10.LG To Launch Flagship LG G4 And A Mystery Premium Phone

Mobile World Congress 2015 has sought us a lot of interesting phones and plans from companies, keeping us tech nerds entertained for the past few days.
After Samsung and HTC unveiled their latest flagship smartphones at MWC, LG has instead announced plans to launch the LG G4 and a new high-end flagship that will “stand above the G series.”
“We are planning to release a product that stands above the G series,” Cho Jun-ho, head of LG’s mobile business said at the Mobile World Congress. “It will be launched during the second half of this year.”
It is being speculated that the new LG series will use more premium materials like metal and glass, along with an additional in-house processor modeled for the handset. The LG G4, which is the successor to the flagship LG G3, is most likely to be announced in April, while the company seeks to regain its position as number three in the smartphone market share.
“We aim to have our smartphone sales grow 20 percent on-year in 2015,” Cho added. “If the popularity of the G2 and the G3 continues through the G4, we expect to grab a meaningful third-place presence.”
Word is also rife that LG is considering to equip the G4 with a fingerprint scanner. As Apple and Samsung have already incorporated features like Payment and biometrics in their devices, LG feels a little left out and has decided to step into testing with biometric verification.

“LG Electronics has recently decided to deploy a fingerprint sensor on its next flagship smartphone and the scanner will be placed at the back of the device,” as the company “has been left behind in the race for fintech (portmanteau of finance and technology) as it has continued to postpone the adoption of fingerprint technology.”

HTC had unveiled its 2015 flagship smartphone, HTC One M9, at the Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona. The smartphone is encased in an aluminum unibody, garnished with pretty awesome specs which are sure to sell like hot cakes once HTC One M9 becomes available at all four major U.S. carriers later this month.

Samsung also debuted its flagship next-generation Galaxy S6

Source:

http://techfrag.com/2015/03/06/lg-launch-flagship-lg-g4-mystery-premium-phone/

08.M.W.C. - Honorable mentions:

Huawei's circular Android Wear watch is fine, but nothing special. Unless! Unless it turns out to be dirt cheap. We'll see!

Huawei's Android Wear Watch Is Handsome, But Still Too Bulky

Huawei is launching not one but three wearables this year at Mobile World Congress, and the new…Read more

Sony's Xperia Z4 tablet is about as slick and slim as 10-inch Android tablets get, if you are still into 10-inch Android tablets. Also, it's vaguely Surface-y with its new keyboard accessory!

Xperia Z4 Tablet: Slick and Slim, With Laptop Aspirations

There's a new tablet in town. It's the new Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet and yeah, it's…Read more

LG's mid-ranged smartphones are going to have slightly curved screens, which is a way to make mid-range a little more fun.

LG's Bringing Curved Screens To Its Cheaper Phones, Because Why Not

That curve on LG Flex's screen might seem like a total gimmick, even if it's pretty rad.…Read more

Meanwhile, Sony's new Xperia M4 Aqua is everything a cheap phone should be. Waterproof and two day battery, count me in. 

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua Hands-On: Proper Waterproofing, Two Day Battery

With the Xperia Z4 smartphone nowhere to be seen at MWC 2015 (even if its tablet cousin is knocking …Read more

BlackBerry teased a phone with curved edges and a slide out keyboard. OK! Sure!

Blackberry Is Bringing Back the Slider Phone Because Sure Why Not

When square phones don't quite work and suing Ryan Seacrest is taking too long, what's a…Read more

HTC's new One M9 seems like a fine little improvement on its existing flagship, but with nothing super special or exciting to speak of.

HTC One M9: Definitely Better But So Much the Same

This is the new HTC One, the third in a line of phones that got Android devices to adopt metal…Read more

You can read about allllll of our Mobile World Congress coverage here.

09.Best of M.W.C. - A 200G.B. microS.D. card

No, there is no slot in the new Galaxy S6 for a microSD, but if there was, you could slam this ridiculously large 200GB one from Sandisk in there. Would you need to? God no. 200GB? What is wrong with you? But hey if you're a hoarder, go nuts I guess.

SanDisk Squeezes 200GB Into a Tiny microSD Card

Stop for a second and take a look at the fingernail on your baby finger. That's roughly the…Read more





Source:
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

10. Best of M.W.C. - Huawei's super weird fitness band but also ear-piece thing

This one gets inclusion not because it looks good but because it's bonkers. Huawei's new TalkBand B2 is a voice-controlled fitness tracker that looks like it could be on the decent side of mediocre, but its trick where it turns into a Bluetooth ear-piece is juuuust wacky enough to make it worth mentioning. Something you'll want to buy? Probably not. Something you'll want to see? For sure.

