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jeudi 31 octobre 2019

Everything announced at Samsung Developer Conference 2019

For the past few years, Samsung has been hosting its Samsung Developer Conference in the Fall. This is the time for the company to announce all the software, and sometimes hardware, that it’s pushing for developers to work with. Last year was all about One UI and Bixby. This year was all about Bixby Capsules, foldables, and One UI 2.0.

One UI 2.0

Samsung considers One UI 1.0 to have been a huge success. They claim customer loyalty has increased over 15% for the Galaxy S10 series, which Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy thinks is because of One UI. With One UI being such a success, Samsung wanted to focus more on One UI 2.0. One UI 2.0 is all about natural interactions and visible comfort, along with helping you focus more on the content on your display. Samsung is, again, doing this by shifting their “focus” block towards the bottom of the display while keeping the “viewing area” at the top. They are essentially refining their UI to make usability and ease of use better. Samsung is also making One UI feel more alive by animating some system icons just to add a little personality to the UI.

Samsung Blockchain SDK

At SDC, Samsung also announced its new Blockchain SDK. This allows developers to easily integrate with Samsung’s hardware wallet built into their newest devices. Using the SDK, developers can create apps that create or access blockchain accounts on the device. The SDK also allows for developers to accept cryptocurrencies like Etherium as a form of payment in the apps. This is a very simple description of what Samsung has opened up with its new Blockchain SDK. I highly recommend reading more about the Blockchain SDK on Samsung’s developer website.

Samsung SmartThings Rules API

SmartThings is Samsung’s IoT platform used for smart security cameras, refrigerators, washing machines, TVs, and more. At SDC, Samsung announced the new Rules API. This allows for developers to set up complete automations using the Samsung SmartThings Cloud. According to Samsung this “[means] that the number of services and products available to users with automation built into their capabilities is set to expand.” There isn’t much information on this new Rules API besides the fact it can run even if the internet goes out. Samsung will likely announce more information about the new Rules API and SmartThings updates soon.

Bixby

While this isn’t one of the major announcements of SDC, Samsung has a new capsule in Bixby to show off the power of Bixby. It is called Bixby Home Advisor. It allows you to ask Bixby for help with any problems you might have in your home. You can ask for a plumber, for example. Bixby will then come up with a list of issues or appliances you might need help with, find the closest and highest rated professional, and let you request a quote. All off this happens very quickly and all through Bixby using Bixby Capsules. Bixby Capsules are available for any developer to make for any Samsung device with Bixby.

Another minor change is to Bixby Home on the default One UI Home launcher. Samsung will be replacing Bixby Home with a new page called Samsung Daily. It is essentially the same thing but it has a new icon and slightly different design. This will likely be rolling out with One UI 2.0 or One UI 2.1 on the Galaxy S11 rumored to launch in February.

Image from our friends at SamMobile

Samsung Galaxy Book Ion and Galaxy Book Flex

While SDC is mostly about Samsung’s software, there is still some hardware to show off. Samsung announced two new laptops: Samsung Galaxy Book Ion and Galaxy Book Flex. These new laptops are both powered by the latest 10th generation Intel Ice Lake and Comet Lake processors. Both laptops come with Samsung QLED displays at 1080p. These are the same type of great displays you can find on Samsung’s TVs. They come with a new outdoors mode which allows for the display to get to a very bright 600 nits, almost 200 nits brighter than the latest MacBook Pro and Surface Book 2. They are both very thin with the Galaxy Book Flex and Ion coming in at 13mm to 15mm. The Galaxy Book Flex is pretty light coming in at a minimum of 1.15kg (2.5lbs) and a maximum of 1.57kg (3.5lbs) while the Galaxy Book Ion comes in at a minimum of 0.97kg (2.13lbs) and a maximum of 1.15kg (2.78lbs.)

Something new Samsung did with the Galaxy Book Flex and Galaxy Book Ion is incorporate Wireless PowerShare into the trackpad. Essentially, the trackpad can wirelessly charge your phone, earbuds, or watch. The Galaxy Book Flex comes with an S Pen as well. This is the same S Pen that comes with the Galaxy Note 10, so it has all the same Air Actions. These laptops are scheduled to launch in early 2020. Samsung has yet to announce any prices for these laptops.

