Results: Glass back on the LG G6, yay or nay?

So, recent leaks about the LG G6 suggest that the company has given up on the modular design and will have a much more… solid structure. One report even went as far as to suggest that the handset will have a glass back and wireless charging as a new feature.

LG hasn’t been shy about experimenting with the materials on its phones. It went from a faux brushed metal finish on the G3 to a leather back on the G4, then went full metal with the G5. Well, the latter sparked a bit of controversy, since the manufacturer used a bit too much primer for the paintjob and the G5 didn’t feel as cool … – Source

Results: Glass back on the LG G6, yay or nay?

Samsung expected to use SDI batteries for Galaxy S8, despite initial Note 7 suspicion

Samsung Electronics will use batteries supplied by its Samsung SDI branch for the Galaxy S8, according to a new report. The information arrives from The Investor, which claims that Samsung Electronics is seeking the SDI department’s services despite previously suspecting its batteries were responsible for the Galaxy Note 7’s overheating issue.

Samsung is said to have lost billions of dollars on the cancelled Galaxy Note 7 last year, following reports of it catching fire. After initially recalling the handset and replacing the batteries with an alternative from Chinese battery firm ATL, the phones continued to malfunction, leading Samsung to permanently cease production of the device.

Samsung is expected to reveal the cause of the problem this month, but it would appear that the SDI batteries were not chiefly responsible — if responsible at all — for the Galaxy Note 7 catching fire.

See also:Battery maker Samsung SDI wants to make safety a priority1 day ago

Meanwhile, Samsung is said to be readying 10 million Galaxy S8 units as it prepares for its April launch. The report arrives from Korean site Etnews which claims that initial parts will arrive at Samsung factories in February, with mass production beginning in March.

Samsung sold 10 million units of its Galaxy S7 in the first month, indicating that the Korean manufacturer could be similarly confident about the sales of its upcoming handset.

– Source

Samsung expected to use SDI batteries for Galaxy S8, despite initial Note 7 suspicion

Snake emerging from woman's car mid-drive is the stuff of nightmares

The internet has no doubt done a lot of wonderful things, but convincing the world that Australia is a safe place to live is definitely not one of them.

SEE ALSO: Highly venomous snake makes like tinsel and chills on a Christmas tree

It’s only been a day since that horrendous footage emerged of a giant snake casually devouring another giant snake, and now this:

Image: facebook/mundoo island station

Oh. Dear. God.

If you think you’ve driven in scary conditions, just be thankful that you’ve never experienced “a big red-bellied black snake” dangling in front of your windshield for a full hour. …

More about Nope, Scary, Car, Australia, and Snake – Source

Snake emerging from woman's car mid-drive is the stuff of nightmares

Southeast Asia grocery delivery startup HappyFresh changes its CEO

It’s fair to say that HappyFresh, one of a number of startups working to make the business of on-demand grocery shopping viable in Southeast Asia, didn’t have a great 2016. Read More

– Source

Southeast Asia grocery delivery startup HappyFresh changes its CEO

Intel gives its NUC mini-PCs new processors, new ports and a new design

When you’re looking for a tiny desktop, Intel’s NUC computers are something of a standard. These bare-bone PCs have made a name for themselves as affordable, reasonably powerful and adorably small. Now they’re even better: Intel is gifting its line o… – Source

Intel gives its NUC mini-PCs new processors, new ports and a new design

There is Now a Wearable For Babies Before They Are Born

There are literally wearables for everyone, even people who haven’t technically been born. A startup called …

– Source

There is Now a Wearable For Babies Before They Are Born

Why Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 is a big deal for mobile VR

Google Daydream View reviewNovember 10, 2016

We mustn’t forget that the Snapdragon 835 is designed to be Qualcomm’s most power efficient flagship mobile SoC to date. The new high efficiency Krait 280 CPU cores and move to 10nm FinFET process node, combined with intelligent use other processing cores, can see power users gain 2.5 hours of battery life over the 820. This means that phones and standalone headsets should be able to run VR apps and games for longer and will also presumable produce less heat too, which are notable gains for mobile VR.

Assisting developers

Eking out every drop of performance is going to be vital to obtaining suitable virtual reality performance in mobile products, and Qualcomm is now giving the developers the tools to get closer to the metal. The Symphony System Manager that debuted with the Snapdragon 820 VR platform extends to the Snapdragon 835 and allows software developers to assign tasks to specific CPU cores, the GPU, and even the DSP, meaning the possibility of a higher level of optimization for VR apps. Qualcomm has also revealed that the low level Vulkan API can be run on just a single little core of its Snapdragon 835, leaving plenty of spare resources for developers to work with.

The Snapdragon 835 supports gesture recognition from a camera input, which can be used to interact with objects and games in virtual reality instead of using a controller.