Huawei TalkBand B2: Half Fitness Band, Half Earpiece, All Bizarre

Huawei is betting (again) on wearables—who's not! And alongside its new Android Wear watch,…Read more

Source:

http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

01. Best of M.W.C. - LG's pretty slick LTE watch

Want to make phone calls from your wrist like Dick Tracy? Maybe, maybe not. But if you're even slightly inclined, LG's new LG Urbane LTE looks like the best bet. It's a little bulky, but no Samsung Gear S, and interestingly enough, it runs WebOS instead of Android Wear. It's probably pretty expensive, so you probably won't want to buy it, but always-connected smartwatches are getting better looking for sure.

LG Watch Urbane: LTE On Your Wrist Never Looked So Good

Smartwatches are still trying desperately to be cool. LG's latest attempt at pulling it off is …Read more


Source:
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

02.Best of M.W.C. - HP's new transforming ultrabook

Yes, we've all seen transforming ultrabooks before, but HP's new Spectre x360 looks to be of the best. Combining lovely build quality and low price—like we've seen in the new Dell XPS 13—with the ability to backflip into a tablet, HP's new ultrabook looks like a promising go-to for transforming computers, but for maybe a troubling battery life.

HP’s Spectre x360 Might Be The Best Transforming Laptop I’ve Ever Seen

Milled aluminum. All-day battery life. Intel Core i5 and i7 processors. A bitchin' keyboard,…Read more



Source:
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

03.Best of M.W.C. - Microsoft's folding keyboard for Android and iOS

Microsoft has been doing great work making terrific things for the devices you already use whether it be an email app, or a physical hardware. This lovely little folding keyboard for Android and iOS is an example. Sleek and thin, like the ever improving Surface keyboards, it's a great little typepad for those on the go who also don't want a dang Surface.

Microsoft's Folding Keyboard for iOS and Android Is a Razor-Thin Beauty

Imagine a keyboard that you can carry around like a wallet—almost as thin as paper, just a few…Read more




Source:
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

04.Best of M.W.C. - HTC and Valve's badass new virtual reality headset

There are more virtual reality headsets than we could ever need, but few of them really matter. The new HTC Vive is one of them. A partnership between HTC and gaming goliath Valve, this new Oculus competitor has mind-blowingly good screens, can track you around the living room, and comes with some sort of as-yet-unknown VR controller. All that, and it's coming out this year. The war for VR just started in earnest.

HTC Vive: This Is Valve's Virtual Reality Headset

Just the other day we heard that Valve is getting ready to put out its SteamVR headset. HTC is…Read more





Source:
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

05.Best of MWC - The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge

New flagship Samsung smartphones are obviously going to be a big deal, but this year it's even more of a shakeup than usual. The Galaxy S5 was boring and band-aid-y butthe Galaxy S6 is new, fresh and purty. No, it doesn't have a removable battery anymore, but its design has improved a ton. That, and its crazy sibling—the Galaxy S6 Edge—is a weirdo curved phone you might actually want.

Galaxy S6 Hands-On: Samsung's Got a Whole New Look

The Galaxy S6 is unlike any smartphone that Samsung has ever made. How, you ask? Let me count the…Read more

Your New Galaxy S6 Will Have a Built-In Expiration Date

Your smartphone's battery life won't last forever. Today, your digital companion might…Read more

Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge Is Awesomely Weird But Weirdly Awesome

For years, a smartphone's main selling points were faster processors and better screens. But…Read more





Source:
http://gizmodo.com/the-best-of-mobile-world-congress-2015-1689135694

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10.Gadget review: Lenovo Yoga Pro 3 and other CES hits

Lenovo unveiled its CES favourites at a special event yesterday. The hot picks include the Yoga Pro 3, Yoga Anypen tablet and the P90 Android smart phone

Lenovo unveiled a selection of its Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2015 favourites yesterday. The gadgets included a range of laptops including the Yoga Pro 3 (R1,14,000), a new member of the Yoga family with 180 degree rotating screen, which is now available via its online retail store thedostore.com and select Croma outlets across the country.






The display is a 13.3-inch multi-touch screen with a resolution of 3200 x 1800, and features a new watch band like metal hinge, which Lenovo says, adds to the strength. The device features Intel Core M-5Y71 Processor (up to 2.90 GHz) with integrated graphics, 8GB RAM, 512GB solid state drive, and weighs just 1.2kg.



More@
http://www.mid-day.com/articles/gadget-review-lenovo-yoga-pro-3-and-other-ces-hits/16016174

Samsung Galaxy S6: What We Know

Picture of flagship Samsung smartphone is building up

  With the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona just a couple of weeks away, rumors surrounding the Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) Galaxy S6are hotting up. The latest flagship smartphone from the Korean manufacturer will be one of the highlights of this prestigious event, and with anticipation building the number of leaks regarding this device is increasing exponentially.

