Technology Mania : 03/10/17

Friday, March 10, 2017

Samsung Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ gets FCC certfication, will feature facial recognition; also live images leaked

By tech2 News Staff / 10 Mar 2017 , 11:08

It’s a new day and we have more scoop on the Galaxy S8. This one comes from Korea Economic Daily that says the upcoming flagship smartphone from Samsung will feature facial recognition. This will be an extra security option in addition to the fingerprint sensor, and possibly an iris recognition which made its appearance on the Note 7. This could make unlocking the smartphone easier as one would just have to look into the device.

Apparently it will be faster too as it could take less than 0.01 seconds to unlock your phone as said by a Samsung official. So more security and faster unlocking, that’s a big thumbs up.

The smartphone has also said to have got official FCC certification which has revealed that the Samsung Galaxy S8 will be manufactured in Vietnam and will have models SM-G950U, SM-G950U1 and SM-G950W. Same is the case with the S8 Plus which has three model numbers, SM-G955U, SM-G955U1 and SM-G955W

Apart from that we are seeing more alleged images of the smartphone doing rounds on the internet and they do match the one Evan Blass released a week back.

Image: BGR

And then we have these hands-on videos that yet again show the curvy handset.

The Galaxy S8 will be officially unveiled at the Unpacked event on 29 March and is expected to hit shelves on 28 April.

Facebook Messenger is the latest app from the social network giant to ape Snapchat features

By tech2 News Staff / 10 Mar 2017 , 14:04

If you thought Facebook was done copying Snapchat features, think again. Today the company announced ‘Messenger Day’, which brings basic Snapchat story functionality to the Facebook Messenger. The company has copied a number features and brought them to Instagram and WhatsApp, and now the Messenger app from the social network gets the feature where a user can post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours.

The announcement of the new feature comes just a day after Facebook added geostickers to Instagram where users can add stickers and illustrations into a story which is relevant to that particular location.

Here is how you can use the new Stories feature on Facebook Messenger:

You need to first make sure your Messenger app is updated to the latest version

Open Messenger, and tap on the camera ring at the bottom. This opens up a full-screen camera where you can take a picture. This can also be done by tapping the “Add to your day” button at the top of your inbox.

Take a quick photo or video

You can add effects and graphics by tapping the smiley face icon. You can also add text over your images by tapping the “Aa” icon, or even scribble by tapping the squiggly line in the top right corner.

Once you are done with editing, you just need to tap the arrow in the bottom right corner. This can be added directly to your day, saved to your phone or can be sent to a specific person or group of people.

With the feature launch, Facebook now has three apps that try to ape Snapchat, making it clear that it wants to bring it down by any way possible. This also brings in a lot of confusion to smartphone users who like posting ‘Stories’ everyday as now they now have multiple platforms to post.

Here are four Google apps that are more useful than you’d think

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By tech2 News Staff / 10 Mar 2017 , 13:56

Most of us just stick to the bare essential apps that usually come pre-installed on our devices. Various surveys in the past have even suggested that the majority of smartphone users install no more than one additional app per month on their devices.

There are, however, several Google apps that don’t come preinstalled on your devices that you really should install. They offer a number of features that can be extremely useful in ways that you didn’t think possible.

So here goes…

Android Device Manager

The Android Device Manager is the app you wished you’d installed when you lost your phone. This simple little app lets you track your Android device, reset the lock-screen password that you forgot and also remotely erase the data from your phone.

Some security software asks you to pay for services like this, but why should you when it’s already available for free? The app isn’t perfect, and needs a working data or Wi-Fi connection to function, but it’s still better than leaving your phone unsecured.

Download here

Wallpapers

You know how hard it is to find decent wallpapers for your smartphone. There are a number of third-party apps that will find wallpapers for you and there’s always Google, but did you know that there also is a first-party app that will take care of all your wallpaper needs?