On top of better utilization of its core components, Qualcomm is assisting virtual reality software developers through its Snapdragon VR SDK. The SDK can assist developers with tasks ranging from utilizing the Snapdragon 820 and 835’s sensors and DSP, through to stereoscopic rendering.

For hardware developers, a Snapdragon VR 835 reference platform provides a starting point for engineers and manufacturers to design their own standalone VR headset powered by Qualcomm’s latest flagship. The Snapdragon 835 also supports Google’s Daydream platform, meaning that Snapdragon 835 products will work with Google’s virtual reality hardware as well.

Wrap Up

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 builds on the heterogeneous compute, machine learning, and virtual reality features that made their debut with the Snapdragon 820 last year. The end result is a SoC that caters well to the growing demands of mobile virtual and augmented reality. While very high performance hardware will remain limited to the desktop PC space, Qualcomm’s efforts with the 835 looks capable of enabling VR developers to offer compelling experiences in a much more constrained power and thermal budget.

See also:Next-gen Gear VR may feature eye and face trackingNovember 30, 2016

While the Snapdragon 835 is still designed very much with smartphones in mind, Qualcomm is also making a bold push into the mobile virtual and augmented reality markets with its new flagship SoC. I’m sure we will see plenty of VR hardware and content powered by the platform over the coming months and years.

This article originally appeared on VRSource.com

– Source

Why Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 is a big deal for mobile VR

'Rogue One' reshoots changed more of the movie than we knew

It has become a favorite parlor game among Star Wars fans: trying to figure out which scenes in Rogue One were added during the hit movie’s highly publicized reshoots last summer. There’s plenty of material to keep us guessing; fan-cut videos have collected as many as 46 shots seen in the trailers that didn’t make it into the final film.

But most focus on the frenetic final action sequence on the tropical planet of Scarif. What we didn’t know until now: the start of the movie changed significantly too.

SEE ALSO: ‘Rogue One’ director justifies reshoots: ‘Star Wars has to be fantastic’

That feeling you get of interstellar whiplash as we zip from planet to planet in the first 10 minutes? It all came along in the reshoots as an attempt to better introduce our heroes, according to Rogue One’s editors. …

More about Rogue One, Star Wars, Entertainment, and Film – Source

'Rogue One' reshoots changed more of the movie than we knew

Honor 6X is officially heading to the EU and USA this month

The Honor 6X smartphone went official last October in China and while it may have escaped its homeland via some third-party retailers, the 6X wasn’t officially available anywhere else.

That’s about to change though. Today, at a pre-CES event, Huawei’s subsidiary Honor announced the expansion of the availability of the Honor 6X. The attractive mid-ranger fared well in China for its attractive specs and we are glad Honor is bringing the 6X to even more markets.

The Honor 6X features a 5.5″ IPS 1080p display and Kirin 655 chipset wrapped into a metal unibody. The chip is…

– Source

Honor 6X is officially heading to the EU and USA this month

Samsung ad for the Galaxy A (2017) phones says they have the same DNA, but a different attitude

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s official announcement of the brand new Galaxy A (2017) series of smartphones, Samsung is back today presenting us with its first official TV commercial for them. It’s just a standard 30-second ad, this, so don’t expect to see too many features covered.

That said, the IP68 water and dust resistance of the Galaxy A3 (2017), Galaxy A5 (2017), and Galaxy A7 (2017) is mentioned, which tells us that Samsung really thinks this will be one of the line’s unique selling points this year. The 16 MP front and rear cameras of the A5 and A7 are also given a shoutout,…

– Source

Samsung ad for the Galaxy A (2017) phones says they have the same DNA, but a different attitude

The new Acer Chromebook 11 N7 can take a lot of abuse

Acer has announced yet another one of its Chromebooks as part of the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. However, the new Acer Chromebook 11 N7 has been made to take more abuse than the standard versions.

Acer says that it put the Chromebook 11 N7 through a ton of testing so it could meet the U.S. MIL-STD 810G military standard for toughness. The 11.6-inch Chromebook itself can take up to 132 pounds of downward force on the top cover, and it also has a reinforced case and hinges. The Chromebook can survive drops up to 48 inches thanks in part to its corner-shield structure and rubber bumper keyboard. The Chromebook has an anti-slip pattern on the rear to keep it from slipping. Finally, it has a new spill-resistant keyboard that can drain up to 11 ounces of liquid, in case you spill your morning cup of coffee on the Chromebook.

Inside, the 2.98 pound Acer Chromebook 11 N7 has an Intel Celeron dual core processor N3060 with a clock speed of 1.60GHz, 4GB of RAM and the choice of either 16GB or 32GB of storage. It also has a battery life of up to 15 hours.

The Chromebook 11 N7 will go on sale later in January with the starting price of $229.99.

This post was originally published on our sister site TabTimes.com.

– Source

The new Acer Chromebook 11 N7 can take a lot of abuse