Google Play Music now uses machine learning to suggest songs

GooglePlay Music will now use machine learning and contextual tools to suggest music you like. Users can opt in to get access to personalised music based on their location, activity and weather. “Your workout music is front and center as you walk into the gym, a sunset soundtrack appears just as the sky goes pink, and tunes for focusing turn up at the library,” explained Elias Roman, Lead Product Manager at Google Play Music. Also, the home screen of Google Play Music has been revamped to show music you like at the top. The feature is powered by Google’s machine learning systems that keeps getting better with time.
Google Play Music works offline as well. The app looks at songs you’ve recently listened to and curates an offline list for when there’s no Internet connection. “As long as you remember to charge your phone, you’ll have your favorite tunes, even if you forgot to download them ahead of time,” said Roman. The new version of the Play Music will be rolled outstarting this week on Android,iOS and the web. It will be available in 62 countries globally.
Google had earlier announced it is looking to sharpen Play Store recommendations with artificial intelligence and expand support for various payment platforms, among other initiatives. The Play Music update is an indication company’s plans have started to materialise. Also, the Google Play Store is also expanding to new platforms, including wearable devices, virtual reality headsets and Google’s Chromebook laptops.

WhatsApp launch video call on Android, iOS and Windows 10 platform

WhatsApp has just announced video calling for all users starting November 15.The feature will roll out to all users over the next few days. WhatsApp was launched in 2009 as a rich messaging service and is now one of the world’s largest OTT messaging platforms with over 1 billion users,. It added voice calls in early 2015.Here is how the new video calling feature works. The Video calling will work on all devices with Android4.1 and above. The rollout is happening at the same time for iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices, thus covering the top mobile operating systems across the world. Users will need to upgrade their app for the feature to show show up. When you click on the call button, you will start getting a new video calls options along with the existing voice calls.
Once the call connects, you will be able to choose either from or back camera of the phone for the video. You will be able to choose if the preview of you video is the main image or the incoming video. Also, the location of the smaller window can be moved to anywhere on the screen.
WhatsApp says it does not assume anything about the quality of the network from which the video call is being made. So the video call quality will improve as the system recognises that the network quality is good. The video calling feature has keep kept really simple so that engages everyone without confusing them. The one additional feature is the ability to multi-task by minimising the video and using other apps on the phone. User will be able to return to the call by tapping on the green band that appears across apps.
At the moment the video calling feature can be used synchronously between two users and not to whole group.

Samsung new patent hint bendable Phone

A recent patent application from Samsung shows a new smartphone with a foldable design. The patent was filed with the Korean Intellectual Property Office, and was first spotted by Dutch website GalaxyClub. Samsung’s  patent also gives us a first glimpse at the design of the phone they are trying to create. Back in 2015, Samsung had announced that it was working on a bendable phone design,which a leak on Weibo claimed was dubbed as Project Valley.
The patent application shows clear renders of the foldable design, which when folded reminds us of a Microsoft Surface Book hinge. The patent shows the display of the phone to runs down the entire length of the thin but tall design, which can be folded right down the middle.
In June this year, Bloomberg had reported that Samsung was working on two new smartphones, which will have a bendable display. Both devices will come with an OLED display, and an early 2017 launch is being planned, claimed the report.
A recent report also said Apple was granted a patent for a foldable smartphone design. Unlike the Samsung device, Apple’s patent hints at a device that will fold like a book. The inner workings of Apple’s patent talks about flexible printed circuits, flexible display substrates and flexible touch sensor substrates.
Samsung has also been testing the smartphone market with a dual-display flip smartphone design, and has recently launched the W2017. The dual-display phone features two 4.2-inch Super AMOLED displays with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution and comes with the latest Snapdragon 821 processor. Samsung W2017 is the successor to the W2016 that carried a similar flip design.

Google: Two Billion Chrome Installed

Google announced a new milestone for its Chrome browser today:2 billion active installs between desktop and mobile since its September 2008 release. The news was made public onstage at the Chrome Dev Summit conference by Chrome Engineering VP Darin Fisher. Of course, this stat differs from active use — just because you installed Chrome doesn’t mean it’s your primary daily browser. That’s especially true of mobile, where a company like Apple makes it easer to use its built-in Safari browser even after you’ve defaulted to mobile Chrome.
Still, 2 billion installs is a first for a Google product. The company announced last year during its I/O developer conference that it has more than 1 billion users of Android, Chrome, YouTube, and search. And last April, Chrome passed the 1 billion active user mark on mobile. That means, between its active install pass and growing mobile presence, Chrome could be the first Google product to hit the 2 billion user mark.
Though it is of course contending with Android. As of last September, Google’s mobile operating system was installed on1.4 billion active smartphones around the world. So for Google, it looks like a never-ending race with itself.

