Chipset manufacturing giant Qualcomm Technologies have announced the arrival of Quick Charge 3+ technology. This is their latest addition to their Quick Charge family. Quick Charge is the biggest fast charging ecosystem in the world with more than 1000 devices facilitating Quick Charge. With Quick Charge 3+, Qualcomm aims to bring faster charging across a range of affordable devices and providing convenience.
Until now, Quick Charge was only seen on high-end and premium devices which might not have been accessible to all. However, with Quick Charge 3+ devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 and Qualcomm Snapdragon 765+ processors will be enabled with wilt the Quick Charge 3+ which will be followed by other new Snapdragon platforms across tiers in 2020. Xiaomi’s Mi Lite Zoom which is powered by Snapdragon 765G is the world’s first smartphone with both Quick Charge 4+ and Quick Charge 3+ charging technology.
Some features of the Quick Charge 3+ :
Fast Charging with better efficiency: 0%-50% in 15 minutes, 35% faster and 9 degrees Celsius cooler comparing to previous generations.
Quick Charge 3+ will support industry-standard USB type A-to-type C cables and accessories that support scalable voltage with 20mV steps from Quick Charge 4, which are more affordable for OEMs and consumers
Quick Charge 3+ is backwards compatible with previous-generation Quick Charge devices and newer devices can work with Quick Charge 3+ accessories thereby always providing the most flexible charging experiences
Other key features include: Integrated cable power capability/identification, various safety mechanisms
Additionally, Quick Charge 3+ will bring in the following benefits to the table for smartphone manufacturers
Scalable architecture to allow OEMs to a move to higher charge power with the same software implementation and address different system requirement in terms of PCB design, charger IC location, etc.
Support of ultra-fast charging with lower-cost, variable voltage charging accessories such as Quick Charge 3+
Eliminating the need for external components such as OVP (Over Voltage Protection) chip, sense resistor and others
Support of two input, wireless and wired (SMB1396)
DJI’s Mavic Air drone was announced more than two years ago and it was about time when the drone manufacturing giant gave the Mavic Air some necessary upgrades. The DJI Mavic Air has been one of the most popular models for both casual and professional users alike.
DJI has now announced the successor to its Mavic Air and it is called Mavic Air 2. Keeping the naming as simple as it could be, the company has showered many updates on the new iteration of drone and drone lovers could not have been happier about it.
The DJI Mavic Air 2 now comes with a bigger image sensor and loses the Wi-Fi to adapt to DJI’s own OccuSync transmission tech. Not only this, but the Air 2 also has an extended flight time of 34 minutes and comes with a completely new redesigned controller. The Mavic Air 2 is currently available for pre-order for $799 and will ship to the US initially. The Fly More bundle which DJI makes usually for its drones will include ND filters, carrying bag, propellor guards, a charging hub and three batteries for a total price of $988.
The Mavic Air 2 is being touted as the smartest and safest drone yet by DJI.
Moving on, the Mavic Air 2 now get preprogrammed scene detection modes for images including snow, trees, grass, blue skies, sunsets and sunrises. The autonomous flying modes for the drones have also been updated.
Interestingly, the new sensor on the Mavic Air 2 is a ‘half-inch’ ‘Quad-Bayer’ array sensor and quite similar to the 48-Megapixel sensors which can be found on the smartphones these days. So technically, it takes 12-megapixel images and merges the images for resolution and sharpness. One can also opt to take 12-Megapixel snapshots. The lens on the Mavic Air 2 is a 28mm (35mm equivalent) fixed focus lens.
In the video department, the Mavic Air 2 can now shoot 4K up to 60fps. Not only this, but it also has support for HDR video at 4K up to 30fps and HDR panorama images. Users can now export 8K timelapse videos. Later updates have been planned to enable 8K imaging in different modes.
DJI has equipped the Mavic Air 2 will Airsense, also a first. This technology is an effective solution for detecting nearby aircraft and warning the operator immediately. However, it will be a limited functionality and will depend on which region the drone is being sold at. Other safety features include obstacle sensors to avoid collisions and bottom sensors with aux lights for an easy and safe landing in dark conditions.
With the new features and technology, the Mavic Air 2 has gained some weight and is now slightly bigger and heftier than the outgoing model. The Mavic family now look very similar to each other and can be differentiated by trained eyes only. The controller too has some design changes and features spring-loaded phone mounts for the ease of use.
Facebook has been learning and consistently improving its experience for the users. The social media company is creating quite a few experiences fo it’s users right from the time it was launched for the world. In recent times, the popularity of Facebook has dipped slightly because of TikTok which is a short video creation platform, not very much alike to its other platforms like Instagram and Whatsapp.
