Samsung Galaxy S8 could feature a bezel-less OLED screen
The Investor has cited the Korea Herald as saying the Samsung Galaxy S8 could feature a bezel-less OLED display. Park Won-sang, a Samsung display spokesperson was quoted saying: “Samsung Display would roll out a full-screen display whose display area ratio reaches more than 90 percent next year”.
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That quote could be interpreted in a number of ways, either Samsung will aim to get the edge-to-edge OLED screen on the Galaxy S8, or it will produce a prototype phone demonstrating the technology. We’re hoping it’s the former, as Samsung needs to pull out all the stops with its next smartphone to help recover from the exploding Galaxy Note 7 fiasco.
If true, the screen on the Galaxy S8 would have an array of sensors built into it, such as a fingerprint scanner and home button. It’s also been reported that Won-sang revealed a concept image of a Galaxy S7 Edge with such a display.
He also described the benefits of having such a large display for virtual reality, saying a larger screen would provide a more immersive experience when used with a Gear VR or Google Daydream VR headset.
While it wouldn’t be the first case of an edge-to-edge screen we’ve seen, Xiaomi for example recently unveiled the Mi Mix with a screen to body ratio of 91.3%, Samsung could be the first to mass-produce such a device.
Rumours surrounding features and specs of the Samsung Galaxy S8 have been mounting for some time. It’s expected to be unveiled either at MWC 2017, or a day before the show kicks off and the company may only launch one phone this time round, rather than a flat-screen S8 and a curved-screen S8 Edge. There’s still a few months to wait until we see the phone unveiled, but expect there to be plenty more leaks and rumours until then, so watch this space.
Kickstarter Live lets project creators stream directly to backers
Thanks to sites like Kickstarter, creators all over the world have been able to bring their product visions to life via the medium of crowdfunding. Many of the website’s successful projects utilize a formula of a nicely-produced pitch video, a bunch of glossy photos and (normally) a promise that its creator(s) won’t run off into the night with your pledge. A new tool launching today called Kickstarter Live not only attempts to better connect creators with potential backers, but let them demonstrate their passion in a way that only live video possibly can.
The key to Live, Kickstarter says, “is its intimacy.” Viewers are encouraged to ask questions about the project, learn more about the person or people behind it and immediately back it while tuned in. Think of it as a Twitch stream or a Facebook Live broadcast that is specifically tailored for something you’re interested in but still have doubts backing.
“Creators are using Kickstarter Live for musical performances, cooking shows, product demos, game demos, rehearsals, and much more,” says the company on its new video-centric website. “It brings the creative process into the light and inspires new backers to join the fun.”
Because Kickstarter Live integrates directly with project pages, campaign managers can promote their streams via a simple project update. The feature also integrates with Facebook Live (although it’s still in beta), broadening the reach of broadcasts.
Kickstarter appears to put everything in the hands of its project creators but has launched an Explore page that displays a schedule of upcoming streams. Like late-night TV deals, this could be useful for users who don’t know they need something until it’s being advertized right in front of them.
Via: Kickstarter Blog
Source: Kickstarter Live
Amazon Alexa is now a small home robot thanks to Omate
As Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant becomes smarter each day, it’s also showing up in more form factors, with the latest being a small home robot courtesy of, well, a smartwatch brand. Omate’s Yumi is, in many ways, a mini version of the ASUS Zenbo: Its head features a 5-inch 720p touchscreen, it runs on wheels, it’s powered by Android and it even shares a similar appearance in white. Much like Omate’s Rise 3G smartwatch, the Yumi supports Alexa out of the box, so it’s effectively an Echo Dot with wheels plus a cute face — look closer and you’ll see the same smile in Amazon’s logo. When you do get bored of that look, just pick another face.
