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HTC’s not done making phones, but it needs to find new ways to stay alive

by Loknath Das November 25, 2018

written by Loknath Das

By Ivan Mehta

HTC, the maker of the first ever commercially available Android phone, is still keen on making new devices, even after a disappointing year that saw it lose $330 million in the fourth quarter.

A report from DigiTimes suggests that the company has waved off any suggestions of quitting the smartphone business. Indeed, a cursory glance at HTC shows a company continuing to launch new devices. Just this year alone, it released the Desire 12 and 12+, the U12 life, the U12+, and its yet-to-be available ambitious blockchain phone the Exodus 1. HTC says it plans to release a 6GB RAM/128GB ROM version of the U12 Life before the end of the year.

Despite all the efforts, the future looks stormy for HTC. Per a Reuters report in July, TrendForce, an analyst firm, set a yearly estimate of just 2 million smartphones produced by HTC in the 2018 calendar year. That’s a dramatic fall from grace for a once-dominant phone manufacturer.

The company’s financial statement for the quarter ending in September, declared that its quarterly revenue (for Q3 of the year) has tanked from NT$4.0 billion ($129.3 million) from $NT15.7 billion ($507.6 million) for the same period last year.

HTC also produces VR headsets under the Vive brand name, in partnership with Valve. According to a report by TrendForce, Vive will sell around 600,000 this year. However, with VR still a niche interest, this is unlikely to be the goldmine HTC hoped.

HTC can no longer rely exclusively on its handset business. It needs to diversify its operations, much like its rivals Samsung and Apple. Here are some potential avenues for the company to explore, in order to find solvency:

Mainstream and affordable VR headsets

HTC’s standalone VR headset – the Vive Focus – just launched in 37 countries North American and European countries. While as mentioned earlier, HTC’s set to ship 600,000 headsets this year, its competitor Oculus shipped 289,000 units of its $179 Oculus Go just in Q2 2018.

You know what, Derek? I will actually keep this on.

A report from Superdata predicts that Oculus will sell 2.5 million units of the Oculus Go and its upcoming standalone VR headset – the Oculus quest – the next year. HTC can benefit from such numbers, but it might have to provide a discount on the Vive Focus’ price of $599.

The company can also partner with Google to produce an affordable Daydream headset to reach more consumers. After announcing the Daydream VR project in 2016, only Lenovo has managed to make a standalone VR device. Google can use an old ally like HTC to revive Daydream and make it more mainstream through a new device, and grab a chunk of the $6.9 billion VR market.

AR/VR games and content

Last quarter, Vive studios announced ‘7 Miracles,’ a full-length VR feature film, which also won some awards. Vive studio can design experiences for bigger feature films and games apart from making movies. AR and VR content industry will reportedly hit $3.2 billion in 2012. HTC can certainly benefit from this revenue stream.

[“source=businessinsider”]

November 25, 2018 0 comment

Tech Update

MWC 2018: Samsung Galaxy S9 is not fixing what already works well, but packs better cameras

by Loknath Das March 7, 2018

written by Loknath Das

Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ will start rolling out in stores in some countries from 16 March onwards, with prices very similar to the launch prices of the S8 and the S8+.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ were undoubtedly the Android flagship torchbearers of 2017, and why change something that works well? Samsung clearly doesn’t want to tinker with a winning formula, and that is perhaps why this year’s Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ take a lot of inspiration from the predecessors. The phones will start rolling out in stores in some countries from 16 March onwards, with prices very similar to the launch prices of the S8 and the S8+.

The S9 and S9+ have the same bezel-less designs with the tall 18.5:9 aspect ratio screens. The 5.8-inch screen in the S9 and the 6.2-inch screen in the S9+ are the same Super AMOLED panels as before, but Samsung claims to have boosted the brightness levels this time around. While the design remains the same, the new phones are slightly different in terms of the dimensions, which means if you are upgrading, the same cases and covers may not work.

While some markets will get the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 4GB or 6GB RAM, other markets such as India will get Samsung’s latest Exynos processors.