In the recent pandemic situation, Facebook has already announced ‘Messenger Rooms’ and also announced the increase of user limit to eight on WhatsApp video calling. Now the Facebook-owned company Whatsapp will soon start showing advertisements to its users.
The move could follow soon after Facebook is done with the merging of the platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Since the time in 2014, when Facebook acquired the instant messaging platform WhatsApp, Facebook has been trying to draw monetary profits from one of the most popular messaging platforms in the world, WhatsApp. However, there have been internal discussions and disagreements for the same. But now, there are on and off reports of Facebook’s intention to bring ads on this messaging application.
This could soon follow after Facebook is done with integrating all of its platforms – Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. You could soon start seeing ads and it is only to be seen how people all over the world would receive it. WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption for its chats and hence is very secure, The major issue of user targetted ads would be the security and how much of it will be compromised when the ads would be able to access user data.
While WhatsApp could be showing ads to those who have a Facebook account, the company fears that users could delete their Facebook accounts if they find out what is drawing the ads towards their WhatsApp. This could have a severe negative effect and at least Facebook, which has been seriously threatened by the identities of other popular social media applications should repeatedly think about.
While this appears to be a very distant thought got Facebook, for now, there could be changes in the way we see and use its other popular platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. Merging or putting too many changes into these platforms could see a negative effect and dip in users, especially when there are other social media/short-video applications which are way more engaging and rewarding to the users. This could end up being a major threatening to Facebook’s very existence.
For quite some time, Motorola has been just vibrating in the smartphone business. Their smartphones did capture the eyes but left people wanting for more in terms of what you would say firepower. For the techies at heart, Motorola devices are the perfect ones until one decides to flip the page over and check what’s inside.
Motorola announced their Edge+
But all of this was put to the sidewalk when Motorola announced their Edge+ smartphones recently. The Motorola Edge+ is set to launch in India, most probably in a few weeks when we would see the current lockdown situation ease. Ease in smartphone shipping and other factors could affect the launch of the device, however, the launch is imminent. The entire smartphone industry is in a very difficult position owing to the restrictions on manufacturing and shipping of smartphones and smartphone-related components.
The Motorola Edge+ and the Motorola Edge smartphones were announced last week and after many rumours and leaks, the devices have finally seen the surface. Motorola was expected to showcase the devices at MWC 2020. However, the cancellation of the event due to the COVID-19 scare left manufacturers with no choice other than online display and launches in a phased manner.
The confirmation of the India launch was indeed given by Mr Prashant Mani, Country Head of Motorola India who tweeted an official video of the Edge+ sharing some amazing details like Snapdragon 865, 5G support, 108 MP camera and a waterfall-like display which ends over the edges. Other specifications include a 6.7-inch Full HD+ OLED panel with 2340 x 1080 resolution, a punch-hole cutout for the selfie camera and 90Hz of refresh rate for the screen. The display has the support for HDR10+ playback. The Snapdragon 865 will be paired with 12GB of RAM and 256 GB of internal storage.
The rear camera setup on the Edge+ brings three cameras with a 108-MP primary sensor with OIS, a TOF 3D depth sensor, an 8-MP secondary telephoto camera with OIS and a 16 MP wide-angle camera. The rear camera can record 6K video at 30p and 4k video at up to 60fps.
Additionally. Motorola has included stereo speakers, Type-C charging with 5000mAh battery and 18W fast charging and 15W fast wireless charging. The Motorola Edge+ has been announced for $999. However, the Indian pricing will be revealed at the time of the launch.
Life in the time of lockdown has been depressing, especially for those who step out, go to work or even enjoy the air daily. Most people stuck/working from home are relying on a multiple number of applications to feed their necessity of chatting/calling and video conferencing.
Among all the apps that are making the roar, Zoom and Houseparty are the ones which gained quick popularity and racked up a significant number of users. But as it would be, several flaws, security loopholes and privacy issues raised alarming concerns and people soon started to look for alternatives.
Until now, WhatsApp was lagging in the game. WhatsApp only allows four persons for video calls and is a major bummer for the social bees who have a flamboyant group of friends. But worry no more, WhatsApp is adding the ability to add up to eight persons on a single video call. While this might seem less when it comes to a big group of friends, but for some of us, this just might be right enough.
What would please the people is the sheer popularity of WhatsApp and the level of security of personal data that WhatApp promises to secure. WhatsApp has been assuring security and end to end encryption for its chat and video calling services.
Google has made significant improvements to Google Meet and Google Duo which include a new layout, feature and an increased limit on group calls. This might seem less but it is enough to gain traction at a time when web traffic all around the world is just phenomenally high.
