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lundi 8 juin 2020

TCL brings televisions with Android TV to the U.S. starting at $129

Android TV looks to be headed toward the spotlight once again. We recently obtained exclusive images of Google’s upcoming Android TV dongle, which would be the company’s first hardware for the platform in 6 years. In other Android TV-related news, TCL is finally bringing their televisions to the U.S. market.

TCL already sells smart Roku TVs in the U.S., but its Android TV offerings have only been available in other markets such as Europe. Now, the company is bringing a pair of televisions with Android TV built-in to the U.S. market. The TVs have identical designs and start at just $129.99.

Firs up is the low-end TCL 32-inch 3-Series. This TV has a 31.5-inch 720p LED display with direct backlight. It supports Dolby Digital Plus surround sound and has a speaker output of 10W. There are 2 HDMI ports (with HDMI ARC) and 1 USB 2.0 port. For connectivity, it supports single-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet.

The second model is the TCL 40-inch 3-Series. This TV has a slightly higher-end display that’s 39.5-inches, LED, and 1080p with direct backlight. It also supports Dolby Digital Plus surround sound and the speaker output is 16W. It has 2 HDMI ports (with HDMI ARC) and 1 USB 2.0 port. The TV also supports single-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet.

The remote that comes with both models includes a Google Assistant button, a keyboard button, and shortcuts to Netflix and YouTube. As mentioned, these are Android TV devices, so they include all the goodies associated with the platform. That means Google Assistant access, Chromecast functionality, and a plethora of streaming apps to choose from. The TCL 32-inch model costs $129.99, while the 40-inch model costs $199.99. Both are available right now from Best Buy.

TCL 32-inch 3-Series | TCL 40-inch 3-Series


Source: TCL

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LG’s Dual Screen wireless technology revealed: It’s mmWave

LG’s recent flagship smartphones have included “Dual Screen” hardware modules as one of their headline features. In the past year, foldable phones have attracted a lot of interest thanks to the difference in experience from regular smartphones. But foldable phones are also very expensive and fragile, which brings us to LG’s alternative: it’s basically a second display that attaches to the phone. This secondary panel can be used for anything from multitasking to gaming and beyond. Now granted, this is not the same as actually having a foldable panel and it’s far from being a similar experience, but it’s an interesting alternative. These attachments connect wirelessly, but they don’t use Bluetooth, NFC, or any similar tech. Rather, they use proprietary tech based on mmWave.

LG V60 ThinQ with Dual Screen XDA Review – So Close to Greatness

And yes, this is the same frequency spectrum that you may remember from another trendy technology — 5G. This doesn’t mean that the phone and the Dual Display attachments communicate through one another via 5G, though: the term “mmWave” simply refers to radio frequencies between 30 and 300 GHz.

lg v60 thinq dual screen

Now that we’ve addressed the elephant in the room, let’s talk about the tech itself: it’s made by a company called Keyssa and what makes their technology special is that it’s engineered for working just like a wired connection. And this is why they use mmWave frequencies: they allow for very high data transfer rates and very low latency. Keyssa’s chips are capable of transmitting up to 6 Gbits per second, making their tech ideal for LG’s use case. Keyssa’s tech operates in the 60GHz spectrum, and just like mmWave 5G, it has a line-of-sight limitation. In this use case, though, that’s not a problem as the communication is near-field and device-to-device, which also greatly cuts down power consumption.

This technology has a lot of potentials. Down the road, we could see a variant of this as an alternative for NFC connections, a solution for file transfers between devices, and much more. Right now, though, it’s what phones like the LG V50, V60, and the LG Velvet use for their respective Dual Screen attachments.


Source: DisplayDaily
Via: Android Authority

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Brave Browser will no longer add affiliate links to some cryptocurrency trading sites

There is no dearth of browser choices for both smartphones and on desktop, and there are a bunch of good options that can suit a variety of needs. Brave Browser counts itself as one of these options, riding on its privacy-centric approach to web browsing. Brave Browser was launched as v1 in December 2019 as an open-source browser, offering features such as a free built-in ad blocker, HTTPS Everywhere, script blocking, third-party cookie blocking, blocking invasive third-party ads, trackers, and auto-play videos. Unfortunately, it appears that Brave Browser was auto-filling its referral onto URLs of cryptocurrency sites, which it now has promised to stop after public outrage.

Twitter user @cryptonator1337 found that Brave Browser kept inserting a referral code to the end of the web address of Binance, a cryptocurrency trading website.

As David Gerard reports, this referral code could allow Brave Software to earn up to 20% from trading fees for every account created through the unique link. Further, the functionality of auto-filling a referral code appears to have been added on March 25, and the feature went on to include sites like Binance, Coinbase, Ledger, and Trezor. To further complicate the issue, some of these websites allow the referrer to view some amount of data about the customers who do sign up with the code.

