LG G6 is Likely to be Launched on March 11th

LG's mobile division did not have a good year in 2016. In fact, LG has not had a good year in the mobile market in a long time. At one point it felt like LG could do no wrong, though, especially with the success of the LG G2, and them being hired by Google for the manufacturing of the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5.

Since then the South Korean giant has seen its prospects go downhill. LG recently appointed a new CEO and they hope to get their mobile division back on track this year.

Many would argue that the LG V20 is the best smartphone the company has ever produced, but even that one failed to pull the division out of the red. With issues being reported about inconsistent customer service support, and the dreaded bootloop that keeps casting its shadow over LG products, some are just avoiding the company's smartphones until they get their act together. With the new CEO at the helm, 2017 could be LG's chance to turn the company around.

They recently announced a number of low-end to mid-range smartphone at CES, and these will be released in various markets around the world. The company's first try at a global smartphone launch for the year will be the LG G6. We've been seeing reports that LG will try to get a jump on Samsung and launch the LG G6 a month before the Galaxy S8 is available to the public.

The report claims the LG G6 will be shown off at MWC (which starts on February 26th), and that LG is hoping to launch the phone just a couple of weeks later. If true, we could see the LG G6 officially launched on March 11th. The Galaxy S7 is rumored to be launched sometime in the middle of April, so getting in stores a full month before Samsung could allow LG sell a number of devices that they would miss out on if they launched at the same time.

Do you think LG can turn things around with the LG G6, or will 2017 be as bad for their mobile division as 2016 was?

Source: The Investor

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Samsung Likely to Unveil Foldable Smartphones in Q3 2017

Tech giants LG and Samsung are racing each other to be the first to release folding displays to the market, although the two companies have very different approaches. Samsung is going to keep a hold on the technology which is said to be technically complete in house, and release it through their own products only whereas LG looks like they could let their technology be used first by other companies such as Apple and Huawei.

According to a Korea Herald report, LG looks to be able to release as many as 100,000 foldable displays in the fourth quarter of 2017, and Samsung was rumored to match that but also beat LG to the punch by releasing foldable display smartphones in the third quarter of 2017,. However, Samsung has put the brakes on the production while they are tangled up in a political scandal with the South Korean President Park Geun-hye, and this is preventing their executive-level reshuffle from taking place. The report says that a decision on whether Samsung will release the foldable displays will likely be made in February, but it could also be decided as late as March. This bodes very well for LG and gives them a good shot at being first to the market.

LG started development of their foldable displays around 3 years ago, and has a more advanced product than its rival, although both have reached technical completion. Samsung was previously working on what they call "Fold-In" phones, where the screen tucks inside the phone but the company's market research said that people found it too inconvenient so they switched to a "Fold-out" technology around August of 2016. "Fold-out" technology, as the name implies, is where the screen folds out when the user wants to use the device.

Market analysts at Strategy Analytics have predicted that the foldable display market could be as big as 163 million units by 2020. This shows lots of potential, and it will be interesting to watch how both companies approach it. Let us know who you think will be the winner between LG and Samsung in the comments below!

Source: The Korea Herald

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Qualcomm is Optimizing the Snapdragon 835 and Hexagon 682 DSP for TensorFlow

Machine learning is huge and we're seeing a lot of big tech companies getting involved in this sector. This can range from personal AI assistants, to games and everything in between including under-the-hood optimizations. Most of the time the computation for AI is done in the cloud, but Qualcomm wants to change that in the future.

Previously, these types of computations would take up a lot of time, resources and power (or battery on phones), but things will be changing soon.

With the introduction of the Hexagon 682 DSP, Qualcomm wants software developers to be able to offload some of that machine learning code directly onto the hardware. This would make the process faster (since it doesn't have to send data to a server and then wait for its response), and it also enables the machine learning to do be done without a connection to the internet. And now it's been announced that the Hexagon 682 DSP inside the Snapdragon 835 is optimized for Google's TensorFlow machine learning technology.

The Hexagon DSP (Digital Signal Processor) is described as a world-class processor with both CPU and DSP functionality to support deeply-embedded processing needs of the mobile platform, for both multimedia and modem functions. Most of the time DSPs are used for things like audio and speech signal processing, digital image processing, and signal processing for telecommunications, but we're seeing Qualcomm allow the Hexagon DSP to be used for specialized workloads too.

So machine learning computation is generally better on the DPS rather than the CPU since it exploits the power & performance benefits of offloading the ARM cores for performance, reduced power dissipation, or concurrency requirements. These cores are optimized for both high performance and energy efficiency, but most of the time it's used for its energy efficiency since it's designed to strive for high levels of work per cycle (instead of increasing the MHz).

