If you own the FRD-L09 variant of the Honor 8 from the UK, then you can apply to test the company's latest update. You simply need to install an application, enroll in the beta test, & install the OTA update later this month if you are selected.
A new report out of South Korea claims that Samsung will be changing things up a bit for their upcoming flagship series. With the loss of the Galaxy Note 7, it seems Samsung might feel they are losing out on customers who prefer a larger display on their smartphone.
To compensate, the upcoming Galaxy S8 will come in two different sizes, a local news report says. One of these versions is said to have a 5.7″ display while the other will go even bigger and sport a 6.2″ display.
When we compare this to the Galaxy S7 series from earlier this year, we see that the Galaxy S7 has a 5.1″ display while the Galaxy S7 Edge variant has a bigger 5.5″ display. The Galaxy Note 7 from earlier this year shipped with a 5.7″ display, so it's interesting to see this report about Samsung making their smallest version of the S8 have a display that is as big as that of the Note 7. Many may be worried about a phone with a 6.2″ display, but this report says it shouldn't be that bad.
It was just last week when it was revealed that Samsung was making heavy investments into edge-to-edge bezel-less displays. This was sparked after Xiaomi revealed the Mi Mix smartphone, and some Samsung Display engineers confirmed they were investing capital and manpower into the technology as well. So now, this recent local news report says Samsung will be using some sort of bezel-less design to reduce the overall size of the 6.2″ Galaxy S8 variant.
The report also claims that Samsung will be ditching the flat screen design entirely for the upcoming Galaxy S8 release. We've watched this happen with the Galaxy Note series, but many were hoping they would stick with it for the Galaxy S series. If true, this shift is likely due to sales numbers that Samsung is seeing with their edge and non-edge variants from the last couple of years.
We're back with another contest, open to all countries, thanks to UMi. We've got three phones to give away this time: the UMi Diamond, the UMi Plus, and the just-announced UMi Plus E. Here's a little summary of each, and when you're ready to enter the contest, hit the widget below!
The UMi Diamond is the company's latest phone budget-friendly at only $99. The Diamond offers shock and scratch resistance, plus an octa-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, and a near-stock Android 6.0 experience with a planned update to Nougat in a little over a month.
The UMi Plus is an all-metal phone that has a massive 4,000mAh battery, a 5.5″ FHD display, Helio P10 octa-core CPU, 32GB of storage with microSD expansion up to 256GB, fingerprint reader, 4GB of RAM, and again, near-stock Android with Nougat on the way next month.
The "E" in means extreme, because the UMi Plus E is one of the least expensive 6GB RAM phones you can get at only $199. It's based off of the Plus, but adds double the storage (at 64GB with expansion up to another 256MB with microSD), a faster Helio P20 octa-core CPU, and of course, 6GB of RAM.
Toward the end of last month, we reported on a very critical Linux vulnerability that made it possible to gain root access on every single Android device. It turns out, this privilege-escalation exploit has been present in the Linux kernel for 9 years. However, it hit public awareness last month. This vulnerability has been given the name Dirty Cow, and it was assigned as CVE-2016-5195 in the Linux bug tracker system.
By exploiting the Dirty Cow vulnerability, the user can take advantage of a bug that involves a race condition of the copy on write Linux memory duplication technique. The bug allows the user to actually have write-access on memory mappings that are normally read-only. When we wrote about the issue, it was already patched within the Linux kernel, however, Android users who want their device to be secure have not been so fortunate with the November security update.
Android OEMs have the control to patch anything they want on any of the phones they sell. For instance, BlackBerry actually patched the QuadRooter vulnerability before Google included it in their monthly Android security update. However, most OEMs will wait on Google to send out patches, and then a few (like LG and Samsung) will include some patches that are unique to their custom software.
Android's Senior Vice President, Hiroshi Lockheimer, has confirmed in an interview that Google generally patches Android exploits a month after they are made available to manufacturers. Lockheimer continues by telling us security patches go out to Android OEMs first, and then a month later they will be pushed out to Nexus and Pixel devices. This makes things fair for the Android OEMs as it gives them time to implement and test these patches, but it can leave users open to security vulnerability for an entire month (or more).
So we will likely see this Dirty Cow exploit patched in the December security update for Android, and a Google spokesman confirmed such schedule with ArsTechnica.
Open-source WhatsApp Extensions Xposed Module by XDA Senior Member Surajkumar adds in features like reply reminders, hiding last seen and read receipts, zooming profile photos and more!
Some digital board games in the Play Store are very popular and often end up costing around $5 a piece. The latest Humble Mobile bundle helps alleviate this financial burden by offering a number of popular games at a very enticing price. There are three tiers to this bundle with 8 games to start off with. Within a week, the Humble Bundle team will also announce which additional games will be added to the middle tier.
The first tier of the Humble Mobile Bundle features two games that will only cost you $1 combined. The first game in the tier is called Carcassonne and it can be compared to the likes of Civilization as it has you placing tiles with roads, cities, fields, and cloisters. The second game in this $1 tier is called Scotland Yard, a winner of the "Game of the Year" award for its physical version back in 1983 (which sold over 30 million units).
The price of the second tier is at $3, and paying this amount will get you the previously mentioned games, along with 3 more (and more additions that will be announced soon). The first game here is called Splendor, and you play as a merchant during the Renaissance while you acquire mines, transportation methods and artisans. Then there is the strategy game Catan where you'll compete with up to four players for the most settlements, the longest roads and the largest army. Last up for this tier is called THE aMAZEing Labyrinth, which has been out for 25 years, sold over 13 million copies of the physical version and tasks you with navigation various mazes.
The third and final tier of this Humble Mobile Bundle is priced at $5. Paying this much will get you all of the previously mentioned games as well as three more. First up we have Ticket To Ride (which will cost you $7 alone if you buy it from the Play Store right now) and comes with the official Ticket to Ride USA map along with 6 additional maps and 2 expansions. Then there is San Juan, a card game that has you taking on the role of the governor, builder, producer, trader or councilor. Finally there is Galaxy Trucker, a game that has you building space ships, dodge meteors, and fight off bad guys.
It's no surprise that HTC has been struggling to bring in a profit and increase the company's revenues for a while now. We have been covering this extensively since the company started seeing a decline and there have not been many positive aspects to look at throughout this troubling time for the Taiwanese technology company. Still, after all the issues the company has been having, they still sound very optimistic despite the drop in revenue.
Last month we reported on the company's Q3 earnings report and learned they lost $57 million after taxes. This was actually a loss of $63 million, but once you factor in taxes, the total amount reduced to $57 million. Despite that, they did have some good news for investors last month. They were able to bring in $700 million in overall revenue, which is up 18% compared to the quarter before and up 4% when compared to the same quarter of 2015.
However, things are not looking good for HTC this month. Granted, these monthly financial reports are unaudited, but they do give us a rough idea as to how well, or poorly, the company is doing. In the PDF press release linked below, HTC tells us their consolidated revenue for October of this year is NT$8.17 bn (which is $259.64 million). Then they go on to tell us that their overall revenue for January of this year all the way until October of this year is NT$64.09 bn.
However, what they exclude from this PDF press release is that these monthly numbers are actually down MoM and YoY. When looking at HTC's Investors page, we can see that October's monthly revenues were down 12.43% when compared to September revenues. On top of that, when we compare October's monthly revenues to October of last year, we see the numbers are down 8.66%.
Still, despite all of the troubles, HTC is still optimistic that they will see positive earnings throughout the fourth quarter as the HTC Vive picks up momentum thanks to the holiday season.
