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jeudi 24 octobre 2019

[Update: Launching Soon] Epic Games is launching an Android game store in 2019 with 88% revenue share

Update (10/24/19 @ 2:50 PM ET): It’s been a while in the making, but the Epic Games Store seems to finally be coming to Android.

When Fortnite arrived on Android, there was a lot of speculation as to where it would end up. Early reports indicated that it would forego the Google Play Store entirely, which did turn out to be true. Instead, Epic Games melded a partnership with Samsung, offering the application exclusively on the Galaxy Apps store. Following the end of that exclusivity deal, Epic Games allowed users to download Fortnite from their own website. That opened the door to the possibility of finding tons of unofficial APKs online.

Now Epic Games has announced their own application store, with one big attraction: developers will get 88% of revenue generated by their app. This means that the company will only take 12% of all profits. To contrast, the Google Play Store will earn developers 70% of all revenue generated, with 30% going to Google. What’s more, if you’re using Unreal Engine, then the 5% engine royalty will be taken out of Epic’s 12% profit, not your 88%.

Of course, the Epic Games store is being aimed entirely at gamers. It will open up in early 2019 with a set of curated games that run on PC and Mac, with it opening up to Android and other open platforms later on in the year. There are a number of principles that the store will operate on, and all of them are set on establishing a shared space for both developers, content creators, and gamers alike. Creators like YouTubers and Twitch streamers will be able to refer players to buy games on the store, where creators can earn money. To jumpstart the economy, Epic Games will cover the first 5% of creator revenue-sharing for the first 24 months of the service.

If you’re wondering whether you’ll only be allowed to release games running the Unreal Engine, don’t worry. The first set of curated games will run on other engines like Unity. Developers need not worry about advertisements being shown on their game pages either. There will be no store-placed ads or cross-marketing of competing games on your page, and no paid ads in search results.

The company has said that they will reveal more details on December 6th, at The Game Awards in Los Angeles.

Source: Epic Games


Update: Launching Soon

Today, Epic announced that the Fortnite Installer for Android is now the Epic Games app. Right now, it’s still just an installer for Fortnite. Only the name and icon have been changed. However, this is a clear sign that the full Epic Games Store will be launching soon on Android. We will update this post when that happens.

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Motorola launches Moto G8 Plus with 48MP primary camera, GoPro-esque Action Cam along with Moto G8 Play and Moto E6 Play

Motorola has been a roll when it comes to launching new devices one after another. In the last couple of months, the company has launched the Motorola One Action, Motorola One Zoom, Moto E6 series, and very recently the Motorola One Macro. The company appears to be focussing on aspects of the entertainment as well as photography and has now formally announced the all-new Moto G8 series. It has unveiled the Motorola G8 Plus along with the recently leaked Moto G8 Play internationally and the devices will be available in markets including the UK, LATAM, and India, initially. Along with these, the company also launched the rumored Moto E6 Play as well as announced Motorola One Macro for markets outside of India.

Motorola Moto G8 Plus

Motorola is billing the Moto G8 Plus is an all-rounder since it packs the 48MP camera from the Motorola One Vision and the GoPro-esque camera from the One Action. This bumps the number of rear cameras from two on the Moto G7 Plus to three on the Moto G8 Plus. The third sensor is a 5MP depth sensor. On the front, the Moto G8 Plus gets a 25MP camera that supports 4-in-1 pixel binning for crisp and bright selfies, even in low light.

In terms of the design, Motorola is choosing safety over style and is now moving back to polycarbonate-coated back panels with a satiny finish. It comes in two colors – Cosmic Blue and Crystal Pink – and there’s a gradient from almost black to the respective hues and the back shimmers under strong light. Additionally, the phone is rated for IP52 protection and comes with gaskets around moving and ejectable parts including the hybrid SIM tray.

motorola moto g8 plus motorola moto g8 plus

On the front of the Moto G8 Plus, there’s a 6.3-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD display with a U-shaped notch and a 19:9 aspect ratio. The earpiece above the display also houses a secondary speaker for stereo sound effects in unison with the bottom-firing primary speaker. Additionally, there’s Dolby Audio support on the smartphone.

Internally, the Moto G8 Plus is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 mobile platform along with 4GB of RAM. The 64GB of storage is standard and the hybrid SIM slot supports microSD cards for up to 512GB. It uses a 4,000mAh battery and supports fast charging at 15W with the bundled USB-C Turbo charger.