Understandably, there was outrage on this move, and Brave Software’s CEO and co-founder Mr. Brendan Eich has responded by mentioning that there exists a setting to disable the autocomplete defaults that add the affiliate codes, and this setting is present at brave://settings.

Further, Brave Browser’s stable release will be updated to default to disabling the affiliate autocomplete.

Opinions on affiliate revenue can be divisive, as many construe them as a viable secondary source of income for creators. Nonetheless, an announcement was certainly warranted when undertaking such a change. Hopefully, the team at Brave Browser can keep this in mind.


Source: David Gerard

The post Brave Browser will no longer add affiliate links to some cryptocurrency trading sites appeared first on xda-developers.



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Brave Browser will no longer add affiliate links to some cryptocurrency trading sites

There is no dearth of browser choices for both smartphones and on desktop, and there are a bunch of good options that can suit a variety of needs. Brave Browser counts itself as one of these options, riding on its privacy-centric approach to web browsing. Brave Browser was launched as v1 in December 2019 as an open-source browser, offering features such as a free built-in ad blocker, HTTPS Everywhere, script blocking, third-party cookie blocking, blocking invasive third-party ads, trackers, and auto-play videos. Unfortunately, it appears that Brave Browser was auto-filling its referral onto URLs of cryptocurrency sites, which it now has promised to stop after public outrage.

Twitter user @cryptonator1337 found that Brave Browser kept inserting a referral code to the end of the web address of Binance, a cryptocurrency trading website.

As David Gerard reports, this referral code could allow Brave Software to earn up to 20% from trading fees for every account created through the unique link. Further, the functionality of auto-filling a referral code appears to have been added on March 25, and the feature went on to include sites like Binance, Coinbase, Ledger, and Trezor. To further complicate the issue, some of these websites allow the referrer to view some amount of data about the customers who do sign up with the code.

Understandably, there was outrage on this move, and Brave Software’s CEO and co-founder Mr. Brendan Eich has responded by mentioning that there exists a setting to disable the autocomplete defaults that add the affiliate codes, and this setting is present at brave://settings.

Further, Brave Browser’s stable release will be updated to default to disabling the affiliate autocomplete.

Opinions on affiliate revenue can be divisive, as many construe them as a viable secondary source of income for creators. Nonetheless, an announcement was certainly warranted when undertaking such a change. Hopefully, the team at Brave Browser can keep this in mind.


Source: David Gerard

The post Brave Browser will no longer add affiliate links to some cryptocurrency trading sites appeared first on xda-developers.



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Xiaomi Mi Band 5 official teaser shows off design, band colors, period tracking function, and more

The Mi Band 5 is the next generation product in Xiaomi’s highly successful fitness tracker lineup. In the past, each generation upgrade brought along some good updates that made it a decent upgrade even for existing users, especially at the signature Xiaomi-value price tag. But this year, the upgrade is expected to be more of the incremental type instead of a drastic product overhaul — after all, there was very little that really needed improvements on the Mi Band 4.

Xiaomi Mi Band 4 XDA Review: Fitness tracking done right and done cheap, again

Previous reports on the Mi Band 5 showed off graphic assets found within the Mi Wear APK, and these suggested that there is unlikely to be much deviation from the previous Mi Band design. But still, these did not completely rule out the possibility of the renders being mere placeholders. Now, Xiaomi has officially revealed the Mi Band 4 design on Weibo, and it does indeed look pretty much the same as the Mi Band 4.

At first glance, the Mi Band 5 might appear to have a different band design from the Mi Band 4, with the straps attaching with the main body in a different fashion, as seen on the orange and yellow color variants. But the olive green color variant follows the band color all around the tracker body, so it looks like the orange as well as the yellow color bands will simply sport a black color alongside the holder perimeter.

In terms of new functionality, the official poster shows off period tracking functionality, which would be new for the Mi Band 5, at launch. We also spot wallet functionality, but that is likely to stay limited to China only. Features previously spotted include SpO2 tracking, PAI, meditation guidance, and integration of Amazon Alexa digital assistant.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 is launching in China on June 11. The device will very likely make its way to other markets as well, even though the lower cost Redmi Band has not been released outside China.


Source: Weibo

The post Xiaomi Mi Band 5 official teaser shows off design, band colors, period tracking function, and more appeared first on xda-developers.



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Xiaomi Mi Band 5 official teaser shows off design, band colors, period tracking function, and more

The Mi Band 5 is the next generation product in Xiaomi’s highly successful fitness tracker lineup. In the past, each generation upgrade brought along some good updates that made it a decent upgrade even for existing users, especially at the signature Xiaomi-value price tag. But this year, the upgrade is expected to be more of the incremental type instead of a drastic product overhaul — after all, there was very little that really needed improvements on the Mi Band 4.