Galaxy Fold 2 Teaser

Just like last year, Samsung has teased the new Galaxy Fold 2, codenamed “bloom,” at SDC. This year they showed a 24 second video with the display folding shut. It is a clamshell design with a centered hole punch. This is very likely to launch in early 2020 with a 6.7-inch display that folds into a square, as Bloomberg reported last month. The model number is rumored to be SM-F700F and come with 256GBs of storage. Software development on this device started earlier this month. We have an entire article about this new tease, so if you want to know a little more about that, I recommend checking it out.

Galaxy Home Mini

At SDC, Samsung showed off the Galaxy Home Mini. This is their smaller Bixby speaker. We don’t know much about this speaker beside the fact it exists and Samsung is showing it off. Samsung has also started a beta program in South Korea, seeding these devices to users to test them out in their homes. There is also the larger Galaxy Home, but Samsung hasn’t updated us on any new information about that device in nearly 14 months.

Samsung announced a lot of new products and software at SDC 2019. As a developer website and forum, we love to see everything Samsung is announcing at their developer conference. It’s great to see companies open up development on their platform to more and more people.

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WhatsApp for Android now supports fingerprint unlock

WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform on the planet, which means people are using it for all sorts of purposes. In August, WhatsApp started working on a feature for people who wish to put the app behind an extra layer of security. Now, Fingerprint Unlock is ready for primetime and available in the latest stable build.

Fingerprint Unlock was first introduced in beta build version 2.19.221. The feature allows WhatsApp to require a fingerprint before it can be opened. It uses the same fingerprint that you use to unlock your phone. So if someone is able to get into your phone through other methods, at least they won’t be able to open the app and go through your private conversations.

whatsapp fingerprint unlock

The feature comes with a number of options as well. You can set WhatsApp to automatically lock immediately upon closing, after 1 minute, or after 30 minutes. This is handy if you don’t want to be scanning your fingerprint every single time you open the app. There is also the option to still content to be displayed in notifications if you don’t need to totally lock down the app. To set it up, got to Settings > Account > Privacy > Fingerprint lock.

WhatsApp Messenger (Free, Google Play) →

Source: WhatsApp

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Google is testing a completely revamped Assistant Feed

Google has offered its users a number of ways to interact with its virtual assistant. Some prefer to use the voice command hot words to bring it up while others will launch the service from the navigation bar/gesture. However, few seem to access it using the Google application. There’s an Updates tab in the Google application that brings up what some would describe as the Google Assistant hub or feed. As of right now, this UI gives you quick access to certain commonly used features of the assistant but someone on Twitter seems to have received a revamped design that may be in testing.

So here we have the two screenshots that Twitter user Eduardo Pratti uploaded late last night. There isn’t any mention of an application update so what we’re likely seeing here is an A/B server-side test that Google is currently working on. The current UI of the Updates tab in the Google application has a lot of focus on offering you suggested actions within each section of cards. However, this redesign that we’re seeing has cleaned up the interface a lot and highlights the actual content rather than suggested actions.

In the reply to his own tweet, Eduardo then uploaded a video showing how these cards are animated with this new redesign. You’ll notice that these cards shown in the new Google Assistant updates feed have an arrow down icon on the right side. This is similar to what we have now which will either give you more context for the card or even giving you some suggested actions specific to that card.

This is quite a big change for the Assistant Feed within the Google application. I’m personally not a heavy user of this tab in the first place but I do like how the new UI has cleaned things up. This looks to be a very small A/B test that may never make it out to more people than those who have it right now. But we’d like to hear what you think of the user interface in testing.

Via: 9to5 Google

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The Nokia 7.2 could be the first HMD Global phone to ship with an unlockable bootloader

If there’s one thing that hasn’t sit well with our users regarding Nokia/HMD Global devices, is how developer-unfriendly these phones are. After all, these phones are not bootloader unlockable. Without bootloader unlock, most mods, including rooting and custom ROMs, become simply impossible to achieve, closing a lot of doors for power users interested in modding their devices. Nokia’s constant reluctance to allow bootloader unlocking, as well as broken promises to allow it in the past, has not helped its cause either, but the Finnish company may be looking into reversing course in this stance. The Nokia 7.2 was recently launched as one of HMD Global’s most competent midrange devices, but it’s also apparently the first phone to ship with an unlockable bootloader.

