News archive (2 / 2017)

Apple's next iPhones will feature a curved screen and ditch the proprietary Lightning connector for industry standard USB, according to a report.

The report comes from the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with Apple's forthcoming iPhone revisions, typically referred to as iPhone 7s, iPhone 7s Plus iPhone 8. If the sources are correct, then Apple will follow rivals like Samsung with a curved OLED display for its new 'iPhone 8'.

More interesting though is the claim that Apple is preparing to dump the proprietary Lightning connector, used for charging and data transfer, and instead use industry-standard USB-C. As had previously been rumored, the iPhone 8 models won't feature a Home button.

Other recent rumors about Apple's iPhone upgrades include a camera that can sense depth on the front of the phone, producing 3D selfies and also enabling accurate facial recognition.

This year will mark the tenth anniversary of the original iPhone that made waves when it was unveiled in 2007, and an expensive "10th anniversary edition" iPhone has also been rumored, expected to have a price tag around ~$1,000.

Source: Wall Street Journal

SpaceX is planning to fly private citizens beyond the Moon next year, according to chief executive Elon Musk.

According to the rocket firm, two private citizens have already paid a significant deposit for a trip that would see them fly out to the orbit of the Moon and return. Initial training and health probes will be begin later this year.

The private citizens will ride atop a Falcon Heavy rocket, which is set for a demonstration flight in 2017. Dragon v2 (or Crew Dragon), which is SpaceX' human-rated capsule, will hold the passengers for the journey.

SpaceX will demonstrate the Crew Dragon later this year, and then intends to fly American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on contract from NASA. The firm is currently contracted to perform an average of four Dragon 2 missions to the ISS per year, three carrying cargo and one carrying crew.

"Once operational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA, SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth," SpaceX announced.

"Lift-off will be from Kennedy Space Center's historic Pad 39A near Cape Canaveral – the same launch pad used by the Apollo program for its lunar missions. This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them."

At the ongoing Mobile World Congress, SanDisk has released a flash memory storage solution for iPhone and iPad that connects seamlessly to the iOS device.

iXpand Flash Drive series connects at USB3 speeds to iPhone or iPad via Lightning connector and has storage capacity of up to 256GB.

256GB version costs £170 or €210 in Europe, $200 in United States. With the "clip" form factor, the memory stick attached seamlessly to the iDevice. It also has USB connector in case one wants to transfer the files to PC - and obviously, via Lightning connector, you can connect the stick to Mac, too.

The new Nokia-branded Android devices are not aimed at taking on flagships from heavyweights like Samsung, but instead target the affordable end of the market with competitive pricing and decent specs.

Among the new Nokia gear is the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3. The Nokia 6 was introduced in China in January this year and immediately roused interest, with over a million reservations being placed, and soon it will be availble in more markets.

It features a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage with a microSD slot if you need more. A special edition Nokia 6 "Arte Black" will bump memory to 4GB RAM and internal storage to 64GB.

The Nokia 5 features a 5.2-inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage with a microSD slot for expansion up to 128GB. It packs a 13 megapixel camera on the back and 8 megapixel on the front. Like the Nokia 6, it is powered by a 3000mAh battery.

Huawei has shown off its new anticipated P10 and P10 Plus smartphones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Details on the new high spec devices have been leaking in the days and weeks up to the show, with some hits and some misses. The devices are quite striking in appearance with eight different color finishes available; Ceramic White, Graphite Black, Mystic Silver, Prestige Gold, Dazzling Blue, Dazzling Gold, Rose Gold and "Greenery".

Specifically which finishes will be available in what region was not revealed.

While a clear evolution from the P9, one major difference is the location of the fingerprint scanner on the front of the devices, placed in the home key position. Like an iPhone, the sensor features vibration feedback.

We start to spot the differences between the P10 and P10 Plus when we look at the displays. The P10 packs a 5.1-inch Full HD (1080p) 432ppi display, while the P10 Plus upgrades to a 5.5-inch WQHD (1440p) 534ppi display. It had been rumored that the P10 Plus would feature a curved screen, but both feature a flat screen.

