HMD Global expected to launch Nokia 3310 at end of April with Nokia 3,5, and 6 launching in May

HMD Global is expected to launch the Nokia 3310, a revamped edition of the legendary Nokia 3310 at the end of April. According to a report by Neowin, the company will start selling the feature phone in Malaysia. This will be followed by the staged launches of Nokia 3, 5, and 6 smartphones in May. The report points out that Nokia 3 will be the first smartphone to go on sale at the start of May followed by Nokia 5 around the middle of the month and then Nokia 6 towards the end of the month.

The company had claimed earlier that all the smartphones will go on sale in 120 markets at the same time. So we can expect that the devices will go on sale in all markets at the same time. HMD Global has not released any official announcement at the time of writing about any expected date for the launch and availability of the devices. All this comes months after HMD Global announced these devices during MWC 2017.

Nokia 3310 comes with a curved 2.4-inch QCGA screen, a 2MP rear camera with LED flash, a headphone jack, dual-SIM support, FM Radio and an MP3 player. Internal storage is limited to 16MB but it can be expanded by up to 32GB via a microSD card. One thing to note here is that the device is a featurephone and only supports 2G connections while sporting Bluetooth 3.0 (with SLAM) and microUSB v2.0

The Nokia 3 sports a 5-inch HD (1280×720 pixels) IPS display, a quad-core MediaTek MT6737 processor, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB storage, 8 MP front and rear camera, and a 2650 mAh battery. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat and will be available in dual SIM.

The Nokia 5 feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB inbuilt storage, 5.2-inch IPS LCD (1280×720 pixels), 13 MP rear camera, an 8 MP camera, a fingerprint sensor and a 3000 mAh battery.

The Nokia 6 features a 5.5-inch full-HD display, a Snapdragon 430 SoC, 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of internal storage, 3000 mAh battery, 16 MP rear camera, an 8 MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture and a fingerprint scanner.

Publish date: April 5, 2017 1:01 pm| Modified date: April 5, 2017 1:01 pm

Apps on your smartphone could be talking to teach other and breaching your privacy: Study

Do you use smartphone apps to organise lunch dates, make convenient online purchases or communicate the most intimate details of your existence? Beware, these apps may be secretly talking to each other and potentially breaching your security, researchers warn.

A study showed that applications on the android phones are able to talk to one another and trade information. The biggest security risks were some of the least utilitarian — apps that pertained to personalisation of ringtones, widgets, and emojis, the researchers said. “Researchers were aware that apps may talk to one another in some way, shape, or form,” said Gang Wang, assistant professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, US.

But “this study shows undeniably with real-world evidence over and over again is that app behaviour, whether it is intentional or not, can pose a security breach depending on the kinds of apps you have on your phone”, Wang added. The types of threats fall into two major categories, either a malware app that is specifically designed to launch a cyber-attack or apps that simply allow for collusion and privilege escalation.

In the latter category, it is not possible to quantify the intention of the developer, so collusion, while still a security breach, can in many cases be unintentional, the researchers said. The findings were presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Asia Computer and Communications Security Conference in Dubai.

The team examined a whopping 110,150 apps over three years including 100,206 of Google Play’s most popular apps and 9,994 malware apps from Virus Share a private collection of malware app samples. “Of the apps we studied, we found thousands of pairs of apps that could potentially leak sensitive phone or personal information and allow unauthorised apps to gain access to privileged data,” commented Daphne Yao, associate professor at Virginia Tech.

“We hope this study will be a source for the industry to consider re-examining their software development practices and incorporate safeguards on the front end,” Wang added.

Publish date: April 4, 2017 10:47 am| Modified date: April 4, 2017 10:47 am

US man gets electrocuted after sleeping with extension cord in bed, to charge his iPhone

A 32 year old man from Huntsville, Alabama in the US got electrocuted after going to sleep with an extension cord in his bed. The cord was used to power up his iPhone, and it was a habit for him to go to sleep while the smartphone was charging.

A dog-tag that he wore around his neck came into touch with the exposed prongs of the charger, that had come loose. The man felt a sudden jolt of electricity that threw him out of the bed, according to a report in the Washington Post.