With a starting price of $349, the 11.7-inch tall Yumi is bound to miss out on some of the bells and whistles found on the $599 Zenbo. For one, Yumi lacks object avoidance and drop avoidance sensors, so you’ll have to be careful when it’s placed on the table or countertop. In fact, it’s not designed to be as mobile as Zenbo; the wheels are primarily for letting Yumi turn to you when you talk to it. Secondly, while it does have a 5-megapixel “ultra pixel” (2um) front-facing camera for video calls and surveillance usage, the fixed neck means you won’t be able to tilt the camera, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if your Yumi spends most of its time on an elevated surface.
With the exception of the supposedly “crystal clear” stereo speakers, the 5-mic array and the 37.2Wh battery (battery life yet to be determined), the rest of the robot is essentially the equivalent of a budget smartphone. It has a 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, 1GB of LPDDR3 RAM, 8GB of onboard storage, dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, an HDMI port and a micro-USB port (with OTG support). With most of Alexa’s work done in the cloud, you’ll just have to worry about making sure you have good Internet connection at home.
Yumi will be offered in black and white versions on Indiegogo on November 15th, and it’s estimated to ship in March 2017. For now, you can head over to Omate’s website to sign up for the early bird discount. But if you want a more serious home robot that won’t fall down the stairs, you may want to hang on until ASUS is ready with its Zenbo — hopefully before the holidays.
Source: Omate
New York Times is making daily VR videos with Samsung’s help
The New York Times isn’t just dabbling in virtual reality for the occasional special presentation — it wants to make 360-degree videos as commonplace as the crossword puzzle. The newspaper has launched The Daily 360, a feature that (shocker) offers “at least” one VR video every day, whether it’s from a major news story or simply an interesting experience. The first Daily 360 illustrates the aftermath of a Saudi airstrike in Yemen (see it below), but other clips will cover everything from the final days of the US presidential election to Fashion Week.
The project is getting off the ground with some help from Samsung. The tech giant is supplying Gear 360 cameras and other necessary equipment to reporters, and it’ll offer The Daily 360 through its premium VR content service (Samsung VR) as well as a section of its Samsung 837 building in New York City. Don’t worry, though: you don’t need a Gear VR headset (or any headset at all) to watch. As with a lot of web-based VR, you can tune in on your PC or pan around using either the mobile website or the Times’ Android and iOS apps.
This certainly isn’t the first stab at regular VR news, but it could be one of the more influential given the publication’s size and commitment. It’s something you can expect to see, rather than a nice treat. It’s still not going to supplant regular video features, but it could add context to stories where regular footage might not convey what’s really happening on the ground.
Via: VentureBeat
Source: BusinessWire, New York Times
The first VR-ready Windows 10 phone arrives next week
An upgraded version of Alcatel’s Idol 4S smartphone will soon be available with Windows 10 Mobile in the US. T-Mobile will be stocking the unique handset, which comes with a Snapdragon 820 processor (a marked improvement over its Android predecessor), 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. You’ll be controlling Microsoft’s colorful software on a 5.5-inch, 1080p display, which can easily turn into a desktop-lite experience thanks to Continuum. The fingerprint sensor on the back, meanwhile, works with Windows Hello, giving you secure unlocks. Otherwise, it’s an attractive but unremarkable device to showcase the flagging mobile OS.
Like the Android version, the new Idol 4S comes bundled with a VR headset. Microsoft teased an expansion of its HoloLens platform, Windows Holographic, at Computex back in May, allowing third parties to create headsets that offer AR and VR “mixed reality” experiences. Last week, Microsoft teased the first batch hardware from HP, ASUS, Lenovo, Dell and Acer. How that initiative translates to mobile is, for now, a bit of a mystery. Microsoft has teased some “three-dimensional games” and “360-degree videos,” which we suspect will entertain but have little lasting appeal.
If you’re interested, the Idol 4S with Windows 10 will be available from November 10 for $469.99. It’s one of the few devices to support the platform, besides the HP Elite X3 and Microsoft’s scattershot Lumias.