This will be a particularly critical smartphone release for Samsung, as not only is the Galaxy S series considered very much its flagship smartphone – and a theoretical iPhone competitor – but the Galaxy S5 was also not particularly well received. The general consensus regarding that particular Samsung handset was that it was fairly unattractive in appearance, and represented little more than a spec upgrade from the preceding Galaxy S4.

  So Samsung will be required to pull out all the stops when the Galaxy S6 is released, and there is already a significant amount of indication regarding what we can expect from this smartphone. This is all seeping into the public domain ahead of a Samsung press conference which it has scheduled for March 1.

More@

http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/02/samsung-galaxy-s6-what-we-know/

Google I/O 2015 will take place May 28-29

Android developers, it’s time to start planning your trip out to California. Google announced that its annual developers conference Google I/O will be held May 28-29 at Moscone Center West in downtown San Francisco. Google’s Senior Vice President, Sundar Pichai, nonchalantly announced the dates on his Twitter feed.






Registration for the event beings March 17 at 9:00AM PDT and will remain open only for two days—until March 19 at 5:00PM PDT. Google says that there’s no need to worry, and that “there’s no rush” to submit your application. That may not be very comforting to hear, but the invitation process is by lottery so your speed in submitting has no bearing on whether you're chosen to attend or not. And if you don’t make it in, there’s always the webcasts.

Google also plopped an experiment on the Google I/O page. Click the equalizer icon to the right of the I/O registration page to record your own little tune with several different onscreen instruments. You can then loop them with one another to create your own neat little beat. You’ll need WebGL and Web Audio APIs enabled for it to work.

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For comprehensive coverage of the Android ecosystem, visit Greenbot.com.

Source:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2882071/google-i-o-2015-will-take-place-may-28-29.html

Samsung expected to manufacture 14nm chips for Qualcomm, Apple, possibly Nvidia in 2015

When Samsung and TSMC laid out their next-generation manufacturing plans, the two chip companies decided to pursue very different goals. TSMC opted for a 20nm half-step node that would shrink die sizes but retain conventional planar silicon, while Samsung decided it would leap straight for 14nm manufacturing and introduce FinFETs directly after the 28nm node. Now, that decision to skip 20nm altogether is paying dividends for the Korean manufacturer — it’s hitting its 14nm stride while TSMC is still ramping 20nm, and expecting to sign multiple new customers (and a few old ones) because of it.

We’ve previously discussed how Apple was expected to move manufacturing back to 14nm at Samsung after using TSMC’s 20nm node for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but new information suggests that companies like Qualcomm and Nvidia are ramping hardware there as well. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard rumors of Samsung fabbing for Nvidia, but it’s been several years since they last cropped up. Nonetheless, the timing makes sense — TSMC’s 20nm node ultimately offered fairly incremental gains over 28nm. Its 16nm FinFET node will offer a much larger improvement, but won’t be available for volume production until 2016. given the inevitable lead times between the beginning of volume production and commercial shipments, we can expect Samsung to have a 9-18 month lead over its rival (depending on the exact components and cost structure for the parts).


Full article:
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/198822-samsung-expected-to-manufacture-14nm-chips-for-qualcomm-apple-possibly-nvidia-in-2015

Samsung decides 56 smartphones a year is too many, will cut lineup by 30%

Samsung has been in a pretty tough spot lately. After several quarters of record profits in 2012 and 2013, the company has crashed back down to Earth. The low point for Samsung came last quarter, when it reported a 49 percent drop in profits. At the high end of the market, the company currently has to fight off Apple, which just released a phablet of its own. At the low end, it's going up against a flood of cheaper Chinese OEMs, led by Xiaomi and Huawei.

To try to get out of this slump, Samsung is taking a "less is more" approach. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company said it would cut its 2015 smartphone lineup by 25-30 percent. The company will work on the internals, too, saying during its last earnings call that it will "increase the number of components shared across mid- to low-end models, so that we can further leverage economies of scale."

Full article:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/11/samsung-decides-56-smartphones-a-year-is-too-many-will-cut-lineup-by-30/

The semiconductor industry in 2015: New nodes and upstart companies fuel a dynamic market

2015 is likely to be a particularly critical year on multiple fronts, for multiple semiconductor companies. There’s a great deal of potential disruption and meaningful product improvements coming down the pipe. Let’s take this time to look at the big semiconductor trends we expect to see over the next 12 months.
The glorious mobile mess

 The mobile market has changed a great deal in the past 12 months, and the shifts aren’t over. From inside the United States, it’s been largely business-as-usual in the smartphone and tablet business. Worldwide, it’s a different story. New players are rising to the forefront, established companies are
snapping up market share, and the end result is a reshuffling of vendor share — and vendor profits. 