Report: Samsung Galaxy J5 Explode

A Samsung phone user in France says her Galaxy J5 smartphone caught fire and exploded on Sunday. The model is different from the Galaxy Note 7 that has been recalled worldwide.
Lamya Bouyirdane told The Associated Press on Monday that she noticed the phone was very hot after she asked her four-year-old son to pass it over during a family gathering at her home. She said she threw the phone away when she realized it had “swollen up” and smoke was coming out. “I panicked when I saw the smoke and I had the reflex to throw it away,” said Bouyirdane, a mother of three in the southwestern French city of Pau. The phone then caught fire and the back blew off. Her partner quickly extinguished it.
Bouyirdane said she bought the phone new last June on a website offering discounts. She said she will sue Samsung. The South Korean company recently recalled millions of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones globally because of a problem that caused the batteries to overheat and catch fire. Samsung did not immediately respond to an email from the AP seeking comments following the latest incident.  Samsung is facing billions of dollars in damages due to the Note 7 fiasco.
Samsung has recalled more than 2.5 million units of the Galaxy Note 7 and its replacement units last month, and has since terminated the program completely. The company is already reeling from a second recall, after safety concerns regarding 2.8 million top-loading machines made from 2011 to 2016.
There have been 700 reports of the top-loading machine related incidents, along with nine serious injuries.

Samsung Galaxy S8 to get AI Assistant

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it would launch an artificial intelligence digital assistant service for its upcoming Galaxy S8 smartphone, seeking to rebound from the Galaxy Note 7’s collapse and differentiate its devices. The world’s top smartphone maker in October announced the acquisition of Viv Labs Inc, a firm run by a co-creator of Apple Inc’s Siri voice assistant programme. Samsung plans to integrate the San Jose-based company’s AI platform, called Viv, into the Galaxy smartphones and expand voice-assistant services to home appliances and wearable technology devices. Samsung is counting on the Galaxy S8 to help revive smartphone momentum after the discontinuation of fire-prone Galaxy Note 7s, which will hit its profit by $5.4 billion over three quarters through the first quarter of 2017.
Investors and analysts say the Galaxy S8 must be a strong device in order for Samsung to win back customers and revive earnings momentum.
Samsung did not comment on what types of services would be offered through the AI assistant that will be launched on the Galaxy S8, which is expected to go on sale early next year. It said the AI assistant would allow customers to use third-party service seamlessly. “Developers can attach and upload services to our agent,” said Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee In-jong during a briefing, referring to its AI assistant. “Even if Samsung doesn’t do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease.
Report Technology firms are locked in an increasingly heated race to make AI good enough to let consumers interact with their devices more naturally, especially via voice. Alphabet Inc’s Google is widely considered to be the leader in AI, but others including Amazon.com, Apple and Microsoft Corp have launched their own offerings including voice-powered digital assistants.

Samsung launch W2017 in China

Samsung has unveiled its W2017 flip smartphone in China. Flip phones are actually a rare sight in the smartphone industry, with the dual-display clamshell Android phone a successor to the Samsung’s W2016 smartphone that had a similar flip design design. The dual SIM phone is 4G LTE capable and weighs 208 grams.
Samsung W2017 is a dual-SIM device and is already listed on the company’s Chinese website. The phone will feature two 4.2-inch Super AMOLED displays that have a full HD resolution (1920 x 1080 pixels). It is powered by a quad-core Snapdragon 820 SoC, and comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal memory storage (expandable to 256GB via MicroSD).The W2017 smartphone will be running on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, and will be backed by a small 2300 mAh battery that supports fast charging. The phone sports a 12MP primary camera that comes with an f/1.9 aperture and supports 4K video recording. The front camera on the device features a 5MP sensor.
Samsung W2017 has a rear mounted fingerprint scanner. The company hasn’t made any announcements about the price of the phone.
The predecessor to the phone, the W2016 was launched last year and featured two 3.9-inch Super AMOLED displays with 1280 x 768 screen resolutions. The phone was powered by a 1.5GHz octa-core processor with 3GB RAM. It was backed by a 2000 mAh battery. The primary camera on the phone was 16MP, with a 5MP camera sensor on the front of the device.

