Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 with 659-inch FHD display, triple rear camera to be launched soon on Amazonin

A teaser has popped up on Amazon.in highlighting that the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 will be launched soon on the e-commerce website. There is no information on the launch date or price of the smartphone. Internationally, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 has been launched in countries like China, Kenya and others priced between Rs 16,000 and Rs 18,000 respectively. In India, the smartphone is expected to be priced the same but there is no concrete information about the price yet. 

Coming to the specifications of the smartphone, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 sports a 6.59-inch full-HD+ LCD display. It has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1080x2340 pixels. Under the hood, the device has an Octa-core Kirin 710F processor coupled with 4GB of RAM. It comes with two storage options - 64GB and 128GB. For optics, the smartphone has a triple rear camera setup - a 16MP primary sensor, an 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP depth sensor. The front side of the smartphone has a 16MP pop-up camera for selfies. A 4000mAh battery powers the entire package. The smartphone has EMUI 9 thrown on top of Android 9 Pie.

The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 will be an upgrade over the Huawei Y9 launched in January 2019. Coming to the specifications of the Y9, it features a 6.5-inch LCD display with a 2340 x 1080p resolution and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The smartphone runs on the HiSilicon Kirin 710 SoC, coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB of built-in storage. For the camera, the smartphone has a 13MP + 2MP sensor at the back and, on the front, the smartphone has a dual 16MP + 2MP sensor setup. The phone is backed by a 4000mAh battery. You can read more about the Y9 here. 

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Chandrayaan-2 to be launched today at 2:43pm IST

After one whole week of unexpected delay, Chandrayaan-2 is finally ready to be launched towards its one and only destination, the Moon. The uncrewed lunar mission will lift off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 2:43pm IST today. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) tweeted the revised launch date last Thursday (July 18), four days after the first launch attempt was aborted. ISRO has since rectified the “technical snags” in the mission’s launch procedure.

In the hours leading up to the launch, ISRO has been posting regular updates about the rocket’s fuelling on Twitter. Filling of fuel (UH25) of the liquid core stage (L110) was completed last night at 10:07pm IST. Filling of fuel (N204) for the liquid core stage (L110) was completed at 7:54am IST today. “Less than five hours for the launch !!! Filling of Liquid Oxygen for the Cryogenic Stage(C25) of #GSLVMkIII-M1 commenced,” wrote ISRO on Twitter at 9:58am IST.

If all goes according to plan, Chandrayaan-2 should reach the lunar atmosphere in early September. ISRO has planned to land the spacecraft on the lunar south pole as it’s known to contain traces of water ice. The craters in the area are known to contain fossils of the early Solar System. In a recent interview, ISRO Chairman K Sivan termed the soft-landing as “15 terrifying minutes”, suggesting that the manoeuvre is a complex and unprecedented one.

Chandrayaan-2’s launch vehicle for today is the space agency’s tried and tested Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk-III), which weighs 3.8 tonnes when fully laden. Chandrayaan-2 consists of the lander (Vikram), rover, (Pragyan), and orbiter modules. All these components are stacked together in a composite structure and are interfaced mechanically. When Chandrayaan-2 reaches the lunar orbit, the lander, with the rover inside it, will decouple itself from the orbiter and make its way to the surface.

 

Less than five hours for the launch !!! Filling of Liquid Oxygen for the Cryogenic Stage(C25) of #GSLVMkIII-M1 commenced#Chandrayaan2 #ISRO

— ISRO (@isro) July 22, 2019

 

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Redmi K20, K20 Pro to go on sale in India today: price, offers, specifications

The new Redmi K-series smartphones, the Redmi K20 and the K20 Pro were both launched in India last week, and they are now set to go on sale today. Redmi had earlier organised an alpha sale for the two phones. Today’s sale will commence on Mi.com, Flipkart, and Mi Home stores at 12pm. The company has promised sufficient stock of the Redmi K20/K20 Pro. 

Redmi K20/K20 Pro price, launch offers, and sale timing

The younger sibling of the two smartphones, the Redmi K20 is priced at Rs 21,999 for the base variant of 6GB RAM + 64GB storage variant. The 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant will cost you Rs 23,999. Furthermore, the Redmi K20 Pro is priced at Rs 27,999 for the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage variant, whereas its 8GB RAM + 256GB storage will cost you Rs 30,999.

The launch offers for both phones include double data benefits specifically for Airtel customers using the Rs 249 or Rs 299 prepaid plan. There will also be Airtel Thanks Gold tier benefits for the customers. Also, both the Redmi K-series phones will get a Premium Hard Cover, which is worth Rs 999, in the retail box.

As mentioned above, the sale will commence at 12pm on Flipkart, Mi.com, and Mi Home stores. You will have a choice of buying from three colour variants -  Carbon Black, Flame Red, and Glacier Blue. 