Source: Windows Blog
Roku OS 7.5 rolling out from today, includes live pause and private listening
Roku has announced a new software update that is available now for select Roku streaming devices and all Roku TVs. The update brings with it two big features, although these are reserved solely for Roku TVs, which for now are only available in the US.
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The first feature is live pause, which as the name suggests lets you pause live TV. Roku says you can pause digital broadcasts for up to 90 minutes, although you will need a USB flash drive with at least 16GB of space to use the feature.
The other feature is mobile private listening. This feature is already available on some of Roku’s more premium streaming devices, such as the Roku 3 in the UK. With it, you’re able to connect a pair of headphones to the supplied remote control to divert the sound from the TV, so you can listen in private.
The feature is now being made available for all Roku TV models by way of the mobile app for iOS and Android. Instead of connecting headphones to a remote control, you can connect them to your smartphone to listen in private. To enable the feature, your mobile device will need to be connected to the same network as your Roku TV.
Roku is also introducing a new audio guide for select players: the Streaming stick in the UK and the five new players released in the US. The audio guide can help with navigating menus and is activated by pressing the * button four times.
Roku players that come with remote controls with volume buttons, such as the streaming stick and Roku 3 in the UK, can now be used to control the volume of your TV or AV receiver if it supports HDMI via CEC (Consumer Electronics Control).
Multiple users can now connect to a Roku player and use the Play on Roku feature, which lets you instantly share photos on your TV. Finally, Roku has implemented a number of updates to improve the overall streaming performance of all players, and the Streaming Stick can now automatically detect the TV’s display setting and select the best setting for itself based on the resolution of the TV.
The Roku OS 7.5 update is available now to download for free and you can check to see if your player is ready to be updated by going into the settings menu.
ICYMI: Robots so advanced, they cool themselves with sweat
Today on In Case You Missed It: Researchers from the University of Tokyo devised a better air cooling system for robots that is modeled on their as-yet-overlords, sweaty humans. The 3D-printed bones have spaces for tiny pores, allowing Kengoro to do pushups for 11 minutes without overheating. Next up, world domination.
Meanwhile MIT discovered that spinach plants can be engineered into living sensors that send notifications when they detect pollutants in their water. It’s an interesting bit of engineering with plants that they are calling “plant nanobionics,” read more about it here.
Finally the NASA video is here while the poor schlub who got punked by his friends as Woody from Toy Story is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Canadian cops spied on journalist’s phone for months
The Montreal police tapped the iPhone of a columnist writing for Canadian French-language newspaper La Presse, according to the publication itself. La Presse said it discovered 24 surveillance warrants granted by Montreal Judge Josée De Carufel giving the cops’ special investigations unit the legal right to spy on Patrick Lagace’s incoming and outgoing texts and calls. That’s not all they did, though — they also tracked his whereabouts through his iPhone’s GPS.
Montreal police chief Philippe Pichet argued that they had to do it in order to investigate one of their own officers. In a meeting with Lagace on Friday — something, he stressed, the cops were “not legally obliged to” do — he explained that they spied on his phone to investigate allegations that some anti-gang officers fabricated evidence. They believed there was a possibility that some those officers were feeding Lagace information on the side, as well. The Montreal cops began monitoring Lagace’s phone calls and location in December 2015, and their investigation ultimately led to the arrest of five officers in July.
Pichet said in a statement:
“The City of Montreal Police Force recognizes freedom of the press. But on the other hand, there were criminal allegations against a police officer… and we have a job to do.”
Lagace, however, remains unconvinced. He believes the cops weren’t happy with a few pieces he wrote over the years and that the move was actually a ploy to identify his sources and to scare cops away from talking to journalists in general. He told AP:
“I was living in the fiction that police officers wouldn’t dare do that, and in the fiction that judges were protecting journalists — and hence the public — against this type of police intrusion. Clearly, I was naive.”
