Siri can now read out your WhatsApp messages; along with other minor updates

Image: AFP

WhatsApp is not taking it slow with the pace of updates for its Android and iOS apps. The company is working on a number of small tweaks along with new feature additions for both the platforms. The Siri update being a major one, which gives Siri the ability to read out your messages.

The small tweaks are limited to user interface optimisation where the company can streamline and improve the existing interface. These features were uncovered by WABetaInfo, a pretty reliable source for all the new WhatsApp features

We have compiled a list of small changes that the company is working on and categorised them according to the operating system so that it is easier for you check that features that you can expect on your smartphone.

iOS

WhatsApp developers have added support for SiriKit which allows Siri to read and reply to your WhatsApp message on your behalf. Now you can ask Siri for any new messages on WhatsApp and Apple’s digital assistant will read them for you. The developers are working rigorously on revamping parts of the app in terms of UI design to be consistent with the system level apps. The developers have revamped the Contact details screen on WhatsApp to appear consistent with the logos corresponding to the test label of the setting. They have added a new ‘Chat History’ button in the contact details along with ‘Groups in common’ option.

Image Credit: WABeta Info

The developers have also added the ability for users to view and edit the contact information. This section has also gained shortcuts to quickly send a message, make a video and an audio call from the screen. The Calls section on the app now shows WhatsApp profile pictures along with, call type and a ‘+’ icon on the top right corner that can be used to make audio and video calls. Developers have also added shortcuts to quickly make video and audio calls. The next change allows users to select multiple statuses and forward them or delete them.

Image Credit: WABeta Info

WhatsApp is also testing a ‘Contact Cards’ section for the users who are not in your contact list. You can check all the contact cards sent in from others in this section. The company has also improved the app’s ability to download media directly from URLs without leaving the app. Most of these features are available in the iOS beta update and will roll out for everyone in the coming updates to the stable version of WhatsApp on the AppStore.

Android

WhatsApp developers have been working on the ‘Live Location sharing’ feature that was reported previously. The company has updated the feature for the location thumbnail to continuously update your location without the need to tap on the message and open the maps interface. The developers also tweaked the previously reported chats ‘Pin’ feature.

Image Credit: WABeta Info

The app no longer highlights the pinned Chats or Groups. They have improved another feature where if you exit a group that you have pinned on the top, the app will prompt you to unpin the group as you confirm the exit from the group. The interesting thing to note here is that both the features are hidden by default for the Beta users on Android.

Image Credit: WABeta Info

WhatsApp usually hides some features from the beta users so that the internal group can use the features and verify that the new features do not interfere existing functionalities in the app. The beta app gained a new UI for editing videos before you send the video.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 10:07 am| Modified date: April 25, 2017 10:32 am

Xiaomi Redmi 4A review: One of the best entry-level smartphones, but only if you can get your hands on it

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  Other smartphone players have also caught on to Xiaomi’s strategy, and there has definitely been stiff competition in the last one year, but Xiaomi still has a star product in most of the under Rs 30,000 price segments. The only annoying aspect is actually buying a Xiaomi handset. Its flash sales or open sales are notorious for making you wait weeks before you finally get one handset. After these many years, it is high time Xiaomi got this aspect right. It is a pain for mobile phone buyers to wait for weeks before they get lucky in purchasing one handset off the sales.
  
  
  Recently, Xiaomi released its entry level Redmi device — the Xiaomi Redmi 4A, which is priced at Rs 5,999. Will this be the phone to go for someone thinking of making the switch from a feature phone? Let us find out

Build and Design: 7/10

Xiaomi’s mid-range devices have started to sport metallic builds. The Xiaomi Redmi 4A being an entry level device, comes with a polycarbonate finish. It weighs in at 131 grams and feels quite light, but sturdy to hold.

The volume rocker and power/standby button on the right hand side give good feedback. The SIM card tray is located on the left hand edge. The phone measures around 8.5 mm thick.

