LG V20 is coming later this quarter
LG posted its second quarter earnings earlier today, in which the company revealed that a new phone in the V series will make its debut later this quarter. While LG didn’t name the device, it is likely that it’ll be called the V20.
LG didn’t specify a launch date, but rumors suggest that the phone will be unveiled sometime in the month of September, barely 10 months after the LG V10 hit store shelves. The expedited timeline may have something to do with the company’s mobile business, which recorded a loss of $132 million this quarter and $170 million in Q1 2016. Samsung’s decision to unveil the Galaxy Note 7 on August 2 may also have played a part.
Either way, the V20 is coming this quarter, most likely in the month of September. With the LG G5 failing to meet expectations, LG needs a strong contender to the Note 7 in the V20. Last year’s V10 was a decent phone in many regards, but LG wasn’t able to translate that to strong sales. Here’s hoping the brand does better this year.
What do you guys want to see in the LG V20?
Amazon launches its Dash grocery scanner in the UK to help you order stuff
Amazon has launched its Dash grocery scanner in the UK to help consumers quickly and conveniently add items to their basket for easy checkout by scanning barcodes. Once the items have been added, all that’s required is to complete the checkout process on a PC or using one of the official Amazon mobile apps.
As noted in Engadget’s report, should two Amazon Fresh orders be completed before August 28, the Dash can be delivered for free. For those who don’t, it’ll set them back £35. There’s also voice support, in case you’d rather say what you wish to have ordered, as opposed to messing around with scanning individual products.
All we need now are the Dash buttons so we can maintain an unhealthy supply of Monster energy drink.
Where to buy Google Play gift cards
Where can I buy Google Play gift cards?
Looking to buy a Google Play gift card for that special Android user in your life? We at Android Central just want to let you know that you’re a good person.
Google Play gift cards just don’t seem to be as ubiquitous as iTunes gift cards, but they’re actually a lot easier to find than you think.
Here’s where to find Google Play gift cards in your region!
- USA
- Canada
- UK
USA
Denominations: $10, $15, $25, $50
In-store: You can find Google Play gift cards at the following retailers:
- Target
- Sam’s Club
- CVS
- Kroger
- Walgreens
- Best Buy
- 7-Eleven
- GameStop
- Dollar General
- Rite Aid
- Safeway
- Walmart
Online:
The good ol’ U.S. of A. is the only place where you can send someone Google Play credit online and you can even gift Google Play Music subscriptions. You just have to make sure that the recipient is registered for Google Play in the U.S. as well. To share the Google Play love:
- Send Google Play credit
- Gift a Google Play Music subscription
Canada
Denominations: $15, $25, $50
In-store: You can find Google Play gift cards at the following retailers:
- Shoppers Drug Mart
- Sobeys
- Safeway
- Loblaw
- 7-Eleven
- Best Buy
- Mac’s/Couche-Tard
- London Drugs
- Walmart
- Circle K
- Provigo
Online:
You can’t send Google Play credit from one Google Play account to another in Canada right now, but you can gift a Google Play Music subscription:
- Gift a Google Play Music
UK
Denominations: £10, £25, £50
In-store: You can find Google Play gift cards at the following retailers:
- Tesco
- Morrisons
- Sainsbury’s
- ASDA
- WHSmith
- Currys PC World
- Boots
- Clintons
- Wilko
- McColl’s
- Co-op
- Argos
Online:
You can send Google Play credit in the UK, but you can give the gift of tunes in the form of a Google Play Music subscription:
- Gift a Google Play Music subscription
Amazon Dash available for AmazonFresh customers
AmazonFresh customers in and around London will be able to use the company’s Amazon Dash device to now scan and dictate their shopping order around the house.
Costing £34.99, the Dash device, which has been available in the US for a number of years already, lets users scan a product barcode or say the name of a product to add items automatically into their Amazon.co.uk basket.
Already very popular in the US, the Dash device is a handheld stick roughly the same size as a packet of Smarties. There is no screen, or login credentials needed each time and the dash connects to your home’s Wi-Fi network and recognises millions of items available on AmazonFresh and Amazon. When you’re finished shopping, you can view the list on your desktop or mobile device, then simply checkout, and schedule a delivery.
To help promote the service, users can opt to skip paying the £34.99 cost of the device if they place two grocery orders before the 28 August 2016.