Both the P10 and P10 Plus feature Leica Dual Camera 2.0 which places two lenses on the back, one monochrome 20 megapixel sensor and one 12 Megapixel color sensor. The difference between the P10 and P10 Plus is the latter features f/1.8 aperture lenses instead of f/2.2 lenses.

HMD Global, company that holds the global license to use Nokia's brand in phones, has announced today a comeback of the iconic Nokia 3310 phone.

New 3310 follows the old Nokia 3310's footsteps and is anything but a smartphone - a feature phone using Nokia Series 30 operating system, with physical keys and $50 price tag.

Unlike it predecessor, new 3310 has a 2.4" color display (QVGA LCD display), has 2Mpix cameraat the back of the phone and has a flashlight. Connectivity has only support for 2G networks.

WhatsApp added a feature called "Status" to its app in February, 2017, copying the feature from the likes of Snapchat, Instagram and Messenger.

What it is then?

To put it simply, Status has now its own tab within the WhatsApp application, where you can see your contacts' statuses and where you can update your status. Status is a video, picture or a short text that will be shown to all of your contacts for the next 24 hours. Updating your status, however, does not send it out as a message to your contacts, but simply is shown inside the Status tab in WhatsApp app.

So, unless your contacts visit their app's Status tab, they wont know that you've updated your status.

Now, statuses disappear automatically after 24 hours - and there is no archive of past statuses, so once the status has been visible for 24 hours, it simply disappears, for good.

By default, your status is visible to all the people you have in your WhatsApp contact list. However, under security and privacy settings, you can limit that to specific people only - or to make it visible everybody, even to those who you haven't added to your contact list.

Just over three weeks ago we had you the first reputable Galaxy S8 leak (picture above) which showed both front and back of the device. Unfortunately the picture didn't reveal much because of its quality but fortunately now PhoneArena has released a few better pictures.

Being the most anticipated device of Spring 2017 rumors have been going crazy lately. However, before today we haven't seen good quality pictures of the device close up and with the display on.

The new pictures show that the upcoming Galaxy S8 seems to come with an array of sensors on the top of the device and as expected the display takes up almost the whole front panel. This seems to mean that the physical home button has been removed and thus the fingerprint reader moved.

The pictures also show the Edge Apps that take use of the curved Edge display on the S8. Maybe even more interestingly two of the pictures show the Always On display feature which shows the clock (and some other information) even when the phone is not active.

WhatsApp has long ago surpassed SMS in popularity and its billion users is rivaled only by Facebook Messenger, both obviously owned by Facebook.

WhatsApp's road to success has really been very simple. The company made a simple, easy-to-use, phone number based messaging system that didn't have many faults. Over time they've implemented new features but they've never tried to reach too far.

One thing they have been pioneering is security. WhatsApp messages and now even videos and calls are all encrypted if the user so desires. The latest new feature was Groups, which allows users to create multiple group chats.

Now, however, WhatsApp has come up with a surprise feature. The new feature is actually a new iteration of the status that has pretty much always been a part of WhatsApp but not an integral part by any means.

Status takes now more of a center stage and its essentially a carbon copy of Snapchat's Stories feature. Thus the status now allows you to add pictures, videos, or even GIF animations. Pictures can be enhanced with emojis or hand-drawn accents. The status updates self-destruct after 24 hours.

While the update will come to all mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Windows) it will roll out gradually starting today.

Bill Gates is obviously known from creating one of the worlds largest technology companies and becoming the richest man on earth for it. Now the previously often even hated CEO of Microsoft has become a futurist and a philanthropist.

Saving lives by eradicating malaria might be the most important job of the Gates Foundation but Bill has been also vocal about the challenges that future, especially automation and AI, brings along. In an interview with Quartz, Bill Gates suggests that when robots start working instead of men and women, we should tax them the same way.