Indeed, the device’s bootloader can be unlocked very straightforwardly without going through any weird hoops and workarounds by enabling OEM unlocking in developer settings and unlocking it through fastboot just like you would unlock any other phone out there. Once the bootloader is unlocked, users are free to do whatever they want with their phones, including, but not limited to, installing a custom recovery like TWRP, rooting, and flashing custom ROMs (either in the form of GSIs or device-specific ROMs). Previously, Nokia users were mostly out of luck when it came to unlocking their phones’ bootloaders, and as such, were forced to remain completely stock.

Have in mind, however, that there is a possibility that this is just a massive accident or mistake on HMD Global’s part, and that they didn’t mean to ship the phone with an unlockable bootloader. This is something that can be easily fixed with a software update if they wanted to. As such, if you bought a Nokia 7.2 and you want to mod it, then go ahead and unlock your phone as soon as possible, and avoid taking any over-the-air updates until HMD Global actually speaks out on this.

How to unlock the Nokia 7.2 bootloader

Source: Techmesto

The post The Nokia 7.2 could be the first HMD Global phone to ship with an unlockable bootloader appeared first on xda-developers.



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AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen: Continued Look Via Ryzen 5 3600X/3400G

AMD’s Next Horizon Gaming event, leading up to E3 2019, had given us a lot of information on the third generation of Ryzen. During the middle of testing for the 3900X and 3700X review, we received another package – this time containing the Ryzen 5 3600X and Ryzen 5 3400G. How would these fare compared to our previous third-gen Ryzen results?

We also wanted to take a look at certain models over each generation and see how they have improved during these three years. To assist in analyzing that, we broke out the previous 6-core, 12-thread samples and the initial generation of Ryzen-G.

Note: The Ryzen 5 3400G and Ryzen 5 3600X used in this review were provided by AMD for review purposes. A full list of components and sources are included in the article.

Unboxing/Initial Thoughts – Ryzen 5 3400G & Ryzen 5 3600X

Since we received most of the new components with the initial review, these processors came alone. The packaging is similar to the ones from before, and in this case, it makes sense to keep it simple. Since Ryzen-G follows one year behind in architecture, the 3400G continues to feature both Vega graphics and Zen+ processor architectures. It will be another year before it moves to Zen 2 and RDNA graphics architectures. The 3600X, however, is based on Zen 2 and offers a chance to see how well it performs at lower core and thread counts.

Testing Setup

Since we are keeping the same testing setup from the original batch of tests, there is not much more that needs to be included. The original Ryzen 5 2400G that I used in our 2018 review was left behind in Japan. Thankfully we were able to obtain another thanks to Shannon Robb. Shannon has offered support to XDA in some of our more ambitious projects and efforts for several years. We greatly appreciate that support.

As we have done with previous reviews, we will identify each component and how it was acquired. The list is almost identical to the previous review since we’re only swapping out CPUs in the tests conducted for this review.

Test Bench/Case (All Self-Purchased)

Power Supply (All Self-Purchased)

Motherboard

Processor (All provided by Intel/AMD, One Replacement by Other)

Memory 

GPU (All Self-Purchased)

M.2 NVMe Storage (All Self-Purchased)

  • Samsung MZ-VLW512A (2 identical parts)

Cooling

Additional Components (Self-Purchased)

Testing Methodology & Gen/Gen Comparisons

Tests remain conducted using methodology made publicly available. We set up and tested this on the first AMD processor, then tried to clone it for Intel testing. This did not provide reliable results so we instead wiped and re-created using the same process.

A file is available in Google Drive to view more of the notes. It also has been expanded to include side-by-side comparisons of the three generations at 6 and 8 core counts. Ryzen-G, following one year behind, has a similar comparison but only for the two generations it has been available. We’re not sure how many are interested in these breakdowns, so we’re doing this as a test. We hope that readers will let us know what they think and if they should be included in future reviews.

  • Operating System: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
  • NVIDIA Drivers – latest nvidia-### available in standard PPAs
  • AMD Drivers – AMDGPU (open source version)

The test results from our review of the Ryzen 7 3700X and Ryzen 9 3900X are used as the base for this review. We are avoiding updates to the test environment, for now, to limit the variables in our test cases.

