Month: October 2017

The US is now the third largest smartphone market in the world, according to a new report by global technology market analyst firm Canalys. The number of smartphone shipments to India grew 23 percent in the third quarter of this year, reaching just over 40 million units shipped. That makes India the second largest smartphone market, just behind number one China. Sorry, US, but you’re in third place now.

The brands selling the most in India? Samsung and Xiaomi, which sent 9.4 million and 9.2 million smartphones to India, respectively, account for almost half of the entire Indian smartphone market in the country. "This growth comes as a relief to the smartphone industry. Doubts about India’s market potential are clearly dispelled by this result," said Canalys’ Ishan Dutt. "There are close to 100 mobile device brands sold in India, with more vendors arriving every quarter. In addition, India has one of the most complex channel landscapes, but with low barriers to entry. Growth will continue. Low smartphone penetration and the explosion of LTE are the main drivers."

The top five vendors in India, including Samsung, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Lenovo, account for 75 percent of the total shipments in India, according to the report. While Samsung is a top seller, Canalys Analyst Rushabh Doshi believes that inexpensive smartphone maker Xiaomi will soon over take the Korean company "within a couple of quarters." Still, it’s not just low-end phones making inroads in the country. Apple only started local production in India this year, and iPhone shipments have more than doubled to 900,000 units in the third quarter.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Canalys

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Twitter is no stranger to taking down high-profile users’ accounts when it believes they’ve crossed the line, but its latest takedown is arguably the biggest yet. The social network has suspended former Trump adviser Roger Stone after he hurled threats at multiple CNN personalities. When CNN reported that Robert Mueller had filed his first indictments in the Russia investigation, Stone flew off the handle… to put it mildly. In addition to throwing insults, he insisted that Don Lemon should be "confronted, humiliated, mocked and punished," while Jake Tapper should be "very severely punished." Whether or not Stone was promoting violence, it’s clear Twitter didn’t want to risk people using this as a pretext for more direct threats.

You’re unlikely to get a formal explanation of the decision. Twitter is maintaining its policy of declining comment on official accounts. However, Recode tipsters understand that this is a permanent suspension — that is, a ban. It’s not his first violation, so he’s not about to come back.

In some ways, you could see this coming. Stone has a long-running history of launching personal attacks against those who challenge the politicians he supports, often using vicious (and occasionally bigoted) language. He wasn’t about to take CNN’s revelation (which has since been supported by Reuters and NBC) lightly. Still, this was a test of Twitter’s resolve: was it going to take action against Stone over his invective, or hold off due to the invariable backlash from Stone’s allies and supporters? This isn’t going to allay critics’ concerns that Twitter makes convenient exceptions to its anti-violence policies when a user is too powerful, but the internet giant clearly doesn’t want to give the impression that connections and wealth can automatically put someone above the rules.

Update: Stone tells Politico he’s threatening legal action against Twitter over the ban, and to no one’s surprise claims this is an attempt to censor "conservative voices" and stifle free speech. However, it’s not clear that he has much recourse here. Twitter as a private company isn’t obligated to give Stone a platform, and it has the right to kick out people who violate its publicly stated policies.

Via: Recode, Deadline

Source: Roger Stone (Twitter)

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The cheapest Kindle is getting the best feature for those who’d rather listen to books than read them. Based on its listing (as found by The Digital Reader), Amazon is rolling out Audible support for the $80 device "in the coming months." The e-retail giant’s older Kindles used to have the feature, but it was eventually killed off like a supporting actor in a soap opera.

You can’t use ordinary wired headphones to listen to Morgan Freeman narrate poetry, though — you’ll have to use Bluetooth-connected speakers or headphones. In addition, Amazon didn’t give a more specific release date other than saying that it’s coming in the next few months. If you’re up for a vacation and would like a Kindle with Audible support, you can get Amazon’s new Kindle Oasis. That one, however, will set you back at least $250 when it ships out on October 31st.

Via: The Digital Reader, The Verge

Source: Amazon

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As fast as fiber optic lines have become, they’re still hamstrung by one key limitation: you still need to transmit that data over wires, which limits where you can transmit and the affordability of the fastest connections. Scientists may have a way to eliminate those cables while offering even faster speeds, though. They’ve discovered a way to ‘twist’ photons in a way that not only crams more data into each transmission, but survives interference from turbulent air. If you pass light through a special hologram, you can give photons an optical angular momentum that lets them carry more than just 1s and 0s — and so long as the light’s phase and intensity are right, you can reliably beam that data over long distances.

The research team successfully tested just such a link over a 1-mile stretch in Germany, making sure that it took place in an urban environment where the turbulence from taller buildings could theoretically cause chaos.

There’s still a lot of work to be done before this kind of wireless networking is practical. How do you serve a large number of people, and how is data affected by rain or snow? Still, it’s promising. The technology is clearly limited by the challenges of transmitting light (you couldn’t use this to transmit indoors, for obvious reasons), but it could be instrumental to the next generation of last-mile wireless networks. Instead of having to painstakingly wire homes and offices to achieve multi-gigabit speeds, internet providers could use light-based wireless links for large parts of their network and install cabling only when it’s absolutely necessary.