The new WhatsApp feature is expected to roll out soon, as soon as the end of April is what the info from the tweet WhatsApp head Will Cathcart put forward. This update will be available for both Android and iPhone users. Not only this, but Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerburg also announced the soon to launch ‘Messenger Rooms’ which will allow 50 people to join together for a video call. As in the time of COVID-19 people have moved to WhatsApp and Messenger for call and video chat.
Working all day behind an office desk may is one of the considerable factors for long term negative effects on health – as studies have shown, 83% of US employees suffer from work-related stress and while 49% of all British workers have bad backs. The abrupt transition to work from home to prevent the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, the problem seems to become even more serious. Our homes are usually not equipped with ergonomic office furniture, which means accelerating the onset of musculoskeletal problems ranging from neck, shoulder, back problems, to hand-wrist problems, to leg problems, all because of working in poor postures.
The good news, however, is that furniture and gadgets are getting smarter. The new Ait Smart Desks promise anyone working beside a desk to become healthier, more productive, and less stressed. A couple of months ago, in a time when we could read news stories unrelated to the pandemic, a creepy creature shook the public globally – Emma, a model of the office worker from the future.
She has thick varicose veins from spending so much of the day sitting down, a permanently hunched back, and red eyes from leaning forward and staring at the screen. While these changes in the appearance of the future’s office worker may seem funny and scary at the same time, the symptoms of permanent civilization diseases are amply represented.
The stakes are high because our lifestyle today could lead to severe diseases such as diabetes, cancer, heart disorders. At the same time, obesity and depression also threaten us. Besides the personal aspects, this is also a common problem: work-related stress causes 120,000 deaths in a year. It results in $190 billion in healthcare costs yearly in the US only. The question is simple and yet very important.
It is painfully easy to see that we need to change the way we do our everyday work. Otherwise, our home offices are going to make us very sick. The way to pursue this is also straightforward: to be able to compensate for the effects of our sedentary lifestyle, not being able to leave our homes we have to at least stand up more. Standing for half a workday has been found to reduce blood pressure, improve circulation and increase productivity by 43 per cent. While there are different types of smart furniture available on the market, a new one is in line, that incorporates all functions to keep you healthy in one single desk. Smarter furniture, healthier worker.
A group of engineers from Budapest – led by Dr Tamás Marczali – put two-years of research and hard work into creating the next generation of smart desks. At the beginning of 2020, it became a reality based on their very own experiences and preferences. Ait Smart Desks monitor the time you spend sitting behind them and tells you when it is time to get up from your chair and continue working in a standing position. It also provides personalized exercise programs to help you keep fit without having to interrupt your urgent tasks. To keep you fresh all day, it notifies you in case the room’s air quality deteriorates and needs to be ventilated. The height of the tabletop can also be adjusted so that you can arrange conference calls and write your emails in a healthier position.
As a result, the office or home office work becomes more straightforward and more practical. But most importantly, this desk helps you live healthier and better while staying productive at your job. It is not a miracle maker though; you have to learn to use it consciously, and also pay attention to drinking enough water, eating clean and going for a 5-minute walk after each meal!
What makes all these functions work? Through a smartphone app connected to your smart desk, where you can enter your age, gender, weight, and the amount of time you spend sitting within a workday. The application then compiles several exercises that can easily be done in an office or at home near your desk. It helps you burn more calories, improve your circulation, and stay fresh to get some of the daily stress out of your system.
AiT Smart Desks has launched an Indiegogo campaign, which is already a huge success. Those who are eager to be among the first customers of the unique product do not have to wait too long to pre-order. The Indiegogo page is now live and the desks are available for order.
While things might not be moving for most of the people in the world right now, things at Samsung have been definitely. Samsung has launched its mid-range smartphone the A21 earlier this month. And now if the rumours are to be believed, Samsung is expected to launch the A21s soon.
The Samsung A21 will also be a mid-range budget smartphone offering and the company is known to offer good features and hardware in the budget category and the A21s will also be an interesting device to look at.
According to tipster Sudhanshu Ambore who share the details on this official Twitter account. His tweet mentions that the upcoming mid-ranger will come with a 6.44-inch HD+ IPS display with 720×1600 pixels. It will sport 3GB of RAM and will be coupled with 64 gigs of internal storage space with further expansion on the cards with a microSD memory card.
The camera on the A21s is expected to be a triple-camera setup and will have a 48-megapixel primary sensor, an 8-megapixel sensor and a 2-megapixel sensor. Expect one of them to be a wide-angle sensor and another one for telephoto purposes. The front camera is expected to be a 13-megapixel snapper. The phone will suck its juice from a 5000mAh battery. The rest could be the usual; micro-USB port, Bluetooth and NFC, support for 3.5mm jack.
