MANILA -- Huawei on Thursday unveiled its P40 series of photography-focused premium smartphones in a global livestream, setting aside a glitzy launch as a third of humanity hunkered down in their homes to weather the coronavirus pandemic.
For the first time, Huawei is offering the P series in 3 mainstream variants: the P40 Pro+ with 5 cameras on the back, the P40 Pro with 4 rear shooters and the P40 with a triple camera setup.
It was second virtual reveal for new hardware for Shenzhen, China-based Huawei, after the Mate line of foldable phones, tablets and laptops in February.
Apple also earlier announced its upgraded iPad Pro via online videos. The iPad Pro works with a trackpad and has upgraded cameras similar to the iPhone 11.
The P40 Pro+ has a 50MP main camera, a 40MP ultra-wide camera, a 8MP periscope 10x telephoto, an 8MP 3x optical telephoto lens and a TOF sensor. It can zoom up to 100x with combined optics and AI.
"It's a camera monster," Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu said. Like past P series smartphones, Huawei tapped German lens-maker Leica to co-engineers the cameras.
The P40 Pro and P40 have 50-megapixel main cameras on the back with improved autofocus and pixel binning, promises better image quality by combining data from multiple pixels into one.
The P40 Pro adds 3 more cameras: a 40MP ultra-wide camera, a 12MP periscope 5x optical telephoto lens and a 3D time of flight sensor for depth sensing. The vanilla P40 has 2 more rear lenses: a 16MP ultra-wide camera and an 8MP telephoto shooter.
The P40 Pro+ and P40 Pro both have a nearly 6.6-inch 2,640 x 1,200 curved OLED panel with a 90hz refresh rate. The P40 has a 6.1-inch flat 2,340 x 1,080 flat OLED panel.
The first of its kind "overflow" display in the P40+ and P40 Pro wraps around the top, bottom and sides of the phone. The pill-shaped cutout for the front-facing camera allows face unlock even in low light.
The P40 Pro+ and P40 Pro both have a 4,200 mAh battery with 40W wired fast charging while the P40 packs a 3,800 mAh cell with 22.5W wired charing. All 3 phones run on Huawei's own Kirin 990 chip with EMUI 10 based on Android 10.
The P40+ have ceramic backs, available in white and black. The P40 Pro and Pro have glass backs, available in Ice White, Deep Sea Blue, Black, Silver Frost and Blush Gold.
The P40 series will go head-to-head with Samsung's Galaxy S20 series and the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max from late 2019.
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MANILA -- Huawei on Monday unveiled its newest foldable smartphone, tablet and laptop, betting on an interconnected ecosystem of devices and software as it reasserted itself in the face of new devices from Samsung and Apple.
The world's largest supplier of telecommunications equipment debuted the new additions to its Mate line of premium devices ahead of the P40 series, its photography-centered line of premium smartphones that is expected be unveiled in March. The P40 phones will compete directly with Samsung's Galaxy S20 series.
In a global livestream, the Shenzhen-based tech giant unveiled the Mate Xs foldable phone; the MateBook X Pro laptop with a near borderless display; and the MatePad Pro, a productivity focused tablet.
The Mate Xs is made from sturdier materials and has an improved hinge that allows the display to unfold into an 8-inch tablet. Huawei also upgraded the processor to its latest in-house Kirin 990, said Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei consumer business group.
The quick charging battery charges up to 85 percent in half an hour and lasts 20 percent longer than the original Mate X. The Mate Xs has 4 Leica-engineered cameras, he said.
The Mate Xs will be available internationally in March for 2,499 euros (roughly P138,0000). There was no immediate word on availability on the Philippines.
The MatePad Pro, aimed squarely at Apple's iPad Pro has a 10.8 inch screen with a 90-percent screen-to-body ratio, compared to 84.6 percent on the Apple device. It supports up to 40-watt fast charging and runs on Kirin 990, Yu said.
Also like the iPad Pro, the MatePad pro can be used with Huawei's own M Pencil and a keyboard that doubles as a case. Prices start at 549 euros (roughly P30,000) and will be available from April.
The MateBook X Pro has 3,000 x 2,000 resolution touch screen with a 91-percent screen-to-body ratio. It runs the 10th generation of Intel's Core i7, Yu said. Prices start at 1,499 euros (roughly P82,000)
Huawei is building its own AppGallery to compete with Google's Play Store and Apple's iOS App Store, he said.
A launch event in Barcelona for the new devices was scrapped, along with the entire Mobile World Congress to prevent the spread of a new coronavirus strain.
"We want to make sure your health and safety comes first so this new and unique format is arranged for your comfort," Yu said.
Acknowledging a "tough" 2019 for Huawei in 2019, Yu said annual revenue grew 18 percent while smartphone shipments grew 16.8 percent, Yu said.
Personal computer sales grew 200 percent while wearables grew 170 percent, he said.
The current year will be a "takeoff year" for 5G, as Huawei has so far shipped 10 million devices with the new connectivity standard, he said.
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SHENZHEN -- China's Huawei Technologies, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are joining forces to create a platform for developers outside China to upload apps onto all of their app stores simultaneously, in a move analysts say is meant to challenge the dominance of Google's Play store.
The four companies are ironing out kinks in what is known as the Global Developer Service Alliance (GDSA). The platform aims to make it easier for developers of games, music, movies and other apps to market their apps in overseas markets, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The GDSA was initially aiming to launch in March, sources said, although it is not clear how that will be affected by the recent coronavirus outbreak.
A prototype website says the platform will initially cover 9 "regions" including India, Indonesia and Russia.
Oppo and Vivo are both owned by Chinese manufacturer BBK Electronics. Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi confirmed they jointly developed the GDSA as a way to upload apps to their stores simultaneously.
