Samsung Galaxy S11 camera to feature 9-to-1 pixel binning

Prominent leakster Ice Universe has revealed more information about the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S11, specifically pertaining to the camera. There have been rumours that Samsung would be using a 108-megapixel sensor for the S11 series, but we are now also getting details on the nature of the binning. In a tweet, the leakster says that Samsung may be going with a 9-pixel bin, that is, binning 9 pixels into 1.

The sensor being used in the Samsung Galaxy S11 series is allegedly the ISOCELL Bright HM1, which sports a 108-megapixel resolution. The individual pixels measure 0.8-microns and when 9 of them are binned together, the result will be a pixel pitch of 2.4 microns. Given how Samsung approached pixel binning on its GW1 sensor, we expect the new sensor to have a Bayer filter with a 9-to-1 arrangement. This is a better approach than using a Bayer filter with a single colour array measuring 2.4 microns. In Samsung’s approach, there are physical, 108 million individual colour filters built onto the Bayer filter, which means a true, 108MP image. The higher 9-to-1 pixel binning could also result in significantly better night shots.

There is definitely a lot of buzz around the next Samsung flagship. Up until now, there had been plenty of talk around why Samsung didn’t switch to the higher megapixel sensors for its flagship smartphones of 2019, despite the company being one of two who makes 48 and 64 megapixel sensors.

Samsung’s Galaxy S11 is poised to be a camera-centric smartphone, given that its also said to house a 48  megapixel telephoto lens. The leaked images do show a triple camera setup, but the right side of the module has so far not been revealed, and is said to house more sensors. The Samsung Galaxy S11 is definitely shaping up to be an exciting device, one worthy of looking forward to.

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Apple offers a million dollar bounty to researchers who can find flaws in its various operating systems

Apple is no stranger to offering rewards to users who find and exploit vulnerabilities in their system. The San Cupertino giant has announced its ‘bug bounty’ program for iOS, macOS, tvOS and more. Hackers and researchers who are actually able to find bugs and issues with the various operating systems and report them to Apple will receive a substantial reward for their efforts. The reward will depend on the severity of the exploit. The entire list of all the categories of bugs and issues are available for users to go through on Apple’s developer page. 

Some of the categories include ‘Unauthorized access to iCloud account data on Apple Servers’ as well as ‘Zero-click kernel code execution with persistence and kernel PAC bypass’. The payout will range from $100,000 to a whopping 1 million dollars. That’s a lot of money and there are sure to be a bunch of hackers and researchers vying for the prize.

Just earlier in 2019, Apple embraced the hacker culture and unveiled the iOS Security Research Device Program at the Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. Hackers and research experts were offered special iPhones for them to crack and find any sort of flaws on. 

Here is what Apple has to say about the program. “The goal of the Apple Security Bounty is to protect customers through understanding both vulnerabilities and their exploitation techniques. Reports that include a basic proof of concept instead of a working exploit are eligible to receive no more than 50% of the maximum payout amount. Reports lacking necessary information to enable Apple to efficiently reproduce the issue will result in a significantly reduced bounty payment, if accepted at all.”

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OnePlus 8 Lite, OnePlus 8 Pro leak reveals storage, camera, display specs

The OnePlus range of flagships for next year are expected to launch sometime in Q2 2020 and we already have had some leaks regarding the lineup. In 2019, OnePlus diversified its portfolio by offering the OnePlus 7 Pro and 7T Pro, which are premium flagships and OnePlus 7 and 7T which are value flagships. However, in 2020, OnePlus is expected to diversify even further with a OnePlus 8 ‘lite’, on top of the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro.

According to a leak by Techlapse, the OnePlus 8 Lite could come with 8GB RAM and 128GB and 256GB storage. In addition, there could be a 4,000mAh battery with 30W fast charging. The camera on the OnePlus 8 Lite is likely to be made up of a 48MP camera alongside 12MP and 16MP sensors. Furthermore, the report suggests the OnePlus 8 Lite could be priced $434 in global markets which roughly converts to Rs 30,000 in India.

The report also mentions the OnePlus 8 Pro could tout a 6.7-inch curved AMOLED display with 2K resolution, similar to the OnePlus 7T Pro. However, instead of the pop-up camera, the OnePlus 8 Pro is expected to sport a punch-hole front camera. The upcoming flagship is largely expected to come with the Snapdragon 865 SoC and on the back, it’s rumoured to tout a 64MP primary sensor and a fourth ToF 3D sensor.

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Realme Buds Air to go on sale today at 12 noon: Price, specifications, review and everything else you need to know

If you are looking to pick up the Realme Buds Air, then you need to get your trigger finger ready. The wireless earphones are set to go on sale in India today at 12 PM noon. The buds are priced at Rs 3,999 and will be available via Flipkart and Realme.com. The new Realme Buds Air features a design that’s quite similar to the Apple AirPods, and some of the functionality also reminds us of Apple’s wireless earbuds. The Realme Buds Air supports Google Fast Pair Service (GFPS) which uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to discover nearby Bluetooth devices. So, opening up the device’s case near a phone will show a pop-up to quickly pair with the Buds Air and subsequently, taking them out of their case will pair them with the last paired device. The Buds Air work on Bluetooth 5.0 and the headset has an effective range of 10 meters. 

The Buds Air come with two mics to deliver better call quality and the overall sound profile is claimed to be “excellent.” It offers gesture controls so that one can tap to answer calls, play and pause music, skip tracks or invoke the smart assistant. 