The service will be available inititally in 128 London postcodes suggesting it will expand around the UK in time. Like competing services from company’s like Tesco or Ocado, Amazon offers one-hour delivery slots from 7am to 11pm, seven days a week, with same-day delivery available from 5pm for orders placed by 1pm.
Level-5’s 3DS puzzle series is back with ‘Lady Layton’
It’s been awhile since Professor Layton has graced the 3DS with a puzzle-filled adventure, but the famous detective is finally back. Sort of. Level-5 has announced that the next game in its long-running puzzle series will star not Hershel Layton himself, but Catriel Layton — the original character’s daughter. That tweak aside, Lady Layton: The Conspiracy of King Millionaire Ariadne looks like a direct sequel to the original series.
The announcement trailer shows Catriel taking over her father’s detective agency, and teases both new puzzles and beautifully animated cutscenes — but long-time fans of the series will know that the new lead isn’t the only thing different about Lady Layton. The Conspiracy of King Millionaire Ariadne will be the first game in the mainstream Layton series to be made without master puzzle designer Akira Tago, who passed away earlier this year.
The game is slated is confirmed for a spring 2017 launch in Japan on both 3DS and mobile devices. So far, international audiences have missed out on Layton’s smartphone adventures — but it’s likely the US market will at least get the 3DS version of the game. Check out the full trailer at the source link below.
Source: YouTube, IGN
Adobe’s virtual oil paint adds texture to digital painting
While there are plenty of apps that can realistically emulate the look of brushstrokes on a 2D digital canvas (and even some in 3D space), none have accurately simulated the way a paintbrush actually behaves in a realistic, 3D environment. Now a new collaboration between Adobe and NVIDIA called Project Wetbrush claims to do just that by simulating the movements and interactions of each virtual bristle and rendering the results in three-dimensional virtual paint.
The simulated paint in Project Wetbrush actually mimics everything from the viscosity, color mixing properties and drying time of real world oil paint. So, even when using a stylus to paint on a touchscreen, the end result is a 3D virtual object with layers of thickness, depth and texture. Since a richly textured oil painting needs good lighting to be fully appreciated, NVIDIA contributed additional processing power to render the scenes.
The Project Wetbrush team claims their simulation is the first of its kind, and the plan is to observe digital painters and apply NVIDIA’s deep learning expertise to add realism to synthesized effects and filters like Prisma in the future. Imagine, if you will, taking a photo of a Parisian cafe at night, running it through an app and coming back with a realistic, 3D-printable approximation of a Van Gogh.
Samsung Reports Highest Profit in Two Years on Robust Galaxy 7 Sales
Samsung reported its best earning results in two years on Thursday as the company’s Galaxy S7 phones outperformed all expectations, despite slowing growth in the overall smartphone industry (via The New York Times).
The South Korean company announced a 8.14 trillion won ($7.22 billion) operating profit on revenue of 50.94 trillion won ($45.2 billion), up 18 percent from the previous year.
The firm’s key mobile division, which accounts for more than half its revenue, experienced “substantial earnings improvement” as its high-end Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones enjoyed expanded sales, despite competition from Apple’s iPhones and by lower-end devices from Chinese rivals like Xiaomi and Huawei.
Samsung forecast “solid” performance for the rest of the year despite increased competition as “other companies release new mobile devices”, thanks to strong demand for its components, such as OLED displays, which the company expected to increase “substantially”.
The company is also betting on an uptick in revenue generated by next week’s unveiling of its Galaxy “Note 7” smartphone, which is thought to feature an edge-to-edge curved screen, an iris scanner, and potentially a USB Type-C port.
Samsung Galaxy Note7 in (from l to r) Black Onyx, Silver Titanium, and Blue Coral pic.twitter.com/QiePUEG9GP
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 1, 2016
The good news for Samsung came two days after its arch-rival Apple revealed its second consecutive year-on-year declines in quarterly revenue and iPhone sales, although the reported dips were smaller than analysts predicted.
In stark contrast to the marked popularity of Samsung’s high-end devices, Apple’s lower-cost iPhone SE was the bright spot in the Cupertino company’s earnings call, gaining more traction than expected and going some way to soothe investor’s concerns over growth.
Prior to the earnings call, Apple stock had lost more than a fifth of their value over the year amid mounting concerns about the slowdown. Despite worries, Apple’s shares jumped as much as 7.5 percent on news of its Q3 results, as investors remained optimistic in the run-up to the company’s iPhone 7 launch this September.