“It was the eeriest, darkest, most demonic thing you could ever experience,” the man told the paper. The man went numb, felt pressure around his neck, his vision began to fade, and his heartbeat thundered in his ear. He managed to pluck out the necklace, but suffered burn marks on his neck, with skin and flesh missing, and the pattern of the dog-tag were burnt into his hand. There was smoke coming out of the extension cord.

The man was hospitalised, and the doctors noted that he had suffered from second and third degree burns on his neck and hands. The shock could have potentially killed the man, if he had not managed to remove the necklace.

The man now charges his phone in the kitchen, far away from his bed. The incident highlights the dangers of charging a phone on a bed while sleeping.

Publish date: April 3, 2017 12:01 pm| Modified date: April 3, 2017 12:01 pm

Soon you can get e-tattoos that will help you control your smartphone using your skin

By Press Trust Of India /  20 Mar 2017 , 13:16

Scientists have developed ultrathin temporary electronic tattoos which can turn skin blemishes and wrinkles into touch-sensitive buttons for controlling your smartphone. Researchers, including those from Saarland University in Germany, used conductive ink to print wires and electrodes on temporary tattoo paper.

The tattoos, called SkinMarks, are thinner than the width of a human hair. These tattoos are transferred onto the skin using water and last a couple of days before rubbing off, ‘New scientist’ reported. “People intuitively know the location of their own bumps and birthmarks, which makes them ideal locations for touch-sensitive buttons”, said Martin Weigel of Saarland University.

“You could adjust your smartphone volume by sliding one finger across a tattoo placed along the side of another finger. Bend the tattooed finger, and the volume slider could become a play and pause button,” researchers said.

Similarly, tattoos on the knuckles could act as four distinct buttons when the hand is making a fist but then function as one long slider when the fingers are extended. “We make use of the elastic properties of the skin, including bending and stretching,” said Juergen Steimle of Saarland University. “By having the tattoos responsive to changes in the skin surface, they incorporate multiple commands at one location,” he added.

Nasscom Data Security Council: India can play important role in global cyber security

  15 Dec 2016 , 13:55

India can aspire to build a cyber security product and services industry of USD 35 billion by 2025, generating a skilled workforce of one million in the security sector, in line with the booming global demand, a report by Nasscom-Data Security Council of India today said.

The global cyber security market is expected to reach about USD 190 billion by 2025 from USD 85 billion currently, driven primarily by increasing digitisation wave and smartphone penetration, it said.

“For India to become a global cyber security hub, a list of 16 initiatives has been formulated by NASSCOM-DSCI. These initiatives vary in terms of priority and should be pursued within the next five years,” DSCI CEO Rama Vedashree said.

These include strengthening policy and regulations, developing skilled manpower, enhancing R&D and innovation, formation of clusters and funding startups working on cybersecurity solutions, she added. “An evaluation of global cyber security clusters shows that policy and financing incentives along with opportunities for skill development emerge as pivotal factors,” she said.

These clusters have contributed immensely to the development of the cyber security industry in the respective countries and are important to promote growth of cyber security startups and SMEs as well, Vedashree said.

PTI

Deep dive into ZenFone 3 Max 5.2

  06 Dec 2016 , 15:58

The ZenFone 3 Max (ZC520TL) is part of the new ZenFone 3 series and the model with an incredibly-long-lasting, high-capacity 4100mAh battery that provides up to

• 30 days of standby time
• 20 hours of VoIP talk time on 3G
• 87 hours of music playback
• 15 hours of video playback

The ZenFone 3 Max’s high capacity battery gives owners freedom to use it for extended lengths without the need to charge it and even the ability to act as a fast charging power bank that can charge other devices with a current of up to 1.5A.

This latest addition to the ZenFone 3 series also sports a new full-metal, aluminum alloy body that houses its high-definition 5.2in IPS display. The display is surrounded by a slim, 2.25mm bezel that gives it a high 75% screen to body ratio – meaning that the bezel takes up only a quarter of its front facing surface area, giving users as large a screen for as compact a phone size as possible.

