While 4K certainly has its uses and benefits on larger displays, the potential use cases on such a small smartphone screen are negligible at best. On an average smartphone screen, which is usually around 5.5-6 inches, the resolution of QHD — let alone 4K — is too great for the eye to appreciate. Apple’s Retina display has a pixel-per inch density of 326. A QHD display on a smartphone would equal something in the range of 538.

A PPI of 538 is far beyond the maximum resolution that the human eye can recognize. There is a bit of controversy as to what the highest practical PPI is for a 5.5 inch screen held 12-18 inches away from the eye, but the consensus holds that it’s 477 PPI at 12 inches and 318 PPI at 18 inches. Of course, holding it closer than 12 inches away from your face would make it difficult to properly focus.

So this means that the iPhone’s Retina resolution introduced in 2010 is the highest practical resolution for a smartphone sized screen. Of course with bigger screens found on phablets and full-on tablets this figure jumps.

QHD and 4K smartphones are impractical

The other issue with QHD and 4K displays on smartphones is the substantial battery drain that comes as a result. Battery technology has reached a ceiling, yet the demands keep on increasing. A QHD or 4K screen requires substantially more push from the SoC to drive a screen of that resolution, which means the SoC will require more battery power for all tasks.

Before the 2015 Mobile World Congress kicked off, Huawei (SHE:002502) announced that it would not be producing 4K smartphones because it simply is not worth the battery drain.

“4K needs a lot of power, so if you use it you have to make compromises. A 4K display on a smartphone may give you half a day of battery life but a 2K display can give you maybe one day or more,” President of the Handset Product Line Kevin Ho is quoted as saying. “4K has four times the pixels of Full HD so the power consumption is maybe 4 or 8 times as much as Full HD so the smartphone has to have compromises with battery life.”

All about competition

Pushing up the resolution of smartphone displays  is not the only way to improve the quality of the screen. There’s much to be done to improve color depth, backlight quality, and the ability for the screen to display in bright conditions.

But the resolution race is a way for vendors to compete with each other. The screen resolution of a device is an easy and digestible metric to understand. But for consumers this resolution race isn’t, in the end, a value add as it does little to increase productivity or performance.   

The post Resolution Overkill: Why QHD and 4K are Too Much for Smartphones appeared first on VR World.

The most interesting news from last week’s Mobile World Congress was not a new smartwatch, or flagship handset, but rather a rumor that MediaTek (TPE: 2454) and AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) were on the verge of a licensing deal that would put Radeon GPUs into MediaTek’s SoCs.

While this deal is far from confirmed, on paper it’s a logical partnership that would allow both parties to score wins in respective spaces they have struggled in.

For MediaTek, the Radeon GPU technology would allow it to lessen its dependence on ARM’s (LON: ARM) Mali GPU and Imagination Technologies’ (LON: IMG) PowerVR GPU. MediaTek uses both for its GPU lineup: Mali on the low-end and PowerVR on the high-end. This would allow MediaTek to differentiate itself from other users of Mali, and would also free it from licensing GPU technology from Imagination — a company that it may be soon competing with in the SoC space if it starts bringing in some mobile hardware wins from MIPS.

And for AMD this is a chance to finally break into the mobile space. For a number of reasons, especially Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC) aggressive subsidies of its chips in the mobile space, AMD could not compete in mobile. Eventually, last November, it said that it had “given up” on tablets having long backed out of the smartphone race.

What about Skybridge?

The going assumption — and it might prove to be correct — is that MediaTek would be the majority partner in this deal as it has the proven experience in the mobile space. However, considering AMD’s ambitious Skybridge plan — pairing ARM and AMD on the same die — it might be that this is a deal of equals.

Originally Skybridge was supposed to be about x86 and ARM on the same die, but this could be the evolution of the project. The big takeaway from the project would be successful interfacing of ARM and GCN, and the use of low-power Carrizo GPUs.

Remember that there is already significant cooperation between AMD and MediaTek on the Heterogeneous Software Alliance, so familiarity between teams exists.

AMD is scheduled to report its earnings in mid-April, while MediaTek has April 28 booked to report. If this deal has legs, an announcement would likely come around that time.

The post A MediaTek Deal Would be AMD’s Ticket to Mobile appeared first on VR World.

As higher-speed broadband coverage increases in coverage, specifications and scope, the actual logistics of managing connectivity becomes more complicated. For instance, interference in between network cells often results in degraded signal quality, frequent handoffs and a generally poorer network experience.

Cloud Radio, one of ZTE’s (SHE: 000063) entries to the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards at this year’s Mobile World Congress, addresses this by enabling dynamic collaboration across cells based on the real-time location of users, so that there will be no performance degradation when crossing cluster borders.

