Technology

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 FE might be the next “Fan Edition” smartphone by the South Korean giant . While the company hasn't yet made an official announcement about its new Galaxy FE model, its Brazil website reportedly mentioned the Galaxy Note 20 FE for a brief time. The trend of launching Fan Edition phones started with the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE in September. That particular model comes as a toned-down variant of the Galaxy S20 flagship and features a list of color options to attract young consumers. The  Samsung Galaxy S20 FE  landing page on the company's Brazilian website included a mention of the Samsung  Galaxy Note 20  FE in the fine print, reports Samsung-focussed site SamMobile. The company also reportedly mentioned the Galaxy Note 20 FE moniker in the source of the landing page while detailing the Night Mode of the Galaxy S20 FE. However, the site received an update at the time of filing this story and is no longer showing any such detai...

Shopping for a new handset? Great! You can finally buy that device you've always wanted. But how do you navigate through jargon like dual- and quad-core , GHz, mAh, and megapixels? What makes one operating system different from the other? After reading this primer, you will be sufficiently armed with answers to help you pick a phone that's right for you.. Operating system Make no mistake, it's the OS that puts the 'smart' in your smartphone, so before buying, it's always a good idea to know about the different ecosystems that exist... Android OS  promises native integration with Google services that include Search, Gmail, Maps, Hangouts, YouTube, etc. Besides, you get access to over a million apps in its Play store. The best part? Titles that might be paid downloads on iOS and Windows Phone are sometimes available for free here. Another advantage of an Android handset is that these are plug-and-play . You can simply connect it to your PC via a USB cable to beg...

Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic goods, will begin mass production of Apple Inc's next-generation iPhone (expected to be called the  iPhone 6 ) this month, Taipei media reported Friday. Mass production of a 4.7-inch successor to the wildly popular iPhone 5 series of smartphones will begin during the third week of July, Taiwan's Economic Daily News said, without citing sources. Production of a 5.5-inch iPhone 6 version will begin during the second week of August, it said. A separate report issued Thursday by a China state-run news service said Hon Hai is planning to hire 100,000 workers at its mainland facilities to meet future demand for  Apple's  latest smartphone, citing comments made by the chief of the Henan Provincial Commerce Department. Fellow Taiwanese contract manufacturer Pegatron Corp this month also began recruitment of over 10,000 workers for its mainland facilities to manufacture ...

SAN FRANCISCO: Google's earnings rose modestly in the second quarter as the internet company's expensive ambitions devoured most of a surprisingly strong gain in revenue. The report released on Thursday also showed that Google's advertising prices are still dropping to extend a nearly three-year slump. Meanwhile, the company's expenses are steadily rising as it hires more workers, promotes products and ventures into new technological frontiers such as internet-connected eyewear, driverless cars and robots. Those trends have frustrated many investors, causing Google's stock to lag the broader market this year even though most analysts still view the company as a prudent long-term investment. The company's shares had gained 4% through Thursday's close, compared to a 6% increase in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Investors saw more positives than negatives in the second-quarter numbers as Google's stock added $5.74 to $579.47 in exten...

Considering the high-end segment is mostly dominated by Samsung and Apple, the Finnish brand Nokia (now owned by Microsoft) turned its attention to the budget smartphone market. Similar strategy worked wonders for Motorola, and now the latest company to follow the suite is Asus. By pricing its feature-packed ZenFone 5 aggressively, the Taiwanese company is planning to take on the Moto G. Let's find out how they stack up against each other. Construction And Aesthetic As far as the sturdiness is concerned, both the Moto G and ZenFone 5 offer excellent quality for the price. These phones can easily withstand a few (accidental) drops. The materials used in construction are also top-notch. In terms of looks, the stylish ZenFone 5 fares better than Motorola's clunky phone. As mentioned in its review, Asus has "borrowed" the design elements from HTC's premium handset, One, but we are not complaining since it looks nice. Display The ZenFone 5 as its name s...

One of the biggest problems with Android is its lacklustre battery life. Compared to iOS and Windows Phone, Google's mobile platform saps battery at a faster rate. Many Android phones don't even last from dawn till dusk. There's no silver bullet to solve this problem. However, by altering a few settings, you can make your device's juice last a little longer. Here's how to go on about it: Lower The Screen Brightness Cranking up the brightness improves the screen readability. However, high screen brightness can drain your phone's battery like anything. So if you want your phone's battery to last longer, go to Settings, and set the brightness to the lowest value you're comfortable with. If your phone has an AMOLED screen, use a black background. AMOLED, being an emissive type screen, can switch off pixels to produce deep blacks. In effect, the phone requires relatively less juice to power the display. In addition to this, shorten your phone'...