Simply titled ‘Wallpapers’, this app accesses images from Google+, Google Earth and others and sets your wallpaper for you, including individual ones for your lock screen and home screen. You can set the app to change your wallpapers periodically as well.

While the app is well rated, there are some complaints that the library is a little thin at the moment.

Download here

Google Authenticator

With all these stories of leaks and hacked accounts flying around, securing your own Google accounts should be high up on your priority list. For this, Google offers two options. You can either enable two-step verification via SMS or you can use the Google Authenticator app.

SMS is good, but you’ll need to update your number every time you change a SIM, even when you’re travelling, which can be a pain. Google Authenticator fixes this minor inconvenience.

Once paired with your account, you can get Google to ask you for your authentication code every time you log in somewhere. The Authenticator will generate a random key whenever you want to log in to your account.

Download here

Google Arts and Culture

This isn’t a must-have app per se, but it’s a very educational one and can be very useful if you have a bunch of young ‘uns on your hands. The app is interactive and educational and even supports VR tours of collections and museums. What more do you need to keep the tiny tots busy?

Download here

Google addresses Pixel and Pixel XL microphone issue, suggests user to replace their units

By tech2 News Staff / 10 Mar 2017 , 12:45

Google’s in-house smartphones, the Pixel and the Pixel XL have been well received. The handsets not only provide the best Android experience but also come with one of the best smartphone cameras.

However, the smartphones have not been perfect. Back in January we heard about an issue where certain Pixel and Pixel XL owners had complained about bad speaker performance with crackling noise. The issue was thankfully resolved as it was a software issue, rather than a hardware issue, which was fixed via a software update.

Now a new issue has turned up which could be a more serious issue. Certain Google Pixel owners have shown concern on Reddit and Google’s support forums saying that their units are having trouble with the microphone. The unresponsive microphone is a rather serious issue as users are unable to make phone calls.

Following the numerous complaints, Brian Rakowski from Google joined the discussion and confirmed that there is an issue and is probably hardware related. It was likely caused by a crack in the solder connection on the audio codec.

Rakowski further said “It’s possible that some replacement phones were not properly qualified before we understood this issue, but that’s no longer the case, additional steps to reinforce the connection at time of manufacture on phones built since January.”

So basically a software update is not an option anymore. Google will replace the faulty units and is taking steps to make sure that replacement units don’t have any similar issues.

Average internet connection speeds up by 26 percent globally

10 Mar 2017 , 11:28

Global average internet connection speed has increased 12 percent to 7.0Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2016 — a 26 percent increase year-over-year, a new report said on Thursday.

According to the “2016 State of the Internet Report” by global leader in content delivery network (CDN) services Akamai Technologies, South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 26.1Mbps in the fourth quarter.

On the average internet speed in India, the report says that the country made rapid strides on this front. The fourth quarter of 2016 saw internet speeds rising to 5.6Mbps, up from 4.1Mbps last quarter. However despite the major jump India continues to remain at the bottom.

Globally, the internet connection speeds continued to show positive long-term trends around the world, with particularly strong year-over-year increases across all broadband adoption metrics as per the report.

“When Akamai first published the report in 2008, we defined ‘high broadband’ as 5Mbps and above, which nine years ago had an adoption rate of 16% globally. We’re now seeing a 15Mbps adoption rate of 25 percent worldwide,” said David Belson, editor of the report.

The report provided insight into key global statistics such as connection speeds, broadband adoption metrics and notable internet disruptions, among others.

At 26.7 Mbps, the district of Columbia led the United States in average connection speed.

Global 4, 10, 15 and 25Mbps broadband adoption rates increased 15 percent, 31 percent, 37 percent and 45 percent year over year, respectively.

IANS

Microsoft is apparently working on a new Windows 10 Mobile device for 2017; Surface Phone expected in 2019

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By tech2 News Staff / 09 Mar 2017 , 17:03

Microsoft may be working on a new Windows Phone device for the year. While not the much-awaited Surface Phone, this device is expected to be a regular Windows 10 Mobile-based smartphone.

