HTC sales fell off a cliff
All is not well at HTC. It today posted another difficult earnings report detailing its fourth consecutive quarter of losses. The Taiwanese manufacturer, which has just released its latest flagship smartphone, the HTC 10, lost roughly $148 million between January 1st and March 31st. More worrying still is the drop in revenues when compared to 2015: HTC brought in 41.5 billion Taiwanese dollars this time last year (and broke even), versus 14.8 billion this year. That’s a 64-percent drop in revenues.
There are a couple of caveats worth noting: First, as mentioned, HTC’s new (and well-received) flagship has only just hit stores, so that’s not involved in these results. Second, the company’s VR headset, the Vive, is also not involved here. That said, the corresponding quarter last year similarly didn’t include sales of the HTC One M9. It should also be noted that this isn’t a massively new development: HTC has generally been trending downwards over the past few years, and has been attempting to restructure itself into a smaller, more efficient company.
How does HTC recover? As you’d expect, it’s trying to lower costs and raise revenues. Although it hasn’t gone into specifics, Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang says HTC will “trim expenses” through the current quarter and beyond. HTC has recently sold off some land and property, and is likely to downsize its operations considerably in the search of profitability. Speaking about the Vive virtual reality headset, Chang said that VR will also be “an integral part of profitability,” this year and moving forward.
It’s hoped that the cost-cutting measures, together with an uptick in revenues from the HTC 10 and the Vive, will lead to better months ahead. Chang believes that HTC can break even on its smartphone business by Q3 (that’s the July to September quarter), although he notes that this does not constitute a forecast, and is instead an internal aim of the company.
Source: HTC (PDF)
Check out some of Studio Ghibli’s ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ in VR
If you ever wanted to explore Howl’s Moving Castle, now’s your chance. That’s assuming you own a virtual reality headset, that is. A scene from it, dubbed “The Meadow,” is available for folks using Oculus Rift and HTC Vive right now. It comes from developer Nick Pittom, who’s previously released interactive scenes based on Ghibli’s other lauded work including My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. “The Meadow” is bundled with other, older interactive scenes from Hayao Miyazaki’s landmark films, and RoadtoVR writes that “the level of detail that each scene captures is really nothing short of astounding.”
If anything, these demos should help while the time away before a sequel to the studio’s 2013 co-venture Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch arrives on PlayStation 4 — whenever that actually releases, of course.
Via: Road to VR
Source: Wear VR
Manus VR gloves add full-arm tracking to the HTC Vive
The Manus VR gloves were already impressive when we got our hands in them at the Game Developers Conference, but their latest feature promises an even more immersive experience. Using the HTC Vive and its motion controllers, the Manus system can track players’ entire arms, bending elbows and all. The controllers strap onto players’ wrists for full-arm positional tracking and the gloves allow them to articulate their fingers in the VR space.
Many VR experiences use the “floating hands” technique, which is effective but not exactly natural-looking (or -feeling). Arm tracking allows developers to take advantage of common movements and accessories, such as blocking a punch or wearing a Pip-Boy — or an Apple Watch, if you’re into more realistic experiences. The Manus team is still experimenting with full-arm tracking on the Vive, but it will be featured in the gloves’ SDK that’s due to launch in June.
Where to buy HTC’s 10 in the UK
A succession of middling flagships has seen HTC’s reputation plummet in recent history, but the company seems to have got its mojo back. The new HTC 10, available in the UK from today, is a classic blend of beauty and raw power. While it doesn’t have the best camera on the market and battery life is distinctly average, HTC has cleaned up its Android skin and included a few attractive extras like hi-res audio support and AirPlay compatibility. If you’ve been waiting for HTC to return to form, then the new 10 will’ve undoubtedly piqued your interest, so join us as we explore the carriers, resellers and retailers that have you covered.
| Cheapest contract (with upfront) | £43.49 (£60) | £38 (£49) | £24 (£130) on Voda | £15 (£345) on EE | £15 (£350) on EE |
| Cheapest contract (no upfront) | — | — | £42 on Voda | £41 on EE | £31 on O2 |
| Unlocked (SIM-free) | — | — | £569 | £536 | — |
HTC hasn’t exactly been setting the smartphone world alight these past few years, so it’s understandable that a couple of carriers aren’t willing to put their chips on the table for the company’s latest flagship. O2 and Vodafone have both confirmed they don’t plan to range the device, while EE and Three won’t let you walk out the door without some form of upfront payment. Contract resellers appear to be more lenient, however. Carphone Warehouse has a particularly attractive Vodafone deal for the power user: £42 per month with no upfront payment for unlimited calls, texts, a 6GB data cap and £50 cashback.