Test Results

Benchmark Notes: Phoronix Test Suite’s CPU suite offers a plethora of tests and not all are included in this review. The full list of tests and results are available here, with the exception of our LineageOS build times. Those will be included later in the article. The color scheme for benchmarks continues to follow XDA’s traditional color scheme.

Chart Notes: As the number of test results increases, it has become necessary to change the formatting of the chart. At the same time, we believe we can still hold to XDA’s preferred colors while still identifying notable groups. Readers will notice several changes in this article and you should expect to see those changes reflected in future CPU test results.

CPU test result charts are now set as a bar chart. Intel remains in blue while AMD remains in red. HEDT remains yellow with a blue/red pattern to indicate Intel/AMD. Ryzen-G is indicated by a checkerboard effect. All colors remain the standard coloring used by XDA. Sorting is done manually and ordered in a manner that should easily allow readers to quickly identify what they want to find in those charts.

FFTW

The 2700X and 9900K results still show as the only outliers in the trend. Stock seems to do well and overclocking seems to add more benefits, except with the two noted in the 3700X/3900X review.

GZip Compression

Out of the new results, we see very few differences in the trend. The 2600X jump between stock and overclock is unusual compared to our other entries, but it still follows the normal trend.

SciMark 2 (Java)

All of the new results follow the trend with little exception. If anything, these results only highlight how the 2700X was an outlier.

John The Ripper

We actually found an irregularity in the 3400G results where it was significantly higher than it should have been. After some further review, we found that the data results exported were incorrect and were corrected using the raw data results from Phoronix Test Suite. The 2400G is odd in that overclocking did not produce as much of an improvement as the general trend.

C-Ray

The results of this test begin to show where Ryzen-G struggles in some cases to its more hearty siblings. The core and thread count really seems to make a difference here, and 4 cores really do seem to begin the bottleneck. This is also reflected in the 7700K since it has the same core and thread count.

This helps identify a trend of more cores and threads weighing more heavily on results than speeds unless something else is affecting that. We believe this is the case of the 9900K at 5 GHz, likely throttled due to temperature limits. Overclocking does continue to improve it except for the 2600X, the notable outlier in the new results.

Benchmarks: Build Performance

Build Test: LLVM

Continuing to display the LLVM build times we see that, once again, cores and threads really matter here. Since the 7700K outpaces both Ryzen-G models, it’s clear that the core and thread counts alone aren’t influencing the build time. But that’s a staggering jump between 4 and 6 cores on the AMD side, one that repeats elsewhere.

Build Test: LineageOS lineage-16.0 marlin

Out of the new results, we see that Ryzen-G is, unfortunately, performing as well as we believe it should. Realistically I’m not sure most consumers looking to build AOSP from source would be choosing a Ryzen-G APU for their builds. So while this may look unusual, it may not be a viable concern.

The other item of note on the Ryzen-G builds was a significant increase in RAM use. At some points, the utilization was very close to 100%, and we believed that there may be a bottleneck. We borrowed a 32 GB RAM kit to test this theory. The RAM utilization remained high, but the overall build time results were within the margin of error of the original results.

Improvements in Ryzen Over Each Generation

With Ryzen now being 3 years old, we thought readers may be interested in some information on how each generation has improved in performance. We included a full breakdown of each test by CPU in the Google Drive posting of our results. Ryzen does seem to gather some impressive improvements over each generation, and core/thread counts do seem to be a part of the factor of just how much improvement is seen.

For the 8-core, 16-thread variant, the second generation of Ryzen provided as high as a 30% performance increase over its predecessor. The third generation saw similar results against the second, and as much as 92% over the first generation. Building LineageOS did increase between 35-42% on average, which is certainly noteworthy if that machine is built specifically for cases such as this.

The 6-core, 12-thread versions see similar increases but not as high as the 8 core results. LineageOS does see roughly an increase of 28% on third-generation Ryzen compared to the first. Ryzen-G, appearing to now be limited in performance by its core and thread count, sees improvements of about 5-10% over its previous generation. It will be very interesting to see how it does next year with the Zen 2 architecture. The biggest beneficiary is likely to be the 16-core, 32-thread count CPU as it moves into the mainstream AM4 socket⁠—provided that the power needed to run the Ryzen 9 3950X can be properly tamed.

