Samsung developing new high energy density batteries and slimmer RWB camera sensors for mobiles

In its recently held special event, Samsung disclosed its detailed plans for offering improved batteries and camera sensors in its upcoming mobile devices. The new mobile batteries and camera sensors would be thinner in size and will pave way for the South Korean tech giant to offer much improved and slimmer smartphones and tablets to its customers. These new technologies would be made available on mobile devices the company would be releasing in 2017.

Batteries

Samsung is developing high energy density batteries. Battery having an energy density of 700Wh/l (Wh/l-Watt-hours per liter) is currently in the works. The company is expecting to increase it to 750Wh/l by 2016 and 780Wh/l by 2017. Since the energy density will increase, the new batteries will be thinner compared to present day batteries for the same capacity. Or to put it in another way, a battery with the same dimensions will pack higher energy compared to the current one.

Samsung is also trying to get a higher voltage from the batteries, expecting to get 4.40V in the next few months and increasing it to 4.5V by 2017 which will contribute towards a better battery life. Besides enhancing the energy density and voltage of batteries, the company disclosed that it is also working to improve its fast charging-technology to allow users to charge 80% of the battery in 30 minutes.

Camera Sensors    

Samsung also announced details about the new camera sensors it is developing for mobile devices.  It is the new RWB camera sensor, RWB standing for Red, White, Blue, which is the color pattern of the sensor. The RWB sensor will provide “better color fidelity” to the photos.

The new camera sensors will have pixel size of only 1 micron compared to the current industry standard of 1.2 microns resulting in a decrease in thickness from 6.5mm to 5mm for a 16MP sensor and from 5.2mm to 4.5mm for a 13MP sensor. So the new camera sensors will be thinner. Smaller pixel size can deteriorate the image quality but Samsung is sure to come up with a solution for that just like Nokia and Sony did.

With the new enhancements Samsung is working on, its future mobile devices are sure to offer users a better image quality and an improved battery life.

Samsung developing new high energy density batteries and slimmer RWB camera sensors for mobiles

Google Cardboard Now is Bigger and Comes with iOS Support

Google Cardboard is the simplest virtual reality headset in the market today. It is cheap, easy and it works with your phone. Google has announced some improvements in the next version of Google Cardboard in the company’s I/O developer event this year. However, it is still far away when compared with other virtual reality headset in the market nowadays such as Oculus, HTC’s Vive and Project Morpheus. One thing for sure is that Google Cardboard is made of cardboard whereas the rest is made from metal.

In the new version, Google Cardboard will support iOS, therefore, you can just put any iPhone into the slot in the Cardboard and you can experience a virtual reality. On top of that, the new version of Google Cardboard will support bigger smartphone in term of size. It can support smartphone which has up to 6-inch size. Therefore, as long as the size of the smartphone is smaller than 6-inch, you can use it with the Google Cardboard.

In the new version, it is also going to be easier to assemble. Instead of needing to do 12 steps to assemble the Google Cardboard, it only needs 3 steps now. It seems like Google aim by inventing Google Cardboard is not to compete with the other virtual reality headset but rather to bring it to schools for the students to experience the virtual reality as it is the future.

Google Cardboard Now is Bigger and Comes with iOS Support

LG Rumored Working on Iris Scanning Security for the next G5 Smartphone

For the next LG’s flagship smartphone for next year, the Korean technology company is reported to be working on security technology which uses your iris to decide whether you are an authorized person or not. To achieve this, LG has been working with the Korean-based biometrics firm Irience for the integration with the smartphone which goes by the name of G5. If everything goes as per scheduled, the G5 will be released in the first half of 2016.

It is reported that Irience had completed the hardware module which is going to be embedded into G5 and now is polishing the algorithms to increase the recognition range from 12in(30cm) to 20in(50cm).

Iris scanning is no doubt the most secure way for authorization nowadays compared to the fingerprint scanning. The only challenge now is to make it work as effortlessly as possible with the Apple’s or Samsung’s technology under whatever tricky environments. For example, it should be able to recognize the iris in the shortest possible time to authorize a payment in the busy market.