A Xiaomi spokesman said the alliance was not intended to challenge Google and denied Huawei's involvement with it, but Oppo and Vivo made no mention of Huawei in their statements. Huawei declined to comment.
Google, whose services are banned in China, earned about $8.8 billion globally from the Play store in 2019, said Katie Williams, an analyst at Sensor Tower. Google also sells content such as movies, books and apps on the Play store and collects a 30 percent commission.
Google did not respond to a request for comment.
"By forming this alliance each company will be looking to leverage the others' advantages in different regions, with Xiaomi's strong user base in India, Vivo and Oppo in Southeast Asia, and Huawei in Europe," said Nicole Peng, the VP of Mobility at Canalys.
"Secondly, it's to start to build some more negotiation power against Google," she added.
Together the 4 companies made up 40.1 percent of global handset shipments in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the consultancy IDC. While Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi have full access to Google services in international markets, Huawei lost access for new devices last year after the United States barred American suppliers from selling goods and service to it, citing national security.
Chinese vendors are trying to capture a greater share of software and services as hardware sales slow, said Will Wong, a smartphone analyst with IDC.
"App store, pre-loading apps, advertisements and gaming are areas that could generate new revenue," he said.
Huawei is also moving away from Google by developing its own Harmony OS as an alternative.
The GDSA's website includes the logo of Wanka Online, a Hong Kong-listed Android "ecosystem" platform next to a contact for the GDSA's General Secretariat. Wanka declined to confirm its involvement.
The GDSA might be able to lure some app developers by providing more exposure than the already crowded Play store, and the new platform could provide better monetary incentives, analysts said.
"By making it simple for developers to increase their reach across multiple app stores, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi stand to attract more developers and, ultimately, more apps," said Williams.
However, managing the alliance may be a challenge Peng said. "The execution is difficult as its hard to say which company is pulling more weight and investing more in it. We haven't seen the alliance model work well in the past."
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MANILA -- A swarm of near-stationary smartphones on a main road tells Google's artificial intelligence (AI) that there's a gridlock. Maps then offers a homebound commuter to take a different route or wait out the traffic jam at a new bar that he or she might like.
On its 15th birthday, Google Maps is evolving into more than just a digital compass to get from point A to point B. In an update that will roll out starting 7 p.m. Thursday, app users will start to receive new features, including a new commute tab and suggested locations, officials said.
The commute tab will include routes for two-wheeled vehicles such as motorbikes, which is an emerging transportation segment in Southeast Asia where motor taxi-hailing apps like Angkas, Joyride and Go-Jek have become an alternative for commuters.
Google Maps wants to make it easier for users to pick their mode of transportation based on speed and cost, said Google Maps Senior Vice-President Jen Fitzpatrick.
"People can more easily make the decision: What route is best for me? What mode of transportation is best for me? What are the tradeoffs? Which is cheaper, much faster?" she told Asian journalists in a conference call from Google headquarters in Mountain View, California.
"Should I leave 30 minutes later? We have that flexibility because traffic is gonna get better. We hope people can make their trips better with Google Maps," she said.
Google's machine learning gathers data from users to help determine in real time which areas are choked in traffic, officials said. Google Maps harnesses data from users in 220 countries who drive a combined 1 billion kilometers per day or the equivalent of 25,000 trips around the world.
Including routes for motorbikes and scooters recognizes evolving transportation trends, said Google Maps Vice-President for Product Dan Glasgow. Two-wheelers move faster and can split lanes unlike four-wheeled vehicles, he said.
"Phones are sitting still. That's a big sign that there's a traffic jam or traffic is really slow or if there's a road closure," said Fitzpatrick, who has been with Google Maps since its inception. "The algorithm is not country-specific. It's meant to reflect all different forms of traffic patterns."
NEW LOOK MAPS
The redesigned Google Maps will roll out worldwide with a refreshed icon—a location pin—to reflect what Google said was consumers searching for experiences and places.
The new features will be rolled out in phases depending on the country, Google said.
The bottom navigation tab on the Google Maps interface was expanded to 5 from just 3. Explore will gather information and ratings on some 200 million places around the world, Google said.
The Commute tab will have real-time traffic updates and travel times. The Saved tab will collect users' favorite locations. Google said users saved some 6.5 billion places on the app.
The Contribute tab will be a place for users to share reviews, photos and information on missing places on the app. Updates will suggest places that a user might like based on navigation history.
It will also be easier for users to go "incognito" while using Google Maps, stopping the platform from sharing their data, officials said. It will be available by swiping from the left side of the screen.
Google is working to integrate its augmented reality tech to Maps, Fitzpatrick said. A feature being tested deploys a bot to call establishments to check common but simple questions such as will a restaurant be open on a holiday, she said.
In the last year alone, through machine learning, Google Maps added more buildings than in the previous 10 years, she said.
"The real world is constantly changing and that pushes us to think about how the Maps experience needs to evolve," she said.
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MANILA -- Samsung announced in the Philippines on Tuesday its Galaxy A71 smartphone, providing clues on what's in store for the Galaxy S20 (or S11) line that will be unveiled next week. It also launched a "lite" version of its stylus-equipped Galaxy Note 10.
The Galaxy A71 has a tall 6.7-inch screen with a hole punch at the top for the front-facing camera. The fingerprint scanner is embedded in the Full HD AMOLED display.
The 4 cameras are housed in a rectangular module at the upper left corner of the phone's back. It packs a 4,500 mAh battery with 25W fast charging.
Various leaks point to at least 4 rear cameras on the 11th generation S flagship, packed in a similar array as the A71. The upcoming flagship is also rumored to adopt a punch hole camera, like the A71 and the Note 10 line.