Although ZenFone 3 Max has such a high capacity battery, it weighs only 148 grams and is only 8.5mm thick, making it one of the lightest and most compact smartphones with a battery above 4000 mAh in capacity.

It also has a LTE Category 4 radio for fast mobile-download speeds up to 150Mbps.

Achievements

• The ZenFone 3 series model with the highest capacity battery
• At only 148 grams and is only 8.5mm thick, it is one of the lightest and smallest smartphones with a battery that is 4000mAh and above
• Its 75% screen-to-body ratio is also one of the highest among smartphones with a battery that is 4000mAh and above

Specifications

Premium Metal Design

The ZenFone 3 Max features a beautiful new aluminum alloy construction with design elements that add to its good looks and makes it more comfortable to hold.

Aluminum Alloy Body – The ZenFone 3 Max has an aluminum alloy body that is finished with a finely sandblasted matt surface and features gently rounded corners and edges. This premium material not only makes the phone look sophisticated, it is also makes it more durable.

Display glass with 2.5D contoured edges – The ZenFone 3 Max’s display glass has what is known as a “2.5D” contoured edges. Thus every smoothly rounded edges are a result of a highly precise manufacturing technique.The 2.5D contoured edges make the phone look even better, help the display glass fuse seamlessly into the diamond cut metallic chamfered edge, and adds to the comfort of holding the phone.

Diamond-cut Metallic Chamfered Edges – Surrounding the 2.5D contoured display glass edges of the ZenFone 3 Max is a special chamfered edge that was made using a diamond tipped cutting tool, and anodized to give it an attractive, shiny metallic finish. This chamfered edge not only makes the

Samsung, Apple, Motorola and Micromax make 65 percent of the second hand market in India: Cashify survey

(Image: Reuters)

By Naina Khedekar /  30 Nov 2016 , 18:00

Lurking somewhere behind the booming smartphone segment is an active ‘seconds’ market. And, hasn’t it always been there?

Go back by a decade, and most of us will remember walking into a local mobile store, and exchanging our older phone for a new/used shiny device. In the last couple of years, the e-commerce space has tried to emulate the same online, with a push given especially by premium brands like Apple and Samsung, often with their full page advertisements persuading consumers to exchange older devices. And, there are many online players helping ecommerce companies and others achieve just that.  There is an entire ecosystem for the seconds market like Quikr, OLX and Ebay, and one such is Cashify.

Cashify is basically involved in disposing off your old electronics through an online/app journey that includes doorstep pickup service, and also instant payment of your choice. Fort doing so it has teamed up with some of the major online as well as offline players including Snapdeal, Amazon, eBay, Croma, Google and HP, among others. CEO, Mandeep Manocha tells us that, “Cashify has build custom software interface and embedded these in many such e-commerce players enabling them to offer exchange as a sales promotion to their customers from an affordability perspective.”

Cashify is now out with its internal research report showing the peculiar pattern of the exchange market conducted over a sample size of 90,000 users (in the period August to October). To begin with, it says 40 used smartphones are being traded in the second hand smartphone market for every 100 new smartphones. And, the average selling price of 70 percent of the phones sold were in the range of Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000.

The report shows a massive growth in buyback in the month of October, which could be possibly owing to the festive season. But, the number of unique models traded online were higher in August compared to October.

Image: Tech2 Data source: Cashify

Image: Tech2 Data source: Cashify

And, only 7-8 percent of all devices traded are above Rs 18,000 in value, and this constitutes mainly of iPhones and some high end Samsung devices. However, Manocha explains the demand may be dynamic but the brand perception remains largely unchanged. That pretty much explains why the iPhone shows the slowest depreciation rate. However, when it comes to exchange of devices, Samsung leads by a good margin. The reason is simple Samsung release phones on varying price point and is still the seasoned OEM that has been conveniently filling the gap left by Nokia. Then, we also have the likes of Chinese vendors such as Xiaomi and OnePlus, among others who have managed to become a part of the market.

In terms of the brand share, 65 percent share in the second hand smartphone market has been captured by four brands – Samsung, Apple, Motorola and Micromax.

Image: Tech2 Data source: Cashify

“Brands like OnePlus and Xiaomi and Lenovo have significantly added to the secondhand market options both in terms of price-points and device variety, as they have to the new device market. The market acceptance of such brands has further driven their second hand demand,” he added.

Image: Tech2 Data source: Cashify

He also points out a significantly lower refresh cycle for low priced second-hand devices “With the entry of an array of low priced devices that have captured large market share has seen a fair number of such phones further entering the second hand market. Such devices will not only have a lower first refresh cycle but an even lower second refresh cycle. So customers buying low priced second-hand phones would find themselves needing to replace their device much sooner than expected. A secondhand customer who would have ideally come back to the market for another second hand device in a 6 to 11 months is now back in 3 to 6 months. This keeps the demand going,” he said.

Cashify survey also reveals that Delhi saw the maximum second-hand phone sale, followed by Bangalore and Mumbai.

China launches the first satellite communication smartphone to work with Tiantong-1

Tiangong, Representational Image

  07 Nov 2016 , 09:46

China’s aerospace technology company has unveiled the first satellite smartphone designed for use with the country’s first mobile communications satellite, Tiantong-1 (TT-1), media reports said. The new smartphone, developed by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), is scheduled to go on sale in two-to-three months, South China Morning Post reported on Sunday.

CASC launched TT-1 into an equator-hugging, geostationary orbit about 35,000km above the earth on August 6, this year. Satellite experts said the new satellite smartphone was a product of the ‘space-based Silk Road’, a long-term strategy proposed by Chinese aerospace companies, institutions and scholars to support the country’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

“The TT-1 smartphone is so far capable of covering the territory of China and the whole of South China Sea. We are going to expand our coverage to the whole world by launching a network of TT satellites in the next five years,” said an engineer from CASC. According to the report, the smartphone was specially designed for emergency communication by field geologists or relief workers in remote areas, or when ground telecommunication networks were interrupted by natural disaster or accidents.

Besides satellite coverage, the smartphone is compatible with multiple ground-based cellular networks, including 4G LTE and 3G, supports SMS, WeChat, video and data transmission, and allows free switching between satellite and ground communication. The smartphone will retail from around 10,000 yuan ($1,480), with communication fees starting from around 1 yuan a minute — a tenth of the price charged by Inmarsat.

IANS

Steve Ballmer says his relationship with Bill Gates was strained over Microsoft smartphone business

  07 Nov 2016 , 08:24

Differences over the smartphone and tablet business strained his relationship with Bill Gates, Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer recounted in an interview to Bloomberg this week. If he could do it all again, Ballmer said he would have entered the mobile device market even earlier. When he finally did, Microsoft co-founder Gates and other members of the board disagreed, he said.

Ballmer, now owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers, revealed that “there was a fundamental disagreement” about his decision to push Microsoft into the hardware business and that he “drifted apart” from Gates partly due to a disagreement over whether Microsoft should make its own handsets and tablets.

“I had pushed Surface. The board had been a little — little reluctant in supporting it. And then things came to a climax around what to do about the phone business,” he said noting that it was a mistake to get into handsets and tablets too late.

Microsoft entered the market in 2012 with the Surface RT, a tablet that sold poorly and required Microsoft to take a $900 million charge to write down the value of inventory. Now, the rejigged Surface business is profitable and generated more than $4 billion in sales for the most recent year, Bloomberg reported.

“I would have moved into the hardware business faster,” he said.

Responding to the famous quote where he said iPhones would never sell because it cost too much, Ballmer said,”You know, people like to point to this quote where I said iPhones will never sell, because the price at $600 or $700 was too high. And there was business model innovation by Apple to get it essentially built into the monthly cell phone bill.”

IANS

Lenovo Phab 2 Pro the first Tango capable smartphone will change how we look at AR and here is how

Seeing objects in a room

By tech2 News Staff /  03 Nov 2016 , 12:53

Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is the latest smartphone by Lenovo to go on sale for $499.99. In fact, the device is the first one that is powered by Google Tango framework which relies on depth sensing to create seamless Augmented reality figures on the screen. This company has been working on the technology since last few years with constant videos demoing it right from the early stages.Also, Google announced a Project Tango smartphone way back in 2014 along with Project Tango Tablet released in 2014.