Source: University of Glasgow, Science

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You can buy a Pixel phone if you want AI to enhance your photos every time you press the shutter button, and services like Google Photos use AI for minor fixes and clever effects. But what if you wish your photos looked like they were taken with a much better camera? Scientists might have an answer. They’ve developed a neural network system that’s focused solely on giving your photos a "DSLR-quality" look. It’s not flawless, but its novel approach points to a future where your phone knows what photos should look like and tweaks shots to match.

The researchers started out by training a deep learning system using photos taken of the same scene using a phone and a DSLR. It’s effective, but it can only improve the quality for the smartphone in question. That led to a more sophisticated system, however: the new network only needs to see two sets of images from different cameras to understand how to apply the image quality from one to the other. In other words, you can feed it any photo and expect results that are more comparable to a target camera. You can try it yourself.

The results aren’t always ideal, as you can see in the sample above. While the colors and exposure in the "after" shot (left) are noticeably better than the dull reference image, there’s also a greenish tint. Other samples will occasionally lose a bit of detail, even if they’re overall more vibrant. The tool nonetheless appears to achieve its overall goal, especially when it’s used with older or low-end phones that tend to take lifeless shots as a matter of course. About the only thing it can’t do is add details that weren’t already there. If your phone is terrible at low-light shots, you’re not going to recover the missing info.

And importantly, this isn’t the end. The scientists hope to put the neural network to work ‘correcting’ the shooting conditions themselves. If it’s rainy day, for example, the AI could make it seem bright and sunny. That’s perilously close to creating non-existent shots, but it could be helpful if your vacation was spoiled by lousy weather and you’d like something nice to show friends back home. As it is, the current technology could improve the baseline image quality for phone cameras if it’s incorporated into future devices and software. You’re still going to get better shots with higher-end sensors and lenses, but the gap between the best and worst phone cams might not be quite so pronounced.

Source: ETH Zurich (1), (2), CVF

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Samsung read the last e-waste report from Greenpeace too, and likely wasn’t too happy about the slamming it got from the organization. Which leads us to the Korean electronics juggernaut’s system for upcycling old phones. Specifically, the company rigged a bunch of them together and turned them into a bitcoin mining contraption. According to Motherboard, Samsung strung 40 Galaxy S5 together to mine recently, and apparently just eight of them wired together can mine in a way that’s more power-efficient than a desktop computer.

Samsung also repurposed an S3 into a fishtank monitor and a Galaxy tablet into an Ubuntu laptop among other experiments. Motherboard says that Samsung plans to release the software that’ll unlock the phones and the software needed to replicate these functions at home soon enough. If you’re curious, you can check out Github for more information.

In the meantime, Samsung still has one of the lowest scores for battery adhesion and requiring special repair tools. So, while this might be a PR win, the company still has a long way to go (as do others) before it can truly be considered anything resembling "green" or "sustainable."

Via: Motherboard

Source: Github

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Netflix has long used House of Cards as its tentpole show, but that could soon come to an end… and the timing couldn’t be more uncanny. Variety, Deadline and Hollywood Reporter have learned that Netflix will end the political drama with its sixth season. The show was already expected to wrap up relatively soon (the end was in the works for a long time), but it comes just as Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp alleged that Kevin Spacey sexually assaulted him in 1986. While Spacey has since issued a pseudo-apology (he says he doesn’t remember the incident), this really doesn’t help matters — Deadline sources even assert that Spacey’s Gore Vidal biopic might be cancelled in the wake of the scandal.

When we asked Netflix for a statement (below), it said it was "deeply troubled" by Rapp’s allegations and met with the cast and crew to reassure them that they’re safe. Spacey isn’t on set "at this time," it said. The company has previously tried to distance itself from scandal, claiming that it didn’t have much connection with The Weinstein Company amid sexual assault allegations involving Harvey Weinstein, but it’s clearly tackling the issue of sexual assault more directly this time.

No matter what, Netflix is in an awkward position. Although House of Cards isn’t as important to the company’s bottom line as it was a few years ago, it’s still one of Netflix’s best-known shows — cancelling the series isn’t a trivial decision, whatever the reason, and ending it with a looming scandal makes things much worse. Rapp’s claims are far more important than any kind of hit to Netflix’s bank account, of course, but it’s hard not to wince seeing a once-crucial show fall from grace.

"Media Rights Capital and Netflix are deeply troubled by last night’s news concerning Kevin Spacey. In response to last night’s revelations, executives from both of our companies arrived in Baltimore this afternoon to meet with our cast and crew to ensure that they continue to feel safe and supported. As previously scheduled, Kevin Spacey is not working on set at this time."

Source: Variety, Deadline, Hollywood Reporter

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