XDA Galaxy

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

OnePlus 5T Lava Red is Exclusive to China

OnePlus announced the OnePlus 5T in early October, the newest in its wallet-friendly line of smartphones, and it's since gone on to break the company's sales records. But OnePlus isn't resting on its laurels. On Tuesday, it announced a red-colored limited edition OnePlus 5T "Lava Red" that'll be exclusive to China.

Source: OnePlus

OnePlus said the OnePlus 5T Lava Red will start at 2,999 RMB (about $450), which we're assuming is for the base 6GB RAM/64GB configuration. If there's a 8GB RAM/128GB — and that's a big if, because OnePlus hasn't released the Lava Red's spec sheet yet — it'll presumably cost 3,499 RMB (about $500).

For the uninitiated, the OnePlus 5T has a 6-inch, 18:9 aspect ratio display with a Full HD (1920 x 1080p) resolution. It's powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip paired with up to 8GB RAM, and it's got up to 128GB of non-expandable storage. The battery is 3000mAh, and the camera — a dual module with one 16MP sensor and one 20MP sensor — can produce the sort of out-of-focus bokeh effect seen on DSLRs.

The OnePlus 5T Lava Red is exclusive to China right now, but there's a chance it'll come to other regions eventually. We'll have to wait and see.

Source: OnePlus

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Xiaomi Redmi 5 Leaked by China Telecom, Has 5.7-inch HD+ Display and Snapdragon 625

Thanks to devices such as the Redmi 1s, which offers a great experience at a price point under $100, Xiaomi's Redmi series are some of the most popular devices out there. The Redmi 1s has since been followed up by the Redmi 2, the Redmi 3/3s, and most recently the Redmi 4/4X in 2017. Now, rumors about Xiaomi's 2017 budget smartphone, fueled by leaked TENAA listings and alleged live shots of Redmi phones, are positively flying. And on Tuesday, a China Telecom leak gave a tantalizing glimpse.

It's tentatively called the Redmi 5, and the design looks pretty similar to the Snapdragon variant of the Redmi Note 4. The phone has a metal body with plastic caps on the rear top and bottom, and its bezels are smaller than the Note 4. That's because the display is taller than any Redmi device released so far.

In the most drastic departure for the Redmi series yet, the Redmi 5 will be the first with a 18:9 aspect ratio. To be precise, it'll have a 5.7-inch 18:9 HD (1440×720) screen, which translates into an area equivalent to a 5.5-inch 16:9 display. That's a huge step up from the Redmi 4's 5-inch 16:9 HD (1280×720) display.

The Redmi 5 is said to be powered by Qualcomm's MSM8953 'lite' system-on-chip, better known as the Snapdragon 625 (seen on the Redmi Note 4, Mi Max 2, Mi A1 and others). The 'lite' label might have to do with the processor clock speed — the MSM8953 'lite' is said to be clocked at 1.8GHz instead of the standard Snapdragon 625.'s 2GHz clock speed.

The Redmi 5 will reportedly ship in configurations with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, and all models will have a microSD card slot which supports expandable storage up to 128GB. It's said to have a 12MP rear camera, but the sensor and pixel size remain a mystery for now. The front-facing camera will have 5MP resolution, similar to current Redmi phones, and in terms of connectivity, the phone will reportedly have a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microUSB 2.0 port (isntead of USB Type-C), and dual SIM slots. It'll also have a fingerprint sensor.

The dimensions of the Redmi 5 will be 151.8mm x 72.8mm x 7.7mm, and it's said to weigh 157g. Unfortunately, it'll have a 3300mAh battery, which is a substantial downgrade from the 4100mAh batteries of the Redmi 4 and the Redmi Note 4. Coupled with the drastically larger display, it remains to be seen how the battery life will be affected.

Finally, the phone is said to ship with Android 7.1 Nougat and, strangely, Xiaomi's in-house MIUI software (version 8.5.1.1). We imagine that even if it ships with MIUI, which is unlikely given the Redmi lineup's history, it will soon receive an update to MIUI 9.