LG has always been coming out with different smartphone design and functionality with the others smartphone manufacturers. Apparently, LG is not the only company which is experimenting with the iris scanning security technology, other manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung also reported to have been working on this technology to make it consumer ready.

LG Rumored Working on Iris Scanning Security for the next G5 Smartphone

Updates on Android Wear Offers Favorable User Experience

Apart from showcasing the next version of Android OS, Android M, Google also explained about the next improvements that the company is going to do for Android Wear in the Google I/O conference this year. Android Wear has received a lot of good reviews from its users regarding its flexibility since the device was launched a few years ago.

One of such flexibility is the ability to change the watch faces. There are about 1500 watch faces that the users can choose from which can be downloaded from Play Store. On top of that there will be some updates which will improve the user experience in using the device.

With the latest gesture control feature, users do not need to use their finger to swipe through the notification; they just need to tilt the smartwatch in one direction to read the next notification while tilting it to the other direction will show the previous notification.

Another feature which makes the smartwatch convenient to use is the “always on” screen feature which is already implemented in the current device. With the next update, apart from showing the watch face, the user will be able to view any other app without having to consume much of the battery life. Therefore, the user will be able to view his or her grocery list or load up a route from Google Maps to navigate his or her way. To conserve the battery, the “always on” feature is switching the view to monochrome; therefore, it will only show in white and black, which is already in place currently.

With all these updates, Google hopes that it will make the device more convenient to use as it does not need two hands to operate the device.

Updates on Android Wear Offers Favorable User Experience

Samsung Next Smartphone Rumored to Have Dual Screen Foldable Design

The next device launched from Samsung could be a dual screen foldable smartphone if we analyzed from the patents that were awarded to Samsung until now. All the patents are related to foldable display technology. However, there is no confirmation from the company itself. It is just plainly rumors. On top of that, the rumors also mention that the device will be ready in 2016 although the sources mention that it was in the early stage of development. However, if we take a look at the timeline, a release in 2016 is possible.

The Samsung handset mentioned above goes by the codename of Project Valley. As the name suggest, the ‘V’ in the codename could hinted that it will be a foldable smartphone. However, there is another rumor lately that the project can be cancelled at any time as the technology is not able to support the foldable design yet.

Samsung has already been experimenting on a flexible design since a few years ago. In 2011, the company has showcased the first flexible Youm panel. The effort continues until now, finally, Samsung has launched Galaxy Note Edge last fall which has a single edge at one of the device’s side and the company released Galaxy S6 edge this year which has a dual edge design.

Samsung is not the only technology company which is working on foldable smartphone. Apart from Samsung, LG is reported to be working on a foldable smartphone in 2016 too. In 2014, LG had demonstrated a 5.9-inch smartphone display which can hold up to 100,000 bends without compromising the display quality.

Samsung Next Smartphone Rumored to Have Dual Screen Foldable Design

Here’s everything you need to know about Google’s new smartphone OS Android M

You might be wondering that the Android Lollipop released by Google last year is yet to catch the heat in the market, and it seems to be pretty soon that the Android M has been released. Google has finally made its official by announcing the Android M at the Google I/O Developer conference and it seems that with the new OS, Google would be largely focused on enhancing the user experience of the handset further. Google this time seems to be working a bit more on the code structure of the OS thereby bringing in all the features to its users. So let’s check out what the new OS Android M has to offer.

No more annoying app permissions!

Unlike its previous OS the Android Lollipop, which was a major design overhaul over it’s the then previous one (Android KitKat), Android M is majorly focused on improving the user experience. At the start of the event, Google first declared about the important changes to the app permission that seem to be pretty annoying. The developer preview of Android M, which would be available as Android Lollipop, users can see that they need to respond less often to the app permissions.

This means that suppose you are using WhatsApp and want to send voice message, you just need to grant the permission once, and after which you would never be asked to make use of microphone in apps again. This would apply to all the categories of permissions that have been simplifiedto be more comprehendable for things like “Camera” and “Location”.

However, in case you want to revoke this permission back, you will surely be able to do it through Settings Menu, that allows you to control that whether all the apps or few select only have the access to such permission.

