OnePlus 3T will be announced on November 15

 

After many weeks of rumors, OnePlus has finally (sort of) confirmed that it's working on a new smartphone, which will be an enhanced version of the already available OnePlus 3. The OnePlus 3T will be announced on November 15, which is exactly one week from now.

The Chinese company has also confirmed the use of the Snapdragon 821 chipset in the device, less than 24 hours after Qualcomm did the same. OnePlus hasn't openly said that it's going to launch the 3T on November 15.

We Assume that can't be anything other than a not-so-subtle hint. The OnePlus 3T will be outed at 1 PM EST, according to the company. No other official details have been posted until now, but we expect the following week to be filled with teasers from OnePlus.

According to past rumors, the OnePlus 3T will start at $479, $80 more than its predecessor. Aside from the new SoC, it will also pack a bigger battery (3,300 mAh), a 128GB storage version, and it will run Android 7.0 Nougat from the get-go.

Moto M gets an official listing online in China

Few days after the phone leaked, the Moto M has gotten an official listing on Lenovo's website ahead of the November 8 launch. The phone is priced at RMB 1999, which is about $295.

The Moto M has a water-resistant design with a metal body and a new design language. The phone has rounded corners and narrower edges, and the fingerprint sensor has been moved to the back below the camera sensor.

The phone has a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a 2.2GHz octa-core MediaTek processor, 4GB RAM, and 32GB storage. On the back is a 16 megapixel camera with PDAF and on the front is an 8 megapixel sensor. Inside is a 3050mAh battery with fast charging support.

Samsung to start beta-testing Nougat for the Galaxy S7 on November 9

A few days ago it was reported that Samsung is going to begin beta-testing Android 7.0 Nougat for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge in the UK but since then the Beta Program app was pulled from the app store.

Now it seems the beta-test is on again and has an official date set for November 9 (again in the UK). According to a leaked screenshot Nougat will be beta tested from the 9th of November until mid December.

Users with regular (read non Batman Injustice Edition and Olympic Edition) Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge can sign up for the beta by downloading Samsung's Galaxy Beta Program app from Galaxy Apps and submit an application.

Samsung then needs to approve you for the beta, you're not guaranteed a spot.

Android 7.0 Nougat brings a lot of improvements such as built-in Emoji, the Vulkan API for superior gaming performance, smarter Doze for improved stand-by times and much more.

Nougat update for LG G5 is now rolling out

Inline with the expectations, LG has announced that it has started rolling out the Android 7.0 Nougat update to its G5 smartphone.

The update is currently hitting units in the company's home country of South Korea, while other regions including the Americas and Asia will get it "in the weeks to come."

The company notes that more information related to the update will be locally available in the weeks ahead.

"At LG, we know our customers want the best, most up-to-date mobile experience," the company said in a press release. "Getting software updates to our users faster than the competition is our way of demonstrating that LG is committed to supporting our products and customers to ensure they have a positive ownership experience."

Snapdragon 821-powered OnePlus phone on the way, Qualcomm confirms

Qualcomm has confirmed that a new OnePlus smartphone powered by the chip giant's latest Snapdragon 821 SoC is coming soon. The confirmation came from the company's official Twitter handle.

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✔@Qualcomm

Something new from @OnePlus is on the way…and it’s powered by our #Snapdragon 821 processor. Stay tuned.

10:52 PM - 7 Nov 2016

 
•  320320 Retweets
 
•  533533 likes

OnePlus is already rumored to launch an SD821-powered phone - dubbed OnePlus 3T - this month, so it'd be reasonable to assume that Qualcomm is talking about that phone.

The OnePlus 3T is also said to feature a Sony IMX398 sensor (but still 16MP in resolution), and is expected to carry a price tag of $479, which is $80 more than what the OnePlus 3costs.

Apple releases iOS 10.2 beta with Unicode 9.0 emoji set

Apple released a new beta of iOS 10.1 to developers yesterday. It features a bunch of additions and improvements, but probably the biggest one for most users is going to be the new emoji.

For starters, iOS finally added support for the Unicode 9.0 emoji set. This includes some new emoji, such as shrug, facepalm, rolling on the floor laughing, selfie, bacon, and a whole bunch of other food and animal emoji. Apple also redesigned its set of animal and food emoji, giving them a much needed fresh coat of paint, and they look much more natural now and suited for high resolution Retina displays. Emojipedia has much more on this topic in their blog post.

Moving on, iOS 10.2 beta also adds three new wallpapers on the iPhone 7 that are being used for the promotional material for these phones but weren't actually included on the devices themselves. A new celebrations effect has also been added to iMessage. The Videos app now gets a widget. There is now an option to rate music on a scale of five stars in the Music app. This is different from the Like/Dislike option that also affects your 'For You' recommendations. Lastly, you can now choose to save the Camera app settings (flash, HDR, etc.) so they next time you open the app they don't get reset to Auto.