While priced lower than the premium Galaxy S and Galaxy Note lines, the A series sometimes provides clues on Samsung's design direction. In January 2017, the Galaxy A8's vertical camera set up on the rear, with the fingerprint sensor below the lens, foretold the design on the S9 and later that year, the Note 9.
Samsung is touting the 4 cameras in the Galaxy A71: a 64 megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, a 5-megapixel live focus camera for background blur and a 5-megapixel macro lens. It has a 32-megapixel front camera.
The phone runs Android 10 with Samsung's One UI 2 skin. It comes with 8GB RAM and 128GB onboard storage powered by a midrange Snapdragon 730G.
The Note 10 Lite has 6.7-inch FHD+ display with a 1080x2400 resolution and a small hole punch for the front-facing camera.
It has 3 cameras on the rear, all 12 megapixels: wide, ultrawide and telephoto. At the front, there's a 32-megapixel shooter.
The Note 10 Lite runs Android 10, powered by Samsung's own Exynos 9810. It has 8GB Ram with 128GB of storage, expandable up to 1TB. The battery has 4,500 mAh capacity.
It's half the price of the behemoth Galaxy Note 10+ launched in late 2019. Samsung also announced a lite version of the Galaxy S10 internationally but there was no immediate word on availability its availability in the Philippines.
Pre-orders for the Galaxy A71 will start on Wednesday until Feb. 14. It will retail for P22,990. The Note 10 Lite will also be available on Feb. 14 for P29,990.
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SAN FRANCISCO -- Apple was the top smartphone seller in the final quarter of last year, seizing the crown from Samsung, according to market trackers.
Apple shipped an estimated 73.8 million iPhones during the fourth quarter, driven by the popularity of its newest models in the US and Europe and lower-priced handsets in other parts of the world, International Data Corp reported this week.
Apple, which has been below Samsung for some time, "is recovering, due to cheaper iPhone 11 pricing and healthier demand in Asia and North America," said Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics, whose separate survey also showed Apple on top in the past quarter.
South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung delivered some 69.4 million handsets as it slipped to the number two position, according to IDC.
Chinese smartphone powerhouse Huawei remained a strong player in its home market, but saw sales of premium models take a hit in Western Europe in the wake of US sanctions, according to IDC analyst Melissa Chau.
"Things will continue to look challenging for Huawei given that the trade war is still not yet resolved, while new uncertainty raised around the Wuhan coronavirus could potentially have adverse effects on not just Huawei, but all players reliant on the China smartphone supply chain," Chau said.
Huawei shipped 56.2 million smartphones during the quarter, a decline of about seven percent from the same period a year earlier, IDC reported.
IHS Markit senior analyst Anna Ahrens said Huawei faced headwinds because of US sanctions which prevented it from getting key components and software.
"In markets like Western Europe, the lack of Google services will make Huawei phones a hard sell for consumers, especially considering that the company's Mate series is positioned squarely in the premium price segment," Ahrens said.
Samsung remained the top smartphone seller overall last year, and the broader market is expected to get a boost as 5G telecom networks get established and new smartphones synched to them are launched.
For the full year, overall smartphone sales were down around one percent despite an improving trend in the fourth quarter, according to IDC and Strategy Analytics surveys.
IDC reported shipments of 368 million handsets in 2019 compared with 373 million a year earlier, marking a third consecutive yearly decline.
Agence France-Presse
SAN FRANCISCO - Apple on Thursday said it has finished rolling out an overhauled map app in the US in another attempt to challenge Google's popular smartphone navigation software.
Apple spent years rebuilding the application, its cars traveling millions of miles to map roads, after a version launched in 2012 was so problematic it prompted a rare public apology from chief executive Tim Cook.
Mapping programs on mobile devices is seen as a way to stay in tune with smartphone lifestyles and pursue opportunities to make money connecting people with nearby offerings such as restaurants, theaters, clothing shops and other businesses.
Apple said the redesigned "Maps" program is fast, accurate, and comprehensive, even weaving in transit options in some locations.
Maps is to begin rolling out in Europe in coming months.
"We set out to create the best and most private maps app on the planet that is reflective of how people explore the world today," Apple senior vice president of internet software and services Eddy Cue said in a release.
"It is an effort we are deeply invested in and required that we rebuild the map from the ground up to re-imagine how Maps enhances people’s lives — from navigating to work or school or planning an important vacation — all with privacy at its core."
Apple Maps had some features similar to those in Google Maps, such as pictures of locations taken at street level and artificial intelligence to check the status of flight reservations noted in email boxes or on calendars.
As with other products, Apple stressed work done to protect user privacy, such as obscuring search terms, routing, and other data, according to the company.
Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON -- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday warned Silicon Valley not to bolster China's "Orwellian" state, two days before the world's two largest economies sign a partial trade deal.
Speaking to a tech-heavy crowd in San Francisco, Pompeo trumpeted the "phase one" deal to tame a two-year trade war but told businesses that they needed to do more.
"We need to make sure American technology doesn't power a truly Orwellian surveillance state. We need to make sure American principles aren't sacrificed for prosperity," Pompeo said at the Commonwealth Club.
He said he was not discouraging firms from heading to China, insisting that the Trump administration wants "American companies to get rich doing business there."
"At the same time, we need to make sure that our companies don't do deals that strengthen our competitor's military or tighten their regime's grip of repression in parts of that country," he said.
Rights advocates have voiced growing concern about China's use of technology to develop intrusive electronic surveillance.
In the tightly controlled western region of Xinjiang, where experts say more than one million mostly Muslim people are incarcerated, China is said to be fine-tuning technology that will allow security forces to quickly identify anyone and give details about their movements and background.