BANGALORE: Mobile phone brand Motorola is hoping to replicate the success it has had with the web-only strategy in India in other markets like Indonesia. Five months ago Motorola started selling its phones in India only through online retailer Flipkart. The site has sold one million Motorola phones across three models in that time, said Flipkart chief executive Sachin Bansal. Last month the company started selling its Moto G phones in Indonesia only through online portal Lazada, backed by German investor Rocket Internet. "We are leveraging lessons learnt here and applying it in Indonesia," said Magnus Ahlqvist, corporate vice president for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific at Motorola Mobility. Ahlqvist said the company is now evaluating the online-only route in other markets in South East Asia. The Motorola partnership has worked well for Flipkart as well. The cheapest Motorola phone, Moto E, is priced at Rs 6,999. That would mean Flipkart has sold at least R...

In some ways, this was not the best week for Amazon. The Federal Trade Commission sued it for improperly billing customers for games used by their children. And it continues to be enmeshed in a nasty public relations battle with the publisher Hachette. But Amazon still has the drones. In a filing with the Federal Aviation Administration that got widespread attention Friday, Amazon asked for permission to test its drone delivery system outdoors, a practice that is banned for safety reasons. Never mind for the moment the fact that the F.A.A. said a few weeks ago that there would be no commercial uses of drones in a memo that did not mention Amazon but pointedly excluded even the free shipping of items by drone. That’s a lobbying battle for another day. Delivery by drone was first mentioned by Amazon last year on “60 Minutes,” and quickly became a viral sensation despite, or because of, the fact that it was unlikely to happen anytime soon. If...

Sometimes you want a laptop that just has it all, but while you know it’ll be expensive, you still don’t want to pay the sticker price. Enter the Toshiba P50T, an excellently spec’d machine at the lowest price we’ve seen yet, thanks to a limited time $100 coupon. That helps knock the price down to $1530, a tidy 15% off. Toshiba’s Satellite P50T-BST2N01 is absolutely loaded with cutting edge features, highlighted by the gorgeous 15.6″ Ultra HD 3840×2160 touchscreen panel, an incredibly rich display that you’ll find on precious few other laptops out there. It also packs an overclockable Core i7-4700HQ processor and a 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon R9 M265X graphics card, so it will easily fly through even demanding tasks from hardcore gaming to professional multimedia creation. Pretty much no matter what you’re doing, this laptop will make it look easy. For your top dollar you’re also getting plenty of other notable specs. Data storage is taken care...

After the release of Android L Preview source code for Nexus devices, we now have details on what features the new Camera 2 API includes and what Google has been working on from the past few months. Android Police reveals some of the features that the new Camera 2 API brings along and how it is bumped up over its previous interface. One of the most touted features of the Android L Camera 2 API is its ability to deliver full resolution images at the same speed the hardware is designed to capture. This means that the Nexus 5 , using the Camera 2 API, can capture videos at 30 frames per second in its maximum 8-megapixels resolution. The Android L's Camera 2 API also includes the burst mode, Digital Negative Format, HDR+ alongside a complete manual control on the post-processing features. Some of the other reported features included in Android L's Camera 2 API that can be controlled are exposure time, ISO sensitivity, frame duration, lens foc...

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson was kind enough to give us an early look at his line of  sport-friendly headphones  on stage  back at CES . Today, you get to see them out in the wild. As a refresher, there are on-ear and in-ear models and you can choose wired (Street) or wireless (Sync) varieties depending on how you roll. The on-ears come with a sweat-proof inner chamber and a rubberized coating to keep them looking box-fresh no matter how many laps you put them through, and there's even a sports "towel" (it's more of a cloth) included to mop your brow! The in-ears won't come with such luxuries, but they do come in the same striking blue, pink or yellow color options. The Bluetooth variants all support  aptX , which is more than can be said for the  other  rapper-backed sports buds  we saw recently . Prices are $80/$150 for the in-ears (wired/wireless) and $180/230 for the on-ears -- and we got an early look at some. Running with headphones is a divis...

Another day and another  iPhone 6  rumour. This time a report out of China details an astonishing new launch date for the next iPhone from Apple, ahead of most dates in previous leaks. The report is accompanied with purported pricing details, as well as the name of the anticipated larger 5.5-inch iPhone 6 variant - iPhone Air. The report citing industry sources claims Apple will unveil the iPhone 6 on September 15, which falls on a Monday, while retail availability will begin on September 25, which falls on a Thursday. Apple traditionally starts sales of new iPhone models on a Friday to capture the weekend crowd, so the dates seem a little fishy. Previous leaks (including a purported internal communication from a German telecom carrier) had indicated a more credible launch date of September 19, which happens to be Friday. According to the China.com report (via GforGames), China will also be amongst the first countries to receive the iPhone. The repor...