In his view robots will free us from the labor of producing some of the things and services we need so we can move more on to things that cannot – at least as easily – be replaced. Those are some of the more empathetic jobs such as caring and teaching professions.

Because robots won't probably have their own bank accounts and won't be given actual money the income tax would be replaced with a tax that would target the owner of the robot, which would be the company. In Gates' view this would slow down the adoption of automation as well as fund the population that is jobless because of it.

Samsung's catastrophic launch of one of last year's most anticipated smartphones had a clear impact on the company's overall reputation, suggests a new report. An annual poll conducted by The Harris Poll reveals that Samsung's reputation has plummeted in the United States, Engadget reports.

The poll that was conducted on little over 30 000 U.S. adults between November 28 and December 16 puts Samsung in the 49th spot among the top companies. While this might not seem like an awful result you have to bare in mind that Samsung has been in the top-10 the previous two years. It is not hard to see a connection with exploding Note7 smartphones in last September and October.

The Reputation Quotient ranking of around 75 points puts Samsung just ahead of USPS while competitors like Google and Apple are 8th and 5th respectively with 82-odd points. That in itself should be telling.

Obviously there are still companies that are rated way worse and companies that have recently had even bigger controversies. These include everyone's favorite telecommuncations company Comcast and Volkswagen, which is known for its air fresheners, both of which are at approximately 63 points and rank 90th and 91st respectively.

Apple has positioned itself against some of the biggest TV and movie conglomerates by beginning the production of its own content. Following Netflix's and Amazon's lead, the Cupertino based giant has released a trailer of one of its first original TV shows.

The show is aptly called Planet of the Apps and is to applications what Shark Tank is to business ideas. Well, actually, it is a combination of Shark Tank in terms of pitching the idea of the app and The Voice in which the celebrity judges choose whether they want to help out the pitcher.

As the video shows, the pitch to the celebrity judges (Jessica Alba, will.i.am, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Gary Vaynerchuk) is just the first step. If they are accepted by one – or if many, they can choose their mentor – they must prepare for a pitch to four members of venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The best will get a featured spot on the App Store (obviously) and a lot of publicity. The show will be exclusive to Apple Music.

Microsoft has announced an update to its voice assistant Cortana with a single new feature. The so-called Commitment feature allows the Windows 10 assistant to remember things you forgot to add to your reminders.

How does this thing actually work? Well, it's as simple as your assistant going through your emails and remembering to add reminders for you. Cortana essentially reads your emails and determines whether there are any commitments that you make.

Once it finds one of these instances it saves a reminder with the subject, persons involved and possible deadline. The result is, as seen in the picture and video, a surprise reminder that will present you with the part of the email that triggered the feature as well as who the commitment was made to, ie. the recipient of the email.

Microsoft's Cortana assistant might not be the most popular of the voice assistants but it is definitely challenging the competition in terms of machine learning. Google's new Google Assistant is also heavily focused in machine learning and context specificity.

Police have arrested sellers of so called 'Full Loaded Kodi Boxes' as pirate streaming add-ons become more popular.

The devices are typically low-cost Android-based media set top boxes that come with apps and add-ons pre-installed. Despite being called 'Kodi boxes', they have nothing at all to do with the development of the Kodi media center software.

Last year, developers of Kodi threatened legal action against individuals who use the Kodi brand or images while selling devices marketed to enable piracy.

Kodi, formerly XBMC, is a very powerful media center solution that can run on Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Android. Its support for third party add-ons has made it very popular, as third-party add-ons can provide access to live TV, including live sports, while some provide a Netflix-like experience with access to tens of thousands of movies and TV shows, all without paying a subscription fee.

That does not make Kodi illegal of course, but marketing a media device as "fully loaded" with piracy add-ons pre-installed may be illegal in some places. It is currently being tested in the UK.

In the latest action against the growing trend of streaming, five traders were arrested in the UK for advertising and selling such devices online. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) estimates that the individuals have earned more than £250,000 selling such devices.