Tango was originally known as Project Tango and looked like a simple concept that maybe used for something. We were not sure about what the depth-sensing will actually do but we got a concrete idea about it after Lenovo announced the smartphone in CES 2016 earlier this year. But Lenovo demoed the capabilities of the tango technology in Phab 2 Pro which made it a serious contender for the most innovative smartphone for the year.

The demos during Lenovo Tech World painted a perfect picture of how capable the platform was and that smartphones were powerful enough to sufficiently track the 3D world and project an augmented reality on the screen. These demos included using Tango platform to measure the dimensions of the room accurately and use shopping apps to virtually redecorate your room before buying furniture or new products for your home.

Other demonstrations included live size models of dinosaurs where you can check different species of dinosaurs  with life-size AR renders. The renders can be changes in scale to comparatively study the entire field with an unprecedented level of interactivity. This can result in newer and dedicated applications for students across different fields, right from students of architecture to medical students.

During the launch, there will be more than 20 apps available for Phab 2 Pro users to experience different aspects of what Tango platform has to offer. These apps range from ‘Augmented reality gaming’ and ‘Augmented reality utilities’ with the gaming apps directly aiming at pure gaming like Pokemon GO but without the battery drain while ‘utilities’ hinting at apps like “WayFairView,” “Measure,” and “Magic Plan.”

LG launches battery-focused X Power smartphone at Rs 15,990

By tech2 News Staff /  28 Oct 2016 , 15:35

LG has launched a new smartphone in the Indian market called the X Power. Priced at Rs 15,990 it will be available across India in couple of days.

The LG X Power sports a 5.3-inch HD (1280×720 pixels) in-cell display. On the inside there is a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6735M processor paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage which is expandable via microSD card.

At the back there is a 13MP camera with an LED flash, and a 5MP front-facing camera. The USP of the smartphone is its large 4,100mAh battery. The phone is 4G VoLTE compatible and offers dual-SIM card slots. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth 4.1. The smartphone will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box.

“Keeping in view of consumer’s needs, LG XPower brings huge 4100mAh battery that runs longer under heavy multimedia use,” said marketing head, LG Mobiles, Amit Gujral.

According to LG the smartphone features PE+technology, which helps the smartphone to charge at a faster rate. It is said to make it almost twice as fast to charge compared to other batteries. The smartphone will be coming in Black and Gold colour variants.

There are a lot of better smartphones in the same price range. For that matter, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 comes with almost the same battery size and better hardware on paper. It won’t be easy for LG to sell this product in India considering competition.

Huawei announces new Kirin 960 chipset with 180 percent performance jump

By tech2 News Staff /  19 Oct 2016 , 17:50

Huawei-owned chipmaker HiSilicon has announced a brand new chipset called the Kirin 960 that should begin to appear in future Huawei and Honor-branded smartphones. This is why many would assume that it could arrive in the yet to be announced Huawei Mate 9 smartphone.

HiSilicon has stuck to the 16nm FinFET manufacturing process and goes with an octa-core setup with four Cortex-A73 cores coupled with with four Cortex-A53 cores. As for what’s new, the 960 will be the first chipset to use ARM’s Bifrost GPU, the Mali G71 that delivers reduced power usage compared to the ones available in the Kirin 955, the Exynos 8, Helio X25 and others. And this one is special in more ways than one because it packs 8 GPU cores. Looks like Huawei’s upcoming smartphones will be Daydream capable indeed.

As for what the Kirin 960 supports, you get UFS 2.1 flash storage, LPDDR4 RAM and LTE Cat 12/13 modems. You also get an improved ISP.

Image: ioncannon (Weibo)

Image: ioncannon (Weibo)

Looking through the graphs from the source, the Kirin 960 is indeed the fastest chipset, this side of Apple. It scored way above the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 and was second only to Apple’s A10 Fusion chipset in both GFXBench and GeekBench. Multi core results from GeekBench also showcase better performance than the mighty A10 as well.