The big change this time around is the camera system in the S9 and the S9+. The S9 has a single camera while the S9+ has a dual camera. The S9 is the first flagship phone from Samsung that features a mechanically adjustable aperture which can switch between f/1.5 for low light situations and f/2.4 for better lit environments. Till now, the LG V30 had the widest aperture in a smartphone thus far, with its glass lens capable of f/1.6 aperture. This, Samsung claims, lets in 28% more light than the S8’s f/1.7 aperture. The S9’s 12-megapixel camera sensor also has a new dual pixel autofocus technology called Super Speed Dual Pixel, which is faster and locks focus more reliably, reduces noise and distortions and can record up to 960 frames per second of slow motion video—something that is straight out of Sony’s Xperia camera handbook.

Samsung has a slightly different take on the animated emoji feature, also seen in the Apple iPhone X. Samsung calls this AR Emoji, and instead of a lion or a monkey, this maps over 100 points of your face using the front camera and lets you animate your own face. You can then customize this with different hairstyles and more.

Samsung has upgraded the Bixby virtual assistant as well, with a new augmented reality vision section. There is a live translate feature that uses Google’s Translate service, while the service now links up better with some of the camera features too.

It is quite a guarantee that the S9 and the S9+ will again be the Android flagship phones that will set the pace this year, and are a tough act to follow for any competition.

[“Source-livemint”]

March 7, 2018 0 comment

Internet

Avril Lavigne is the internet’s most dangerous star – but that’s nothing new

by Loknath Das September 21, 2017

written by Loknath Das

Avril Lavigne in 2002, about a year before her supposed replacement by a lookalike. Photograph: Jim Cooper/AP

Not every article is written while wearing full hi-vis, Perspex goggles, hard hat and abseiling harness, with a police-quality Taser sleeping like a lazy boomslang next to the keyboard.

But this is one such story. That is because I have been tasked with reporting on Avril Lavigne, and “Avril Lavigne” has just been named the most dangerous celebrity search term on the internet.

Malware expert McAfee produces an annual poll, ranking the risk that searching for certain names will lead you to a malware-rich environment, leading to potentially mailicious websites and cybercriminals. This year, for Avril, the risk was 14.5%. It rose to 22.5% when users searched for “Avril Lavigne MP3s” (the fools don’t even know the MP3 format is low quality and now defunct).

In a crowded field, the Canadian tween-punk beat the likes of Bruno Mars, Carly Rae Jepsen, Zayn Malik and Sean Combs, who made up the rest of the top five.

Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, married to Lavigne in 2013. Photograph: Handout

This is not an in-with-a-bullet No 1 for Lavigne, who despite having done little of commercial interest in the past decade, sat at No 2 on last year’s list. Somewhere, for reasons known only to the vagaries of nostalgia and the dank breeding pods of web culture, Lavigne has become a kind of meme unto herself.

The internet already knows that Nickelback is the sound a comedy writer makes in their head when searching for a reference that means “bad music for numbskulls”. When Avril married lead singer Chad Kroeger in 2013, she was not only creating a twisted Canadian pop royal family, she was also marrying into a meme factory. She may have since divorced him, but when you marry memes, you marry for life.

Just as importantly, there is the ongoing attempt to expose her as a having died and being nothing more than a lookalike called Melissa. The theory, which began on a Brazilian fan site and seems to have spread to every corner of the internet, says that a young Avril, uncomfortable with her fame, began using a body double in certain situations. Then, at some point, the real Avril died. So her record label just kept going with the clone. After all, “Melissa” was written on her hand in a photo shoot – and who doesn’t write their own secret name on their hand in publicity shots? All of which was given credence by her near-fatal encounter with Lyme disease in 2015.

But perhaps Avril’s bad rep is merely about timing? She was peaking in popularity (with a very young Bebo-savvy crowd) at the exact point the internet itself was moving from a place of sinister coves and Pirate Bays into the glossy corporate content-engine we know and love today.

After all, as long ago as 2008, her video for Girlfriend became one of the first on YouTube to bust through the 100m views mark. This traffic, though, was itself allegedly driven mainly from a dodgy source – one fansite that encouraged users to follow a link which would keep the video open in their browsers, then refresh it every 15 seconds to spike the view-counter. The malware motherlode normally comes through similar shady sub-scripts – the saga continues.

Since you’re here …

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.

I appreciate there not being a paywall: it is more democratic for the media to be available for all and not a commodity to be purchased by a few. I’m happy to make a contribution so others with less means still have access to information.Thomasine F-R.