It’s fair to say that MVNOs are flat out not interested in the HTC 10 — not on launch day, anyway. You can pick one up on Carphone Warehouse’s iD network (with the £50 cashback offer), but there’s little reason to do that when the reseller has better offers on other networks.
If you’re looking to buy an HTC 10 outright and be done with it — and you may well want to, given the complete lack of pay-as-you-go options — then most retailers ask you to rustle up roughly £570. Clove has the sweetest deal currently at £530, though it doesn’t expect to have stock until a week from now. Buymobiles isn’t far behind with its £536 offer, but the product page is also sporting a pre-order tag at the moment.
T-Mobile will roll out the Marshmallow OTA for the HTC One M9 on Monday, February 16
Earlier today, HTC’s Vice President of Product Management, Mo Versi, took to his official Twitter profile to reveal that the Taiwanese company has at last received approval of the long-awaited Marshmallow update for the HTC One M9 from T-Mobile. The carrier will, begin pushing out the over-the-air upgrade to all carrier-branded variants of the handset starting Monday, February 16.
As far as added functionality goes, this update brings the latest build of Android 6.0.1 to the handset, which introduces greater control over application permissions, an enhanced battery-life through Doze, a redesigned application drawer and Fingerprint-authentication for payments, together with the usual plethora of bug fixes, stability improvements and speed optimizations that we’ve come to expect from all major firmware releases.
Happy Friday! Good news for T-Mobile HTC One (M9) owners! We've received technical approval on Marshmallow, with the OTA to start on 2/16.
— Mo Versi (@moversi) February 12, 2016
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
The upgrade should take around an hour to download and install on your smartphone. However, the amount of power your device has at the time of installation will play a huge role — so try and keep it plugged into the wall to take advantage of faster processing speeds. The entire procedure will also be significantly quicker if you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network as they’re always almost faster than the speeds mobile ISP’s provide.
If you’re new to the Android operating system and haven’t yet had the pleasure of installing a software update, here’s what you’ll need to do on February 16. You’re going to need to open up the Settings application, scroll right down to the bottom and tap on About Device, select the System Updates subheading, then tap Check for Updates. You should then notice a small smartphone icon appear in the notification panel; indicating that the upgrade is downloading.
Come comment on this article: T-Mobile will roll out the Marshmallow OTA for the HTC One M9 on Monday, February 16
Google will reportedly enter the VR fray with a stand-alone headset
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, sources close to Google have indicated that the tech giant is working on a stand-alone Virtual Reality headset that will be independent of a phone, computer, or gaming console. Google is apparently ready to take on the likes of Oculus, and offerings from Sony, HTC, and Samsung with their new headset that may debut later this year. A VR headset that works independently of another system would be a first in the VR field, and possibly give Google a leg up on its competition.
“Since the beginning we’ve been about making VR available for everyone. We’ll have some more to share later in the year“
A source familiar with Google’s plans has indicated that the new headset will include a screen, high-powered processors, and outwardly facing cameras. Google will reportedly use chips from Movidius Inc. to power the headset. The chips will tap into the cameras on the headset to check the camera’s feeds and check the position of the user’s head. This would be different from other VR headsets that use an accompanying computing device, like a desktop computer or gaming console, to track the movements of users’ heads.
Nothing has been confirmed yet, and we’re only getting information from sources close to the project. This isn’t uncommon for an unreleased device. We see leaks almost every day for devices like the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the LG G5 that have yet to see the light of day. What is different about this situation is that we’re talking about an entirely new device from Google.
Virtual Reality is an area where Google has dipped their toes in the water (Google Cardboard), but has yet to commit to go swimming. It’s entirely possible that Google begins to go down this path, and either finds it too difficult or too costly and cancels the project. It could turn out similarly to projects like Google Wave or Google Buzz that saw limited beta releases, then were shuttered.