Xiaomi Redmi 4A ensures that there are no sharp edges on the phone, thanks to bevelled edges. This also helps in giving a good grip to the phone. On the rear of the phone there are fine grooves at the top and bottom, but it’s just a design element and it is not meant for antenna bands. The 13 MP rear camera is housed inside a metallic ring and is located on the top left hand corner with an LED flash unit beside it. The Mi branding is prominent on the lower half of the rear side. Towards the base there is a speaker grille section, with a minor chin just below it.

The phone comes with an infrared blaster on the top edge, which also houses the 3.5 mm audio jack. At the base, you have a microUSB port for charging and data transfer. On the front there is a 5-inch HD display with thick bezels on the top and bottom.

Overall, the build quality at this price point isn’t bad at all. The design is nothing out of the ordinary. The one-hand fit element will certainly attract a lot of buyers.

Features: 7/10
Xiaomi Redmi 4A comes with a 5-inch HD display and houses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 SoC with a quad-core Cortex A53 processor clocked at 1.4 GHz. The graphics portion is taken care of by an Adreno 308 GPU. The chipset is paired with 2 GB RAM. It comes in 16 GB and 32 GB storage variants. We got the 16 GB model to test, which gives around 10.3 GB of usable space. You can expand the storage using a microSD card by up to 256 GB.

The Xiaomi Redmi 4A comes in a hybrid dual SIM configuration (micro SIM + nano SIM), supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS and BDS. It comes with a micro USB port for charging and data transfer, and there is no support for fast charging.

Thankfully it bundles in an FM radio as well. On the camera front, you get a 13 MP rear camera, along with a 5 MP selfie camera. All this is powered by a non-removable 3,120 mAh Li-ion battery.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 12:48 pm| Modified date: April 25, 2017 12:48 pm

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WhatsApp to introduce photo albums, updates to text status and live location feature

Whatsapp is working on introducing an ‘Album’ feature for its users on Android and iOS, there is no word on the feature coming to Windows Phone. The ‘Album’ feature’ collapses all the photos to make them seem like the ‘Album’ post on Facebook where you can see the first four images at once. All other images are bundled inside with a numbered overlay on the fourth image informing about the number of images bundled inside.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

Once you tap the Album, it will open to show you all the images that are part of the album. This feature will greatly reduce the flood of images in the conversation or groups if a person shared more than five images at once. This feature is hidden at the moment in the beta Android and iOS versions of the app but it is expected that this feature will be enabled soon as reported by WABetaInfo.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

The second feature that the company is working on is the introduction of ‘Text statuses’ in the ‘Status’ tab. This comes as a welcome addition for users who would not want to post photos on their statuses. Currently, this feature allows you to change the background colour of the status updates and you can reply to the messages as usual.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

The developers have also improved ‘Live Location’ sharing option so that you can see the locations of your WhatsApp contacts on a map. The interface also shows the speed of your contacts are they are moving. These new features come days after WhatsApp added support for SiriKit that allowed users to use Siri to check their new messages.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 12:48 pm| Modified date: April 25, 2017 12:57 pm

IBM and ABB partner to focus on Internet of Things and Industrial artificial intelligence

ABB has sealed a collaboration agreement with International Business Machines Corp, the Swiss engineering company said on Tuesday, the latest step in its efforts to ramp up its presence in digital technology and the Internet of Things.

In a joint statement ABB said it would combine its digital offering, which gathers information from machinery, with IBM’s expertise in artificial intelligence featured in its Watson data analytics software. The two companies will jointly develop and sell new products.

“This powerful combination marks truly the next level of industrial technology, moving beyond current connected systems that simply gather data, to industrial operations and machines that use data to sense, analyse, optimise and take actions that drive greater uptime, speed and yield for industrial customers,” ABB Chief Executive Ulrich Spiesshofer said in a statement.

For example, instead of manual machinery inspections, ABB and IBM intend to use Watson’s artificial intelligence to help find defects via real-time images collected by an ABB system, and then analysed using IBM Watson.

ABB has identified digital technology – where machinery communicates with control centres to increase productivity and reduce downtime – as a driver of growth. It now gets around 55 percent of sales from products that are digitally enabled.

As part of the drive, the company last year signed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to roll out digital products for customers in the robotics, marine and ports, electric vehicles and renewable energy sectors.

To spearhead its strategy, it appointed former Cisco executive Guido Jouret as its first chief digital officer last year.

Reuters

Publish date: April 25, 2017 12:30 pm| Modified date: April 25, 2017 12:30 pm

Google introduces the Yi Halo VR camera that can capture 8K 3D 360 degree videos at 30 fps

Google has tied up with GoPro rival Yi to introduce the Yi Halo VR camera. The Yi Halo is the second camera based on Jump, a VR technology product from Google for professional productions. The Yi Halo is the second Jump camera from Google, after the GoPro Odyssey, to be aimed at high quality VR content creators. Yi has a much smaller and portable Yi VR 360 for live 360 broadcasts, as well as drone, dash and action cameras.

The Yi Halo has 16 2.5K cameras arranged in a ring, with a seventeenth unit facing upward. Two backup camera units are included in the box. After processing the video information from all the cameras together, you get an 8K video at 30 fps. The resulting video supports VR glasses, and uses the Jump assembler to create a seamless panorama. The exported data includes depth information that can be imported into visual effects and video editing software. The camera has been built to work natively with the Jump assembler. Here is a video of what the camera can do, which is better viewed with VR headsets.

Derin Turner, Production Director at VR Playhouse says “This camera and Jump ranks as one of the best and easiest pieces of equipment and platform to use on the market.” Jay Spangler, Executive VR Producer for Two Bit Circus says “The camera combined with the stitching algorithm is the best 360 video solution in the industry.”

There is an integrated control unit apart from the Android app.

The camera weighs just under 3.6 kg, and is pretty portable. An internal battery provides 100 minutes of continuous shooting. An AC charger can power the device and charge the batteries at the same time, and the rig supports V mount external batteries. An accompanying Android application allows for live monitoring and works as a command and control console. The recommended phones for the app are the Google Pixel phones, and the app only supports Android versions 5.0 and up. The computation power is provided by 18 Ambarella A9SE75 chipsets. There is an integrated omni-directional microphone on board. There is a passive and fanless cooling system on board. The camera is not resistant to dust and water, so cannot be used in these environments.

The camera is going on sale some time this summer, but a 100 selected creators will be able to get their hands on the rig, for free. Google also announced the start of the Jump Start program, which puts this exciting new rig in the hands of promising content creators, giving them access to the Halo camera before anyone else. During the Jump Start program, the creators will also have free access to the Jump assembler.

Those interested can apply for the Jump Start program up to 22 May.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 12:03 pm| Modified date: April 25, 2017 12:03 pm

Nokia 3310 in a 3G variant listed on a Swedish website; HMD Global does not confirm

Nokia hit the right nostalgia notes when it announced a revamped version of the 3310 feature phone along with its new range of Android smartphones at MWC (Mobile World Congress) earlier this year. The handset was touted to offer a long lasting battery and also loaded with the ever popular phone game ‘Snake’.

However, there was one issue with the handset, it only supported 2G networks.

The smartphone era has ushered in high-speed mobile data and slowly 2G networks are getting phased out in certain countries. But according to a recently spotted listing, the upcoming Nokia 3310 might arrive in a 3G flavour.

A website of a Swedish retailer has listed the 3310 in 2G and 3G versions and is currently accepting pre-orders for both. The pricing of the variants differ as the 2G version has retailing at 699 Swedish Krona (Rs 5,100 approx) while the 3G version has a price of 899 Swedish Krona (Rs 6,600 approx).

HMD on the other hand doesn’t acknowledge the existence of a 3G version of the Nokia 3310 and said that the 3310 remains a 2G phone. The retailer is still accepting pre-orders despite HMD’s official statement.

So is there actually a 3G variant of the 3310? We will have to wait as the listing suggests the handset will be available in May.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 11:29 am| Modified date: April 25, 2017 11:29 am

Upcoming Oppo R11 with dual camera setup leaked in China

Chinese smartphone maker Oppo is said to be doing well with its R-series of smartphones in China, and it recently launched the R9 and R9 Plus in India as well. While the company is preparing to launch the F3 Selfie Expert smartphone in India next month, new reports of an R-series smartphone have emerged.

Expect Oppo to unveil the R11 soon as GizmoChina has reportedly got live images of the handset being used in a TV commercial. The leaked pictures show the handset in the hands of Chinese pop singer and Actor, Wang Junkai who is also one of the celebrities who endorsed the R9.

While the overall design seems to be similar to the R9, there is one big feature that we can see. The R11 appears to have a dual-camera setup, which is located at the top left corner on the rear of the device, arranged horizontally, along with an LED flash sitting next to it. The camera module does offer a slight bump, protruding out of the body of the handset.

The source also says that the R11 recently received radio frequency approval. The approval reveals four models of the handset, OPPO R11t, OPPO R11 Plus, OPPO R11 Plust, and R11 Plusk. The difference could most likely be different RAM and storage variants. The R11 is also expected to run on a Snapdragon 660 processor, with 4 GB and 6 GB RAM versions. All the variants are expected to run on Android 7.1.1 with Oppo’s latest Color OS.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 11:05 am| Modified date: April 25, 2017 11:05 am

Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are facing problems with supplies

A recent report has pointed out that Samsung is facing an acute shortage of supplies for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. The report pointed out that the company failed to predict the popularity of the smartphone and did not get enough stock ready in time. The high demand of the smartphone can be put into perspective after the pre-orders for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ reached about 1.04 million. The company issued a statement stating that it was facing ‘an imbalance of inventories by colour or model at retail stores’ while extending the deadline.

The company continued in the statement adding that it has extended the registration period of both the models till 30 April 2017 from the initial plan of 24 April 2017. The interesting, yet worrying, part here is that this is not the first time that the company has extended the deadline.

According to the report in Yonhap News Agency, a South Korean publication, smartphone retailers across the country are facing tight supply of the Midnight Black models.

Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 and S8+ on 19 April in India. The smartphones were announced alongside a long lineup of accessories and will go on sale at Rs 57,900 and Rs 64,900 for the S8 and S8+ models respectively.

Both the Galaxy S8 and S8+ come with Android 7.0 out of the box with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI atop it. The devices are powered by Samsung’s very own Exynos 8895 – Octa-core (2.35 GHz Quad + 1.9 GHz Quad), 64-bit, 10 nm process. The chipsets make the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, the first phones to come to India with a 10nm framework that is supposed to deliver better battery life along with a 10 percent bump in CPU performance.

The phones will come with 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 64 GB of UFS 2.1 storage which is expandable to up to 256 GB using a microSD card.

In terms of camera, both the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ come with a 12 MP dual pixel rear camera with an f/1.7 aperture and a front 8 MP camera with an f/1.7 aperture. The rear camera supports optical image stabilisation.

Publish date: April 25, 2017 11:00 am| Modified date: April 25, 2017 11:00 am

Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ found more prone to screen cracks after extensive tests

Samsung’s latest phones feature big wraparound screens and lots of glass. They also appear to break more easily, according to tests run by SquareTrade, a company that sells gadget-repair plans. The nearly all-glass design of Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus makes them beautiful, SquareTrade said, but also “extremely susceptible to cracking when dropped from any angle.”

Samsung had no comment. The new phones have received positive reviews from The Associated Press and other outlets. Samsung says advanced orders for the S8 were 30 percent higher than that for the Galaxy S7 phones. The company didn’t release specific figures. The S8 starts at $750, which is about $100 higher than the S7.

SquareTrade said Monday that cracks appeared on screens of both the S8 and S8 Plus after just one face-down drop onto a sidewalk from six feet. The phones had similar problems when dropped on the backs and sides. Unsurprisingly, both models did well in water-drop tests. The phones had some audio distortion, but that is typical and temporary. The S8 has water-resistance features.

SquareTrade didn’t test the phones’ battery, the source of problems that led to a recall of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phone. This report comes right after we raised our concernaround shattering the Galaxy S8 to Samsung to which Asim Warsi, Chief of Marketing and Product at Samsung Mobile India, said “Don’t drop it.” A sound advice, but not convincing enough.

With inputs from Associated Press

Publish date: April 25, 2017 10:32 am| Modified date: April 25, 2017 10:32 am