heavy over the past week in the run-up to the phone’s big reveal on March 29 in New York City.

Most of the leaks have been focused on what appears to be the Black Pearl model, which was introduced with the Note 7 and trickled down to the Galaxy S7 later on. We’ve also seen the gold model, which will certainly be popular in many regions.

Thanks to TechDroider on Twitter, we know have the front plates for what appears to be six distinct Galaxy S8 colors: Black Pearl, white, Blue Coral, silver, gold, and black. We’ve also heard that there may be pink and ‘orchid’ models introduced later on for specific markets.

Galaxy S8: Everything you need to know

Of course, color choice is an incredibly important decision for many people, and with the Galaxy S8 potentially expanding its lineup, it may be worth spending a bit more time on it. What color are you leaning towards?

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

• Latest Galaxy S8 rumors!
• Galaxy S8 announcement coming March 29 in NYC
• Galaxy S8 release date set for April 28
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

Nokia’s trolling Twitter users, dropping flagship phone hints at every turn

Nokia’s recent Mobile World Congress launches of the Nokia 6, 5 and 3 – and that 3310 – omitted one major thing from a new line-up of phones: a proper flagship. 

Prior to launch there had been plenty of talk about a flagship device, nicknamed the P1, although then referred to as the Nokia 8. Neither name had any real substance, but the message from Nokia is clear: this is just the start, and there’s more to come. 

That’s more evident on Twitter than anywhere else.

The question of “Carl Zeiss” (now just known as Zeiss) has come up, as this was a feature of old Nokia phones and some of the Lumia line-up of Windows Phones.

@___Dhruv___ We’re no longer using Carl Zeiss technology.

— Nokia Mobile (@nokiamobile) March 5, 2017

Nokia responds that it is not using the technology, before clarifying that with a second tweet, saying that the current range doesn’t feature Zeiss and that there’s more to come. 

@imlochab @___Dhruv___ We have more announcements coming in 2017 – we’ve only just begun!

— Nokia Mobile (@nokiamobile) March 5, 2017

@baris_gunel Hi, our current range does not have Carl Zeiss, which is what this tweet is referring to. Stay tuned for more announcements

— Nokia Mobile (@nokiamobile) March 9, 2017

This narrative follows the same line that we got ourselves from Juho Sarvikas, chief product officer at HMD, when we asked why there wasn’t a flagship device at the time of the launch of the new handsets. 

Nokia is playing it safe, regularly saying that it’s only just getting started, leaving speculation about a hero device wide open. We can’t take a comment on Twitter as confirmation that it will have a Zeiss lens, but the move to clarify the point is closely managed. It’s neither confirmation nor denial and it’s enough to keep people interested in what’s coming in the future.

The initial line-up is designed to forge a path into regions that can’t afford higher prices. With Nokia effectively offering three handsets that span the budget end of the spectrum, the only real way is into higher echelons and into those markets that want more expensive devices and where the brand still has huge value – like the UK and the US.

• Nokia 6 preview: A solid start for the new Android Nokia

As we know, Snapdragon 835 is heading to the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, it’s likely to feature in the Samsung Galaxy S8 and there’s a suggestion that HTC is lining up a new flagship too. All of these will be at least double the price of the Nokia 6, but there’s still speculation of a Snapdragon 835 device out there.

Again, it’s difficult to determine whether this comes from genuine leaks or from a fan wish list, but the takeaway message is clear: Nokia isn’t done yet, there is more coming in 2017.

• Nokia 8 Android phone: Release date, rumours and specs

Intel buys self-driving tech firm MobilEye for $15.3 billion

Intel’s recent work with MobilEye on self-driving cars must have gone well, because the chip giant is buying its Jerusalem-based partner for $15.3 billion. The deal was first reported by Israeli business site The Marker but has now been confirmed by the two companies. MobilEye is one of the largest players in autonomous vehicle tech and was in the news recently over a spat with Tesla following a fatal Model S crash in Florida. However, it recently teamed with Intel on BMW’s iNext self-driving platform, which the automaker aims to put into service by 2021.

The technology they’re working on isn’t just for BMW vehicles, though. The idea is to build a “scalable architecture” that can be used by any automaker, especially if they don’t want to build their own tech from scratch. As such, it could become a huge business for MobilEye, which may help explain the huge acquisition price. The deal is one of the largest acquisitions of an Israeli-based tech company ever.

Despite a recent PC renaissance thanks to Microsoft’s Surface and other devices, desktops are still losing ground to mobile devices. That has affected Intel’s bottom line while benefiting companies like Qualcomm, which makes the chips used in many smartphones and tablets. The situation has forced Intel into other areas like wearables, connected homes and “internet of things” devices, none of which has exactly taken off yet.

BREAKING: Intel to acquire Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash, or about $15.3 billion. $INTC $MBLY

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) March 13, 2017

Autonomous cars, on the other hand, are one of the hottest things in tech, with virtually every automaker, tech company and even peripheral firms like Uber and Lyft working on (and fighting about) them. Even if fully autonomous cars don’t work out as planned (some critics think it’s a distant pipe dream), autopilot tech that aids drivers and prevents accidents is available now on Tesla EVs and other cars. Ironically, MobilEye’s early success was due in large part to Tesla, and that partnership dissolved in a not-very-friendly way.

Via: The Marker

Source: Intel / Mobileye (.PDF)

Scientists make stretchy electronics using a soup ingredient

For smart clothing or skin-worn devices to improve, first we need electronics that won’t snap like a twig when you move. Using a soup thickener, of all things, scientists from Stanford’s Bao Lab created a flexible electrode with “uncompromised electrical performance and high stretchability,” said lab director Zhenan Bao. The material could one day be used in better brain-monitoring electronics and smart clothing embedded with heart sensors, LEDs and other tech.

Plastics are normally insulators, but using two different polymers, Bao and her team came up with one that conducted like a champ. However, it wasn’t flexible at all, so the team enlisted the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and its unique X-ray equipment to find just the right additive. That turned out to be a molecule similar to those used to thicken soups in industrial kitchens. It completely stopped the crystallization process, resulting in a stretchy material suitable for use in circuits or electrodes.

“We thought that if we add insulating material, we would get really poor conductivity, especially when we added so much,” said Bao. However, using their experience with flexible polymers, they created a thin, nearly transparent material that actually conducts electricity slightly better when stretched. In fact, the high conductivity and 96 percent light transmittance “is among the highest values reported for … transparent electrodes,” and best by far for a flexible material, the paper notes.

Using an inkjet printer, the researchers have already created electrodes and stretchable transistor arrays. That could soon yield “next-generation wearable and epidermal electronics and bioelectronics,” according to the paper. It also opens up “exciting possibilities down the road for brain interfaces and other implantable electronics,” said Bao. However, you may never look at boxed soup the same way again.

Source: Stanford, Science Advances