The update is available to users with a developer account. We expect the stable release to come out by the end of this month.

ARM introduces Mali-G51: a GPU for the VR era

With VR heating up, companies have been looking for ways to provide an affordable entry, but VR requires a very different GPU than gaming on a screen. Meet ARM’s new GPU - the Mali-G51 - built specifically for VR.

A smaller brother of the G71, this is the second GPU to use the new Bifrost architecture built with Vulkan in mind. This one is more than just a G71 with fewer cores, in fact it’s the first to use a dual shader architecture.

Basically, traditional shaders process one pixel per clock cycle. Mali-G51’s shaders can do two pixels per clock while using fewer resources (both in terms of energy and space on the chip) than two traditional shaders. Note that a Mali-G51 MP6 denotes three dual shader cores, not six cores.

To put this in simpler terms, a Mali-G51 will be 60% more energy efficient than a Mali-T830 while doing the same amount of work. It will have a 60% higher “performance density,” i.e. it needs fewer transistors, making chipsets smaller and cheaper.

ARM touts this as the smallest Vulkan GPU and will make VR accessible in 2018. Yep, VR is a fledgling and affordable devices are still some way out.

Interestingly, ARM talks about Virtual Spaces - not fully interactive VR environments, but instead spaces with static surroundings filled with interactive elements. This is aimed at business applications that are simpler than a full blown game with players rushing through huge levels.

ARM also unveiled a new video processor, the Mali-V61. It does both video capture and streaming and will be found in anything from drones to Smart TVs. It supports HEVC h.265 with HDR/10-bit and scales from one core (enough for 1080p @ 60fps) all the way up to eight cores (4K @ 120fps, it will be a while before we need that).

Google takes more steps towards keeping Play Store trusted

With an aim to better fight fraud and spam installs, Google has started pushing out a new update to its Play Store app that brings along improved detection and filtering systems.

"From time to time, we observe instances of developers attempting to manipulate the placement of their apps through illegitimate means like fraudulent installs, fake reviews, and incentive ratings," the company says in a blog post.

"These attempts not only violate the Google Play Developer Policy, but also harm our community of developers by hindering their chances of being discovered or recommended through our systems."

With the new changes that are being rolled out, the Mountain View, California-based company says they'll be able to better detect and filter any install conducted with the intention to manipulate an app's placement on Google Play. Further, developers caught doing this repeatedly could also have their apps taken down from the store.

Google’s new video shows how to switch from iPhone to Pixel

Google has just posted two new videos on its YouTube account which breaks down the setup process for transferring your data from an iPhone and familiarizing yourself with your phone.

The first video is “Switching from iPhone”, and explains how to prepare your iPhone for transferring data to your Google Pixel or Pixel XL. The nice lady reminds you to turn off iMessage and FaceTime, and to make sure both devices are charged to at least 50% before continuing.

On the setup page, tapping on “Copy your data” will bring you to the screen that will be able to see what is on your old device before transferring. You’ll need to use the “Quick Switch Adapter” (A.K.A. OTG adapter) that’s graciously included with every Pixel.

Once everything is transferred over, a second video can help you get familiar with the ins and outs of the Google Pixel and getting used to the on-screen controls. It also shows you how to open Google Assistant, and use the navigation buttons. Overall, it shows you how to get around the Pixel Launcher, particularly the new app-drawer opening gesture.

As Droid-Life pointed out, the Google Play Store version demoed in the video is not out yet, notable changes include a color scheme makeover and cleaner app descriptions with a larger “Install” button.

Google Allo 2.0 for Android is out with direct replies, split-screen multitasking support

Today Google is releasing the first big update for its Allo chat app for Android. Allo 2.0 is currently in the process of rolling out through the Play Store. As always with Google app updates, it may take a few days before every single Allo user receives the new version. And depending on where you live, you may not get the new iteration if you go and hit Install right now. Fret not, though, for Allo 2.0 is headed to everyone.

This release brings with it a bunch of new features. The app now has a splash screen when you start it, and it supports direct share - meaning you can directly share stuff from the Android share menu to the contacts you most frequently chat with (without first needing to select the app).

More importantly, Allo now supports the split-screen multitasking mode introduced in Android 7.0 Nougat. It's also gained direct replies in notifications, as well as a Monochrome theme which you can enable in Settings. App shortcuts are available when you long-press the Allo icon in Android 7.1, and if you're rocking the newest release of the OS you'll also get GIFs inside the keyboard. Inserting these in Allo is now a go. Finally, you now get direct voice recognition when you're chatting with the Google Assistant.