The details shared here are very speculative and cannot be confirmed until Samsung makes an official announcement for the A21s.
If you are looking to buy a serious camera, you will probably look at some of the Canon, Sony or even Nikon DSLRs/Mirrorless cameras. There are some of the brands which dominate the camera market currently and offer a range of cameras for every budget. However, brands like Fuji have been working to get their crop-sensor cameras out in every budget range and every type of use along with their new mirrorless medium format cameras. Fuji has decided to skip on the full-frame and rather go ballistic with the medium format sensors.
Nikon has been at the end of the spectrum with its DSLR line-up which has a lot of catching up to do, especially if you see what Canon is doing. While Sony has been a monopolistic king in the mirrorless camera market, Nikon now has been forced to enter the mirrorless category with the launch of Z6 and Z7.
The Z6 and Z7 had been launched in 2018 and the first two models were aimed at professional. Now with the arrival of the Nikon Z50, Nikon has managed to capture the attention of the more casual buyers. The Z50 has quite a few advantages over the previous generation od Nikon DSLRs, one of the biggest being silent shooting. This comes in handy at situations where you cannot really fire off shots with clunky mechanical shutter rattling.
Coming to the autofocus system, it is much more improved and can now track moving objects. Not only this, but you also get the ‘eye focus’ which will retain focus at the eye of your subject.
Video quality has also been drastically improved and there are new settings which allow you to tweak and make the videos look professional and can further be tweaked. Image quality is on par with the Nikon cameras. Nikon cameras have been known to produce nice and pleasing images with great colour and contrast. The quality of images from the Nikon Z50 is satisfying and the ISO sensitivity can hold well even when bumped up. Overall, the images are nothing to make you worry about.
The only drawback about this other wonderful camera is the lens mount. Nikon has used the Z mount which allows the crop sensor to let in more light. You can use your Nikon DSLR lenses on the Z50 but you will need the FTZ adapter which is available separately for purchase. Nikon only has a handful of lenses in its Z mount line-up but hopefully, they will release more lenses in the time to come.
So, if you are looking for an up to date camera but not in a mood to spend a bomb to get a full-frame mirrorless camera and a full system of lenses. You can upgrade from your existing Nikon DSLR and use the FTZ adapter to mount the DSLR lenses on the Z50. What you get is professional quality photographs at a much cheaper price
Folding phones are the current trend now. The moment screen manufacturers realised the fact that screens could be folded to attain a different form factor altogether, all efforts were concentrated towards making the folding screen incorporate with a smart device.
Folding smartphones have made serial waves in the smartphone industry. This is more because of people who are intrigued by the idea of a folding smartphone and want to have the latest trending device in their hands. Some of the first folding devices to hit the markets were the Royole FlexPai folding phone and the Huawei Mate X. Samsung, who was trailing the folding smartphone wars came up with the Samsung Galaxy Fold to take advantage of of the time and become one of the first movers in the folding smartphone game.
Samsung’s Galaxy Fold was a big failure in its first iteration. Galaxy Folds from all around the world started to crack and the external layer of the screen started to peel off. Tech reviewers from all around the globe started to share their experiences as to how the external layer on the screen which seemed to be like a protective layer for the screen started to peel off leaving the flexible OLED screen destroyed.
Meanwhile, Samsung did take its failure seriously and worked on to bring the second generation of the Galaxy Fold which did manage to impress the crowd because it is very well made and manage to keep the screen intact even after numerous flipping and folding of the screen. While a lot was happening in the foldable smartphone market, Motorola dropped their Moto Razr which came with a blast from the design resembling its very popular folding Motorola Razr phone. The Motorola Razr is the first phone to have the smartphone form factor fold in half, making it one of the first phones to do so. It does not come with top of the line hardware specifications but is aimed towards being a lifestyle device.
While Motorola was making all the noise about their Razr, Samsung dropped the Galaxy Z Flip along with the launch of the Galaxy S20 series. The Galaxy Z Flip comes with more like a smartphone looking form factor which can be folded in between. Specifications on the Z Flip are quite up to the mark with very capable hardware, however, it is still a lifestyle device which is more of a style statement rather than being a full-blown flagship phone.
Huawei’s follow up to the Mate X was soon to follow bearing the Mate Xs name tag. The Huawei Mate Xs is touted to be one of the best folding devices out there with a solid hinge and a great screen which has surely impressed the tech world. Last but not least, TCL, a brand we associate more with making TVs have dropped in their latest concept folding phones. Not one but two different smartphones which have a unique screen. One of them can be folded twice while the other is an interesting concept where the screen extends itself from inside the smartphone resulting in a bigger screen when needed. When not in use, the screen can be rolled back which brings it to the smartphone form factor. Folding smartphones might seem very cool, the ones available come at a steep price.