"Ask yourselves just a few questions -- who am I dealing with? What's the true risk/return calculus to doing business in China?" Pompeo said.
Trump is set to sign the partial deal on Wednesday after prolonged feuding, dropping new tariffs that were set to take effect on Chinese electronic products and cutting in half those imposed on September 1 on $120 billion worth of products.
The White House has said the agreement includes improvements on Beijing's requirements that foreign companies transfer technology -- which the United States say is a pretext for rampant intellectual theft.
The Trump administration says that the accord will also give US companies better access to the Chinese market for financial services and require China to buy more US products.
"We will do our part in the government. We will keep ramping up our enforcement," Pompeo said.
"But defending freedom and national security isn't just the government's job. It's one for each and every citizen," he told the tech companies.
Agence France-Presse
People are growing weary of the constant stream of alerts on their phones and struggling to make it through a meal without checking their screens. They’re worried about being tracked. They have tech neck, and it hurts.
As digital culture moves out of its honeymoon phase, a backlash industry has sprung up, with coaches to help people break up with their devices, digital detox camps and tech diets. Mindful of the new mindfulness, Apple and Google have incorporated screen time monitors into their products.
A new study that tracked how 2,444 Americans used their mobile devices over 14 months backs up the general sense of tech fatigue. It found that 64 percent of participants scaled back their app use during the time they were tracked, spending 4 hours a day on apps, down from 5 at the start of the study.
A retreat from mobile devices could have “large implications for marketers and for the digital business models that rely on capturing attention,” wrote Renee Cassard, the chief audience officer at the media agency Hearts & Science, which commissioned the report.
The advertising industry is already nervous about a landmark privacy law in California that could limit the flow of data it uses to target consumers. And concerns about malware and the accuracy of audience measurement tools have dogged mobile marketing for years.
“Less time spent with mobile devices means fewer chances to reach consumers on these devices, increasing the cost of mobile advertising in the near-term and forcing marketers to rethink where and how they spend advertising dollars in the long-term,” Cassard wrote in the new study.
To establish how much time smartphone users spend on apps, researchers relied on an app provided by the media measurement company Verto Analytics. People who downloaded it were asked for permission to monitor their activity on their devices.
Companies spent $99 billion on ads meant for smaller screens last year, more than television and print combined, according to research firm eMarketer. Banners pop up over articles in news apps. Videos play in the corner of cooking apps. And this week, thousands of ad-industry people will attend the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to find more ways to attract eyeballs.
But investment in digital ads, although sizable, showed “a noticeable slowdown” last year after years of rapid growth, according to ad buying and media intelligence firm Magna.
Some companies have addressed the growing uneasiness with digital culture in the best way they know how: through the language of advertising.
Audible, the Amazon app that produces audiobooks and other audio content, addressed digital fatigue in a British commercial that shows a woman scrolling through her smartphone only to be bombarded by what she sees on her screen, everything from cat memes to an avatar of a bare-chested male suitor. The chaos disappears when she selects Audible and pops in her headphones, replacing the internet noise with the calm of an audiobook.
Other companies — Miller Lite, Stella Artois, Pringles and Grey Goose Vodka among them — have picked up on the desire for digital detox, making commercials meant to convey the notion that they know just how you feel. Some of the brands with the most pointedly anti-tech ads are the tech companies themselves, which use messages about the isolation and distraction ushered in by tech devices to promote … more tech devices.
SimpliSafe, a high-tech home security system that can link to virtual assistants from Amazon and Google, made a case for itself in a Super Bowl commercial that tapped into anxieties about job-stealing robots, hovering drones and eavesdropping speakers. Computer and printer manufacturer HP asked, “Have we lost touch with what’s real?” in a recent commercial that came across as a public service announcement warning against the dangers of social media, with images of a couple ignoring each other while glued to their phones and footage of a swarm of people taking smartphone photos of the Mona Lisa.
While companies have acknowledged through such ads that something has gone awry in the relationship between humans and their ever-present devices, some media analysts say it’s doubtful that the huge amount of money spent on ads for the small screen will decrease in the years to come.
“It’s possible that if half of the population decided to no longer use an internet-connected device, you’d have an impact,” said Brian Wieser, the head of business intelligence at GroupM, the media investing arm of the ad giant WPP. “But if an individual merely reduced their use, how many advertisers would be unable to accomplish their goals using that medium? Would it just be more expensive? Would they just have to use a different tactic?”
Mobile ads will continue to proliferate, especially as apps become easier to use, said Jim Misener, the president of the creative agency 50,000feet in Chicago. But he acknowledged “a bit of a pullback” from people who are concerned about privacy and security.
“For marketers, there’s a tension between the recognition of those needs, and the need to address demands for personalized, customized experiences,” he said. “You want to build awareness while decreasing annoyance.”
2020 The New York Times Company
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LAS VEGAS -- Sex toys are for relaxation. For education. For healing after childbirth. For long-term or long-distance relationships. For women's emancipation.
And also... for pleasure.
But manufacturers aiming for respectability tend to save this argument for last.
"Sex toys have an extremely negative connotation," said Jerome Bensimon, president of Satisfyer. "So we've rebranded ourselves as a 'sexual well-being company.'"
The company has gained attention for its pressure wave technology used for clitoral stimulation, and has plans to launch a smart phone app for controlling sex toys, in particular by using voice commands.
At its booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, vibrators and Ben Wa balls sit alongside mini vibrators shaped like ice cream cones.
After some ups and downs, "sex tech" is testing the waters this year.
As recently as last year the display likely would have been banned.
At the 2019 show, the Consumer Technology Association, which runs the expo, stripped the Ose massager of an award for innovation, saying it was disqualified for being "immoral," "obscene" and "profane."