Redmi K20 specifications

The Redmi K20 features a 6.39-inch AMOLED full-HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) display with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and 91.9 percent screen-to-body ratio. It is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 chipset, paired with 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB of onboard storage. The phone runs on MIUI 10 based on Android 9 Pie. The phone packs a 4000mAh battery that supports 18W fast charging.

Coming to the optics department, the Redmi K20 sports a triple rear camera setup: a 48MP primary Sony IMX582 sensor with an f/1.75 lens, a secondary 13MP sensor with a wide-angle lens, and an 8MP tertiary sensor with an f/2.4 lens. As for the selfies, the phone has a 20MP pop-up camera.

In terms of connectivity, the phone has 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.0, GPS/ A-GPS, USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. 

Redmi K20 Pro specifications

The Redmi K20 Pro features a 6.39-inch AMOLED full-HD+ (1080x2340 pixels) display with 19.5:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by the Snapdragon 855 chipset, paired with up to 8GB RAM and up to 256GB of internal storage. The phone packs a 4,000mAh battery that supports 27W fast charging.

As for the cameras, the phone sports a triple rear camera setup: a 48MP Sony IMX586 primary sensor with an f/1.75 lens, a 13MP secondary sensor with a wide-angle lens, and an 8MP tertiary sensor with an f/2.4 lens. There is also a 20-megapixel pop-up selfie camera on board.

The connectivity options on the Redmi K20 Pro include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.0, GPS/ A-GPS, USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus adds more features to Elite Gaming

In a bid to set gaming smartphones apart, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset targeted at the flagship gaming smartphones. The major upgrade in the Plus variant is in the GPU and CPU. The GPU is now 15 percent faster while the CPU can now go up to 2.96GHz as compared to the 2.84GHz limit on the regular Snapdragon 855. To be honest, Qualcomm has been pushing the frontier of mobile gaming ever since it announced the Snapdragon 855 last year in December. Back then, Qualcomm unveiled what it calls Elite Gaming, which is basically a suite of features that enhance the experience of gaming on your smartphone.

Snapdragon 855 Plus vs Snapdragon 855: What’s the difference?

The primary difference between the Snapdragon 855 Plus and the Snapdragon 855 is in the CPU and GPU. Like the Snapdragon 855, the Snapdragon 855 also has a tri-cluster CPU arrangement, with one Kryo 485 Prime core, three mid-cores and four efficiency cores. Only, the single Kryo 485 Prime core is clocked at 2.96GHz instead of 2.84GHz. The higher clock-speed essentially brings the flagship chipset closer to the speeds promised by ARM for the Cortex-A76, on which the Kryo 485 is based. However, considering the architecture is the same in both the chipsets, we’re not sure whether there will thermal bottlenecks when running at peak clock speeds. Next, the Adreno 640 GPU on the Snapdragon 855 Plus is 15 percent faster than the one on the regular Snapdragon 855.

Apart from this, the rest of the components in the SoC are the same. The Snapdragon 855 brings a dedicated Computer-Vision accelerator in the ISP along with the fastest 4G modem for mobile, as well as support for a 5G chip. There’s also dedicated Tensor and Vector accelerators in the DSP which aids in customised AI tasks and supports the most cutting edge hardware available for mobile at present. Clearly, the Snapdragon 855 is every bit a flagship, so why then Qualcomm felt the need to make an enhanced version of it?

Why another flagship chipset?

It’s very unlike Qualcomm to release yet another flagship SoC in the same year. However, it can be argued that the Snapdragon 855+ is just an enhanced version of the 855 and not a replacement or an upgrade. Qualcomm saw an opportunity in the budding mobile gaming market and tried to make the best of it. Hot on the heels, MediaTek also announced it’s a gamer-centric SoC as well called the Helio G90, while Huawei is yet to show up with their version of it. It’s also noteworthy that each and every smartphone that markets itself for their gaming capabilities sport the Snapdragon 855. But so does most other high-end and premium flagship. And as such, save for extra helpings of RAM and a bunch of accessories, there wasn’t really a difference in the gaming experience between the regular flagships and the gaming ones. The Snapdragon 855+ was announced to help address this growing need to differentiate. The boost in CPU and GPU is one way of doing it. However, Qualcomm also unveiled some new Elite Gaming features. What is Elite Gaming, you may ask?

What’s Elite Gaming?

The Snapdragon Elite Gaming term first came up at the Snapdragon Annual Summit last year in Hawaii. It’s basically an umbrella term for a set of optimisations that Qualcomm offers to game developers to make the experience of gaming on the Snapdragon-powered smartphone richer. As such, it includes optimisations in frame rate stability, high-quality surround sound, network optimisations and more.