Xiaomi Mi Band 4 XDA Review: Fitness tracking done right and done cheap, again

Previous reports on the Mi Band 5 showed off graphic assets found within the Mi Wear APK, and these suggested that there is unlikely to be much deviation from the previous Mi Band design. But still, these did not completely rule out the possibility of the renders being mere placeholders. Now, Xiaomi has officially revealed the Mi Band 4 design on Weibo, and it does indeed look pretty much the same as the Mi Band 4.

At first glance, the Mi Band 5 might appear to have a different band design from the Mi Band 4, with the straps attaching with the main body in a different fashion, as seen on the orange and yellow color variants. But the olive green color variant follows the band color all around the tracker body, so it looks like the orange as well as the yellow color bands will simply sport a black color alongside the holder perimeter.

In terms of new functionality, the official poster shows off period tracking functionality, which would be new for the Mi Band 5, at launch. We also spot wallet functionality, but that is likely to stay limited to China only. Features previously spotted include SpO2 tracking, PAI, meditation guidance, and integration of Amazon Alexa digital assistant.

The Xiaomi Mi Band 5 is launching in China on June 11. The device will very likely make its way to other markets as well, even though the lower cost Redmi Band has not been released outside China.


Source: Weibo

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Here’s what’s new in OPPO’s ColorOS 7.2 based on Android 10

Chinese smartphone maker OPPO launched the Reno4 and the Reno4 Pro in China last week – just three months after the Reno3 series. The OPPO Reno4 series comes with a refreshed design, slight improvements in the internal hardware, and loads of new features in terms of the software. The Reno4 and the Reno4 Pro are the first two smartphones from the company that get ColorOS 7.2 – the latest version of OPPO’s custom Android software – based on Android 10.

ColorOS 7.1 Review: OPPO’s latest Android OS is its best yet

While ColorOS 7.1 was launched only with the OPPO Reno3 in March this year, version 7.2 adds new features, especially for the camera. Here are all the new features that OPPO has added to ColorOS 7.2:

Super Night Video Mode

oppo reno4 coloros 7.2 video night mode

A screenshot of video recorded on OPPO Reno4’s Super Night Video mode

With the OPPO Reno4, ColorOS also gets a new night mode for videos just like the company’s Nightscape mode for images. The company claims that the “Super Night Vide Mode” feature will enhance the exposure in videos taken at night or under extremely low light conditions by up to 74%. In addition, the feature will also improve the clarity in night videos by up to 33%.

Movie Mode

The OPPO Reno4 series comes pre-loaded with the Soloop app that allows users to edit videos on their phones for a variety of video-sharing platforms. The phone also gets a Movie Mode exclusively with a 21:9 aspect ratio, 10 color filters, several preset templates, along with the options to adjust the exposure or the shutter speed of the raw footage to give it a movie-like appearance.

Intelligent Battery Saver

The Intelligent Battery Saver in ColorOS 7.2 will learn users’ habits and automatically put certain apps to sleep when they’re unlikely to be used. By doing so, the battery on the smartphone can be conserved and the night time drain can be avoided, improving night-time battery consumption by up to 10%.

Super Power Saver

For scenarios when the battery of the phone is really low, users can activate the Super Power Saver mode to stops everything except for the most important features like calling or messaging. OPPO claims that 1.5 hours of messaging on WeChat will only utilize 5% battery when the phone is in Super Power Saving mode.

AI Fix for images

ColorOS has a new feature that will help preserve the digital copies of old or blurred pictures. The feature will automatically repair the pictures by removing haze, noise or graininess, or blur in the older images.

Application pre-launch

ColorOS will now be able to pre-launch applications in the background even before you tap on the app icon by learning your usage habits. As expected, this feature reduces the app startup time, offering a faster experience.

OPPO Labs

OPPO Labs, similar to Realme Lab, will be added to ColorOS 7.2 so that users can experience upcoming and experimental features while they’re being tested.

Camera SDK

OPPO has released a Camera SDK which will allow third-party app developers to use capabilities of all the cameras on the Reno4 as well as all the features natively supported in the stock Camera app. For instance, the SDK will allow apps like Instagram to extend support for OPPO’s beauty or HDR mode, or use any camera other than the primary one for taking pictures directly from within Instagram.

oppo reno4 camera sdk

Using the ultra-wide-angle camera on a third-party app

This is possible through Google’s CameraX Jetpack support library that lets developers take full advantage of pre-loaded camera features including ones from the Google Camera app. Likewise, the SDK will also allow developers to utilize in-build hardware features like OIS on non-stock Camera apps, opening a wide range of camera functionality on OPPO smartphones.

 

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