After an uproar, the CTA reversed itself and returned the prize to Lora DiCarlo, the company which manufactures the Ose.
Sex toys "are consumer electronics just like any other but are not treated like that," said Janet Lieberman-Lu, co-founder of Dame Products, which manufactures small devices for clitoral stimulation.
Given their widespread use, "sex toys are by definition mainstream.... They're more adopted than a lot of products at CES."
Her company has taken New York City's public transportation system to court, complaining that it allows advertisements for erectile dysfunction medications and ads that contain humorous references to sex -- but not for sex devices.
"When you say that male sexual function is healthy and necessary but vibrators for women are obscene, you're saying that men are supposed to be able to have sex and women aren't supposed to be able to enjoy it," said Lieberman-Lu.
"That's what leads to rape culture."
STARTING THE CONVERSATION
Entrepreneurs in this industry, many of whom started out in conventional consumer electronics, medicine or cosmetics, say pleasure and health go hand-in-hand.
Given that school textbooks only recently began including information on the shape and size of the clitoris, they say they are on a mission to educate the public.
It is often "much easier to talk about health than pure pleasure, which can involve fear of rejection," said Soumyadip Rakshit, CEO of Mystery Vibe, which develops vibrators that deal with both erectile difficulties in men and postpartum vaginal scarring in women.
To open up, people often need a catalyst.
"Everyone is keen to talk about it but no one wants to be the first," he said.
"If someone does that for them, a company, an article, a doctor... it makes that so much easier."
Elsewhere on the showroom floor, Gerard Escaler, chief marketing officer at Lovense, explains how a male "masturbator" works.
The tubular objects have internal sleeves and are pink when intended for straight users and translucent for gay users.
The Hong Kong-based company offers several internet apps for use in long-distance relations -- with a partner or with online erotic performers like "cam girls" who sell access to live web video.
Lovense also is developing a virtual reality game for the male sex toy with female characters. Visitors have to imagine the contents, however, since the imagery, even if artificial, is not allowed during the consumer expo.
But the "sexual well-being" industry, which could swell to nearly $40 billion by 2024, according to a forecast from market research firm Aritzon, may have good reason to maintain an air of mystery and controversy.
Without the storm it created last year, the $300 Ose vibrator might not have taken off quite the way it did, said Lora Haddock DiCarlo, founder of the eponymous company which produces it.
"When we did our presale with Ose, after its long-awaited release at the end of November, we hit our yearly sales goal in five hours," she said, as she road aboard a transparent mobile showroom plying the streets of Las Vegas during the show.
The roving booth, like a fishbowl on wheels, displayed the catch phrase: "The pleasure is all yours."
Agence France-Presse
MANILA -- OPPO said Thursday it partnered with rivals Vivo and Xiaomi to establish a wireless file sharing system that does not require an internet connection.
The Peer-to-Peer Transmission Alliance will be based on Wi-Fi P2P and Bluetooth Low Energy and will be available on "millions" of devices, OPPO said.
"This 3-brand partnership aims to bring the millions of OPPO, Vivo, and Xiaomi users across the world effortless and more user-centric file-sharing,” said OPPO vice president Andy Wu, who is also president of brands software engineering business division.
The sharing system for files, photo and video will go up against Huawei Share on fellow Chinese phonemaker Huawei's devices and AirDrop on Apple gadgets.
OPPO smartphones running ColorOS 7 or higher can use the feature by tapping on "OPPO Share" on the drop down menu, the smartphone maker said.
ColorOS 7 is currently available as a trial version on OPPO's Reno 2, Reno 10X Zoom, F11 Pro, F11 Pro Marvel's Avengers Limited Edition, and F11. It will also be available on the Find Series, Reno Series, R Series, F Series, A Series, and K3 "in the coming months," OPPO said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA -- Buying a flagship phone minus the "pro" or "plus" branding is like flying premium economy instead of business class, such is the case of the Huawei Mate 30.
The pocket-friendlier sibling of the Mate 30 Pro packs the same Kirin 990 processor, Leica-engineered cameras and EMUI 10 as on the Mate 30 Pro. All but the fourth depth-sensing rear camera and the fancy curved sides.
This year, Apple differentiated its 2019 models with a "pro" branding for the higher-end model, which costs as much as its base model MacBook Pro. It's a recognition that consumers are growing more cost conscious as manufacturers, especially the Chinese like Huawei, Vivo and Oppo are offering flagship features for less.
NON-PRO AT WHAT COST?
On paper, the size difference between the Mate 30 (6.62 inches) and the Mate 30 Pro (6.53 inches) seems small, but are more pronounced in the hand thanks to the less expensive model's flat panel and smaller notch. Both OLED displays are sharp with vivid colors, especially reds.
The Mate 30 Pro's notch is bigger to accommodate the face unlock cameras, but not as obtrusive as the iPhone 11 series or the Google Pixel 4, which is huge.
The Mate 30 has a 4,200 mAh battery compared to 4,500 mAh on the pro, but both can go from sunrise to late night comfortably without a midday top-up. This includes browsing on Instagram and Chrome, taking photos, watching YouTube videos and answering emails and messages.
Minus work correspondence on weekends, the Mate 30 can go from Saturday to Sunday. For the first time, too, the non-pro Mate charges wirelessly.
Like the Mate 30 Pro, the Mate 30 runs on Huawei's Kirin 990 with 8GB of RAM, but on board storage is at 128GB, half the 256GB on the Mate 30 Pro.
HOW ARE THE CAMERAS?
The Mate 30 has 3 cameras on the back, a 40-megapixel "super sensing" main camera with f/1.8 aperture, a 16-megapixel ultra wide with f/2.2 aperture and an 8-megapixel telephoto with f/2.4 aperture.
The Mate 30 Pro has two 40-megapixel cameras on the rear: a "cine camera" with f/1.8 aperture and a "super sensing" camera with f/1.6 aperture. It also has an 8-megapixel telephoto with f/2.4 aperture and a fourth depth-sensing lens, like the P30 Pro from earlier in the year.
The circular camera array on the back of the Mate 30 mimics that of the Mate 30 Pro, but it has 3 lenses instead of 4. The performance is also close, especially in the dark, where Huawei has performed well since the P20 series from 2018.
More than the camera specs, what differentiates the current crop of smartphone cameras is how their computational photography software works. Huawei's Master AI tends to make red, blue and green hues pop, ditching the need for an Instagram filter.
In these dusk shots of the Rockwell skyline in Makati, a zoomed in shot heightened the red while the wide shot differentiated the blue from the red.
When the on-board AI detects more pavement and concrete than sky, like in this wide shot of EDSA, it sharpens the head and tail lights of the crush of cars and buses.
The Mate 30 took bright and clear shots of Christmas displays around the city, albeit cooler than the night modes on the iPhone 11 Pro Max and the Galaxy Note 10+.
The Mate 30 can zoom up to 30 times like the Mate 30 Pro, but the zoomed images on the pro had less noise.
Wide shots have less distortion compared to the Mate 20. Close up shots of objects and food are clear and bright.
WHO IS IT FOR?
The Mate 30 is a solid phone, both on its own, and as an alternative to the Mate 30 Pro. It's fast, lasts all day and packs the Leica cameras that consumers look for in a Huawei smartphone.
The P16,000 savings from the Pro is also enough to save, or splurge on a Huawei Watch GT 2 with some P5,000 left to spare, or a nice pair of noise-cancelling wireless earbuds.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
This week, Americans will endure flight delays, traffic jams and other logistical miseries to spend time with family and friends. And when the holiday weekend is ending, many will lament that they don’t get to spend enough time with those relatives and friends.
But during the weekend itself, these same lamenters will spend a lot of time ignoring the people around them and distractedly staring into their phones. They will get a notification and disappear down a digital rabbit hole of Facebook posts, text messages and fantasy-football updates. They will monitor the comments on the photos they just posted, instead of engaging with the human beings in those photos.
Many of us have a complicated relationship with our phones. We enjoy them in the moment. Yet when we reflect on all the time we spend looking at a tiny screen, we feel lousy about it. We pine for a less addictive relationship with the online world.
So let me make a suggestion for this Thanksgiving weekend: Turn off your phone, and keep it off for a full 24 hours. I predict you’ll be surprised by how much you’ll like it.
About a month ago, my wife and I decided that our family would spend a Saturday without the internet, a practice known as a Tech Shabbat (a reference to the Jewish day of rest). I wasn’t sure whether I’d like it, I’ll admit, and our kids were even less sure.
But it was wonderful. We hung out with friends, without distraction. We never had to ask, guiltily, “Sorry, what’d you say?” because we had been only semi-listening. In between scheduled activities, we took a walk and played a board game, Settlers of Catan. I spent time thinking about long-term projects instead of replying to unimportant emails. It felt productive, rejuvenating and, yes, fun.
Tiffany Shlain, a filmmaker who popularized the idea of a Tech Shabbat, says that on her day without screens, she laughs more, sleeps better and feels healthier. As she writes in her recent book, “24/6”: “Having one day off each week shocks you anew into the realization of how bizarre it is that everyone is head-down, looking at screens all the time. That should never feel normal.”
My family liked it so much that we did it again a week ago. This coming Saturday, we will put away the phones for a third time, while we are with my extended family.
You should try it, too. In between the material gluttony of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, enjoy a Phone-Free Saturday or Sunday (or, for that matter, Thanksgiving Day).
You’ll have company if you do. When I mentioned my first Tech Shabbat in the email newsletter that I write for The Times, I heard from dozens of readers who have done their own version. Some were Christians who put away phones on Sunday. Some were Jews who observe a full day of rest. Many were secular. Nearly all were trying to find a better balance in our digitally addled world.
“At first, it does feel awkward, not having screen time,” Barbara Mutezdi said. “But with time, it becomes a habit you crave.” Chantel Hanks said her three young boys make crepes with her husband or build Lego robot vehicles, rather than playing video games.
Arlaana Black, a high-school teacher, has assigned her students to put away their phones for an entire weekend and write a report about it. “Although it was difficult (like any addict weaning from addiction), most reported considerable less stress,” Black wrote to me, “and a few said that they actually sat down for dinner with their parent or parents and had meaningful dialogue for the first time in months.”
To have a successful Tech Shabbat, you should choose ground rules that work for you. We turn off our cellphones, tablets and laptops and stick them in a cabinet. We’re willing to watch sports on television, if more than one person is doing so. We rely on our landline to reach other people.
You may prefer stricter or looser rules. But I recommend against half measures, like keeping your cellphone in your pocket and claiming you’ll look at it only if it rings. Out of sight, out of mind.
There are certainly parts of Tech Shabbat that I find uncomfortable. Making a last-minute plan is tricky, and looking up the answer to an intriguing question is nearly impossible. That’s part of the point, though — to slow down and stop obsessing about the immediate. Many people come up with their freshest ideas when they’re not occupied.
You can also minimize the downsides with a little advance planning. Print out your family’s schedule, as well as anything you need for a looming work project. (I wrote part of this column with a pen.) Print out directions. If you’re smarter than I am, you’ll remember to print directions both to and from where you’re going. Following them in reverse doesn’t always work.
