Important announcements
Huawei’s next mobile chip will have AI processing capabilities
The Kirin 970 from Huawei will will support many of the AI capabilities that devices need today, such as voice interaction and image recognition. Huawei’s chip supports on-device AI. That means the AI functions are processed on the smartphone rather than in the cloud, which could speed up processes. Huawei also claims the new 10nm Kirin 970 chip will allow for 50 percent longer battery life on phones.
You can read more here.
Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and others are vulnerable to ‘silent’ commands
A team of researchers at China’s Zhejiang University have managed to modulate the frequency of a voice command made by a human, into ultrasonic frequencies. This makes the sound inaudible to human ears, but audible to the microphones present on several consumer devices such as iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, Apple Watches, Amazon’s Echo, a Lenovo ThinkPad T440p with Windows 10, and even an Audi Q3. The researchers managed to not only silently activate the voice assistants, but also perform commands such as making a call, opening a website and unlocking the back door to a house fitted with a smart lock– the last one should be of most concern.
More info are available here.
Lenovo was fined $3.5m for pre-installed adware that hijacks HTTPS connections
Lenovo has reached a settlement with the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC), ending a two-and-a-half-year dispute over the company pre-installing problematic third-party adware in hundreds of thousands of laptops sold between late 2014 and early 2015. The affected Lenovo laptops ran a preinstalled software program called VisualDiscovery, which delivered pop-up ads from the company’s retail partners whenever a user’s cursor hovered over a similar looking product on a website.
You can read more here.
Top new products
LG G Pad X2
The LG G Pad X2 has an 8-inch Full HD display, 32 GB of internal storage and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.4 GHz octa-core processor. It comes with Android Nougat 7.0 and a 2,900mAh battery.
More info here.
ZTE Axon Multy
The Axon Multy will have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of built-in storage. It will come with dual screens that fold along its vertical axis. Unfolded, the two screens will meet at the hinge to form a 6.8-inch display.
More info here.
Galaxy Note8
Note 8 has a 6.3inch Super AMOLED display, Exynos 8895 CPU and 6GB RAM. It comes with 12MP dual rear-facing camera, 8MP front-facing camera and a 3,300mAh battery.
More info here.
Top interesting info
SK Telecom reduces latency to 2 milliseconds for 5G
SK Telecom said the 2ms latency technology will facilitate development of real-time services such as autonomous driving, AR, and VR services on the way to 5G. The latency between handsets and base stations in current LTE networks is around 25ms or under. The International Telecommunication Union states that technologies designed for 5G must reach a peak data transfer rate of up to 20Gbps in latency under 1ms.
You can read more here.
The site YouTube-MP3.org agrees to shut down after getting sued by labels
According to TorrentFreak, a proposed final judgment has been reached between audio-ripping site YouTube-MP3.org and a collection of record labels including UMG, Sony Music, and Warner Bros. The document indicates a decision in favor of the labels, with an undisclosed settlement fee and an order to transfer the domain to a party representing the labels.
More info can be found here.
Microsoft extends the free Windows 10 S upgrade until March 2018
Microsoft is giving Windows 10 S users a bit more time to decide whether they want to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro. The company today announced it is extending the upgrade promotion until March 31 2018, three months longer than originally anticipated. Windows 10 S was met with mixed reactions. It doesn’t allow users to install apps from outside the Windows Store, which means popular software like Photoshop and Steam simply can’t be installed.
You can read more here.