The Snapdragon 855+ adds to this set of features. Thanks to a faster CPU and GPU, the SoC is able to do much more. There’s HDR10 rendering support during gaming. Smartphones with HDR10 displays can leverage HDR-quality visuals while gaming which gives a much better and realistic experience. Jank Reducer which makes gameplay smoother by taking care of 90 percent janks in a 30FPS game with the visual settings intact. This is in fact similar to what Huawei does in the GPU Turbo feature, but Qualcomm claims no loss in visual quality. The SoC is able to support Vulkan 1.1 API for low-level graphics. It’s much more efficient than OpenGL-based graphics and can be considered a step towards unifying mobile platforms with consoles and PCs. Then there’s Q-Sync which matches the display refresh rate with the game’s frame rates to prevent screen-tearing or stuttering. It’s similar to Nvidia’s G-Sync or AMD’s FreeSync feature. A Snapdragon 855+ powered smartphone is also ready to become an XR-device and is 5G ready. Elite Gaming also includes Physcially-based rendering and cinematic post-processing, terms that game developers use to mean realistic rendering of visual effects. The demo showed a marked improvement in the quality of graphics including more detailed reflections and textures.

What’s the catch?

Elite Gaming certainly sounds, elite. Anyone reading the set of features might feel mobile gaming is now at par with the consoles and PCs. But that’s far from the truth. The truth is, only a handful of games presently support these features. They include PUBG Mobile, Honor of Kings, and Fortnite, at least as advertised by Qualcomm. Other titles either don’t support or don’t state their support explicitly. There’s also the question of exclusivity. Qualcomm said the new Elite Gaming features will also be supported by the regular Snapdragon 855 which again muddies the ground between the regular flagships and the gaming flagships. Not that that’s a bad thing for the end user. It’s also worth noting that while Qualcomm is enabling support for next-gen gaming, it’s upto the OEMs to use them and more importantly, for game developers to implement them. Unless all three come together, mobile gaming will not breach the next frontier.

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WhatsApp to allow iOS users to preview voice messages in notifications: Report

If information circulating the internet is to be believed, then WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will let users preview voice messages from the notifications itself. The feature is expected to come as a part of a major update, possible iOS 13. The feature is still under development and there is no information on a concrete launch date for it. Until now, WhatsApp users have been able to preview videos and photos through the notifications. WABetaInfo has tweeted an image of what the preview will look like. The image shows a voice message with a play icon and the name of the sender has been blurred out.  

Speaking of other WhatsApp features, in June it was reported that Whatsapp is testing a feature that lets you share your status to other apps. The feature has already started rolling for beta users. Therefore, the users on the latest WhatsApp beta version will start to see a share a button beneath their status. The feature enables you to share your status on apps like Facebook, Instagram, Gmail and Google Photos. You can read more about the feature here. 

In other news, new research by Symantec talks about the dangers of Media File Jacking, a type of attack undertaken by cybercriminals to target media files, which are sent through instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram and are stored in the external storage of Android phones. The criminals can take advantage of a flaw that exposes these media files and they can then be manipulated by malicious actors, Symantec’s Modern OS Security team has found. You can read more about it here.

 

I leave this here. Yes, it's a push notification with an incoming voice message, on iOS. It will be available in future (maybe in a major update with other features?) pic.twitter.com/eSm55GxFuO

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) July 18, 2019

 

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Marvels Avengers gameplay demo will be released to the public after GamesCom 2019 but leaked footage is already hitting the internet

Those fortunate enough to attend Comic Con in San Diego this weekend and attended the Marvel Games Panel were treated with gameplay footage of the upcoming Avengers video game. A trailer for the game was announced back at E3 2019 and the press got to see gameplay behind closed doors. At Comic Con it looks like the attendees got to see some gameplay and some attendees have published the gameplay on YouTube. You can check out the leaked gameplay below before it gets pulled down.

Looking at the leaked gameplay footage, one can see that the mission which takes place on the San Francisco bridge switches between playable characters like Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk. Each character brings with him signature moves and abilities. The game looks to be a run of the mill third-person action-adventure game. 

According to Crystal Dynamics director Shaun Escayg, players will be able to customize Heroes with "classic, fan-favourite, and all-new outfits." Players will also be able to unlock new skills and playstyle. So two different players can have completely different playstyles for Thor or Captain America. The game is a story-based action game with certain missions designed for certain heroes. The game has legendary voice actors like Troy Baker and Nolan North lending their voices to Bruce Banner and Tony Stark respectively. The game is slated to release on May 15 2020. It will release for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows and Google Stadia.

The Avengers game isn't the only one that will make the gameplay demo public after Gamecom. CD Projekt Red has also confirmed that the behind closed doors demo from E3 2019 will be made public after Gamecom. 

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Redmi K20 Pro and Redmi K20 India Price, Realme X in India, Xiaomi Mi A3 Launch, and More Tech News This Week

Redmi K20, Redmi K20 Pro India launch, Realme X price in India, and Xiaomi Mi A3 debut grabbed the headlines. Everything that made the news in the world of tech over the week.

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