Final Thoughts

AMD Ryzen continues its own trend of offering competitive solutions at each price point. The 3600X continues to offer a great entry for those who want more cores and threads. It’s a great middle point for those who may want to step up from an older architecture. For many of these consumers, the additional savings in a CPU can be reinvested elsewhere. Gamers may want to opt for a more powerful graphics card or faster storage. Once there, the AM4 socket certainly offers a hearty buffet of CPU upgrades should they decide to go for more in the future.

Once we get back down into 4 cores, Ryzen with integrated Vega graphics makes it hard to recommend a version without graphics. It’s a very competitive solution against the Intel Core i3, with both offering similar thread and core counts as well as integrated graphics. If one just needs to do the basics⁠—web browsing, media playback, and basic productivity apps⁠—there’s little argument to go beyond this. It may not be the fastest at some tasks, but those who need to do such demanding tasks are probably not in this customer segment. For those who want intermittent use, it will still get the job done, though it may take it a bit more time to do so.

All in all, it’s still good news for consumers. As long as consumers know what they intend to use the system for and set a budget in advance, they’ll know where to easily begin in the search for a system that meets their needs. So long as consumers have a wealth of choices at every possible price point, the hardest decisions may not include whether to buy or build a new PC… but instead what comes inside that PC. It’s still a doorway to knowledge, and we all do better by removing barriers to knowledge as much as possible.

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Here’s your first look at the new foldable Motorola Razr

Motorola (and Lenovo) have been working on a foldable Razr phone for a while now. We’ve been tracking the device since last year and it has slowly become more of a reality. Back in May, the company used a fan-made render to show off the concept, but we’ve yet to see any images of the real thing. That finally changes today.

Evan Blass (@evleaks) has shared the first image of the Motorola Razr (stylized as “razr”) foldable phone. We can now see why Motorola used the fan-made renders because the real device looks very similar. At first glance, you may think this is simply an original Razr flip phone. It has the same chin on the bottom and a raised Motorola logo under the outside display. But if you look closely you can see there’s no archaic number pad here. This is a full touchscreen folded vertically.

motorola razr

This image matches up with the outlines we saw back in March. The chin appears to house a small button or fingerprint sensor (or both). The outside display is not lit up in this image, but it is expected to have a small 600 x 800 secondary display. Other than that, we can’t see a ton of details. The remarkable thing is just how much it looks like the original Razr.

We previously exclusively reported on the specifications of the device, which include the sdm670 platform (meaning either the Snapdragon 670 or the Snapdragon 710), 4/6GB of RAM, and a tall 6.2-inch OLED display inside. Motorola is expected to reveal the device at an event on November 13th. How excited are you about this phone? Have the vertical folding wars begun?

Source: @evleaks

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Upgrade Your PS4 with this 2TB Hybrid Hard Drive Kit and 16GB Flash Drive for $99

Once you start purchasing digital downloads for your PS4, storage space can quickly become a problem. Even a 500GB hard drive won’t be enough for committed gamers. The Fantom Drives PS4 Hard Drive Upgrade Kit offers a simple solution. The kit contains a Seagate Firecuda 2TB hybrid drive, offering masses of space and speedy performance. You also get a 16GB flash drive and some useful accessories. Right now, you can pick up the whole bundle for just $99 via the XDA Developers Depot.

You might think that 2TB is a little over the top. But when you consider that Read Dead Redemption 2 takes up 98GB alone, this upgrade seems pretty essential.

The Seagate Firecuda SSHD range of drives combines the speed of SSDs with the capacity of traditional hard drives. This 2TB model has a huge 128MB cache, and it’s really easy to install. The kit provides a screwdriver, an aluminum enclosure, and a quickstart guide to help you get the job done.

In addition, you get a soft carry pouch for your drive, a micro USB 3.0 cable, and a 16GB flash drive for offline updates and storing game files. 

The kit is worth $140, but you can get it now for just $99.

 
Fantom Drives PS4 Hard Drive Upgrade Kit with 2 TB Ultra Speed Seagate Firecuda Gaming SSHD – $99

See Deal

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