Moto G8 Play

The Motorola Moto G8 Play is the budget device in the series and comes pretty much the same design as the Moto G8 Plus but specifications in line with the One Macro. The Moto G8 Play gets a 13MP primary camera on the back instead of the 48MP sensor, a wide-angle camera for 117º wide field of view, and a 2MP depth sensor. The wide-angle sensor is also rotated by 90º and unlike the Action Cam on the G8 Plus, it can capture both images and videos.

motorola moto g8 play motorola moto g8 play

Internally, it is powered by a MediaTek Helio P70 chipset, 2GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. The Moto G8 Play has a 6.2-inch HD+ display, 4,000mAh battery, but charging support limited to 10W.

Moto E6 Play

The Moto E6 Play comes after the Moto E6 and the Moto E6 Plus unveiled last month at IFA 2019 trade show. It comes with a smaller 5.5-inch HD+ rectangular display with no notch and large forehead and chin. It features a 13MP camera on the back and a 5MP camera for selfies. It features a 3,000mAh battery.

Moto E6 Play Moto E6 Play

The Moto E6 Play is powered by MediaTek MT6739 chipset and has 2GB of RAM. It gets 32GB of inbuilt storage which can be expanded up to 256GB using the dedicated memory card slot.

Motorola Moto G8 Plus, Moto G8 Play, Moto E6 Play: Pricing & Availability

The Motorola Moto G8 Plus will be arriving first in India starting the end of October at a price of ₹13,999 (~$200). Meanwhile, Motorola has also announced the prices in the UK where Moto G8 Plus will cost you £179 (~$230). The phone will also be available in Brazil and Mexico by the end of October.

The Moto G8 Play will be priced at €269 ($300) in Europe, Brazil, and Mexico but there is no information about availability in India yet.

The Moto E6 Play will also be available in Brazil, Mexico, the UK, and Europe. It will be priced at €109 in Europe and £99 in the UK and is expected to arrive in mid-November.

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OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition is coming to the US in a 5G model for T-Mobile

OnePlus and T-Mobile have teamed up to release both company’s second 5G phone. The OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition will be available in the US exclusively through T-Mobile. Some people were surprised that OnePlus didn’t share any 5G news when they announced the OnePlus 7T series. Now we know they were just waiting to share the news with T-Mobile.

The OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition has the Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem, which means it can connect to T-Mobile’s sub-6GHz 5G network. This is different from most other 5G phones that have the Snapdragon X50 modem (such as the Galaxy S10 5G, which launched on T-Mobile in June) because it’s designed to connect to T-Mobile’s 600 FDD spectrum. T-Mobile plans to cover 200 million people with 5G on 600 MHz before the end of 2019.

OnePlus 7T Pro XDA Forums

There are a few differences between the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition and regular OnePlus 7T Pro. The most obvious is the McLaren-inspired orange and black design. Inside, it bumps the RAM up from 8GB to 12GB. Other specs include a 6.67-inch QHD+ display with 90 Hz refresh rate, 256GB of storage, a 48MP main camera, zoom and wide-angle lenses, a 4,085 mAh battery, and Android 10 out of the box.

T-Mobile did not share pricing or launch date details for the OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition, but it will be available later this year. If you’re looking to upgrade from the last OnePlus device that was made available through T-Mobile, the 5G OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition seems like the only option for this cycle.


Source: T-Mobile

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Samsung announces the 7nm Exynos 990 SoC and the 5G Exynos Modem 5123

At Samsung Tech Day 2019, Samsung has announced the system-on-chip that will almost certainly power next year’s international variants of the Galaxy S11 phones: the Exynos 990. The company has also announced a new cutting-edge discrete 5G Exynos Modem 5123 that is meant to be paired with the Exynos 990.

Exynos 990

The Exynos 990 is the first flagship Samsung SoC to feature the company’s new SoC naming system. It succeeds the Exynos 9820 and the Exynos 9825, and is intended to slot above the upper mid-range Exynos 980 SoC, which was announced last month. It’s certainly more than a bit confusing – especially when considering that Samsung’s chief competitor, Huawei, also has a flagship SoC called the HiSilicon Kirin 990.

The Exynos 990 and the 5G Exynos Modem 5123 are both manufactured on Samsung’s new 7nm LPP EUV (extreme ultra-violet) process. The Exynos 990 has a triple-cluster CPU core setup like the Exynos 9820 and the Exynos 9825. The two big cores are the next iteration of Samsung’s custom cores – the Exynos M5, which succeeds the Exynos M4 in the 9820 and the 9830. Samsung claims that the Exynos M5 provides a 20% performance improvement over its predecessor. That seems a conservative target to reach for, especially when considering that Qualcomm’s next flagship SoC is almost certainly bound to use the ARM Cortex-A77 architecture that comes with 20-35% performance improvements. The Exynos M3 was a big let-down in terms of real-world performance, while the M4 was a substantial step forward, even though it didn’t match the Cortex-A76 in all respects.