Source: Qualcomm

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An Explanation of why SuperSU has Trouble with F2FS Data Partitions

Some users are having issues with SuperSU once they format their data partition to F2FS. The reasoning behind the issue is explained by XDA Recognized Developer arter97, and kernel developers can fix it by following his suggestions.

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Taking and Sharing Screenshots Returns to Google Assistant

When users first began testing Google Assistant out, they realized that the service was missing many key features that were once present in Google Now & Tap. One of those features is the ability to quickly take and share screenshots. Fortunately, it appears that this feature is now showing up in Google Assistant. Several of our writers, on both the Google Pixel and the Google Pixel XL, can now confirm that they are seeing buttons to take a screenshot within Google Assistant.

Here's hoping that those rumored changes to allow for text input in Google Assistant are next to arrive.

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HTC ‘Ocean Note’ aka HTC U Ultra Images Leak in Live Photos, Show Off Secondary Display

HTC's CES 2017 offerings this year might not have brought much in terms of smartphones, but that does not mean that the company has nothing new planned for Q1 2017. HTC took to Twitter to announce their upcoming 'U' event, to be held on 12th January 2017.

It is all about U. Join us live 12 Jan 2017 (3AM EST/12AM PST) #BrilliantU https://t.co/JFTzcvpGHn http://pic.twitter.com/OXJCT6ciGs

— HTC (@htc) January 10, 2017

So, what can we expect HTC to unveil in this event? Recent leaks and rumors have been building up on the HTC One X10, which is a 5.5″ phone with a MediaTek SoC. In addition to this phone, we are likely to see the HTC 'Ocean Note' aka the HTC U Ultra and the HTC 'Alpine' aka the HTC U Play being revealed at the event.

The HTC U Ultra is an interesting smartphone coming from HTC, if the recent leaked images are to be believed. The device is rumored to feature a 6″ QHD display, but HTC's selling point on the phone will likely be the secondary display on top of the main panel. Have a look below!

The HTC U Ultra likely takes inspiration from the LG V10/V20 by implementing a secondary display on top. This display will bear similar always-on functionality, app shortcuts, notifications and information widgets.

Along with the display, we also get a good look of the device from all of its sides.

The device looks like it will sport the fingerprint sensor on the front, along with capacitive buttons. The camera bump is also very clearly visible. Eagle-eyed readers will also notice that the images do not show the presence of a headphone jack on the top or the bottom, the most common places for such a jack. There's a very good chance that the HTC U Ultra will not be sporting the 3.5mm headphone jack slot at all, unfortunately.

The leaked images also give us a glimpse a the other color variants of the device as well.

The HTC U Ultra is rumored to come with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The battery capacity is claimed to be 4,000 mAh, which sounds like a good companion for the big QHD display.

We have to wait a few more days to know more about the HTC U Ultra. Here's hoping that HTC does not disappoint with their new lineup, especially in pricing.

What are your thoughts on the HTC 'Ocean Note' U Ultra? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Techtastic.nl

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Samsung is Finalizing a Deal to Invest $2 Billion in Vietnam for OLED Production

It's become clear that Samsung is going all in on OLED production lately. They've shut down multiple LCD production facilities and have increased their output of OLED panels over the last few years. Samsung has invested so much into OLED production that they've been even been able to bring down the price and actually make it competitive to LCD panels.

They aren't stopping anytime soon either, as it seems OLED is the future for displays manufactured by Samsung.

Last month we wrote about a report which claimed flexible OLED shipments were on track to triple in 2017. Samsung is by far leading this in terms of production numbers, but there are a number of companies who also produce them. We see companies like EverDisplay, Optronics, and Visionox who are in the market, but they're only able to satisfy smaller orders. LG is also investing in flexible OLED panels, as they use POLED panels in a number of their products.

Now we're hearing about Samsung wanting to invest even more into OLED technology. A new report talks about Samsung finalizing a deal that would have them invest $2 billion in OLED production within the country of Vietnam. While there is still a lot of work to be done before the deal finally happens, they are working on the conditions of the production facility, and the type of tax benefits the facility would be able to bring in.

If everything goes smoothly though, we should see an official announcement made sometime in the first quarter of this year. Samsung actually already invests in OLED panel production within the country, and this would bring the total up to $6 billion. This new deal could even be due to the company's need to produce more OLED panels for Apple and its upcoming iPhones, but we'll see the benefit of these investments across multiple markets that utilize OLED panels regardless of whether those rumors prove true.

Source: The Investor

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