When I was a tiny tot, I watched  Knight Rider  and pretended I was  Michael Knight , talking to KITT on my watch. Yet now that there are real-life watches that can do even more things, I don't find myself quite as excited as my 5-year-old self was. Smartwatches have been around for over a decade already (remember Microsoft SPOT?), but the category hasn't evolved at the same pace as smartphones. It's not because there's a shortage of digital wrist-worn timepieces. The problem is that there's no common platform for third-party apps, which means there's little potential for growth. There also doesn't seem to be any vision. Some watches act as Android phones with SIM cards and tiny touchscreens, while others try to establish their own platform to entice developers. Still others have even tried to put fitness bands and smartwatches into one device, to limited success. Even worse, most of the watches on the market today are what you might ca...

Facebook is acquiring video advertising company LiveRail in the internet social network's latest step to make video ads a bigger part of its business.  Facebook did not disclose a price for the San Francisco-based company, which was founded in 2007 and has offices in several countries.  LiveRail's technology automatically pairs video ads with the videos that appear on many websites, such as the sites for Major League Baseball, ABC and A&E Networks.  Facebook would not discuss plans for using the technology on its own website.  In March, Facebook began offering 15-second video ads from a limited number of companies on its website. The company has moved cautiously in introducing the video ads on its social network to prevent a backlash from users who might find the ads annoying.  Video ads command higher prices than other forms of online advertising such as banner ads. Facebook and internet rivals like Google are increasingly trying to grab a slice of l...

People often compare computers with our brains, but there are important differences between them. One difference, which the wider public seldom thinks about, is that computer brains are made of silicon while our brains are made of carbon. All known life is made of carbon, which is the most versatile element in the universe. Why should computers be made of silicon, even if it is the second most versatile element in the universe? IBM now thinks that the silicon age of computers is about to end, and that we might see the first carbon computer in just six years.  It is a bold statement, tempered with caveats, made more with hope than authority. Carbon nanotube chips would be not very different from silicon chips, only much faster. However, making them in large scale still requires significant technology advances. The year 2020 is around the time when silicon is supposed to hit a roadblock, yet again.  It will be great to get nanotube chips ready by then. This is what IBM hop...

NEW DELHI: Samsung has added four new smartphones to its Galaxy line-up, namely, Galaxy Core II, Galaxy Star 2, Galaxy Ace 4, and Galaxy Young 2. All of the four phones feature Samsung's TouchWiz Essence user interface, and come with the latest version of Android, Kitkat.  Samsung Galaxy Core II is a dual SIM phone with 4.5-inch (480x800p) display. It is available in two colours - black and white. Powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and 768MB of RAM, it has a 2,000mAh battery.  The phone offers a front camera apart from a 5MP main camera and an LED flash. It has 4GB internal storage and supports microSD cards of up to 64GB.  Samsung Galaxy Ace 4 has 4-inch (480x800p) display. The phone is powered by 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB RAM. It has a 1500mAh battery and is available only in black colour. The phone also has a 5MP rear camera, an enhanced camera UI and LED flash, and a front camera. It has 4GB of internal storage and can support a microSD card of up to ...

NEW DELHI: Samsung has taken the covers off the Galaxy S5 mini smartphone, bringing the exclusive features of the company's top smartphone in a compact size.  The main differences between Galaxy S5 and S5 mini are in display, camera and processor. Galaxy S5 mini has a 4.5-inch HD (720p) screen, which is quite smaller than the 5.1-inch Full HD (1080p) display of Galaxy S5. The camera resolution has gone down from 16MP in the older model to 8MP in the new smartphone.  While the India version of Galaxy S5 comes with an eight-core Exynos processor, the new Galaxy S5 mini runs on a quad-core 1.4GHz processor, but Samsung has not revealed the chipmaker's name.  Despite these downgrades, Samsung has retained the fingerprint sensor and heart rate monitor, which debuted with Galaxy S5, in Galaxy S5 mini. The smartphone is IP67 certified, meaning that it is water and dust resistant to an extent, and has Galaxy S5's Ultra Power Saving mode.  Other key hardware specificatio...

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is fine-tuning its digital music strategy with the acquisition of Songza, a service that creates soundtracks tailored for people's changing moods.  Financial terms of the deal announced Tuesday were not disclosed. That means the price is considered to be too small to affect Google, which ended March with $59 billion in cash.  The acquisition highlights the growing importance of services that customize playlists as more people listen to music through internet connections on their smartphones, tablets and personal computers.  Apple is buying headphone maker Beats Electronics for $3 billion largely because it prizes the song-picking prowess of a digital music service that Beats has been building. The music service combines automated formulas with the expertise of a team led by Beats' co-founders, longtime recording industry executive Jimmy Iovine and hip-hop producer and rapper Dr Dre.  Amazon.com also recently rolled out a music-streaming se...