The two middle cores, on the other hand, are ARM Cortex-A76 cores. They succeed the Cortex-A75 middle core cluster in the Exynos 9820/9825. This should provide a decent performance boost in real-world tasks that use the middle core cluster, and this should help Samsung close the performance gap that existed between the Exynos 9820/9825 and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 as well as the Kirin 980. Finally, four ARM Cortex-A55 cores are relied upon for the little core cluster. The overall improvement of the triple-cluster CPU setup is said to be 13%, but Samsung hasn’t provided the clock speed of any cluster yet.

In terms of the GPU, Samsung has incorporated the Mali-G77MP11 in the Exynos 990. The Mali-G77 is the first ARM GPU to use the new Valhall GPU architecture that is said to come with 1.4x performance improvements relative to its predecessor. Despite the new architecture, Samsung is only promising improvements in graphics performance or power efficiency by up to 20%. On paper, this is quite disappointing to see, as this means that Samsung won’t catch up with Apple’s GPUs in the Apple A12 and A13, and it’s also unlikely that the company will be able to compete with the next Adreno GPU in Qualcomm’s 2020 flagship SoC.

In terms of on-device AI, the Exynos 990 features a dual-core NPU (neural processing unit) and an improved DSP (digital signal processor). Their combination can perform over 10 trillion operations (TOPs) per second, which is a big improvement compared to the Exynos 9820’s 1.86 TOPs per second. The NPU enables localized AI in a smartphone, allowing data to be processed on-device instead of being sent to the cloud. Samsung mentions the typical use cases of facial recognition and scene detection that will benefit from this improvement.

The Exynos 990 also supports the new LPDDR5 standard with bandwidth rates of up to 5500 Mbps. The SoC features a 120Hz refresh-rate display driver that aims to reduce screen tearing and enable smoother animations even on devices with multiple displays, such as foldable phones. Lastly, the ISP supports up to six individual image sensors with concurrent processing of three. The maximum resolution supported is 108MP, and it’s worth noting that Samsung has developed the ISOCELL Bright HMX 108MP sensor, that is only seen in the Mi Mix Alpha for now.

5G Exynos Modem 5123

Notably, the Exynos 990 doesn’t come with an integrated 5G modem. Instead, Samsung is marketing the 5G Exynos Modem 5123 discrete modem, which will be used with the Exynos 990. This is one of the first 5G modems to be produced on a 7nm EUV process.

The advancements it brings are notable: it supports both types of 5G, namely sub-6GHz (that will be used more widely in the world) and mmWave spectrum (currently restricted to the US and Japan). Along with 5G, it supports legacy 2G/3G/4G LTE technologies with best-in-class theoretical speeds. In 4G LTE, the maximum theoretical downlink speed that can be reached is 3Gbps (which won’t be seen by any consumer) with 422 Mbps upload. In 5G sub-6GHz, it can reach a max downlink of 5.1Gbps, while mmWave allows it to reach 7.35Gbps. It has 1024 QAM, and it supports up to 8-carrier aggregation (8CA). This makes it the first modem with such a cutting-edge feature set.


The Exynos 990 and the 5G Exynos Modem 5123 are expected to begin mass production by the end of this year, according to Samsung. The stage is set for the Samsung Galaxy S11’s international variants to use this chip. With HiSilicon having already announced their flagship SoC, all eyes will be on Qualcomm for its next-generation Snapdragon flagship SoC.

Source 1: Samsung (1), (2)
Story Via: AnandTech

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ARM announces the mid-range Mali-G57 GPU with the Valhall architecture

In May, ARM announced the ARM Cortex-A77 CPU architecture and the ARM Mali-G77 GPU. The Mali-G77 GPU is the first GPU to feature the new “Valhall” architecture, which succeeds the Bifrost architecture that has been powering ARM’s GPUs since 2016. The premium Mali-G77 will show up as part of Samsung’s brand new Exynos 990 flagship SoC, but ARM also develops mid-range, mainstream GPUs that are intended for affordable devices. The last such mid-range ARM GPU was the ARM Mali-G52, which found its way to the HiSilicon Kirin 810. Now, ARM has announced its successor, the Mali-G57 GPU, and it’s the first mainstream ARM GPU to feature the Valhall architecture.

According to ARM, the Mali-G57 enables premium features such as high fidelity content, console-like graphics on phones, and more complex ML, AR, and VR workloads. It does this by bringing the performance improvements that we have come to expect from higher-end GPUs. Compared to the Mali-G52, the Mali-G57 offers a 30% better performance density across a range of content ranging from games to high-res 2D content, and it also has double the texturing performance. ARM says that this “greatly improves the performance for high-resolution UI in 4K and 8K DTVs, AR and VR and gaming”. It’s also said to be a great choice to tackle more complex 3D workloads, such as physically based rendering (PBR), HDR rendering, and volumetric effects.

More importantly, ARM claims to have made “significant energy efficiency improvements”. The company’s past premium GPUs, such as the Mali-G71 and the Mali-G72, have historically had poor energy efficiency. The Mali-G57 claims to have 30% better energy efficiency as compared to the Mali-G52, which should improve battery life.

ARM’s priority is cost-efficiency. The company states that while the Mali-G77 has at least seven cores, the Mali-G57 has one to six cores depending on the configuration. This should make it suitable for mainstream phones – for example, the Kirin 810 uses a six-core version of the Mali-G52.

ARM is also talking about machine learning (ML) performance. The Mali-G77 improved ML performance by up to 60%, and the Mali-G57 is said to make “similar” improvements. The 60% increase in on-device ML performance is enabled by 2x more FMAs when compared to the Mali-G52, as well as architectural optimizations. According to ARM, this provides faster responsiveness to ML use cases such as speech recognition, face detection, and image quality enhancement, with the flexibility to perform different ML workloads.

The company then moves on to talk about AR and VR. While AR is still a fledgling subject on smartphones, VR is generally held by the industry to be as good as buried already, what with the death of Google Daydream and the general lack of consumer interest in smartphone VR. However, the Mali-G57’s increase in performance and the inclusion of new technologies helps in providing improved AR and VR experiences, according to ARM.

Finally, ARM talks about the Valhall GPU architecture. Naturally, the company says that it’s crucial for developers because it has been designed to align with modern APIs such as Vulkan. ARM promises that games will run smoother and for longer on devices thanks to the performance and energy efficiency improvements of the Mali-G57. The Valhall architecture is the current basis of ARM’s latest-generation GPUs, and more details about it can be read in the Mali-G77 launch article. The key features of the architecture consist of a new superscalar engine, a simplified scalar ISA, and dynamic scheduling of instructions – these factors are the key to enable the performance and energy efficiency improvements that ARM proclaims are in the Mali-G57.

Qualcomm uses its own Adreno GPUs in smartphones, while Samsung Systems LSI, HiSilicon, and MediaTek all rely on ARM’s Mali GPUs. For example, the Redmi Note 8 Pro’s MediaTek Helio G90T SoC features the Mali-G76MC4 GPU. We expect the Mali-G57 to appear in new mid-range GPUs made by the aforementioned three vendors. If it lives up to its promises, it can only be a good thing for the mid-range smartphone GPU market in terms of competition.

Alongside the Mali-G57 GPU, ARM also announced the Ethos-N57 and Ethos-N37 NPUs (Neural Processing Unit) and the Mali-D37 DPU (Display Processing Unit). The latter is said to deliver a rich feature set within “the smallest area” for Full HD and 2K resolution, while the NPUs are dedicated neural processing hardware for smartphones. The N37 and N57 NPUs are optimized for 1 and 2 TOP/S ML performance range.


Source: ARM

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Honor 9X smartphone launches in Russia, coming soon to the Netherlands

Huawei’s subsidiary Honor launched the Honor 9X and Honor 9X Pro in China earlier this year. The devices packed in some impressive specifications and featured a modern design with a notch-less display up on the front. To make room for the display, Honor also put the selfie camera in a pop-up module at the top. In the camera department, both devices featured a 48MP primary sensor and a 2MP depth sensor. However, the Honor 9X Pro received an 8MP ultrawide lens as well. Despite the fact that Huawei’s Android license was already revoked, the company confirmed that the Honor 9X would also make its way over to the UK and Europe, although leaked renders revealed that the phones would have a slightly different design. Now, Honor has launched the 9X in Russia, with a launch in the Netherlands to happen soon.

Interestingly, the specifications of the Honor 9X launched in Russia/Europe don’t match those of the 9X/9X Pro sold in China. It looks like this Honor 9X is actually a rebranded Huawei Enjoy 10 Plus and we suspect that this was done so that the company could ship the device with Google Play apps and services on board.