According to some reports, the Redmi 5 may be available starting from December 10. Stay tuned.

Source: Roland Quandt on Twitter

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NVIDIA Shield Tablet Update Patches KRACK and BroadPwn Vulnerabilities

NVIDIA released the original Shield Tablet back 2014, and followed it up with a more powerful model, the Shield Tablet K1, in 2015. It's not terribly common to see original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) support older devices long past their launch date, but the company continues to buck the trend by regularly upgrading its entire Shield lineup's software. Most recently, it announced Shield Tablet firmware version 5.3, which includes security patches for KRACK and BroadPwn.

Shield Tablet firmware version 5.3 adds every Android security patches through November 2017. It also fixes connectivity issues with Zagg Bluetooth keyboards, and includes stability improvements and optimizations.

NVIDIA Shield Tablet 5.3 Update Change Log

Addresses Wi-Fi vulnerabilities (KRACK and Broadpwn)
Fixes connectivity issues with Zagg Bluetooth keyboards
Overall system stability and security optimizations
Update to Android Security Patch Level November 5, 2017

The last NVIDIA Shield Tablet and Shield Tablet K1 update, which was in May, included April's security update.

The BroadPwn vulnerability — a flaw in Broadcom's Wi-Fi code — was patched in Android's July 2017 security update. Along with a fix for BroadPwn, that month's patch addressed 138 exploits and vulnerabilities, 18 of which were Remote Code Execution, which allow attackers to execute code remotely.

KRACK was more recent. Security researchers uncovered the exploit in October, which spoofs legitimate access points. If a connection to a vulnerable device is successful, attackers can use a program called sslstrip to manipulate all traffic that isn't on port 80 to port 10,000. Once that's done, they're free to snoop on all of the data that's being transmitted to and from the aforementioned device.

Needless to say, it's a good idea to update all of your Shield devices.

Source: NVIDIA

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SwiftKey Beta Adds Location Sharing, Quick Paste, and More

Every developer debugs updates differently. Some choose to use Google Play's built-in beta-testing feature, while others like to separate their releases into several branches. SwiftKey takes the latter approach, and folks who've opted into the beta program will be glad to hear that a major update's rolling out this week.

The SwiftKey Beta offers a way to try out bleeding-edge tweaks before they make their way into the stable build, and the newest release, version 6.7.3.25, doesn't disappoint. It adds support for languages such as Chamorro, Ju|'hoan, Lisu, Palauan, Piedmontese, Sicilian, and Scots, and new layouts including Naratgul and VEGA. It also improves on SwiftKey's touch accessibility feature, which can now be accessed with a long-press gesture.

The update's other two standout features are location sharing and Quick Paste. Location sharing, which is limited to users in the United States for now, lets you send your coordinates to friends and family through SwiftKey. Quick Paste, meanwhile, puts any text you've copied next to the SwiftKey prediction bar for quick and easy access.

SwiftKey is one of the most popular 3rd-party keyboards available for Android in the Play Store. Its meteoric growth gained the attention of Microsoft, in fact, which acquired it for $250 million. Since then, the team's expanded it to iOS, released free themes, and introducing a number of new features.

Source: SwiftKey Via: Android Police

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Samsung Granted Patent for Under-Screen Fingerprint Sensor

Samsung's effort to develop an under-screen fingerprint sensor is an open secret. As early as Spring 2017, shortly before the release of the Galaxy S8, the Seoul, South Korea-based was developing a fingerprint sensor that could be embedded in a smartphone screen. It reportedly tried to build one for the Galaxy Note 8 but, but couldn't overcome key technical limitations. But if a new patent is any indication, Samsung hasn't given up on the idea.

On Tuesday, the company was granted a patent for an under-screen fingerprint scanner by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It describes a 12 pressure point-sensor sandwiched between cover glass and a display panel, and accompanying software that unlocks applications depending on who's using the smartphone.