EU Netflix, Sky, Amazon, etc. subscribers will be able to continue using their service as they travel through the 28 nation bloc, if current proposals go through.

An agreement made on Tuesday between the European Parliament and Malta, which currently holds the rotating presidency in the EU, is likely to see subscription service barriers between states abolished. Essentially that means that customers of services such as Netflix and Sky should be able to access their subscription services if they travel to another EU member state.

The move has some opposition from rights holders, but is seen as a positive step for subscribers who travel frequently throughout the 28 nation bloc. It would effect services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Sky and Apple Music.

The plan is yet to be formally approved but is expected to be part of new regulations that come into force at the beginning of 2018.

Many subscription services lock their subscriber to their home country because the library of content offered varies in different territories. If this regulation comes into effect, the subscriber should have access to the same library of content they have in their home country, but it does not force streaming services to offer the same content to all 28 EU member states.

It's been months since Nintendo first unveiled its upcoming gaming console to the public but we still have to wait over three weeks to get our hands on one. However, Nintendo – as well as unofficial rumors – have given us some new information about the device and its features in the past couple of months.

However, there's still some things that aren't as clear as we would hope them to be. How do the controllers work? Can you use it separately? How about multiplayer gaming? Well, many of the questions have been answered in a new video Nintendo published on YouTube today.

Due in early March, Switch consists of a handheld console, a dock for your TV as well as two JoyCon controllers that can be used in different ways. In the video Nintendo goes through the different methods of playing, which include, the Handheld Mode with JoyCons attached to the tablet, the TV Mode with the controllers attached to the JoyCon Grip, and using JoyCon controllers separately in the Tabletop Mode.

When it comes to leaking government secret there are few names that have more weight than Edward Snowden. A man who's been featured in an Oscar-winning documentary may have inspired a new leaker.

According to Washington Post, prosecutors are currently seeking for indictment as soon as this week for a former National Security Agency contractor that allegedly leaked secret government information.

Harold T. Martin III has been accused of stealing over 50 terabytes of information from the agency and will likely be charged with violating the Espionage Act. The 52-year-old was arrested in August last year and has been detained since. In October, Martin requested to be released pending a trial but was refused by a U.S. District Judge.

Martin was a former contractor for the NSA and was part of the agency's elite hacker unit, Tailored Access Operations. Some of the leaked data has been said to reveal secret techniques and tools used by the TAO. Estimates have it that this is the largest theft of government data in U.S. history and could include as much as 75 percent of TAO hacking tool data.

Netflix in globally a streaming giant no one has managed to challenge. However, in the United States, there are few streaming services that could if not topple at least put pressure on Netflix. A new report from Parrot Analytics, though, suggests that Netflix is a force to be reckoned with in one specific category: original programs.

According to the analytics company the lead Netflix has in terms of original program viewership has only increased in the past 12 months. A steady growth has been met with largely stagnant competitors.

Amazon has managed to create some buzz in the last weeks of 2016 which might suggest that its highly anticipated car show The Grand Tour has been doing well. The Grand Tour of course being the show by former BBC's Top Gear trio. But one or two hit shows aren't going to be enough to challenge Netflix.

Netflix's last years original hit shows included Stranger Things, The OA, The Get Down, and Luke Cage.

For the past year of two Apple's future hasn't seemed quite as bright as we've been used to. After record iPhone sales for year after year the growth slowed down and threatened to start, what some called, an inevitable decline.

Apple fought through, though, and had some amazing news to tell about the last quarter, which marks the first quarter for the fiscal year 2017. With 78.3 million iPhones sold, most in any quarter so far, the company posted a record-setting $78.4 billion in revenue. Earnings at $3.36 was another record high for the Cupertino giant and the net profit topped $17.9 billion.

We're thrilled to report that our holiday quarter results generated Apple's highest quarterly revenue ever, and broke multiple records along the way. We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO.

Tim Cook also added that the App Store saw record customer activity and the company is very excited about upcoming products.

"Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline."