AccuWeather Launches Digital Hurricane Tracker In App and Online to Coincide with Above-Normal 2021 Hurricane Season
Infinix Unveils 160W Seriously Fast Charging Concept Smartphone
Zoom Launches Zoom Phone Appliances, Empowering the Hybrid Workforce
Proven to boost sales and enhance customer experience, KIT retail technology makes global expansion
Hyperconnect : real-time video AI monitoring system can now auto-block live video content within 0.006 seconds
Hyperconnect launches SLIDE : a new global project in North America
Put Your Engineering Knowledge to the Test with Mouser’s New Tech Quotient Game App
Google Play Hit 28.3bn Downloads in Q3 2020, 3x More than App Store
Mobile Field Service Management Market in North America Set to Surpass $4 Billion by 2025
Classkick Announces Free Real-time Virtual Home School Learning App for Coronavirus Affected U.S. Schools
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Launching Share to TikTok with Adobe Premiere Rush and More Partners
TikTok is always looking for ways to give our community new opportunities and fresh features to express themselves creatively. Today, we're extending our creative offerings with the launch of our Share to TikTok SDK -- the first feature introduced in our TikTok for Developers program. With this program, we're introducing new tools for third party apps and developers to integrate with TikTok and give users access to even more features to create and share amazing content. TikTok offers lots of creative filters and editing tools, and we want to continue giving our users to the tools to create whatever they can imagine. We're excited to extend our creative offerings with our new developer program. Share to TikTok Share to TikTok enables third party apps to integrate directly with TikTok, giving their users the ability to upload videos to TikTok straight from their app's editing platform. For our users, you can now edit your videos in the apps you love and seamlessly bring them into TikTok. This new Share to TikTok feature enriches the content available on TikTok, diversifies the types of videos users can discover, and offers more editing choices for users to explore in addition to TikTok's built-in creative tools. Most importantly, it gives users multiple avenues to create new original, high quality content using platforms with exciting creative tools. By engaging with the TikTok SDK, third party developers will not only provide a new channel for creators to share their creations but also expand the reach of their own platform through specified partner hashtags. We're excited to launch with amazing partners including Adobe, the world's leader in creative tools, mobile apps, and services. Through our partnership with Adobe, Premiere Rush users now have the flexibility to edit using its rich feature set and share instantly to TikTok. Rush allows creators to capture videos on the fly and edit their content on any device using the tools and effects they love like speed changes, aspect ratio switching, advanced color and audio control, transitions, and more! Check out all the third party apps now integrated with TikTok: •Adobe Premiere Rush: An all-in-one app for creating and sharing online videos. Hear more from Adobe about today’s news on their blog. •Fuse.it: An augmented reality app for online creators that allows you to insert characters into your videos and interact with them. Creating AR videos on your phone for any platform is versatile and easy. •Medal.tv: This app helps you share and watch epic gaming moments. Record gaming highlights on PC and send them to your phone. •Momento GIF Maker: Using a smart detection algorithm, this app automatically creates beautiful moments using photos already on your device. •PicsArt: An all-in-one photo and video editing app for making your social content pop. They make it super easy to step up your photo-editing game, create amazing images and videos, and share them with friends. •Plotaverse: This app gives you the tools to easily animate any image in minutes while adding video overlays for next level effects. •Enlight Videoleap: Videoleap makes it easy for anyone to create amazing videos on-the-go. Wow your audience with delightful, jaw-dropping content you create and share with this fun & powerful video editor. You’ll be trending in no time! The new TikTok SDK allows third party apps an opportunity to extend their reach while giving users a wider selection of creative tools to help their videos match their vision. We're excited to see how creators use these new features and will continue to expand their access to 3rd party apps.
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Embrace Launches the First Network Monitoring Solution Built Specifically for Mobile Apps
Embrace today launched network monitoring and reporting to provide its customers with transparency into application issues. Every mobile engineering and QA team has hunches about a call or set of calls that lead to poor user experiences and drop-off. However, they are unable to prove any issues because of a lack of client-side data. Server-side APM tools, like New Relic and AppDynamics, often report that the endpoint is functioning as expected. By using Watchdog by Embrace, the endpoint is measured by how the mobile users’ experience the app, and errors and issues are uncovered that cannot be detected from the server-side. Embrace’s new networking dashboard details a mobile app's networking performance, all in one place, surfacing top erroring and slowest calls from all the app’s APIs and third-party SDKs. Customers can easily click into any path to see all the users and sessions affected by those calls. Detailed session timelines reproduce exactly where failed calls occur in the user’s experience, and whether that user was noticeably affected. Key features of Embrace’s Network Monitoring Dashboards include: The ability to solve unresolved crashes for which a trace is not helpful but every single network call would resolve. Unsampled tracking of every single network call whether 1st-party API, CDN, or 3rd-party SDK. All network errors before they even reach the server so that no error is dropped. Automatic insights into which calls most frequently error or are slow to help prioritize which issues to resolve first. Clickable workflows into any domain to view every single path belonging to that domain and all the network calls in a given session. Alerts by Slack and email on spikes in network errors to catch network outages before end users do. Know when an API changes or errors or a vendor, especially attribution or analytics, is down. More than 15% of users have suboptimal experiences directly tied to app performance, and while many users complain of ‘crashes’, almost all of these issues are not true app crashes. Embrace's platform analyzes and replays the details of every single user session to more accurately and quickly detect, diagnose and resolve any user-impacting issues. The platform typically uncovers 5X more issues than previously known by mobile teams and app developers. Embrace provides a comprehensive unified health and optimization platform dedicated to mobile applications, which enables businesses to make their apps more stable and faster. Its platform supports trillions of mobile events from many of the world’s most popular apps, including Home Depot, OKCupid, Boxed, Headspace, GameTime and AllTrails. For more information, visit https://embrace.io/product/network
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Talk with Google Play Developer #8 – 2019 Life Trend App Developers
On the morning of the 30th, Google Play held the eighth talk with Google Play developers, ‘2019 Life Trend App Developers’, at Google Play Seoul, Samseong-dong. The concept of 'Millennial family' is emerging as the children generation of the baby boomer generation, the millennial generation, makes families. The millennial families do housework cost-effectively, the partnership spirit between a husband and wife is strong, and they prefer efficient consumption pursuing current happiness rather than absolute sacrifice to the family. The lifestyle of the millennial family of the 21st century is receiving attention as an important trend to propose new standards for 'family' as it will extend to other generations in the future. Hence, starting with App Annie’s ‘State of Mobile 2019’ report, Google Play had a panel talk about the current family trend, app development story and performance, and future plans with four developers; (1) Bucket Place, the developer of Today’s House that suggests the interiors of the millennial families including one-person household and dual-income couple, (2) Simfler, the developer of Baby Time that is famous for parenting app made by dad, (3) Culture Hero, the developer of Wife’s Table that pursues a ‘table for wife’ rather than a table by wife, and (4) Home Story Life, the developer of Daerijubu (meaning substitute homemaker in Korean) that supports a home manager of a millennial family. ▲ ‘Talk with Google Play Developer #8 – 2019 Life Trend App Developers’ was held. ▲ App Annie Business Development Strategy Director Hee-jung Lim announced ‘State of Mobile 2019’ report. In the first place, director Hee-jung Lim of App Annie business development strategy sector introduced 2018 mobile app market trends and 2019 forecasts. Currently, over 1,000 different fields across all industries are planning mobile app strategies based on App Annie’s data. According to the report, the number of mobile app downloads around the world in 2018 totaled about 194 billion, time spend in-app grew 50% from 2016 to 2018, and the average mobile usage time per user per day recorded about 3 hours. The average IPO valuation of mobile-centric companies had a growth rate of 360%. And, the Z-generation shows 30% higher participation rate for non-game apps than previous generations. On the average, trends in food and beverage apps have boosted orders across the world by 130%, while those of Korea are growing at 230%. It was driven by an increase in Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) apps and the rise of food delivery services. Banking and financial apps grew 35% over 2016, while average weekly usage per user recorded 5.9 in Korea. "There might be differences by country, but their boundaries are gradually falling. For the industry that leads consumer finance, 2019 will be an important year to cope with this trend properly." – said director Hee-jung Lim. In addition, the usage time of video streaming apps in 2018 increased 155% from 2016 in Korea. Here, YouTube was mentioned as a video platform gaining popularity across the world except for China. As for social networking and messaging apps, they have grown by 35% to more than 685 billion hours and continue to grow every year. In particular, it explained that WhatsApp, acquired by Facebook, was ranked #1 in many countries except Korea. Lastly, App Annie forecasts that the consumer spending of the global app store will exceed $120 billion and mobile games are expected to reach 60% market share in the game section. It also expects mobile streaming video to take 10 minutes per hour in the media consumption section. Over 60% of apps are expected to be monetized through in-app advertising and are expected to compete in the $250 billion digital advertising market. ▲ Seung-jae Lee, CEO of Bucket Place, developer of Today’s House app Next, a panel talk was held with four developers representing Millennial Trend. To begin with, Today's House, launched in July 2014, is an interior platform that includes both on-line and off-line. It provides information on interior cases, furniture, and construction for easier interior and construction work. In July 2016, Today’s House was successfully launched commerce focused on small items, and in January 2019, it has surpassed 100 billion won in cumulative turnover. Recently, it was selected as ‘the best app of the year’ in the list of ‘2018 best apps'. CEO Seung-Jae Lee introduced, “Bucket Place is innovating the interior industry with the mission of 'anyone can live in a pretty house' and aiming for a No.1 interior platform. Today's House focuses on solving the problems of self-interior and maximizing the interior experience for years.” As differentiation points of Today’s House app, he pointed out that the app eliminates the harshness and difficulty of researching by providing information of furniture in interior photographs and linking to a shopping mall so that users can check what kind of product it is and can purchase it directly. He also talked about future plans. “Until now, Today’s House focused on solving the problems that arise during the first and second steps of the interior - finding concepts and selecting furniture. In the future, it will be possible to make self-interior in a one-stop by adding a service that helps people with small and large constructions required for the interior process.” ▲ Deok-yong Yang, CEO of Simfler, developer of Baby Time app Under the goal of ‘simplifying the world’, Baby Time app helps with complex parenting to be easier. It supports smart devices to easily record parenting activities and provides personalized information based on individual parenting data to relieve parents’ worries and help babies grow healthy. In the early days of app launch, through only word-of-mouth, it reached 800,000 downloads in the Google Play Store and the rating of 4.7. CEO Deok-yong Yang explained, “The number of users per day is about 100,000 and the number of newborn babies by 2018 is about 300,000. Currently, there are more than 550 million real-time activity records on Baby Time. With those data, the app will provide parents with advice and reports on child growth.” As for future plans, he said, “Parenting should be happy, but there are many difficulties, so artificial intelligence and Internet technology are being developed to help. Baby Time will continue to evolve in tandem with these technologies. The current version of Android provides English and Korean. That of Chinese version is almost complete. It will be translated into 12 languages for overseas users. In the long term, it will be developed as a global first-class parenting application.” ▲ Jun-kyu Yang, CEO of Culture Hero, developer of Wife’s Table Launched in March 2016, Wife’s Table is a lifestyle commerce platform that introduces beautiful, easy-to-follow recipe content and sells selected products. Having 200 million subscribers, Wife’s Table provides useful information, ranging from a variety of recipes that suit the situation, good looks, materials, tools, and product information. It currently has recorded over 50 million downloads and a rating of 4.6. CEO Jun-kyu Yang introduced, “I started on social media for the first time as my wife likes to cook and take pictures. The app was selected as one of ‘the most beautiful apps of the year’ in 2016, and the YouTube channel has about 400,000 subscribers.” The point of differentiation of Wife’s Table is not only the food styling tips but also the qualified taste and accuracy of the food through the recipe verification of the former hotel chef's specialists. In addition, he mentioned its advantage of being able to purchase food materials in one app, not only just showing foods. Lastly, he stated his plans. “Since the biggest food trend pursued by the millennial generation is 'eat healthy and delicious even if eating one meal', Wife’s Table will provide better Millennial-style food next time. Also, as media commerce is getting attention, Culture Hero will update the service to link the media commerce with the contents.” ▲ Bong-jae Lee, COO of Home Story Life, developer of Daerijubu Daerijubu provides services to arrange professional staff such as housekeeping, postpartum care, babysitter, moving and packing services, and professional cleaning. It also helps users choose their housework assistant by themselves through ratings and reviews. As of January 2019, the app recorded more than 1.14 million downloads and rating of 4.1 in Google Play Store. Also, it provided household services to about 53,000 people. In particular, the regular household service is recognized since 85% of the users reuse the service. COO Bong-jae Lee said, “The app is focused on the idea that the household affairs had a great impact on women's career breaks so that women, especially in the millennial generation, could concentrate on their economic activities through this app. And, I think the trust part is the most important because the helper visits the user's home. Hence, Daerijubu app provides not only the information of housekeepers and the reviews by other users but also offline education and insurance system that guarantees maximum 100 million won to raise reliability.” He expects that the burden of housework will increase due to the increase in the number of single-person households and double-income families. “Therefore, Daerijubu will provide comprehensive assistant service starting from housekeeping services and to all sections including parenting and business. In the long term, we will be working on a UI to separate the app between customers and suppliers,” he said. ▲ There was a photo time after the event. ▲ At the back of the event, the meeting with developers was held.
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Google Play Audiobook Korea Release Demonstration Session
On January 24, 2018, Google held ‘Google Play Audiobook Korea Release Demonstration Session‘ in its office in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The session was held to announce the outline and characteristics of Google Play's audiobook service, which was released on January 24th in Korea time, with Jae-hui Kwon, manager of Google Play Global Product Partnership Team, and Oh-jun Kwon, leader of Contents Business at Audiensori. According to the announcement, Google unveiled the Google Play Audiobook service, which can be enjoyed in the Google Playbook app. The service was first launched in 45 countries, including Korea, and supports a total of nine languages including Korean. ▲ The demonstration session of Audiobook service Korea release was held. ▲ Korea is included among the first-releasing 45 countries, and Korean is supported. The Google Play Audiobook service is a sound book service that allows you to listen to the contents of a book, and provides various categories of audiobooks and bestsellers based on the global library provided by publishers worldwide through Google Play Books. Through this service, domestic users can enjoy books produced in Korea as well as overseas books as audio books, and some of overseas books are provided free of charge. In particular, Google Play Audiobook service utilizes machine learning technology to automatically generate and provide a detailed table of contents that facilitates navigation underneath the main table of contents. Machine learning technology divides the text of an eBook and the words of an audiobook into syntactic units and automatically generates a detailed table of contents considering the flow of natural contents and a table of contents by detailed table of contents. By applying an individual book purchasing model, users can purchase an audiobook that they want at a 10% discount without any burden of subscription service. In addition, they can listen to a part of the audiobook through free pre-listening before purchasing and decide to make a purchase, and the purchased book is stored in the Google Playbook app, so users can easily check the list of purchased books. Google Play Audiobook service can be used on a variety of devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops using platforms such as Android, iOS, and Chrome Web. It also provides functions that are optimized for user’s lifestyle such as sleep timer settings, playback speed settings, skip forward button, listening to each table of contents, checking remaining time, background playback, and offline playback. In addition, through interworking with Google Assistant, which is Google’s artificial intelligence voice secretary system, a number of ‘hands-free’ functions such as voice commands will be provided to Google Play Audiobook service in sequence. Jae-hui Kwon, who introduced Google Play Audiobook service, said, ”Google Play, which has provided a variety of digital content such as games, movies, and books, is launching an audiobook service in the book sector followed by e-book. In particular, this is an innovative service with machine learning that users can use more conveniently in daily life. As interests and demands for audiobooks grow, we will provide richer audiobook contents.” ▲ The Google Play Books app lets you use the Google Play Audiobook service. ▲ It automatically generates and provides a detailed table of contents under the basic table of contents using machine learning technology. After the introduction of Google Play Audiobook Service, the introduction of the features and usage of audiobooks was followed. The audiobook, which means a book listened by ear, is a content produced for users to read more happily. It is produced by a method in which a plurality of voice actors who fit the characters read directly without mixing the TTS, and live sound effects and background music are added. In the past, audiobooks were produced mainly for the blind, but now they are getting the spotlight as a new way of reading. As for the process of producing an audiobook, after selecting the works and proceeding with the script work, the recording is carried out in the state where the music and effects are prepared. After the editing process and quality verification, it is then provided to users in a way of distributing the finished data. For listening purposes of audiobooks, users answered that they mainly use the audiobook contents to enjoy their own contents or to take advantage of free time while moving. Self-development, poetry, essay, genre literature are ranked as preferred genres. Oh-jun Kwon, leader of Contents Business at Audiensori, who introduced about an audiobook, said, ”Audiobooks are gaining attention from people who prefer to use free time, as well as from voice actors and students, and the number of users is rapidly increasing. I look forward to expanding the basics of audiobook users through our partnership with Google Play, and Audiensori will try to provide better content.”
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Google to Dominate App Downloads in 2018 as Predicted by Adjust Report
Berlin-based app mobile measurement company Adjust today published the results of its annual benchmark report for 2017. The data from the report was taken between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017, tracking 11,000 apps, with 10.7 billion installs and 1.29 trillion events analyzed across the world. Deeper coverage of countries included China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Turkey, UK and the US. The benchmark report provides detailed insight into the app market and app user behavior, providing in-depth monthly analysis of user engagement, retention, sessions and fraud by country and app vertical. How the world engages with apps - WeChat dominates in China Compared to 2016, retention rates and engagement in 2017 were much higher. However, the current Adjust benchmark report shows that app developers still face big challenges when it comes to retaining users. By day 14 after the download, only 13% of app users return. Retention on iOS is consistently higher than on Android, but only by 1-3%. By country, Japanese users have the highest retention rates of all: consistently around 3% above average. Meanwhile, Chinese users are the hardest to keep. After day one, 80% have left an app, and by day seven only 7% continue to use one at all. This can partially be explained by the dominance of WeChat, and the lower likelihood of Chinese users leaving the platform for other apps. Entertainment and Gaming apps keep their users well engaged. By day 30, Entertainment apps see the highest retention rates. Meanwhile, Travel apps have trouble keeping their users on board, with only a 7% retention rate by day 12, explained by the cyclical nature of travel booking. The report also looks at elite retention, covering the highest performing apps in their own cohort. Retention of Utilities performs best of all, with 44% retention on day one (near half of the initial user base). By day 30, almost a third of users are still around. Business apps perform second best, and great Games perform similarly on day one, though by day seven there’s a 5% difference between the three verticals. Monetizing Apps - Fight of the platforms The mobile app market continues to be highly lucrative. In 2017, 2 million apps were released on both stores, and worldwide mobile ad spending increased 33.6% up to $142 billion, with $17 billion being spent on performance ads. Google and Facebook drive half of all attribution, and Google’s vast network seems to be slightly the better option to reach and engage users. However, user engagement increased over time, regardless of source, by approximately 2.5 sessions per day. Utilities apps are used the most, with 3 sessions per day. This is followed by Games and Entertainment apps with 2.5 sessions per day. E-commerce, Business & Travel apps range from 1.5 to 2 sessions per day. In the first week after install, Android sees more events. But over a month, iOS far surpasses it’s rival, with between seven and eight events per day. By day 19, users perform one less event on Android than on Apple. By global comparison, the US seems to be in the lead, when it comes to number of events. The US triggers around two more events per day than China or Russia. Mobile Ad Fraud - Android suffers the most Every vertical, country and network was affected by mobile ad fraud in some way in 2017. By vertical, Games are the most affected, over a third of fraud stopped by Adjust (per vertical) was targeting gaming apps. This is partially due to gaming apps spending more on mobile marketing than any other. Also, it’s not just those after ad spend who defraud Games, but users too. Beyond the collection of ‘other’ categories, E-commerce applications feature a high distribution of mobile app fraud, about 20% of Adjust’s dataset. While no device is immune to fraud, it is telling that around twice as much of it occurs on Android. There are a few reasons to explain this, from the ease of which Android devices can be jailbroken, to the sheer amount of Android devices sold vs. Apple’s. However, Adjust’s Fraud Specialist, Andreas Naumann, believes “click injection” to be the main reason for this trend. This type of fraud is a sophisticated form of click-spamming which only affects Android devices. The full report, including all results and graphics, can be downloaded here: https://www.adjust.com/resources/insights/mobile-benchmarks-report-2018/
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Bizzabo Launches Next Generation of its Event App to Maximize Professional Events Globally
Bizzabo, the world’s leading events cloud, today launched the next generation of its mobile events app for Android and iPhone devices. The new app offers highly customizable branding capabilities and in-app feature selection for marketers to make their events truly unique and impactful for their participants. With this new wave of mobile event experiences, marketers can build communities, showcase their brand, maximize audience engagement, and effectively drive stronger return on investment from their events. Starting today, all Bizzabo customers can access the new app for future events worldwide. Eran Ben-Shushan, Co-founder and CEO of Bizzabo, said: “We were first to market with a comprehensive mobile solution for event engagement, which enabled us to collect years of customer feedback across thousands of events to surface the newest design and user experience trends. Our new app is modern and sleek with significant customization capabilities and an expansive feature set. Unlike other event apps, our app is integral to our all-in-one event success platform that enables us to offer a more holistic experience for attendees that no other event app vendor can provide. In the $28 billion-dollar events software industry, we’re offering the most capable app solution in an increasingly mobile market.” Trusted by over 10,000 live events worldwide, Bizzabo’s event success cloud helps marketers manage a customized experience for attendees as well as track performance data from each event to make events more impactful and rewarding. Today’s release represents the culmination of over six years of dedicated research, in collaboration with many leading brands, on how to use mobile apps to maximize engagement and overall event success. In addition to key branding capabilities across the event’s app interface, the new Bizzabo app enables marketers to: Customize Your App Experience - provide attendees with all the information they need to make the best decisions, including a new agenda interface, session descriptions, ticket information, venue map, and more. Build a Community - foster growth for your event through the community feature that enables attendee, one-to-one messaging, and the ability to mark and follow up with leads. Enable Partners - help drive return on investment for sponsors and exhibitors by giving them the opportunity to set up special offers and benefit from branded profile pages. Track Engagement in Real-Time - monitor social media activity and see how attendees expand the reach of your event. Analyze Event Performance - leverage event data to demonstrate ROI to stakeholders. Today’s news falls on the heels of Bizzabo’s recent growth investment round, which raised the company’s total funding to $30 million. The new capital will continue accelerating product development for both the mobile and web-based event cloud, as well as supporting the company’s rapidly growing global customer base.
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Honor Delivers The Future Of Mobile Technology With The Ai-Powered Honor View10
Honor, a leading smartphone e-brand, announced on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), that the AI-powered Honor View10 will go on sale in overseas markets from January 8th, 2018 and released a limited edition Honor 7X Red. This follows the successful launch of the Honor 7X and Honor View10 in London last month. In 2017, Honor was the number one smartphone e-brand in China by sales[1], and its sales grew significantly on Black Friday in the United States and Europe. "As a leading e-brand, Honor aims to become the most loved smartphone brand for people young and the young at heart," said Mr. George Zhao, President of Honor. "With a unique Internet-powered business model, unrivalled product and unbeatable value, we are taking our successful business model from China to the global market. Our aim is to become a top-five smartphone brand by 2020." As part of the strategy to bring a better experience to users, Honor works with partners such as Microsoft, Monster and Snapchat to optimize applications and services for its smartphones. - Honor View10: Revolutionary AI and ultimate performance appeal to consumers worldwide As part of a drive to make AI technology accessible to consumers worldwide, Honor is among the first to power a smartphone with a Neural-Network Processing Unit (NPU) to deliver AI features and performance that far surpasses any CPU/GPU powered architecture. Integrating with the dedicated NPU, Kirin 970 chipset enables Honor View10 to deliver up to 25 times better performance and 50 times greater efficiency. For the Honor View10, Honor worked closely with Microsoft to optimize Microsoft Translator. The AI Accelerated Translator software in Honor View10 delivers instantaneous translation without the need for an internet connection. The new Kirin 970's powerful NPU makes the translation 500 percent faster than other smartphones running the same app. Mr. Xuedong Huang, Microsoft Technical Fellow in AI and Research said, "Microsoft is thrilled to be collaborating with Honor to bring the benefits of AI, through Microsoft Translator, to more users through the Honor View10. Together, we will continue to work towards building a more integrated and connected world." During China's "Double 12" Shopping Festival after its launch in China for a week, the Honor View10 became the top selling smartphone product priced over RMB 3,000 (US$ 460). Consumers in India and Western Europe (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) can purchase Honor View10 starting from January 8th online at: http://www.hihonor.com/global/products/mobile-phones/honorview10/index.html. The new smartphone will also be available in Malaysia and Russia later this month. - Honor 7X: Unmatched price-performance makes it the ideal gift for the loved one As the first smartphone to feature the Honor FullView Display, the Honor 7X 18:9 screen delivers an impressive visual experience, especially to the gamers in the midst of the action. The smartphone also doubles the efficiency and fun with its Screen Split function. The dual-lens 16MP + 2MP rear camera with large aperture (F/0.95 -- F/16) and Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) ensures professional photo quality and a professional shooting experience. Users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and India have given the Honor 7X a 4.2+ star review on Amazon.com since its global launch in London on December 5th, 2017. In addition to black, blue and gold phones, a new limited edition Honor 7X Red of 20,000 units will be available for Valentine's Day in the United States, Russia, India and Western Europe (United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain). Honor 7X Red can be ordered soon at the Honor online store: http://www.hihonor.com/global/products/mobile-phones/honor7x/index.html
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Avido Launches the Highly Versatile, Dual-Charging WiBa Wireless Charging System
Avido today launched the award-winning WiBa dual-charging wireless power system. Place the power bank on the charging pad to charge it wirelessly, then set your phone on top of the power bank and watch as both charge simultaneously. When on the go, take the power bank to wirelessly charge your smartphone, simply by placing the phone on top of the power bank - no cables needed. The charging pad and power bank both rapidly power all Qi-compatible devices, including the iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, Samsung Note 8, and Galaxy S8. WiBa can charge your smartphone up to 2 times. Built-in LED status lights make it easy to see the remaining power level. The charging pad can also directly charge any Qi-compatible device while at home or on the go. WiBa wireless charging system will be demonstrated from January 9-12, 2018, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Booth #32012, South Hall 3, Las Vegas Convention Center. WiBa wireless charging system includes: Powerful and thin 5,000mAh portable power bank with built-in wireless charging Qi-compatible, fast charge wireless charging pad USB-C cable and QC 3.0 AC adapter Optional slip-proof magnetic phone plate “We set out to craft a wireless charging system without compromise,” said Kevin Lance, Avido founder and president. “WiBa seamlessly combines the best wireless charging technology for the home or office with the portability of a wireless charging power bank, all without the hassle of cables. There’s simply nothing like it on the market today.” WiBa retails for $99.95 and is expected to ship February 2018.
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QNAP Releases Photo Tagger, an iOS® App for Adding Tags to Photos for Convenient and Personalized Photo Classification
QNAP® Systems, Inc. today released Photo Tagger, an iOS® mobile app that allows users to directly tag labels on photos from their mobile devices for personalized classification and more convenient searching on mobiles. “In the digital era, we preserve our memories using our smart phones. With Photo Tagger, users can add tags to their photos for convenient and easy photo management,” said QNAP Product Manager Sherry Liao. Photo Tagger is an iOS® app specially designed for adding tags to photos, solving the problem of the default “Photos” app not supporting adding tags or notes. Users can add self-defined tags to their photos before or after taking them, providing a smarter and faster way to manage photos. When users save their photos to their NAS, the tags are included in the file metadata for quicker and more efficient searching. Users can also create shortcuts to their most-viewed or most-visited photos by setting related tags as their favorite tags. A QNAP NAS is not required to use Photo Tagger. Availability Photo Tagger is now available from the App Store for iOS devices. An Android version of Photo Tagger is currently in development and will be released at a later date. System Requirements Photo Tagger supports iOS 8.0 (or later). To fully enjoy Photo Tagger's features, it is recommended to use a QNAP NAS with QTS 4.3 (or later).
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Porsche Design and Huawei Introduce Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10
Porsche Design extends its prestigious partnership with technology innovator Huawei to introduce the highly anticipated Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10. The Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 offers the ultimate in premium design. As the most exclusive of all devices across the Mate 10 Series, it combines Porsche Design's aesthetic craft with Huawei's mobile engineering expertise. Its unique front and back cover design are entirely encased in elegant yet robust glass and come in a luxurious and exclusive Diamond Black colour. In addition to its distinctive look, the device also offers a user interface specially developed by Porsche Design, which is available in two versions. With its specially designed Porsche Design luxury leather case, the device exudes exclusivity. The sleek, beautiful finish makes it a perfect choice for the design and tech-savvy customer alike. According to research published in July 2016¹, the typical mobile phone user touches his or her phone 2,617 times every day. As such, both brands share a strong commitment to bringing exceptional design, innovative craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology to a device that serves such a fundamental role in our everyday lives. The collaboration delivers highly discerning customers an unrivalled, premium experience with revolutionary speed, extensive battery life and functional design cues. The Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 goes beyond smart, using the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) to herald the dawn of an exciting new era for mobile phones. With built-in dedicated AI processor and machine learning, the Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 is an intelligent device. As well as ultimate functional design, it delivers superior performance at lightning speed, responding to real-world situations and learning from the user, allowing them to perform at their ultimate. This includes a camera which features the best lenses, self-adjustment, intelligent feedback and AI enabled photo applications as well as a PRO mode to deliver unparalleled photography for users of all levels. Furthermore, with a combination of 6GB RAM and 256GB ROM it is the high-end device in Huawei's current product range. It features the largest memory cortex of the whole HUAWEI Mate 10 Series, ideal for storing numerous photos, videos and documents. Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 key features include: A truly unique design which exudes luxury and style, thanks to Porsche Design's signature brand aesthetic. The premium look and feel appeals to a more discerning customer for whom style as well as substance is front of mind, and who expects the very best that money can buy. An industry leading 4000mAh battery and smart battery management system, which learns from the user's behaviour and intelligently allocates resources, combine to avoid power-wastage and maximize battery life. The largest battery size among all flagships on the market combined with Huawei's SuperCharge technology, means a single, safe, 20-minute charge can supply a whole day's power, making it ideal for those who use their phone constantly and are always travelling or on the go. What's more, the intelligent Neural Processing Unit manages power consumption and resource allocation depending on whether the phone is used for camera, business, travel or mobile gaming. HUAWEI FullView Display means users do not have to compromise on the delivery of the premium quality films and photography created by the device's intelligent technology. A stunning new 6-inch screen with 18:9 aspect ratio, barely-there-bezels and HDR10 technology make for an intensely vivid viewing experience with brighter colours. The impressive screen can support a split-screen interface, enabling users to run two apps side by side. 3D curved glass design, large almost borderless FullView and smudge-proof finish result in a beautiful and ergonomic object that is strong enough to withstand daily wear and tear. These features make the Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 ideal for the design conscious user, to whom aesthetics are as important as performance. Easy Talk technology means even the faintest whisper spoken into the Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 will be heard clearly at the other end. AI technology will enhance and boost low volume calls, while noisy calls are transformed into high quality conversations with AI-advanced ambient noise cancellation. The pre-installed real-time AI Accelerated Translator instantly translates text, voice, conversations, and images into 50+ languages across devices. A fingerprint sensor is hidden discreetly on the back of the device for security and ease of use. Co-engineered with renowned professional camera maker and optics expert Leica Camera, the Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 guarantees professional grade photography without the effort. Top quality 12-megapixel RGB and 20-megapixel monochrome with the world's largest f/1.6 aperture dual lenses in the new Leica Dual Camera, along with Huawei's AI features, enable state-of-the-art photographs. Powered by AI technology, the camera takes photography to the next level, from artistic to intelligent, identifying different scenes in real time - such as plant, snow, beach, and portrait. It automatically adjusts the colour, contrast, brightness and exposure to produce vibrant, sharp, perfectly framed photographs. It delivers AI-powered Bokeh effect by shifting the focal point onto the subject of the photograph for picture-perfect portraits and selfies, and is even capable of capturing clear and sharp pictures of objects in motion. The Porsche Design HUAWEI Mate 10 delivers beautiful design and takes the smartphone to a new level of intelligence. The device processes information faster than ever before, thinking quickly and intelligently and learning your habits to become an extension of who you are; faster, more reliable and longer lasting, it helps you perform at your ultimate. It is no longer a smartphone, it's an intelligent machine.
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Google and HTC Announce US$1.1 Billion Cooperation Agreement
Google and HTC Corporation announced a definitive agreement under which certain HTC employees – many of whom are already working with Google to develop Pixel smartphones – will join Google. HTC will receive US$1.1 billion in cash from Google as part of the transaction. Separately, Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP). The agreement is a testament to the decade-long strategic relationship between HTC and Google around the development of premium smartphones. This agreement also supports HTC's continued branded smartphone strategy, enabling a more streamlined product portfolio, greater operational efficiency and financial flexibility. HTC will continue to have best-in-class engineering talent, which is currently working on the next flagship phone, following the successful launch of the HTC U11 earlier this year. HTC will also continue to build the virtual reality ecosystem to grow its VIVE business, while investing in other next-generation technologies, including the Internet of Things, augmented reality and artificial intelligence. For Google, this agreement further reinforces its commitment to smartphones and overall investment in its emerging hardware business. In addition to the talented and experienced team of professionals, Google will continue to have access to HTC's IP to support the Pixel smartphone family. Additionally, this agreement also represents a significant investment by Google in Taiwan as a key innovation and technology hub. "As a pioneer of the smartphone market, we are very proud of our history of innovation. Our unmatched smartphone value chain, including our IP portfolio, and world-class talent and system integration capabilities, have supported Google in bolstering the Android market," said Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO of HTC. "This agreement is a brilliant next step in our longstanding partnership, enabling Google to supercharge their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation within our HTC smartphone and VIVE virtual reality businesses. We believe HTC is well positioned to maintain our rich legacy of innovation and realize the potential of a new generation of connected products and services." "HTC has been a longtime partner of Google and has created some of the most beautiful, premium devices on the market," said Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google. "We're excited and can't wait to welcome members of the HTC team who will be joining Google to fuel further innovation and future product development in consumer hardware." The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, is expected to close by early 2018. Evercore served as financial advisor to HTC and Gibson Dunn and Tsar & Tsai acted as legal counsel. Lazard served as financial advisor to Google and Cleary Gottlieb and Lee & Li acted as legal counsel.
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Wrestler Launches New Kylin Protective Case for iPhone X
Wrestler releases the ultra-durable iPhone X protective case on the customer electronics market right after the launch of iPhone X, bringing ultimate protection beyond your imagination. The series case is named as Kylin. The inspiration comes from Kylin, one of the mythical animals, with the meanings of "protective" and "auspicious". Wrestler unveils Kylin to the public with only one goal to provide customers reliable protection for their valuable iPhone X. Simultaneously, Wrestler case also introduces some high quality cases, Tack series and Meteorite series for iPhone 8, Encircle series, Knight series, Beloved series and Alien series for iPhone 8 Plus protective case . All cases are designed for the same purpose to protect the iPhone. Apple's new generation handset is totally different, from profile design to functional innovation. The highly-expected smart phone features wireless charging, 3D facial recognition, no home button and edge-to-edge display. The official price is $999. Expensive though the iPhone X is, customers still desire it, and will purchase a solid phone case to reach the maximum safety for their valuable iPhone X. Wrestler Kylin series protective iphone x cases are designed and manufactured to withstand extremely high levels of impact. This means no damage to the iPhone when dropped from three meter high places. These phone cases contain three-layers of protection, combining two durable materials. The thick back made of TPE is covered with a smooth and soft cushion inside which can absorb and deflect impacts to protect your iPhone X from drops, shocks, bumps, as well as scratches. The hardest middle frame is made of PC material. It acts as the core component in the whole structure to support and defend your iPhone X. Moreover, a flexible TPE outer ring is added on the middle frame, offering reinforced protection and a comfortable feeling. It can effectively prevent accidental injury caused by inner hard plastic. There are many delicate grooves on outer sides like Kylin scales, with scratch resistance, anti-slip effect and a pleasant grip feel. Wrestler highlights details in the process of making phone cases. Installation and removal of Kylin protective case can be easily completed for its precise cutouts to all buttons. Moreover, the extra-tough Kylin case with dust plugs and transparent membrane can greatly reduce dust pollution and extend the service life. The polished back cover is quite sleek and scratch-resistant, making the phone pocket-friendly. There is also a vertical camera cutout for dual-lens camera protection and a round window to show the iPhone logo. Another useful function comes with the raised bezel, protecting your phone screen from direct impact. There is a variety of mixed colors including blue/black, yellow/black, silver gray/black, pink/black, as well as orange/black. These available colors continue the Wrestler consistent style of color collocation, simplicity and style.
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SHARP to Launch SHARP AQUOS S2, Marking Its Return to Chinese Market
SHARP will release its latest full screen smartphone SHARP AQUOS S2, in a product launch event in Beijing on August 8. It is the 29th full screen smartphone from SHARP, and the first full screen smartphone SHARP introduces to Chinese smartphone market. It will be available in China starting August 14. The latest SHARP AQUOS S2 applies FFD (Free Form Display) technology to dig small holes precisely in the screen for the front camera and receiver, so it offers great user experiences for selfies and excellent audio quality. Its screen-to-body ratio is as high as 84.95%, which makes the 5.5-inch display screen feel like a 5-inch screen body while being held. The excellent visual effect and comfortable grip will provide unprecedented user experience for customers. "The core of full screen design is to break through the technology limit, achieve the double sense of holding and visual comfort, and provide the ultimate experience for users," said Dr. Luo Zhongsheng, CEO of SHARP/InFocus Mobile. Over the years, SHARP has intensively delved into investigations of full screen technologies. Back in 2013, It launched world's first-ever full screen smartphone, EDGEST-302SH, which has a screen-to-body ratio of 80.5% and ultra slim bezels on three sides. It then introduced SHARP AQUOS CRYSTAL product series into the market which applied bone conduction technology and adopted edge reflection approach to accomplish the borderless infinite visual effect in 2014. SHARP has released 28 full screen smartphones since 2013, which are well received by the market. 100% bezel less screen smartphone is the ultimate target for full screen smartphones. There are several obstacles blocking the development of full screen smartphones, for example, the front camera, front fingerprint identification and receiver. SHARP AQUOS S2 with slim bezels on three sides is currently the largest full screen smartphone right now. SHARP will continuously explore the field of 100% bezel less screen smartphone and aim to achieve breakthroughs in screen and anti-dropping technologies.
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The assignments of next generation SoC suggested by Qualcomm Adreno 530
Qualcomm is the most ‘unexpected’ company in SIGGRAPH 2015 exhibition. Qualcomm make their show booths in SIGGRAPH 2015, and briefing their new GPU IP ‘Adreno 530, 510’ and ISP using with next generation snapdragon SoC. Qualcomm only announced their new GPU and ISP in SIGGRAPH 2015 because the next SoC’s debut schedule is too far and consider to the characteristic of ‘SIGGRAPH 2015’ I guess. Snapdragon 820 is Qualcomm’s next generation flagship SoC, and the guideline of performance of next year’s flagship smartphones. The feature and performance of Adreno 530 GPU can guess graphic performance and power efficiency of next generation smartphones, and make the trend of display and camera that affect many smartphone’s differentiation strategy. These kinds of changes make whole industry changes because mobile platform is one of the most important contents consumption platforms. Many values required to next generation SoC that high performance and high power efficiency, small footprint and many feature set is conflictingly many time. But technical solution that applied to the new process and architecture, optimizing platform and software compromise with that conflictingly things to higher level. Qualcomm’s announce about Adreno 530 GPU and ISP was including their concern and solution of next generation SoC and platform a little. ▲ This kind of performance gain has architecture changing with SoC usually. Qualcomm told that the Adreno 530 GPU’s graphic performance is 40% up from Adreno 430, 40% low power consumption from Adreno 430 when same workloads. I can’t certain the test configuration exactly, but one of the reasons of performance gain is memory subsystems if consider test display configuration has FHD or 2K display at least. Usually memory interface is most SoC’s point of performance bottleneck if the SoC using shared memory architecture between processor and GPU. Qualcomm said that Adreno 530’s goal of design is performance, power efficiency, and maximize the performance per watt. So, already qualcomm applied some hardware, software technologies about reducing memory bandwidth use. One of these technics already many GPU company uses that is texture compression and drop the invisible surface from rendering task based Z-buffer. That kind of technics can reduce SoC’s memory bandwidth and archive some performance gain and reduce power consumption. The fundamental solution of this kind of concern is using higher physical memory bandwidth. Snapdragon 820 using LPDDR4, that is already using with snapdragon 810 but 820’s LPDDR4 can run in higher frequency. Added channel in memory controller is not suitable for this problem because footprint and cost. So I guess physical memory performance of snapdragon 820 SoC is better only a little-bit than 810 but 25.6GB/s of 810’s LPDDR4 bandwidth is not bad performance in now. ▲ ‘Compression Technology’ for reducing data transport is important part of the latest SoC Hardware based ‘Compression technology’ is good choice of solve memory bandwidth problems between GPU and memory. In my opinion, this kind of improvement make boost of performance and efficiency for Adreno 530. Qualcomm announced that the bandwidth compression ratio is 2:1 for memory, 3:1 for VPU, IPU, and provide 50% higher efficient compared to previous generation. Using the latest high speed memory with minimal serial connection and applying compression technology for boost efficiency is very effective ways of mobile platforms that have tight limitations of physical and logical resources. Latest mobile platform provide high graphics, gaming performance beyond expectation in high resolution display even many tight limitation, because their effort of raise performance and reduce footprint and power consumption. But ‘Data compression’ technology have some technical issues need to solve. Usually compression technology in data bus makes performance variations problems depending on data, application types. But this kind of technology have more advantages in mobile platforms even some users don’t like that. And QoS management technology in SoC can solve that kinds of problems, so Qualcomm applied this technology in 820 SoCs. ▲ GPGPU have high potentials and begin to utilize that more than now One of important tasks of the next-generation SoC is make other ways of using big GPU in SoC not only graphics but other tasks. Almost modern GPU has ‘unified shader’ architecture and available to use for general-purpose such as OpenCL. But most of SoCs uses other IP instead of GPU for special features of multi-media support, because power and performance efficiency. When Qualcomm announced performance of Adreno 530 GPU, they introduce GPGPU performance based on OpenCL separate to graphics performance. Truly, almost latest GPU can be supports OpenCL 2.0 with shared virtual memory like Qualcomm’s new GPU. But Qualcomm’s special point is replace some discrete IP to GPGPU-based software features and it can improve competitiveness in mobile platform that converged to software and hardware very closely. Image and video processing that using traditional discrete IP is the easiest parts of performance boosts to using GPGPU based on modern GPU with OpenCL in mobile platform. Replace discrete IP to GPU-based software function is good choice for performance boost and improve efficiency in SoC’s footprint if the new generation SoC success to solve their GPU’s efficiency when using OpenCL. And it can make more flexible to support new standard and technology. ▲ First of all, default app made from vender start to using that Camera performance of the smartphone is the result of combined to hardware modules and software performance. Sometimes we can find that camera performance is various changing when just using another camera software even on same modules and phones. If the camera apps use GPGPU for make panorama image, image filter, HDR, noise reduction and many pre- or post-processing, it can make most powerful performance of overall camera performance then other apps or phones only using CPU or IPs. Device manufacture’s default app has advantages in optimization if GPGPU technology applied to use in apps. Third-party apps usually focused to use CPU instead of GPU because they need to measured compatibility of many versions of platforms, OS, software environments, and a lot of devices. But manufacture’s default app is measured and optimization with only specific hardware and software configuration. And, SoC vender encouraged more to use that kind of technology because the perfection of default app make images of completion of device and ability to compete. In my opinion, SoC vendor like Qualcomm need to support more for third-party companies or developers, and make some kind of promotions for use GPGPU to their applications. GPU has general-purpose operation abilities and prepare API to use GPU, but only few applications try to use that because lack of make opportunity for using GPGPU application. So, I suggested to make new promotion programs for developers and companies using GPGPU to their apps because boost competitive of SoC and device levels. ▲ The meanings of Qualcomm’s entry in SIGGRAPH is not an picnic I think. Many people focused on the manufacturing process of ‘Snapdragon 820’, but using ‘FinFET’ is only well known of that. Of course, only a few companies have ‘FinFET’ process technology for mass production or have plans, and many people guess that is only choice one of two well-known companies. But we don’t know about progress of build their factories for production, I just can ‘guess’ but not sure. Performance gain in modern SoC is not simple to achieve only manufacturing process because modern process is already near to bit the physical limitation. And modern generation of ARM architecture is not simple, low power-consumption, and need to modify and optimize to new trend of maximum performance in limited resources. But ARM has an advantages than x86 in optimizing because unweighted of legacy architecture support. How to use powerful and big GPU in various way is the key of making competitive in next-generation mobile platforms. Encouraging GPU utilize in platform can change architecture of SoCs to more efficiently, and make performance advantage that users can experience. It is very interesting point that snapdragon 820 can make a chance of change overall direction of device, SoC design in market.
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