Historically, Android smartphone manufacturers have placed fingerprint sensors either below phone displays (see: Lenovo's Moto G5 Plus) or on the rear cover (Samsung's Galaxy S8 Plus). In July, though, Vivo partnered with Qualcomm to prototype under-display technology that the company had been working on for the better part of a year. The new scanner passes ultrasonic signals through an OLED panel up to 1200 μm thick to read the contours of a fingerprint, obviating the need for direct skin contact.

As impressive as Qualcomm's solution is, though, it isn't as fast as traditional capacitive fingerprint scanners, and it requires an OLED panel in order to work properly. If Samsung's sensor solves those problems, it might just give it a leg up on the competition.

Via: GSM Arena Source: World Intellectual Property Organization

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Ubuntu 17.10 Brings Back GNOME Desktop Environment

Ubuntu is one of the most popular Debian-based Linux distributions, and it's undergone a lot of changes. Most recently, Canonical, the developer collective behind Ubuntu, switched from the GNOME desktop environment to an in-house alternative called Unity. But the most recent version of Ubuntu, 17.10, brings back GNOME 3.26.

With GNOME comes GDM (GNOME Display Manager), a tweakable settings menu that replaces Unity's LightDM. GNOME's ecosystem makes it arguably easier to customize than the latter — unlike previous versions of Ubuntu, for example, you can change the location of the Windows control buttons (minimise, fullscreen and close) in just a few button presses.

Source: Canonical

The flip-flop to GNOME follows Canonical's abandonment of Ubuntu Touch, a phone-optimized version of Ubuntu that used Unity as the default interface, and it's the first big change to Ubuntu in a while. It's not the only one: Ubuntu 17.10 has a new default display server, Wyland, that replaces the deprecated Mir (which is now only enabled on Internet of Things (IoT) devices.). Other changes include improved Bluetooth audio playback, the discontinuation of 32-bit ISO images, and a Linux kernel update to the newest version (version 4.13).

Ubuntu 17.10 also marks the second version of the operating system that starts with the letter "A". Ubuntu's names are ordered alphabetically, just like Android, and Canonical's started over again. Ubuntu 17.10 is "Artful Aardvark".

For a full list of changes, follow the source link.

Source: Canonical Via: Ars Technica

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Moto X4 and Z2 Force are the First Phones with Qualcomm’s Neural Processing Engine

Lenovo, Motorola's parent company, has been busy lately. It released the high-end Moto Z2 Force and the mid-range Moto X4 earlier this year, both of which rock Qualcomm system-on-chips (SoC) — the Moto X4 has the Snapdragon 630 SoC and the Moto Z2 Force has the Snapdragon 835. That's not the only thing the two have in common: They're the first commercially available phones to feature the Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine (NPE), a Qualcomm-designed platform that "accelerates on-device artificial intelligence (AI)."

The NPE leverages "on-device processing" and a deep learning model to improve the performance of the Qualcomm's Adreno GPUs — specifically the Adreno 510 (on the Snapdragon 630) and the Adreno 540 (on the Snapdragon 835). Lenovo, for its part, is using it to power its Landmark Detection application, which serves up links to Wikipedia pages when it recognizes one of more than 1,200 buildings, sculptures, and landscapes from around the world.

The NPE's potential extends beyond landmark-detecting smartphones, though. Qualcomm thinks that automotive, healthcare, security, and imaging industries stand to benefit.

You needn't look beyond the smartphone market for evidence. We recently reported that Google's new Pixel phones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, are equipped with a custom SoC — the Pixel Visual Core (PVC) — that applies machine learning algorithms to the phones' image processing. Other SoC vendors on the cutting edge include Huawei and Imagination Technologies, which both recently revealed details about their own neural processing technologies.

If one thing's for certain, it's that AI developments are only speeding up — not slowing down.

Source: Qualcomm

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