Android Chrome to get new Design

Google might be testing a redesigned Chrome browser for Android smartphones that places search bar at the bottom. The move is aimed at users with big smartphone screens, allowing them to use Chrome with one hand. According to a report in Android Police, the feature is unfinished as the space where the search tab is ideally placed (top) is empty as of now. “A new flag in Chrome Dev and Canary, only described as ‘Chrome Home,’ moves Chrome’s address bar to the bottom of the screen when enabled,” the report adds. In a screenshot put out by the site, we see controls including search tab, to add tabs as well as to switch tabs at the bottom.
While Microsoft has had browser controls for mobile versions of Internet Explorer and Edge for a couple of years now; Google might be on the verge of doing so pretty soon. Also, Safari for iOS has select select browser controls at the bottom such as switching tab, forward and backward. However, it looks like Google is only testing the feature for now and will roll out the same eventually for mobile users.
Google Chrome has been made 15 per cent faster on Windows. Google Chrome’s Sébastien Marchand, in a blogpost said, “Starting in Chrome 53, Chrome has started using Microsoft’s Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) technology to make Chrome up to 15 per cent faster on Windows.” ” PGO uses data from runtime execution that track which functions are most common to guide optimization,” he added.

Lenovo Phab goes on Sale

Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, company’s first official Project Tango smartphone has finally being made available. The Phab 2 Pro was slated to start shipping in August in the US and go on sale in September, but the availability was delayed to October. It was then further delayed to November. Lenovo Phab 2 Pro is now finally listed on the company’s site for $499 (Rs 33,350 approx) in Gunmetal Grey colour option. The smartphone was first announced in June. Lenovo Phab 2 Pro’s camera has an AR mode that brings augmented reality(AR) to smartphones, including gaming, navigation and other utilities.
Once The AR mode in Phab 2 Pro is switched on, it allows you to choose from characters like a cat, a dog, a dragon, etc. Tap on one of these characters, and they appear on the camera app, superimposed on the real world settings around you. Plus, you can do a number of things with the characters you pick. For instance, there’s a laser for the cat and it will chase it around.
Lenovo Phab 2 Pro comes with real world applications such as Lowe’s Home Improvement, Phantogeist, Raise and Woorld. With Lowe’s Home Improvement, users can find products they want, and see how they look in context before buying. Raise allows users to pick a pet from the 3D library and take him wherever they go. Users can train their puppy, and share photos on social media as well.
Lenovo Phab 2 Pro has a 6.4-inch 2K display and runs Qualcomm 652 processor with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. There’s a 16MP rear camera with special depth-sensing unit, along with multiple camera sensors. The front camera is 8MP. The Phab 2 Pro packs a 4,050 mAh battery and a fingerprint scanner. It is capable of 3D projections and figure out space, which are all new experiences on a smartphone.

Samsung Gear S3 costly than Apple watch

Samsung's new Gear S3 smartwatch will launch on Nov. 18 in the U.S. starting at $349.99 for the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi model — more than an entry-level Apple Watch. Pre-orders start on Nov. 6.
Consumers can pick one up from Samsung.com, Best Buy, Amazon, Macy's. Samsung announced the smartwatch in August, and it'll be available in two models: a regular "Classic" and slightly more rugged "Frontier" edition. They're Samsung's first smartwatches to feature built-in LTE and GPS. The Gear S3 also supports Samsung Pay using MST technology — the same contactless payment technology used by Samsung's flagship S7 and S7 Edge phones.
The smartwatch's large 46mm (diameter) case is a departure from the more reasonably-sized 32mm  Gear S2 and even 38mm and 42mm Apple Watch. The larger case does mean room for the LTE, GPS and a larger battery, which is reportedly good for three to four days on a single charge. Size aside, the Gear S3, last I checked, looks like a solid smartwatch running Tizen and connecting to Samsung smartphones. Not to mention it has military-grade durability with an IP68 rating for resistance to water, dust and sand.