Part of an advance plan is telling friends and colleagues that you’re unplugging for 24 hours. They will probably respect you for it. Margaret Diddams, the provost of Wheaton College in Illinois, doesn’t check her email on Sundays. Her colleagues know to reach her on her phone if an urgent problem comes up. Most problems, of course, are not urgent.
I recognize this approach will be harder for teenagers, who have grown up with texting. But they may need a break more than anyone.
Perhaps most important, make sure that your Tech Shabbat includes a big dose of joy. Shlain’s family starts its 24 tech-free hours by eating a rollicking Friday dinner with friends. If you’re taking your first Tech Shabbat and need to win over a skeptic in the family, you could go out to a favorite restaurant for a meal.
The beauty of turning off your phone this holiday weekend is that there are so many joyful alternatives. Take a hike or play touch football with relatives or friends. Go with them to a museum or local bookstore. Cook an ambitious recipe.
And take a few minutes to give thanks, which is a whole lot easier when you aren’t staring into a screen.
2019 The New York Times Company
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it had been granted a license from the US government to export software to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
"On Nov. 20, the US Department of Commerce granted Microsoft's request for a license to export mass-market software to Huawei. We appreciate the Department's action in response to our request," a Microsoft spokesman told Reuters via email.
The administration of US President Donald Trump said this week it would allow some suppliers to restart sales to the Chinese telecoms giant, which was placed on a trade blacklist over national security concerns 6 months ago.
The Commerce Department confirmed it had begun issuing licenses for some companies to sell goods to Huawei, expanding the company's supplier base and providing long-awaited clarity to the industry that once sold it billions of dollars worth of goods.
On Wednesday, a US official said it had received roughly 300 license requests, about half of which had been processed. Roughly half of those – or one quarter of the total – had been approved and the rest denied.
It was not immediately clear which products had been approved for sale to Huawei, which is the world's top telecommunications equipment maker and second-largest smartphone maker. A person familiar with the process said Wednesday that some licenses for sales of cellphone components and non-electronic components were approved.
Microsoft declined to comment beyond its statement on which products had been approved, and the Commerce Department declined to comment.
Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, said the license was most likely for the company's Windows operating system.
"This will be a major relief for Huawei after an arduous period with large technology players like Microsoft, Google and others restricted on the platform," Ives said.
Huawei has been anxiously awaiting a license for Alphabet Inc's Google to supply its mobile services to new models. Without access to Google services such as its Play Store for apps, Huawei phones will become harder to sell to consumers outside of China. Google declined to comment on Thursday.
The granting of licenses comes as the Trump administration is working to sign a phase one trade deal with China to end a tit-for-tat trade war that has roiled markets and hit global growth.
But the move immediately met with opposition. A bipartisan group of 15 senators urged the Commerce Department to suspend the issuing of licenses, saying it could threaten US security.
In a letter on Thursday to Trump, the senators said the administration should halt issuing licenses until it provides Congress "a report outlining specific criteria for determining whether or not the approval of any license poses a national security threat."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
A dead or dying phone or laptop is enough to send anybody on a mad dash to find a way to charge the device, but you might want to think twice before using that random cable found at an airport charging station or docking into that hotel USB port — hackers could be waiting.
As the busy holiday season approaches, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is warning travelers about a USB charger scam, or “juice jacking.”
“A free charge could end up draining your bank account,” Luke Sisak, a deputy district attorney, said in a video posted online this month.
Juice jacking happens when unsuspecting users plug their electronic devices into USB ports or use USB cables that have been loaded with malware.
The malware then infects the devices, giving hackers a way in. They can then read and export your data, including your passwords, and even lock up the gadgets, making them unusable.
Juice jacking exploits the fact that somebody doesn’t have a full battery, said Liviu Arsene, a cybersecurity expert at BitDefender, a Romanian cybersecurity and anti-virus software company.
Arsene cautioned against using USB cables found already plugged into charging stations or even given away as promotional gifts.
“You can easily brand these things so you can make it look like any other cable,” he said, adding, “When people see it, they don’t really think or expect it to be malicious in any way.”
Other ways to protect yourself include carrying your own charging wires, only charging directly from an electrical outlet and using portable batteries that were bought from known vendors, Arsene said.
“Don’t believe everything you see, and don’t believe everything you get your hands on,” he said, noting that starting with Black Friday, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
But it isn’t just cables that pose a risk for tech consumers; it’s the ports, too.
Like scammers who steal debit card numbers by putting illegal card-reading devices, or skimmers, on ATMs, hackers can easily rip out USB ports and replace them with their own malicious hardware, said Vyas Sekar, a professor at CyLab, a security and privacy research institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
“It’s easy to modify the outlet if the attacker has physical access,” Sekar said.
Though Arsene and Sekar said they were unsure of how often hacking attacks like these happened, the growing ubiquity of USB charging ports in places like hotels, airports and public transportation has translated into an increased risk of falling victim to such scams.
“People want the convenience of charging their phones and tablets wherever they go,” Sekar said, adding, “Obviously I would like it too, but there is a risk.”
Sekar said consumers could also use attachable protective devices on USB cables known as “USB condoms.”
“What they do is a very simple trick,” he said. “They essentially disable the data pin on the USB charger.”
This means that the device will charge, but the cable will be unable to send or receive data.
“For less than 5 bucks you can buy it,” he said, “and that can actually save you.”
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office echoed cybersecurity experts in its tips for consumers, including using a power outlet and not a USB charging station, carrying your own AC and car chargers and keeping a portable charger for emergencies.
2019 The New York Times Company
source: news.abs-cbn.com
In 1976, the Harvard School of Public Health and two other major medical institutions started a study on nurses that has become one of the largest and longest research efforts ever conducted on women’s health. They have so far enrolled more than 275,000 participants.
