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.

Apple considering making iPhone in the US

iPhones may soon be made in US as Apple has asked Foxconn and Pegatron to look into this possibility, reports said. According to Nikkei Asian Review, key Apple assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry, also known as Foxconn Technology Group, has been studying the possibility of moving iPhone production to the US.“Apple asked both Foxconn and Pegatron,the two iPhone assemblers, in June to look into making iPhones in the US Foxconn complied, while Pegatron declined to formulate such a plan due to cost concerns,” sources said.
But the sources have said that making of iPhones in the US will cost will more than double. The general perception among Americans that they are losing manufacturing jobs to other countries overlaps the Apple’s ‘rumoured’ prospect move.
President-elect Donald Trump referred to Apple multiple times during his campaign and vowed to slap a 45 per cent tariff on goods made in China. “We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries,” Trump said at Liberty University in Virginia in January. Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook was quoted by CBS’ 60 Minutes programme in December 2015 that America simply did not have enough skilled workers for the production of iPhones.
To make iPhones, there will need to be a cluster of suppliers in the same place, which the US does not have at the moment. Even if Trump imposes a 45 per cent tariff, it is still possible that manufacturers will decide to continue production overseas as long as the costs together with the tariffs are lower than the amount they need to spend on building and running production lines in the US,” sources familiar with the iPhone production process were quoted by Nikkei Asian Review.
Sources said that to make iPhones, America will need US government to subsidise local companies for domestic productions.

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.

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.

Apple accounted for 103.6 per cent of smartphone profit

While there is a lot of talk about how Apple’s momentum is slowing down, there seems to be one area where it is way ahead of the competition and that is profits. In fact, one analyst thinks Apple has more than 100 per cent of smartphone industry profits in Q3.As per BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long, Apple accounted for 103.6 per cent of all smartphone industry operating profits in Q3. The number is above cent per cent because other vendors are losing money.
Thus Apple ends up with “more smartphone profit than the industry netted overall”. For the year-earlier period, Apple grabbed 90 per cent of smartphone profits, Long said, highlighting how others had fallen of the cliff when it came to profits.
In fact, the number 2 in profits is Korean tech giant Samsung with a mere 0.9 per cent share. Long said everyone from LG to HTC had lost money in the quarter. The analyst was of the opinion that Samsung, which had lost some market share because of the Note 7 fiasco, will end up ceding more ground to Apple in the near future.
However, according to BMO estimates, Samsung still had 21.7 per cent of the smartphone market based on units sold in Q3, followed by Apple (13.2 per cent) and Huawei(9.7 per cent). Apple launched the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus in September this year at a crucial time for the company when its overall revenue has fallen thanks to slowing iPhone sales, which has become the star product in its portfolio. However, most analysts expect the iPhone 8 to come with major design changes and spark better upgrade than the 7 series.

Apple Patent hint Bendable, Foldable iPhone

Apple iPhone 8 is set to launch next, and reports suggest that Cupertino giant is expected to bring about a radical change for it as 2017 is the 10th year anniversary for Apple’s iPhone. Now a patent, filed in 2014, has been granted and published online by the US Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveal Apple is working on overhauling the very base of iPhone. Going by the patent, Apple could soon introduce an iPhone with flexible screen. According to the patent, it talks of ‘polymer materials in the flexible structure may be molded to form bends.’The text in the patent reads,“An electronic device has structures such as substrates and internal housing structures.
The substrates may be rigid substrates such as rigid printed circuit boards and flexible substrates such as flexible printed circuits, flexible touch sensor substrates, and flexible display substrates.
Carbon nanotubes may be patterned to form carbon nanotube signal paths on the substrates. The signal paths may resist cracking when bent. A flexible structure such as a flexible printed circuit may have carbon nanotube signal paths interposed between polymer layers. Openings in a polymer layer may expose metal solder pads on the carbon nanotube signal paths. A stiffener may be provided under the metal solder pads.
Polymer materials in the flexible structure may be molded to form bends. Bends may be formed along edges of a touch sensor or display or maybe formed in a flexible printed circuit.”A figure posted on USPTO shows a smartphone that has a foldable hinge, running vertically along the device. The device, in the image, opens up like a rectangular notebook.
The image caption read, “FIG. 2 is a perspective view of an illustrative electronic device that bends along a flexible portion such as a flexible seam associated with a hinge in accordance with an embodiment.”Clearly, such an iPhone sounds vastly different from the current iPhone 7 series. The latest patent update is only going to raise expectations for this device, which a couple of months away from an official launch.

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.

iPhone 8 to feature all Glass

With the launch of the iPhone 7 now, we already boarded the hype train for iPhone 8 and now with all these new leaks and rumours, we can say that we are slowly getting closer to the destination. We have been hearing a lot about this new iPhone which is supposed to be called the iPhone 8. If you didn’t know already, then this is also going to be the 10-year anniversary edition of the smartphone and hence we are expecting some radical design change here. But this new rumour is something we have never heard about. According to the source, the company might be looking to launch a new iPhones of different sizes varying from 4.7″ display size to 5″ and a 5.5″ as well. Yes, we were surprised to see them launching 2 different iPhones with the iPhone 6 and now with the rumours of the 3 different sizes, things get a little bit clumsy. Also, there are reports claiming that the new iPhones will have glass on both front and the back and it will be held together by a metal frame. This design is something very similar to what we see with the Samsung devices mostly.
The glass panels will be provided by Chinese companies Biel Crystal Manufactory and Lens Technology. And the metal frame to hold them together is supposed to be delivered by China’s Foxconn, Catcher Technology, and U.S.-based company Jabil. It is also expected that only the bigger variant i.e. the 5.5″ variant will come with the new alleged OLED panel and the other two versions will come with the same low-temperature polysilicon technology, which is used i current edition. This is not surprising at all since we already know that the company pushes new technology with the bigger variant just like they did with the new iPhone 7 Plus this year.
Now talking about the new rumours of 3 different sizes, it is highly unlikely to happen because it doesn’t make any sense for them to launch a 4.7″ display alongside a 5″ one. Considering the fact that the difference is very less here, we believe that they would stick to only 2 variant and maybe the 5″ model is something that they will separately or maybe it is special edition smartphone which they will be launching for 10-year anniversary occasion. However, all these are just early speculation and we don’t have any confirmation on any of this info.
Well, talking about the iPhones, if you are in the market for a new iPhone then you can buy the latest ones being the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. And as far as the iPhone 8 rumours are concerned, we suggest you take them with a pinch of salt and wait for more info in the future.