There are also reports coming out that Google is working on an updated version of Google cardboard. The new version would be made out of plastic, and while it would continue to rely on a user’s smartphone screen, it would include computer chips and sensors. Cardboard started as an experiment for Google, but after 5 million units shipped, the project may have convinced Google that Virtual Reality is a revenue stream waiting to be tapped.
Keep your eyes peeled to Google I/O 2016 for a possible announcement.
Source: Wall Street Journal via The Verge
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VR is better when virtual objects feel real
For all the amazing experiences virtual reality enables (the illusion of flight, the exhaustion of exercise and even the emotional fatigue of trauma), it still has one major flaw: Virtual objects are intangible and have no physicality. If you want to walk through a wall, the game can’t stop you. If you try to lean on a table, you’ll probably fall down. It’s a limitation of first-generation VR technology I’d grown to accept — at least until I played Survios’ Raw Data, a game that tricked me into pretending its completely virtual objects were real.
In Raw Data, two players use an assortment of weapons to protect a shared VR play space from an oncoming horde of killer robots. At first blush, this feels a lot like any other motion-controlled first-person VR action game: aiming with virtual guns, fanatically shooting in all directions and generally feeling like an action hero while doing it — but when I swung the game’s laser sword at another blade, something weird happened. It stopped. And, despite there being absolutely no physical force present to stop me, my arms stopped too.
Stopping my arms felt natural, but I had no idea why I did it. By all rights, I should have followed through on the swing. I asked James Iliff, Survios’ co-founder and chief creative officer, for his thoughts as I pulled off my VR headset. “There’s this trigger mechanism in the brain about mimicry,” he told me. “Like, as kids we were playing around in the yard with sticks, or doing air guitar. We mimicked those actions. When a game gives you 100 percent feedback visually, auditorily and haptically that you’ve stopped, a lot of times the user will play along and they won’t even realize it.” In other words, the game feels more realistic if you pretend it’s real. When the swords stopped in game, clanged on impact and sent a sharp vibration to my motion controller, it was using visual, audio and haptic cues to coax me into playing make-believe.
The trick worked on me, but only because I decided to play along. Not everybody will follow the rules, Iliff told me. “We call it contextual physics feedback,” he said, explaining the system further. “The system decides, based on context, when not to enable physics feedback.” While this system encourages playing by the rules, it seems to favor keeping in-game action consistent with player movement over abiding by VR physics — if I had followed through on my slice, the swords would have slid past each other. “But if you do stop, it continues to play along with you,” Iliff reiterated. “That essentially gives you the sensation of real feedback.”
This contextual physics feedback system is one of the “big problems” Survios is trying to solve. Having collision that makes sense is essential to enabling the kind of social multiplayer Raw Data is built around. The team is also working on a contextual gaze system to simulate eye contact with other VR players, and a phonic detection system is poised to animate character mouths in tune with voice chat. To top it all off, Raw Data features a cinematic spectating system that broadcasts VR game play from “dynamically generated camera angles” to services like Twitch.
That, Iliff says, could be the key to helping the masses understand virtual reality. “If we can make this easy in all our apps, for users to broadcast to their friends … that’s the fastest way to get everybody talking about VR.”
HTC One M10 rumored to use the same camera sensor as Nexus 6P
It’s no secret that HTC has been losing favor with Android fans over the last few years, and the One M9 did very little to help stave off this issue. In fact, some would argue it sped things further along.
Some of the biggest points of contention with the One M9 was the over familiarity in design, some of the performance woes associated with the Snapdragon 810, and, unsurprisingly, camera quality. It’s still too early to say if HTC will be able to fully address some of the complaints regarding design and performance with the One M10, but the good news is that camera hardware may finally be an issue of the past.
In the previous generations of the One series, HTC had made some pretty odd choices in the photography department, sticking to its UltraPixel guns, long after it was proven to be a less than ideal strategy. The M9 promised to finally bolster up the One series, bringing its camera experience up to the same level as the competition. Despite its 20.7 MP shooter sounding great on paper, the actual real world experience wasn’t so well received, largely due to poor processing of picture data. Thankfully, HTC may be finally bringing its A-game.