If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps to support it, our future would be much more secure.

[“Source-theguardian”]

September 21, 2017 0 comment

Gadgets News

Google Pixel Now With Rs. 13,000 Cashback but Is It Worth It?

by Loknath Das August 19, 2017

written by Loknath Das

Google Pixel Now With Rs. 13,000 Cashback but Is It Worth It?

HIGHLIGHTS

Pixel is available at an effective starting price of Rs. 44,000
However it still isn’t the best value for money
It’s worth considering only if you absolutely must have stock Android

The Google Pixel and Pixel XL are now available in India at a steep price cut via Flipkart and other retailers across the country thanks to a cashback offer. Now, this usually means you get your money back for purchases made via credit or debit cards issued by specific banks. But in a refreshing change, the Pixel and Pixel XL purchases made via cash will also be eligible. What this means is that you get a Rs. 13,000 instant discount on the smartphones.

A prominent retailer told Gadgets 360 that the reason why the phone is getting such a big discount is because there’s a lot of unsold inventory in India – a stark contrast to the US where the phones can’t be found. But are the Google Pixel phones worth buying at the new price, nearly seven months after their release?

The Google Pixel and Pixel XL have last year’s tech

At launch the Pixel and Pixel XL were the fastest in their class, toting the then top-of-the-line Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 SoC along with integrated Adreno 530 graphics, 4GB of RAM, and either 32GB or 128GB of internal storage. The Pixel XL has a 5.5-inch 1440×2560 pixels display, while the Pixel has a 5-inch panel at 1080×1920 pixels.

Seven months later, Google’s flagship isn’t really flagship material any more. The Samsung Galaxy S8and S8+ (review) both sport far more processing power, and they’re not alone. Xiaomi had launched the Mi 6 with faster, more efficient internals as well, and OnePlus’s new flagship is said to be around the corner as well.

At the same time, flagships from brands like LG and Sony, while also sporting last year’s internals have made some interesting strides in camera tech, with the LG G6 sporting a dual camera setup and the Sony Xperia XZs cramming in a Motion Eye camera system, which essentially shrinks the tech found in cameras such as the Cybershot RX10 III, to fit inside a smartphone.

The Google Pixel and Pixel XL look dated

The newest flagships are moving to sleek bezel-less designs, as we saw at the launch of the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+. Google’s own industrial design looked familiar months ago, and it seems plain outdated today. Plus the mix of glass and metal on the back gives it an unfinished, inconsistent feel. All of this results in smartphones that are chunky, and even boring, considering what else is available in the price range today.

Even after a Rs. 13,000 price drop, the Google Pixel and Pixel XL are still expensive

Speaking of the price range, the Google Pixel carries a maximum retail price of Rs. 57,000 for the 32GB storage variant; if you want more storage, you’re going to have to put down Rs. 66,000. The Pixel XL Rs. 67,000 and Rs. 76,000, for the 32GB and 128GB models respectively.

The cashback offer means the Google Pixel will be available at an effective starting price of Rs. 44,000, which isn’t too bad. But most flagships with comparable specs have gotten deeper price cuts at the time of writing.

These include the LG G5 (Rs. 31,600), HTC 10 (Rs. 37,600), and the Sony Xperia XZs (Rs. 38,468), while the likes of the OnePlus 3T were cheaper than the Pixel and Pixel XL from launch itself, and continue to be cheaper even now.

Seven months after launch, some of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL’s biggest problems haven’t been fixed

In the smartphone world, seven months is a lifetime. Despite touting a best in class camera, its lens flare issue is yet to be resolved. In addition to this, Bluetooth pairing is still inconsistent and batteries in some units are prone to early shutdown. Don’t expect Google to be supportive either with some suggesting that after sales service, at least in India isn’t quite capable of fixing all issues.

For all of these reasons, it’s hard to justify a Google Pixel or Pixel XL today, even after the price cut. The only reason could be knowing that you’ll get the latest versions of Android ahead of everyone else – at least until October 2018. If that’s enough of a reason for you to spend at least Rs. 44,000, then your choice is pretty simple; for everyone else, the Pixel phones need to go the extra mile to get us on board.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

August 19, 2017 0 comment