The company claims that its Realme Buds Air can last for about 3 hours on a single full charge and with the charging case, they can deliver a 17 hour of total audio playback. The buds are available in three colour options - white, black and yellow. They are powered by the R1 Headphone Chip which helps reduce latency. It also supports a bunch of nifty controls like double-tap to answer a call, play/pause music playback, triple-tap to skip to the next song, press and hold one side to launch the voice assistant or end/decline a call. Lastly, users can press and hold both sides to enter/exit Gaming Mode.

In our review of the Realme Buds Air, we said, “Priced competitively at Rs 3,999, the Realme Buds Air competes with budget true wireless offerings such as the Leaf Pods and the Noise Shots X-Buds. The Buds Air has most of the features its direct competitors possess such as voice assistant access, touch controls, Bluetooth 5.0 and additional codecs support, barring sweat resistance. It also goes over and beyond by featuring high-end features including wear detection, auto-connect, auto on/off and a dedicated low latency gaming mode, making it an alluring purchase. Beyond the bells and whistles, the Realme Buds Air also has a pleasing warm sound profile which works well with most popular genres of music. The battery life is commendable as well, especially since the charging case comes in a nice, compact form factor. Overall, the Buds Air proves to be an applause-worthy venture by Realme into the world of affordable true wireless earbuds.” You can read our in-depth review here. 

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Facebook is looking to build its own operating system to take on Android

Facebook started out as a social media platform in 2007 and has moved on to become one of the biggest companies in the world. The company now owns other social media platforms such as Instagram and even messaging apps such as the wildly popular WhatsApp. Facebook has even jumped into the VR world with the purchase of Oculus. And now, the company is looking at building its own in-house custom operating system. Facebook still uses heavily modified versions of Android on its own devices such as Portal and Oculus but is looking at keeping things in house. 

The social media giant has hired one of the original heads of Windows NT to take the lead on this endeavour. Originally reported by The Information, Facebook employed the services of Marc Lucovsky who was instrumental in the development of Windows NT. The company did not fully confirm the existence of the project but did confirm that Facebook is looking to diversify its portfolio. The head of hardware, Andrew Bosworth said, “We really want to make sure the next generation has space for us. We don’t think we can trust the marketplace or competitors to ensure that’s the case. And so we’re gonna do it ourselves.”

Facebook could be looking to build this custom operating system for it’s range of Oculus devices. And even though VR hasn’t really taken off, there is still hope for the future of Virtual Reality devices and media. If this report is true, then the future of Oculus could look very different from the current version. Facebook will be starting from scratch and looking to develop an OS that is perfectly suited to its VR devices rather than program a version of Android that is not the best fit for the VR platform. 

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Twitter warns Indian users of a data breach on the platform

Twitter users in India were greeted with an email from social media giant asking them to update the app for Android. This was sent out because on Friday, Twitter admitted that malicious code was inserted into the Android app. This code could have compromised users’ information and allowed the bad actor to view non-public information and even control people’s accounts. 

Twitter released a statement and it reads as follows,"Prior to the fix, through a complicated process involving the insertion of malicious code into restricted storage areas of the Twitter app, it may have been possible for a bad actor to access information (Direct Messages, protected Tweets, location information) from the app," As of this moment, the company has said that it does not have any real evidence that malicious code was actually inserted but it does not want to take any chances and preemptively decided to warn its users. 

We recently fixed a vulnerability within our Android app. To keep your account safe, please update your app as soon as possible. The update is available here: https://t.co/ImcsssBt9b

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 20, 2019

Users also noticed a number of warning pop-ups on Google alerting them to a breach of data on websites or apps that they visited. This also exposed their passwords. This data breach was reported two days ago when users started receiving said pop-ups. 

In a year that has seen a lot of activity on social media and the internet in general, this seems like a bad time for something as serious as a data breach. Stay tuned to Digit as we will regularly update this story as it progresses.  

 

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Apple iPhones may use sensor shift image stabilisation in 2020

Optical image stabilization was a technology that revolutionized the smartphone camera. Introduced first by Nokia back in 2012 with the Nokia Lumia 920, Optical Image Stabilisation, or OIS, has since become a staple feature across smartphones. Apple has been using OIS in their iPhones since the iPhone 6s, this has been a feature on the back of which Apple has built some incredible experiences. Now according to a report by DigiTimes, Apple may be planning to use sensor-shift based image stabilization for the iPhones coming out in 2020.

Unfortunately, there are no specifics mentioned by DigiTimes on how Apple will be implementing this tech, but if the company does go ahead with it, the implications could be huge. Optical Image Stabilisation requires the addition of extra elements in the lens assembly, along with coils and magnets, increasing the overall size of the module. Additionally, OIS is only capable to correcting shake in 2 axes, whereas sensor-shift based stabilization can counter shake in 5 axes. With a sensor-shift based stabilization system, the iPhones could theoretically stabilize shake when it comes to pitch, yaw and even roll. This would mean that for those shooting video, you could get impressively stable footage, although, not as impressive as the one you’d get from using a gimbal. Sensor-shift based image stabilization really differentiates itself in low light, where lens-based IS is not effective enough.

What’s interesting about this report is that Apple had filed for a patent back in 2015 for sensor-shift based technology. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether the company would use this for image stabilization or sensor-shift based high-resolution capture. Functionally, the fundamental technology behind achieving sensor shift based image stabilization and high-resolution photos is the same. The sensor shifts to achieve the desired result, it's just the implementation that differs ever so slightly.

As of now, there is nothing besides the DigiTimes report saying that Apple will move to sensor-shift based image stabilization. Apple does have a patent for the tech that they were granted in 2015, but we feel it may be too soon to expect Apple to switch to such a drastically different tech for the iPhone cameras.

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