If you've been following the hype wave lately, and I know you've been, then you probably already know that Andy Rubin has achieved something. Android's father has publicly announced his new company, and has been teasing what's coming from the new company. If you've been living on a rock, I'm talking about new companies that are critical, they're building a host of new phones and other devices. The phone finally came to the spotlight this week and boy did it look beautiful. Let's get to the phone first; the base phone starts at $699 with the top of the line specs and features. Its most standout feature: an edge-to-edge display that's almost like the infinity display of Samsung's Galaxy S8, but only with a whole bunch of craziness, it's really a bezel-less phone, so much so that it wraps around the front-facing camera and you can See in the product shot.
There's a little chin on the bottom, but it's as close as you can get to a full-screen phone. Getting the specs done, the phone (that's what they're called, not a phone must-have) is powered by 4 gigs of RAM and 128-bit storage, and everything is powered by the Snapdragon 835 SoC. The phone that comes with it is as small as possible, so they don't even have the intention of putting a company logo on it. It's all because they hang on to the idea of shipping phones without junk. The community speculates that the phone will be unusable or even the Latest Mailing Database software will increase, other phones come with it. So far, the substance has been dedicated to shipping insightful phones, san's junk and their first product is quite a bystander. On the aesthetic end, the phone flaunts a ceramic-backed titanium frame. The hardware of this phone is not very interesting about the only thing required. The company aims to build an ecosystem of accessories around its peripherals. Almost like moto mods, but so much better. Basically there will be a 360-degree camera that clicks into the top of the phone, and the company will also offer a charging dock. Both connect to the phone with small metal spring pins. The phone will ship in the US this month and comes with a premium price tag of $699.
Microsoft's Skype redesigned to look and feel like Snapchat
Almost six years ago, Microsoft acquired Skype and in the six years since, technology has fundamentally changed. Every day we have new toys to play with and new means of connecting with our world. To some extent, technology has saturated our options. Today, a typical user's phone has about five versions of application-specific messages. Our WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are on top of the line, and then we have other products (like Hangouts), Allogene, what not. In this game of defining and redefining what communication between two people or a group should be, Skype is somehow left behind. Today, unless you've done grandpa, you probably don't use Skype and one of the reasons why that's the case is the lack of functionality. Well not now. This week Microsoft pushed a huge update to Skype, which not only changes the way it looks, but also adds functionality on top of it. Described as the next generation of Skype, the new design focuses on messaging instead of its popularity as a video chat service.
I think they did it to stay with the time on WhatsApp and Snapchat. The new interface includes three segments in conversation, discover, chat and capture. Find something that lets you search through conversations or discover things through plugins, chat is an expected, emoji and pictures and other options among the fun is the basic conversation that the capturing part feels like a total rip-off of Snapchat. It immediately takes you to the camera and lets you take photos and videos. Highlights in the new Skype features are like Snapchat Stories or if you like Facebook or Instagram Stories. Basically, it allows friends to view and process a stream of emotional reactions to the photos and videos you post. Response options also appear in text-based dialogue. The calling interface has also been redesigned. You can now drag and drop people in and out of conversations and react with emojis during the call.
Intel Announces Core X-Line Processors With New Core Chip i9
There isn't much innovation going on in the desktop computing space right now and Intel taking the stage at Computex this week will change that. Chipmakers announced Core X. Their own Core i5 and Core i7 processors, new additions to a more powerful family of desktop processors. Not only that, but they also added a new top of wire core i9. The Core X Series is aimed at enthusiasts and gamers and content creators.
People who want to be able to run the latest games at the best resolution while streaming footage and chatting while running on it. Models from the Core X-Series scale to four-core capped at the $1,999 Core i9 Extreme which offers 18 cores and 36 threads. The Core X-Series starts at $242 with the Core i5-7640X, which offers 4 cores and 4 threads. The Core i7 X-Series ranges from a $339, 4-core/8-thread model to a $599 8-core/16-thread chip. As for the core i9? Intel will offer four models (excluding the extreme aforementioned i9) ranging from the $999 10-core/20-thread processor to the $1,699, 16-core/32-thread chip.
OnePlus teased the successor to the OnePlus 3T: the OnePlus 5
OnePlus is one of the most pro-consumer brands out there. They started their journey with the super successful OnePlus One and continue to ship multiple devices each year with their latest one being the OnePlus 3T. Well, it's almost June on my calendar and if you've followed the annual release plan ahead of OnePlus, you know they'll be unveiling their next flagship soon. While there have been leaks and rumours floating around the internet and media, this week OnePlus gave us a whistleblower peak to their latest flagship's prowess.
We already know that the OnePlus 5, which will be their next device, has partnered with DXO Mark, their camera game, and if you don't know DXO, it's the company that gave the Pixel camera the highest rating for performance. To prove that the OnePlus 5 cameras will pack some serious power, OnePlus released 5 camera samples at first look, and they sure look pretty impressive from a raw image quality standpoint. Actual performance may vary depending on sensor and lighting conditions, but camera samples so far do hint at increased image quality for the next major hit.
Paranoid Android is back with their latest Nougat-based iteration
Paranoid Android is a popular ROM among Android enthusiasts and their USP has always been a stable ROM. Well, after a long hiatus of almost a year the team (all hired by OnePlus to build Oxygen OS) is reopening their latest Nougat-based iteration. The new Android Paranoia comes in with everything you'd expect from a good quality ROM. It's stable, it's fast, and it adds a ton of useful features on Android to make it even better. The first is the color engine, which allows application modification on a per-application basis. Next, Pie controls from which have been redesigned to take you full advantage running on your phone. On OnePlus devices, there are, even more, enhancements to the camera's performance.
The developers apparently worked on custom algorithms that improved the camera capabilities of the device OnePlus. The ROM is currently available for Nexus devices, Pixel and OnePlus 3 and 3T. However, the developers have indicated that more devices will be supported soon including the OnePlus 1 and OnePlus 2 (which has completely forgotten about the company). If you happen to be looking out for new ROMs to try on your device or you just want to customize your device with some added sweetness on top of stock Android, you might want to check out Paranoid Android. You can also go directly to their website to learn more about ROMs and officially supported devices.