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 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.

Google's new Wallpapers app gives phone freshy feeling

I've long had a pet theory that wallpapers are disproportionately important when it selling new phones. After all, the industrial design of many high-end handsets is pretty identical (just compare the iPhone 7 and the new Google Pixel), but it's the wallpapers that really stand out — those are sometimes the design aspects that feel the newest. In that spirit, if you want to give your old Android handset a bit of a facelift, Google has just the thing: anew stock app named Wallpapers.
The app has a bunch of high quality wallpapers, including some gorgeous landscape photography, cool architectural shots, abstract textures, and some nice Google Earth satellite images very similar to those used in promo pictures for the Pixel.
There's also a function that lets you switch your wallpaper every day if that's your thing. Of course, these are just wallpapers— an abundant digital resource and basically the freest thing in the world. But if you're anything like me, you've probably stopped caring bit about hunting out nice backgrounds for your phone, and it's good to have the easy option of an app with great shots preloaded. Just don't think it's going to make your actual phone any better.

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 is working on a new search index for mobile

Google is working to make the Web experience for mobile users better by indexing search results for smartphones. According to a report in Search Engine Land, Google will create a new primary search index for smartphone users in the coming months. “A separate desktop index will be maintained, one that will not be as up-to-date as the mobile index,” the report added. Search Engine Land quoted Google’s Gary Illyes, who confirmed to the site the mobile index will be rolled out within months. Gary talked about the same in a keynote address at Pubcon as well. However, he didn’t give out a timeline for the launch of mobile index. The Search giant first revealed it is working on mobile index at SMX East last year. Google has since been working to develop the idea. However, no details of the project are known for now. “The most substantial change will likely be that by having a mobile index, Google can run its ranking algorithm in a different fashion across “pure” mobile content rather than the current system that extracts data from desktop content to determine mobile rankings,” the report says. Google’s AMP Project addresses the issue of slow site loading on the internet. It is similar to Facebook’s Instant Articles that is designed to load instantaneously. According to Google, it takes less than one second for an AMP page to load.

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.

Samsung to rebound from the Galaxy Note 7 disaster

Samsung is still in the midst of an unprecedented tech disaster with its Galaxy Note 7, despite officially burying the smartphone earlier this week. While some have speculated the South Korean giant will respond to the loss in profits and consumer confidence by releasing the Galaxy S8 earlier or with ground breaking specs, it turns out a much simpler tactic could be utilised.
According to a leak picked up by Trusted Reviews, Samsung may be planning to launch a 'Blue Coral' version of its non-explosive Galaxy S7 Edge- likely in an effort to draw attention away from the Note 7.
Perhaps the fact the colour was the most popular one for the failed smartphone is just coincidence, but it would make sense to block out public memory of the device by applying its trademark finish to a successful model.
The leak above not only shows off the potentially fresh colour, it also etches in the branding of carrier Verizon- something which suggests it could be in line for a US or exclusive option. Boo.
The move, if it does turn out to be legit, would also replicate a similar tactic by rival Apple. With the iPhone 7 featuring minimal upgrades from its predecessor, the company managed to distract everyone with two new black colourways - one of these crucially being shiny and ultra-pretty. As always, it's best to take these kinds of leaks with a reasonable dose of salt.
After all, we won't know for sure until any official confirmation from Samsung.

Sony to enter mobile gaming market

Sony is making plans to launch at least five smartphone games by March 2018, targeting Japan and other Asian markets. A new report from Nikkei suggests that Sony Interactive Entertainment will be offering smartphone games based on its popular PlayStation series, and this will be handled by the company’s gaming arm(subsidiary) – Forward Works.
Sony is expected to revive some older games that are not compatible with PlayStation’s latest hardware for mobile platforms. The games will reportedly be linked to consoles as well, and the Japanese tech giant will announce titles it is developing by the end of 2016.There is a huge market for mobile phone gaming, and Pokemon GO is the biggest example of that. The augmented reality game went viral, and helped rake millions of dollars for the game’s creator Niantic and partners – Nintendo and The Pokemon Company, through in-app purchases. Sony continues to lose traction in the competitive Android smartphone market (currently dominated by Samsung).
Nintendo at the Apple iPhone 7 launch announced ‘Super Mario Run’ for iOS, and Sony too realises the importance of mobile gaming. Sony’s gaming arm, Forward Works was formed earlier this year with an objective of leveraging the intellectual property of PlayStation dedicated software titles and bringing it to smartphones.
Sony in 2014 sold of its PC business (VAIO) to an investment firm – Japan Industrial Partners, in an attempt to restructure the company and focus on mobile devices. While Sony has failed to capture the smartphone industry by storm, the company’s PlayStation consoles have been doing well. According to a Business Insider report, Sony has sold 40 million units of the PlayStation 4 (PS4) since its launch in November 2013. This makes the PS4 the best selling gaming console in the world right now, and Sony recently announced two new versions of the console last month. We’ll have to wait and see if Sony launches these new games for smartphones.