HTC Perfume "UltraPixels":
Main Camera – Sony IMX377 12MP 1.55um + Laser Autofocus + PDAF
Front Camera – Samsung s5k4e6 5MP UltraPixel— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) February 11, 2016
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
According to well-known leaker LlabTooFeR, HTC Perfume (aka One M10) will offer a Samsung s5k4e6 5MP UltraPixel camera on the front, with the rear sporting a Sony IMX377 12MP 1.55um + Laser Autofocus + PDAF. It’s the main cam that really piques our interest though, as that happens to be the same sensor found in the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P, both of which are regarded as two of the best Android camera phones available. Of course, just because the HTC One M10 uses the IMX377 doesn’t mean it will end up having an amazing camera.
There’s other aspects that go into consideration beyond just the sensor, including the post-processing, which is an area where HTC has clearly stumbled in the past. Still, it’s a positive sign.
As for what else we can expect regarding the One M10? The rumor mill paints the picture of a Snapdragon 820 powered device with 4GB RAM, 32GB on-board storage with microSD, a 5.2-inch QHD display, and a design that is supposedly similar to the HTC One A9 (which by extension means it will bear similarity to the iPhone).
What do you think, excited for the HTC One M10? If not, what would it take from HTC to get you interested in the company’s flagships once more? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Next – HTC One M10 rumor roundup
According to leak, HTC’s One M10 will feature UltraPixel technology front and back
Another day, and yet another leak. But this time, it relates to the HTC’s upcoming flagship, the One M10, which is also known by its codename, Perfume. A few hours ago, we learnt from serial leaker @evleaks that the M10 would hit US retail stores the week of May 9th, with the smartwatch being available some weeks before. Now we have some details about the handset’s cameras, more of which after the break.
HTC Perfume "UltraPixels":
Main Camera – Sony IMX377 12MP 1.55um + Laser Autofocus + PDAF
Front Camera – Samsung s5k4e6 5MP UltraPixel— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) February 11, 2016
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
@LlabTooFer is the source of this latest leak, detailing the specifications of both the front and rear-facing cameras featured on the HTC handset. As you can see from the tweet above, it would appear that the HTC One M10’s rear camera has a Sony manufactured 12MP sensor (IMX377) using UltraPixel technology, Laser-AutoFocus is also present, and the sensor is 1.55um. The front camera is of Samsung origin (s5k4e6), with a 5MP sensor that is also using UltraPixel technology.
Other rumours include the HTC One M10 losing a logo from the front of the device, which will hopefully result in thinner bezels. The M10 is expected to feature a 5.2-inch display, with some regions getting Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 powered M10’s, and others getting a MediaTek powered version.
Unlike last year with the M9, HTC isn’t going to run the risk of the M10 being overshadowed by the Samsung Galaxy S7 launch at MWC, instead, the Taiwanese manufacturer is said to be holding a separate event after MWC 2016.
Are you looking forward to the HTC One M10 being unveiled? What else would you like to see it bring to the table? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: @LlabTooFer (Twitter)
Come comment on this article: According to leak, HTC’s One M10 will feature UltraPixel technology front and back
HTC’s smartwatch will be sold weeks before the One M10
Everyone, at least by now, knows that MWC 2016 will not be the place where the HTC One M10 launches. The plan is to host a standalone event in March or April to give the company’s newest products the ability to get as much attention as possible rather than likely being overshadowed by Samsung and LG in Barcelona later this month. Joining the One M10 as a fresh HTC product launching in 2016 will be a smartwatch known internally has Halfbreak. Interestingly, the two devices will not be made available in the United States at the same time.
Evan Blass’s sources tell him that the HTC smartwatch will launch weeks before the One M10.
Small consolation, HTC fans: you’ll be able to pick up the watch before the end of April.
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) February 11, 2016
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
While the One M10 should be available in the U.S. the week of May 9, the smartwatch is apparently going to be sold before the end of April. Blass, a few weeks ago, said that the HTC smartwatch should “be out” in April as well. So everything appears to be lining up as predicted, but we shouldn’t assume an announcement is coming this month like December’s claim read.
The One M10 is expected to finally put HTC up near the top of the pack in terms of specifications, a spot it has been missing from for almost two years. And that’s exactly where this company needs to be after going through yet another tough quarter. Behind the 5.2-inch Quad HD display is said to be Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, 3GB of RAM, and Android 6.0 Marshmallow covered by HTC Sense. Those are the type of things we really want from a flagship right now.
Come comment on this article: HTC’s smartwatch will be sold weeks before the One M10
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