On Thursday, the Harvard school announced an even more ambitious women’s health study, one that aims to enroll 1 million women over a decade.
The new ingredients allowing the huge scale: Apple’s iPhones, apps and money.
Harvard’s new study is just one of three new large research efforts that Apple is working on with leading academic research centers and health organizations. Together, the studies, which Apple is paying for, show how the Silicon Valley giant and its popular products are reshaping medical research.
To enroll in clinical trials, patients have often had to travel to medical centers to be briefed by researchers and fill out the study paperwork in person. Many studies also follow patients only intermittently, in periodic surveys and visits to hospitals.
But Apple tools are enabling large-scale virtual studies that can follow people as they go about their daily lives. The company has developed a research app for iPhones — which participants can download from its app store — that is helping researchers quickly and easily recruit hundreds of thousands of study volunteers.
Researchers at Stanford Medicine, who studied whether an app on the Apple Watch could detect an irregular heartbeat condition, were able to enroll more than 400,000 participants in just 8 months. Apple helped recruit volunteers by promoting the study, which was published Wednesday, in its app store and emailing customers who had bought Apple Watches.
Dr. Ethan Weiss, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said he thought there would be many more of these so-called virtual studies, partly because they reduce the burden and costs compared with in-person studies.
He noted, however, that doctors did not yet know whether monitoring people en masse through smartphones and consumer-wearable devices would significantly improve health outcomes. “This is the big question. Is this ‘so what’? Or are we going to learn something meaningful we don’t know yet?”
Michelle A. Williams, dean of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said she hoped the new study of women, called the Apple Women’s Health Study, would enable researchers to learn much more about how women’s bodies and reproductive health change over time.
Through surveys, she said, women participating in the study may choose to provide qualitative information about their menstrual cycles, pregnancies, menopause and other health issues. Through the study’s app, they may also choose to automatically share fitness, heart rate and other quantitative data gathered by their iPhones or Apple Watches.
“I’m most excited about the fact that we’ll be able to collect women’s menstrual cycle information in ways that we’ve not really done before,” Williams said. “Having this data on a large modern cohort is so relevant to clinical women’s health today because a lot of the decision-making and diagnostic protocols that we’re currently using are from data from 50 years ago, when the social environment was different.”
Apple’s involvement in the research studies is the latest example of how the biggest tech companies are edging their way into the country’s $3.5 trillion health care market. The companies are making inroads in medicine in part by exploiting their scale, along with the technologies that have helped them dominate markets like cloud computing, search, productivity tools and consumer apps.
Microsoft recently began testing an artificial intelligence system for hospitals that records, transcribes and analyzes doctor-patient conversations. Google is working with hospitals to analyze millions of patients’ medical records in the hopes of identifying patterns to improve diagnosis and treatment.
Apple is striking out in a different direction. The company has acquired health and wellness startups and hired prominent medical researchers. It has made health a marketing point of its devices. Last year, it introduced an electrocardiogram app on the Apple Watch Series 4. This year it introduced menstrual cycle tracking and hearing health services for the iPhone and the watch.
In addition to the women’s health study, Apple is sponsoring a study, led by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, that will examine physical activity and heart data from the Apple Watch to try to identify early warning signs of declining heart health. Another study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, will collect noise level data from headphones and an iPhone app to examine how long-term sound exposure can affect hearing.
The names of the studies also provide a marketing opportunity: They’re called the Apple Hearing Study, the Apple Women’s Health Study, and the Apple Heart and Movement Study.
Jeff Williams, chief operating officer of Apple, said the company hoped the studies would bolster the understanding of women’s, heart and hearing health. Apple also hopes to use the study data to improve its products or create new ones.
“We have a noise meter on people’s Apple Watches,” Williams said. “If we can help them understand the sound exposure in their environment and help them avoid the problem, or at least mitigate the problem, with hearing loss, that’s a huge contribution to society.”
The Apple studies could also influence how research studies treat health privacy. Apple’s research app allows study participants to granularly choose which types of information — such as heart or physical activity data — they share with researchers. Participants also have the ability to stop sharing their data or change their data-sharing category selections at any time. They can also choose to delete the current day’s data before it is shared with the study.
Apple has long marketed privacy as a feature that distinguishes its products from those of its rivals like Google. Apple has said that it does not have access to consumer data collected by the iPhone Health app, for instance, because the information is stored locally on users’ devices.
For the research studies, Apple said the technology was designed to meet federal standards for safeguarding health information. The company also said its researchers would have access to study participants’ data under pseudonymous ID codes — not their names.
But the studies reliant on Apple devices have inherent limitations because owners of the company’s products are not representative of the general US population. People who use iPhones have a median income of about $89,000 compared with $64,510 for Android users, according to recent data from Comscore. Among the Apple Watch users in the Apple Heart Study, there was a lower percentage of women, African Americans, Latinos and people ages 65 or older than in census data for the general population.
Michelle Williams of Harvard said that the women’s health study would ask participants for demographic information and adapt its methodology to account for any underrepresented groups.
There are also some concerns that Apple, which has already reshaped how people live, communicate and entertain themselves, is pursuing yet another way to influence society, this time through health.
“The broader point here is the fact that Apple has control over the app store, that Apple has connections with all of the people that have Apple iPhones, and that Apple gets to make a lot of decisions about how you collect the data, about how to notify people to be a part of the study,” said Matt Stoller, author of a new book, “Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy.”
Whatever the potential health benefits, he said, “it’s still an extraordinary concentration of power in Apple’s hands.”
2019 The New York Times Company
source: news.abs-cbn.com