Source: 
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/196666-the-semiconductor-industry-in-2015-new-nodes-upstart-companies-fuel-dynamic-market

Hands-on with Intel’s new mini-desktops: Faster, smaller, more expandable

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA—Intel released its next wave of Broadwell processors this week at CES, and PC companies are already preparing systems with the chips inside (Lenovo's new X1 Carbon and the new Dell XPS 13 are among our favorites so far). Intel is also taking this opportunity to refresh some of its own offerings, most notably the "Next Unit of Computing" (NUC) mini desktop PCs.






NUCs exist somewhere between classic DIY computer-building projects and ready-made systems from OEMs. Intel supplies a motherboard inside of a box, and you get to pick what RAM and SSD you want to use and install them yourself. Intel will be refreshing all of its high- to mid-end NUCs in the next few months, and these boxes will serve both as systems for people who want a small but fairly capable PC and as a showcase for the new features in Broadwell-U. We got to see and hold the new desktops ourselves, and in addition to the expected upgrades, they bring some interesting features to the platform.

A wider range of systems



Source:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/hands-on-with-intels-new-mini-desktops-faster-smaller-more-expandable/

Windows vs Linux: The 2015 Version

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Now that everyone has had time to examine Windows 10, it seems like a good time to finally do a proper Windows vs. Linux showdown. After all, I waited until Windows caught up in turns of features and user interface. For the sake of common sense, I've decided to use Ubuntu as our default Linux release.

In this article, I'll hammer out the features for both platforms and compare them accordingly. Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, and this article will help to shed some light on each of them.

The installation of the operating system

Both Windows 10 and Ubuntu Linux have straight forward OS installers. Simply follow the prompts as they're presented to you.






Installing Ubuntu: Ubuntu's installer generally points you to either installing their OS along side of an existing OS or installing over an existing Ubuntu install. The steps are simple if you already have another operating system installed. But if you're looking to install Ubuntu over an existing Ubuntu installation, keeping your docs, settings and pictures require you to take one of the following approaches.


Option one, use Ubuntu's backup tool before you install Ubuntu again. Option two, during the installation process, select "something else" to manually select which partitions are to be formatted. Obviously if Ubuntu is being installed on a new hard drive, this is a moot issue and a clean "Erase and install Ubuntu" option is perfectly acceptable. Personally, I always go with the "Something else" installation type. I prefer a dedicated home directory, which this option makes possible during partition setup.

One of the nice things about the Ubuntu installation is that you're asked if you'd like to Encrypt your installation. In addition, a Logical Volume Manager (LVM) option is also presented. This makes resizing partitions in the future much easier, thanks to snapshots.

Source:
http://www.datamation.com/open-source/windows-vs-linux-the-2015-version-1.html

AT&T (NYSE:T) Plans For 2015

The US wireless industry is ruled by AT&T (NYSE:T) and Verizon. Both enjoy healthy market share and the top spot off and on. Whereas the third place is either for Sprint or T-Mobile. Lately AT&T (NYSE:T) is focusing its energies on removing Verizon from being the number one wireless provider. AT&T (NYSE:T) is a multinational telecommunication corporation itself and the firm is rated second for being the provider of mobile telephones and the largest for fixed telephones.






Last week AT&T (NYSE:T) purchased a Mexican wireless provider known as lusacell for a hefty $2.5 billion. This move has given AT&T (NYSE:T) 9.2 million Mexican subscribers on a platter, giving the firm access to 70% of the wireless network. The permission to enter into the market was given by the New Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto. For AT&T (NYSE:T) this was the first move in a broader expansion plan.

Source:
https://www.wallstreet.org/2015/01/att-nyset-plans-for-2015/148502.html

Huawei Mate7 compact likely to star at MWC 2015

As Mobile World Congress 2015 comes closer, rumors of what phone manufacturers have in store gain traction. The last one concerns Huawei and what the company has in mind for MWC 2015. According toHDBlog.it, we're going to see the company reveal a more compact version of the Ascend Mate7.

More specifically, the phone will have a 5.5" display, which will strategically position it between the Ascend Mate 7 and its 6" display and the soon-to-be-announced Ascend P8, which is believed to have a 5" screen.

The company is unlikely to reveal the aforementioned flagship at MWC 2015, since it is preparing a special event for the Ascend P8. Rumor has it, the event is going to be held in Europe in Q2 2015.

There are no specifications other than the screen size for now. The Ascend Mate 7 comes with a HiSilicon Kirin 925 chipset and a 13MP camera, so we guess Huawei could also be packing its mini version with similar hardware.

One thing is certain, don't expect a QHD resolution in the upcoming Huawei smartphone, as battery lifeis of top importance to Huawei's CEO.

Source:

http://www.gsmarena.com/a_compact_huawei_ascend_mate7_likely_to_star_at_mwc_2015-news-10915.php