Now comes the interesting part of the whole folding situation. Escobar Inc – the tech company which is owned by Pablo Escobar’s brother Roberto De Jesus Escobar Gaviria came up with the Escobar Fold 2. If you wondering the Escobar name, well you are right. The Escobar name is associated with Pablo Escobar, the Columbian Drug Lord who was the head of the Medellin Cartel and one of the most powerful drug traffickers, of the 1980s as well as the early 90s.
The Escobar Fold 2
The Escobar Fold 2 was the follow up of the Escobar Fold which was essentially a rebranded Royole FlexPai, one of the first folding smartphones to come into existence. Touted as the ‘Real Samsing Killer Phone’ it features a striking similarity in design of both the devices including the number of cameras and the exact folding schematics. However, the Escobar Fold 2 gets gold-coloured skin on the back and the sides of the phone with Excobar Inc. which helps it to identify from the regular Galaxy Fold.
What makes the Escobar Fold special? In a press statement, Gaviria has specified that some parts of the Escobar Fold have been sourced from China. According to the brand, they aim at giving the clients direct discounts under the Escobar brand name. In attempts of crazy marketing, a promotional video shows scantily clad women smashing Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphones. Such attempts taking a dig at smartphone makers is not the 2020 way of marketing.
A domain names ‘ripsamsung.com’ has been created by the company which redirects to the order page of the Fold 2. Here comes the most interesting part – the fold 2 is priced at $399 which is roughly Rs. 29,000 here in India. This is much much lower to the Galaxy Fold which retails at $1,980 or Rs.1,74,999 in India. This raises serious concerns over the ingenuity of the Escobar Fold 2 when the phone shows Samsung logos hidden under its gold stickering. It could be a classic case of exact Chinese clones of the Galaxy Fold which are much cheaper but nowhere close to the actual Fold from Samsung.
The first Escobar folding phone Escobar Fold 1 was none other than the Royole FlexPai which was rebranded into the Escobar version. A large number of reports and personal experiences on the web depict people’s frustrations after they pre-ordered the phone but never received one. However, a lot of known YouTubers in the technology space have claimed that the company got in touch with them asking them to make video reviews for the phone in exchange for the device. Sadly, the marketing was shabby and this left many people with bad impressions. Tech experts have also asked people to refrain from ordering the phone which does not get delivered. A perfect way to run a scam; The folding scam.
The current pandemic situation has kept most of the people inside. Apart from the people working in healthcare and essential services, people have been asked or rather say forced to contain themselves inside the four-walls if their homes.
As naturally, it would come to every one of us, being confined in the house is not exciting and this everyone is looking to connect to their friends, family and the whole world for that matter with their phones and laptops. Things like online deliver and OTT platform engagements have shot up and similarly, chat and video conferencing applications are enjoying this sudden blast of unprecedented traffic. Hence developers are taking this opportunity to develop new avenues to help more and more people connect in this current situation.
As it would be, video calling applications have seen a massive spike in their traffic. WhatsApp, Messenger, Zoom and Houseparty are the ones which are enjoying the major share of the fame now. However, each one of them come with their flaws. WhatsApp can only connect four users per call, Zoom can handle multiple user connections (100) but recently it has been subject to data hacks and private user data was leaked due to security issues. Houseparty is another solution but the sheer number of notifications it keeps pushing can irritate anyone off from using it.
Facebook, on the other hand, is learning from the situation and recently has announced the ‘Messenger Rooms’ which will allow a group of 50 people to connect on a single video call. Not only this, on Facebook Messenger Rooms, one can post links in their news feed, groups or even create event pages.
How does it work? One can simply create a room and users can join the room via their browser. The moderator or room creator can also lock the rooms to prevent unwanted people from entering which seems like a form of moderation.
Messenger Rooms is said to have Zoom-like features including the background changing effects which is done to avoid people seeing the cluttered background at times. Moreover, Facebook has added multiple filters and lighting effects to compensate for any lighting defects on video. The Facebook Messenger Rooms will be launched in a few weeks; pointing that it is currently under rapid development.
It is said that approximately 700 million people are using various applications to make calls daily. Zoom has been plagued by privacy and security issues. It has breached the 300 million user limit already. This is a massive spike in user demand and Facebook is surely taking notes while doing its homework. The video-meeting platforms have seen a massive surge in users since the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced millions of people to work from their homes.