The story blew up as soon as details came out, especially since Pichet admitted that he couldn’t guarantee whether authorities spied on (or are spying on) other journalists besides Lagace. Even famed whistleblower Edward Snowden took to Twitter to air his thoughts:
Are you a journalist? The police spying on you specifically to ID your sources isn’t a hypothetical. This is today. https://t.co/6JtOIb7Q4n pic.twitter.com/p4pURXH4nU
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 31, 2016
Source: AP, The Globe and Mail, CBC News, The Star
You can now legally hack your own car or smart TV
Researchers can now probe connected devices, computers and cars for security vulnerabilities without risking a lawsuit. Last Friday, the FTC authorized changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) that will allow Americans to do hack their own electronic devices. Researchers can lawfully reverse engineer products and consumers can repair their vehicle’s electronics, but the FTC is only allowing the exemptions for a two-year trial run.
The FTC and US Library of Congress enacted similar legislation in 2014 that allows you to unlock your own smartphone. Until today, however, it was illegal to mess with the programs in your car, thermostat or tractor, thanks to strict provisions in the DMCA’s Section 1201. That applied even to researchers probing the device security for flaws, a service that helps both the public and manufacturers. For example, researchers commandeered a Jeep on the road to show it could be done, an act that was technically illegal.
You could have also been sued just for trying to repair your own electronics. In a well-publicized example, John Deere told farmers that they have no right to root around in the software that runs their tractor even when they’re just trying to fix the damned thing. That issue alone prompted over 40,000 public comments to the US Copyright Office demanding stronger ownership rights.
DMCA 1201, and the rulemaking process, create unconstitutional restraints on speech, and need to be struck down by a court or fixed by Congress.
The exemptions have certain restrictions — consumers are only allowed to do “good-faith” hacking on “lawfully-acquired” devices. That means, for instance, that you can still get in trouble if you gain unauthorized access to a device you don’t own. Also, researchers can’t probe internet services or public services like airlines either, meaning that the jet hack done last year would still be illegal now.
Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, iFixit and Repair.org fought to have research and repair activities exempted from the DMCA, since they actually have nothing to do with copyright law. “You could be sued or even jailed for trying to understand the software in your devices, or for helping others do the same,” the EFF wrote.
The new exemptions are nice, but critics are still fuming over the fact that they took a year to kick in and are only good for two years. Repair and research advocates say that the process for changing copyright law is unnecessarily expensive and onerous, too. “The one year delay … was not only a violation of law, not only pointless, but actively counterproductive,” the EFF wrote. “DMCA 1201, and the rulemaking process, create unconstitutional restraints on speech and need to be struck down by a court or fixed by Congress.”
Source: FTC
Future MacBooks Said to Adopt Brighter OLED Displays That Consume Less Battery Life
Apple is looking to use OLED displays rather than current LCD technology for its future MacBook series, according to Korean website ETNews.
The report, citing unnamed sources, said Apple is currently looking into ways of using OLED displays for MacBooks and testing their performance. It does not provide a timeline as to when Apple might release its first OLED-based MacBook.
The switch to OLED technology could have several benefits for future MacBooks, including lower power consumption for longer battery life. OLED panels are often thinner, too, which could allow for a slimmer and lighter MacBook design.
Other potential advantages of OLEDs include increased brightness, sharper colors, and faster response times compared to LCDs.
The report said Apple is actively expanding uses of OLED displays for its major products, one of which is widely rumored to be the iPhone starting next year.
Apple already has experience using OLED displays in limited applications, including the Apple Watch and the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, but adapting the technology to larger screens can pose manufacturing challenges.
Today’s report pegged Samsung as Apple’s supplier of Touch Bar panels, and that partnership could extend to MacBook displays in the future.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo yesterday said Apple will release new MacBooks in the second half of 2017. New and existing notebooks are said to receive price cuts, while adoption of Intel’s Cannonlake processors if readied could allow for up to 32GB of RAM versus the max 16GB of RAM in current models.
Related Roundups: MacBook Pro, Retina MacBook
Tags: etnews.com, OLED
Buyer’s Guide: Retina MacBook Pro (Buy Now), MacBook (Neutral)
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