Samsung Galaxy S8 to feature bezel-less display

According to a report by The Investor, Samsung will be bringing an edge-to-edge or a bezel-less display that will be based on OLED technology. Park Won-sang, a principal engineer at Samsung’s display making unit has hinted that the phone will be coming with a 90 per cent display area ratio. In comparison, the average ratio of display to body ratios in modern day smartphone stands at 80 per cent.
Smartphone manufacturers are already playing around with a edge-to-edge and no bezel displays, which includes Xiaomi that recently unveiled its concept smartphone – the Mi Mix.
The phone has been designed by Philippe Starck, a French designer – uses seamless connectors to fuse the phone’s body without the need to use external adhesives. Mi Mix will be featuring a 6.4-inch edge-to-edge display, which the company says will have a 91.3 per cent screen-to-body ratio and a custom 17:9 aspect ratio. Since there is no bezel on top of the phone, the front camera has been moved to the bottom of the device.
Samsung Galaxy S8 will reportedly feature a 5.1-inch 2K super AMOLED display, with the larger version sporting a 5.5-inch 4K display. The phone is likely to be powered by the company’s upcoming Exynos 8895 processor, and likely the Snapdragon 830. A dual-rear camera setup is also expected with the ‘Edge’ version of the Galaxy S8.

Samsung set-up collection point for Note 7

Samsung is setting up Galaxy Note 7 exchange booths in airports around the world, hoping to stop customers taking the dangerous device onto flights at the last minute. The first of these new "customer service points" appear to have been introduced in South Korean airports, but Samsung has confirmed the booths are opening in airports across Australia, with reports of the desks appearing in the US as well. The booths are located in "high-traffic terminals" before security screening, says Samsung, and allow Note 7 owners to swap their phone for an unspecified exchange device.
According to a report Samsung exchange desk has appeared at the city's international airport — employees for the tech company are on hand to help customers transfer their data onto a new phone.
These are necessary measures, as despite two global recalls for the Note 7 and daily news coverage of its dangers, analysts say that more than 1 million devices are still in use.
And as of last week, it's now a federal crime to bring a Note 7 onto a flight in the US, meaning that anyone caught with the phone risks fines and even imprisonment of up to ten years. Basically, if you're going on holiday any time soon you need to remember to bring your passport, buy some sunscreen, and leave any potentially explosive electronics at home.

Xiaomi made a bendable touchscreen

Lenovo, Samsung, LG, and Xiaomi are all reportedly working on bringing bendable phone screens to the public. We’ve seen some of these prototypes in-person, as well as in leaks online, and today we’re getting a look at Xiaomi’s idea for a bendable touchscreen. A 30-second video put online this past week seems to suggest Xiaomi created a real, tangible bendable phone IRL that also responds to touch. We don’t see the user bend it in multiple directions but it does seem to be bent in the person’s hand. We don’t have any details about a release or the phone itself.
Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Samsung might release two smartphones with bendable OLED screens in 2017. One model is said to fold in half, while another has a 5-inch display that unfurls into a tablet-sized 8-inch panel.
Maybe soon we'll have all the options when it comes to bendable screens!

ZTE Axon 7 mini is now available for preorder

ZTE just announced preorders for the Axon 7 mini and named a price: $299.98. The mini is the smaller and cheaper version of ZTE's flagship Axon 7. As of today you can preorder the phone from Amazon, B&H, Best Buy, New Egg, and ZTE’s online store, although no release date has been announced.
The Axon 7 mini has a smaller, 5.2-inch screen, and otherwise looks like a smaller version of the larger Axon 7. The phone also has a 1080p screen, 3GB of RAM, and a Snapdragon 617 processor, making it a decidedly budget phone, especially compared with the higher-end specs of the more powerful Axon 7. Additionally, it lacks the Google Daydream compatibility that the Axon 7 offers.
However, the Axon 7 mini’s $299.98 price point comes in at $100 cheaper than the $399.98 full size Axon 7, meaning that while you’re getting less phone for your money, you’re also spending less money for your phone.

Google’s new smartwatches with Android Wear 2.0 arriving early 2017

Google is reportedly working on two new smartwatches based on Android Wear 2.0.The smartwatches first rumoured in July this year are expected to launch early next year. Google recently delayed Android Wear 2.0 till early next year and might debut the new wrist friendly version of Android alongside the new smartwatches.
Google is currently revamping its hardware ambitions big time. The company recently ditched the Nexus smartphone brand to announce its own Pixel range. Google’s Pixel and Pixel XL are the most premium Android smartphones one can buy right now. Google is probably preparing its own smartwatches in order to better compete with other smartwatch makers and particularly help Android Wear watches jump back in popularity.
The timeline for the release of Google’s own Android smartwatches come from Evan Blass. He tweeted the release date alongside pictures of product first revealed by Android Police. Like Pixel smartphones, Google’s Android Wear 2.0 smartwatches will focus on Google Assistant as the primary method of interaction. The smartwatches are codenamed Angelfish and Swordfish and are also likely to come with new watch faces.
Android Police had reported that Angelfish will be a larger watch with large crown button while Swordfish is expected to come with more subtle and cleaner look. The Swordfish is expected to be the minimalist watch while Angelfish will concentrate on technical specifications.
Android Wear 2.0 was showcased at Google I/O 2016 with dedicated Play Store and support for material design. The next version is also expected to bring standalone apps and support for messaging directly from the watch.
Google has not confirmed plans of launching its own smartwatches but these could well be the first smartwatches to run Android Wear 2.0 and probably ‘Made by Google’ smartwatches.