According to a recent report by Kantar Worldpanel, Samsung’s Galaxy S7 devices accounted for 16 percent of mobile purchases made by U.S. customers this year, while only 14.6 percent opted for an iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus.
Growth in the smartphone industry will slow to 3.1 percent this year, down from 11 percent last year and 28 percent in 2014, according to researcher IDC.
Tag: Samsung
Discuss this article in our forums
Google Play Debuts ‘Family Library’ for Sharing Purchases Across Devices
Google this morning announced “Family Library” for Google Play that allows six family members to share their online purchases from the company’s stores across devices.
The new program means movies, TV shows, and books can be shared by families on iOS devices and the web, as well as over connected TV platforms like Roku and Smart TVs, with no sign-up fee required.
Starting today, Family Library is rolling out over the next few days and will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.
Meanwhile, up to six people can continue to share streamed music using Google Play Music’s existing $14.99-a-month family plan, which today expanded to Ireland, Italy, Mexico, and New Zealand.
Users of Family Library can access a new setting in the Play Store, where one person is designated “Family Manager” and they can then add other members. Member purchases are shared by everyone by default, although an option to selectively share purchases is also available.
Lastly, the system supports pre-configured Parental Control settings on children’s devices, and parents can approve purchases requested by younger family members.
Tags: Google Play Music, Google Play
Discuss this article in our forums
House of Cards comes to Sky in the UK
Netflix stalwart, The House of Cards, staring Kevin Spacey will be available on Sky in the UK for the first time as part of a new move from the broadcaster to sell TV Box Sets in its Sky Store.
Fans of the political drama will now be able to watch the first three seasons on the Sky boxes or DVD following the move, without the need of a Netflix subscription.
Sky has added the show, along with dozens more to its Buy&Keep offering alongside the thousands of movies it already offers.
Users will be able to buy Box Sets like House of Cards in three ways: on their TV, on their devices, and on DVD. Like the movie Buy&Keep service, customers will get a physical copy of the shows they buy on DVD through the post after they’ve purchased the digital copy on their set top box or device.
The service launches with TV shows to own that are completely new to Sky like House of Cards, Homeland, Breaking Bad and American Horror Story. These shows join favourites like Downton Abbey, Sons of Anarchy, Modern Family, Blacklist, and movie Box Sets too, including Fast & Furious, Toy Story and Pitch Perfect.
The service is available today on skystore.com and the Sky Store app on mobiles, tablets, NOW TV, Roku and YouView boxes.
Season 4 of House Of Cards, the latest season currently available on Netflix, will be available when it’s available on DVD. Sky says there are now over 3,500 titles now available on the service.
Movie Box Sets start from £13.99 and TV Box Sets from £22.99.
‘Darksiders’ rides again on PS4, Xbox One and Wii U
Aside from the next Legend of Zelda Wii U owners don’t have much to look forward to in terms of forthcoming games. Breath of the Wild is the lone glimmer of hope in the console’s twilight years, but there could be another — perhaps even before that new Zelda makes its debut next spring. If those folks are hankering for something similar, albeit with a post-apocalyptic take, maybe Darksiders: Warmastered Edition will fit the bill.
The game is a mash-up of classic Zelda tropes (specifically its puzzles, dungeon designs and boss battles), RPG elements and the God of War series’ combat. Except here, you’re playing as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War. In 2010, Darksiders: Wrath of War was initially available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and published by the now-defunct THQ. It spawned a sequel where you played as a different horseman, Death, before the franchise was sold off with the rest of THQ’s assets in 2013.
With little to no fanfare, last year Darksiders 2 was remastered under the awkwardly subtitled Deathinitive Edition and released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with higher-res graphics and a bunch of add-on packs. Seeing as how the original was a Wii U launch title, Nintendo’s console didn’t see that revamped version.
This chance to see where the cult-classic series started doesn’t have a release date yet, but developer Nordic Games promises native 1080p resolution, doubled texture resolution and a few other graphical tricks. Unlike the PC, PS4 and Xbox One editions, though, the Wii U’s aging hardware will only run the game at 30 FPS versus 60 FPS on Windows and Microsoft and Sony’s consoles. With the Gamescom tradeshow in Germany around the corner, expecting more details to surface about the game is a fairly safe bet.
Via: Polygon
Source: Nordic Games