Specification Honor 9X
Dimensions and Weight 163.5 x 77.3 x 8.8 mm;
196.8g
Display 6.59″ FHD+ (2340x1080p) IPS-LCD;
91% screen-to-body-ratio;
TUV Rheinland-certified
SoC 12nm HiSilicon Kirin 710F
RAM and Storage 4GB + 64GB;
6GB+128GB;
Expandable up to 512GB through dedicated microSD card slot
Battery 4,000 mAh
USB Type-C
Rear Camera 48MP, f/1.8 + 8MP, f/2.4 120-degree ultra-wide + 2MP, f/2.4 depth sensor
Front Camera 16MP, f/2.2
Android Version EMUI 9.1 based on Android 9 Pie

As you can see in the spec sheet above, the Honor 9X launched in Russia packs in a Kirin 710F chipset, instead of the Kirin 810 chipset found in the one launched in China. However, it features a similar camera setup and notch-less display. On the design front, the Honor 9X launched in Russia features a fingerprint sensor in the center of the back panel. In contrast, the 9X launched in China featured a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.

Along with the device, the company is launching a variety of wearables in the country, including the Honor Band 5 Sport and the Honor Sport Pro headphones. Additionally, Honor has also launched its online shopping platform in the Netherlands following recent success in China, Russia and Malaysia.

Honor 9X – Pricing and Availability

The Honor 9X will be up for pre-orders in Russia starting from October 25. The device has been priced starting at RUB 18,990 (~$297) for the 4GB/64GB variant. The device will be available in two color variants – Midnight Black and Sapphire Blue. As of now, we have no information on the pricing and release date for the Netherlands.

Note: Huawei/Honor have stopped providing official bootloader unlock codes for its devices. Therefore, the bootloaders of their devices cannot be unlocked, which means that users cannot root or install custom ROMs.

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Forums are now open for the Samsung Galaxy A30s, A50s, A70s, M10s, and M30s

Samsung prominently finds itself in the news for its high-quality flagship releases within the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note series. But for the rest of the world, Samsung is also synonymous for providing quality options over a wide range of price points. The South Korean company churns out multiple smartphones covering various use cases, hoping to provide the best fit, whatever the need. Earlier in the year, we saw Samsung release new devices in the Galaxy A and Galaxy M series, and these were recently refreshed with “s” releases that upgrade key specifications. In order to provide users with a common area for discussion revolving around these devices, XDA Forums have now been opened for the Samsung Galaxy A30s, Samsung Galaxy A50s, Samsung Galaxy A70s, Samsung Galaxy M10s, and Samsung Galaxy M30s.

Samsung Galaxy M10s

Samsung Galaxy M10s was launched in September 2019, presenting itself as a budget option. Featuring a 6.4″ HD+ Super AMOLED display, Exynos 7884B SoC, and a dual rear camera system, the M10s was intended to tap into the early price ranges and entice the audience with a value purchase.

Samsung Galaxy M10s XDA Forums
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Samsung Galaxy M30s

The Samsung Galaxy M30s was launched alongside the M10s in September 2019. While the 6.4″ FHD+ Super AMOLED display, Exynos 9611 SoC, UFS 2.1 storage, and the triple rear camera setup comprising of a 48MP primary sensor all form part of the highlights of the phone, the real talking point is the 6,000 mAh battery on the phone, allowing users to get 2 days worth of use on a single charge.

Samsung Galaxy M30s XDA Forums
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Samsung Galaxy A30s

Samsung launched the Galaxy A30s in August 2019, featuring a 6.4″ HD+ Super AMOLED display, Exynos 7904 SoC, and a triple rear camera setup that uses a 25MP primary sensor.

Samsung Galaxy A30s XDA Forums
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Samsung Galaxy A50s

The Samsung Galaxy A50s was launched alongside the Galaxy A30s in August 2019. The front of the device is dominated by the 6.4″ FHD+ Super AMOLED display, while the Exynos 9610 forms the brains of the phone. The triple rear camera also sees an upgrade, with the primary sensor now coming in at 48MP.

Samsung Galaxy A50s XDA Forums
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Samsung Galaxy A70s

The Samsung Galaxy A70s was launched in September 2019, and with this phone, Samsung jumped onto the 64MP bandwagon. With a larger 6.7″ FHD+ display and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC, the phone is also well equipped to handle all your needs.

Samsung Galaxy A70s XDA Forums
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