Samsung has a new high-end Chromebook with touchscreen and styluscoming soon

Earlier this summer, rumors of a new Chromebook nicknamed ‘Kevin’ circulated around the web, and yesterday,ChromeUnboxed uncoveredthe yet-to-be-announced model through a series of retailer listings: the Samsung Chromebook Pro.
ChromeUnboxed noted that it had received a user tip of a listing for the device on B&H, which was quickly taken down. However, the site turned up a listing for the Chromebook on Adorama, as well as a landing page for the device.
The new Chromebook comes with a variety of impressive features: a 12.3 inch 2400x1600 resolution touch screen that can rotate 360 degrees, minimal bezels, 32GB of storage, 4GB of RAM, a stylus, an all-metal 12.9 mm-thick body and 10 hours of battery time. The hardware seems to be designed with Android app support in mind.The device is currently listed forpre-order on Adoramawith a $499 price tag.
There’s no official release date listed, but ChromeUnboxed reported that the since-deleted B&H product page listed October 24th for availability.

Leaked photos give us a close-up look atthe rumored HTC Bolt

New pictures have emerged of the HTC Bolt, a phone that’s rumored to be coming later this month. VentureBeat’s Evan Blass posted the images, which appear to show the physical phone — not a rendered version — for the first time. As we saw in an image Blass leaked in September, the Bolt looks similar to this year’s HTC 10phone, but it’s supposedly going to be a midrange Android device, not a flagship product. It also, notably, has no headphone jack. Blass writes that the Bolt will have a 5.5-inch display (slightly larger than the HTC 10) with 3GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, plus a microSD card and an 18-megapixel rear camera, compared to the HTC 10’s 12-megapixel one. This leak, along with previous ones, suggests that it will run Android 7.0 Nougat reskinned with HTC’s Sense interface — the HTC 10 was released using the previous Marshmallow version, although an update is supposed to be on its way. As we've previously heard, it’s apparently being released worldwide and coming to Sprint in the US. While we still don’t know all that much about the Bolt, its name evokes the HTC Thunderbolt, a Verizon-exclusive phone from 2011. The Bolt rumors come not long after HTC announced its midrange Desire 10, which is not currently available in the US.
HTC is also behind the Pixel and Pixel XL, two high-end, Google-branded phones that wererevealed last week.

Nokia’s comeback Android smartphones

Nokia is all set to launch two new Android smartphones later this year. Nokia’s non-competitive deal with Microsoft ends this year, and the company has already agreed to bring back its brand in collaboration with HMD global. If rumours are anything to go by, Nokia will launch two new smartphones with flagship specifications and a design that we have come to associate with Nokia brand. The leaked images earlier hinted at Nokia announcing smartphones with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 820 processor and colourful polycarbonate shells like Lumia smartphones launched before. HMD Global, Nokia’s contractor licensing the brand, has already promisedto deliver that trademark build quality and Nokia-esque design.

Samsung Halt Note 7 production

In a statement, the tech giant said it was "temporarily" adjusting the production schedule to "ensure quality and safety matters".In a separate regulatory filing, Samsung said it was adjusting the Note 7's production volumes. It said it would issue an update when more details were available.
But Samsung fell short of confirming or denying earlier media reports it had halted production following claims of fires in replacement devices. An unnamed Samsung partner firm source had told Yonhap News Agency Samsung's decision to temporarily halt Note 7 production was done in cooperation with authorities in China and the United States, as two US carriers have stopped exchanging or selling new Note 7 phones. Problems with replacements for the Note 7 model would create a new and potentially costly chapter to a global scandal which has hurt the reputation of the world's biggest smartphone maker. It also could add new dangers for consumers.
Samsung had promised that its new Note 7 with a green battery icon was safe. But the reports of replacement phones catching fire raised doubts about whether the battery was the only problem in the smartphone, as Samsung had initially said.
Samsung had blamed the batteries supplied by one of its two battery suppliers and assured consumers other parts of the smartphones were fine.