The new device, which is expected towards the end of this year, is said to be just like the regular Windows Phone devices that a fractional minority of the smartphone world still uses today.

The new phone is not expected to feature the ARM compatible version of Windows 10 or support Win32 Windows Store apps, reports Softpedia.

Softpedia points to various German sources which also suggest that a Windows 10 Mobile-based device is coming this year and that a Surface Phone with an ARM-compatible version of Windows 10 will come around 2019.

These are rumours of course, and we can’t see why Microsoft is even working on Windows 10 Moble devices even today. Microsoft has lost so much market-share in the smartphone space that the sales figures border on insignificant.

Microsoft fans still hold hope for the Surface phone, and to be fair, there’s no reason not to. The Surface lineup is showing a lot of promise even today, with the Surface Pro 4, the Surface Book and the Surface Studio together forming a compelling collection of elegant and unique computing options.

One can only hope that the Surface Phone meets these expectations.

Google Cloud Next 17 kicks off with Google Cloud going toe to toe with Amazon Web Services

#GOOGLE

By tech2 News Staff / 09 Mar 2017 , 12:50

The Google Cloud Next ’17 has kicked off with a promising start, and a number of new announcements have been made by Google including acquisitions, partnerships, new technological partners and products. More announcements are expected in the course of the three days that the event is going to be run. The measures are intended to solidify Google’s prominence in the market as a cloud services provider, directly taking on major cloud service providers such as Amazon and Microsoft.

SAP Partnership

Google has announced a strategic partnership with SAP, to develop enterprise solutions for customers. The best cloud and machine learning solutions from Google will be integrated into enterprise applications by SAP as a part of the strategic partnership. The in-memory database SAP HANA will be certified on the Google Cloud Platform, new G Suite integrations and Google’s machine learning capabilities.

Kaggle acquisition

Google has acquired Kaggle, a social network for data scientists and machine learning enthusiasts. The Kaggle platform is used to explore the latest breakthroughs in machine learning and data analytics. There are over 800,000 active users on Kaggle, which has emerged as one of the best communities to explore public datasets. Google will be introducing the ability to store and query large datasets. Google announced the Kaggle acquisition through a blog post.

Support for engineers working with Google Cloud

Google has introduced dedicated support from its engineers to the cloud platform, with pricing models. Google has partnered with Pivotal and Rackspace to deliver this cloud support. There is a flat monthly fees per user per month, and Google engineers will be providing the support. The three choices available are development engineering support with a response in four to eight hours, production engineering support with a response within an hour and on-call engineering support that guarantees a response within fifteen minutes.

Cloud Video Intelligence API

There have been a number of new product announcements. The Cloud Video Intelligence API is in beta testing with a select group of early customers. The service breaks down a video into shots, and provides a description of the content and action in each shot, along with a confidence score of how accurate the analysis is. Users can search through videos in much the same was as they search through text.

Cloud Machine Learning Engine

Cloud Machine Learning Engine is a tool to train models for artificial intelligence applications, and deploy them through the cloud. The models are based on the TensorFlow framework, and has been designed to interact with any kind of data at any scale. Cloud Vision API is a tool to analyse the content of images, and has been updated with additional capabilities. The enhanced OCR capabilities of the API can extract text from scans of documents. The Cloud Jobs API now has a Commute Search feature, which allows users to narrow down their job searches according to the amount of time they are willing to invest in daily commutes.

The three day event has been sold out, with 10,000 registered attendees, which is more than five times the number of people who attended Google Cloud Next ’16. Google will be providing over 200 training and informational sessions to attendees, apart from a series on talks by experts on how best to use enterprise cloud solutions and cutting edge technological solutions.

Alison Wagonfeld, VP of Engineering at Google Cloud said “Google’s cloud technology and approach to the market is the product of 16 years inventing, developing, and fine tuning tools for a fully connected enterprise.”