Google Now gets even better

One of the biggest improvements in Android M actually have to do with Google Now — the search giant’s digital assistant. The service is arguably already best-in-class, but thankfully, Google isn’t being complacent.

Google’s digital assistance Android Now is getting an update with its new Os Android M. Even though the service is pretty fine and seamless, Google seems not to have got into complacency and has worked to add new features to the platform. Newly introduced ‘Now on tap’ service will help you understand your context in a much better way than earlier. This will help the Android Now to work even more smartly for e.g. a new message received on Viber that suggests you to go to the restaurant or any such reminder for that sake, will now be followed by Google Now. Just a Home button tap would summon this service which would set a reminder for dry cleaning and would also search for reviews of restaurants and apps that would help you reserve a table in the restaurant.

Such a functionality has been implemented to other platforms as well! For example if you are listening to a music track and you activate the Google Now feature asking for the artist behind the track, Google Now will automatically know whom you are referring to! Another example would be the Google Chrome where if you just highlight the name of the movie star and long-press the Home button to summon Google Now, it would serve all kind of information about him/her.

Android Pay with the native fingerprint scanning support

Well, it seems that Google doesn’t want to be left behind and so to put the competition straight with Samsung Pay and majorly with Apple Pay, Google along with the Android M brings its own wireless payment system called as the Android Pay. The Android Pay will be the extended version of the Google Wallet that would allow for the mobile payments in stores. Android Pay like the Apple Way, is to use the NFC mode with communication to the terminals.

In addition to this, Android M also includes native support for fingerprint scanners, which means that the handset manufacturers no need to make an extra effort to bake a new support. This feature is getting coupled with the Android Pay which is likely to give a boost to the Google’s new mobile payment system.

 ‘Dozing’ a special mode to increase the power efficiency

The battery life for the premium handsets has always been a matter of concern for the users. Manufacturers are constantly working on how to improve the battery life of their devices. The latest Google OS Android M is designed to focus on this aspect and have introduced a special ‘dozing’ mode that would activate various sensors of your device that would determine that you handset is not being used and would enter into the sleep mode. Don’t worry, as even ‘dozing’ being active, it wont stop the notifications and alarms from reaching to your.

With this, Android M would increase the standby time to 2x than that seen on the Android Lollipop. Moreover additional good information is that Google is extending the support for Type C charging ports public.

Direct Share

The gist of the Android experience has always been in easy way of sharing content however this feature needed some serious improvement in case there is a lot many information to be shared or lot many apps. Google seem to have worked on this matter and with its new Android M has also incorporated some smarter suggestions for sharing of content every time. This means that if you share most of the content with a particular friend of yours, Google will put that friend on the first priority as you are likely to share the content in future.

Google is still said to be working on this area and coming out with some very smart idea so that they can be implemented before it is released to its users.

Category wise volume control

One of the other great features of Android M includes the category wise volume control. This means that you can set different volumes for music, alarms, ringtone and similarly to other platforms. This means that there would be a sliding volume bar for all such groups allowing you to set the volume controls as per your need.

Here’s everything you need to know about Google’s new smartphone OS Android M

Reports: Samsung Galaxy S6 likely to get iPhone like exposure setting

Last September 2014, when Apple unveiled its iOS 8, it brought a number of camera enhancement features to its platform. One of them included the manual control for the exposure. For this, user needs to tap of the object of focus and move the slider to the right of the marker box, slide up and down and voila in order to control your exposure.

Now many of the handset manufacturers offer this user-control over exposure in most of its premium flagship handsets. However, the solution provided by Apple is very convenient and offers a more better user experience of using the camera controls. However, a recent rumors says that the upcoming update would be bringing a similar manual exposure feature control and is likely to be based on Android 5.1.

The recent information coming from SamMobile shows some of the snapshots(below) that shows up the manual control pretty much similar to the one coming in iOS. The control uses just a light bulb-icon as a slider marker in place of the sun’s in the iPhone’s camera. Check out the leaked screenshots below. the company is expected to bring this feature to the Galaxy S6 in the next Android update.

The Android 5.1 update is expected to be coming in the first week of June where we can possibly see the implantation of this feature. Check out the screenshots below.

Reports: Samsung Galaxy S6 likely to get iPhone like exposure setting