“Especially for customers located on the border areas between cells, and where wireless performance is weaker especially for LTE, Cloud Radio will lead to a more uniform, consistent and predictable user experience across the overall network, increasing customer loyalty,” says ZTE in its entry.

Higher bandwidth, higher requirements

According to the company, 4G networks require 10 times more bandwidth than 3G networks, and LTE is deployed in high spectrum bands, so sites are dense in order to ensure signal quality. This causes greater interference compared with GSM and WCDMA. Also, OFDMA-based LTE (a modulation technology used in LTE and WiMax networks) does not have an inter-cell interference-suppression mechanism.

Cloud Radio was actually launched at MWC two years ago, with the promise of reducing the effects of interference between cells. The technology uses two mechanisms: a cloud scheduler and a cloud coordinator.

The central scheduler collects real-time information about interference, load, user distribution and interference location, and will determine the optimal resource allocation. Base stations then schedule their transmissions at a per-user level upon receiving these instructions. “This makes the bandwidth requirements constant regardless of the amount of sites that are simultaneously coordinated, making the performance across the network much more stable and consistent.”

The cloud coordinator dynamically measures the backhauling characteristics for each combination of eNodeBs — the hardware connected to the mobile phone network that communicates directly with mobile handsets — intelligently determining the best set of technologies to use. It essentially turns harmful interference into useful signal via inter-site coordinated multi-point reception and transmission (CoMP). The aim is to ensure latencies at most 4 ms, which is otherwise easily achievable with conventional IP RAN and Ethernet Microwaves.

The technology improves performance in cell border areas (which is 30% of all cases, says ZTE), up to 90% in downlink and 115% in uplink throughput.

ZTE Cloud Radio provices a cheaper alternative

According to ZTE, the most significant benefit of this technology is that it does not require network operators to invest in additional hardware expansion in the eNodeB. Existing IP transmission networks can meet the requirements of Cloud Radio without modification, so operators can make inter-site coordination possible with the lowest cost. In addition, Cloud Radio can be fulfilled on existing R8/R9 terminals. Given these, Cloud Radio helps in future-proofing network facilities, such as the transition from 4G to 5G.

To date, Cloud Radio is deployed across Chinese operators China Mobile and China Telecom, Hong Kong’s CSL, Wind Telecom in the Dominical Republic, and Cosmote in Romania, among others. ZTE says the technology is best suited for large urban cities, where population is dense and cells are close in between.

The technology was a finalist in the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough category, which Airvana’s OneCell won.

The post ZTE Cloud Radio Improves LTE Performance Amid Cell Edge Interference appeared first on VR World.

People visiting Barcelona this month for the Mobile World Congress 2015 will be greeted by Huawei’s (SHE: 002502) new smart watch, which introduces a mix of old and new in a very good way.

The new wearable was simply introduced as the “Huawei Watch”. The basic overall design of the watch exude a classic look and finish, something that we are accustomed to with old-century type watches. The screens are even glazed in sapphire crystal, as well as being encased in stainless steel, which clearly introduces it as more than just another wearable. What’s obviously different though is that this is a smart watch, and has all the nifty perks modern wearables have today. It has a 1.2 Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage. The screen itself shows off its bright and crisp 1.4-inch 400×400 AMOLED display.

Like with many other wearables, it will feature various kinds of sensors and monitors, including a barometer, a heart rate monitor, and a standard accelerometer/gyroscope. It will also use the Android Wear OS.

As the advertisement states “classic design and impeccable craftsmanship” meshed with “state-of-the-art wearable technology”. So far, at least according to the demo announcement, the “Huawei Watch” does not disappoint. The old, stylistic look certainly warrants it the premium treatment, as quaint as it may seem to be. Performance-wise, it should be able to handle the Android Wear OS, though we may have to see the actual commercial version to firmly assess this.

Ad placements at the Barcelona Airport have been welcoming arriving guests with a discreet announcement for its “Huawei Watch”, even since before Huawei’s official announcement of the new product a few days ago. The billboards, which has the slogan “Timeless design. Smart within.” written on it, are basically teasers that introduced one of its three possible color versions: silver, gold, and black.

No prices announced yet, but Huawei announced that it will be available very soon.

The post Huawei Teases New Yet To Be Released Wearable appeared first on VR World.

During its keynote at the 2015 Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) gave a few more details on its upcoming Snapdragon 820 flagship SoC.

While the details during the keynote were rather sparse, we did learn a few important things. First the chip’s CPU will be Qualcomm’s new Kyro 64-bit architecture using ARMv8. Dubbed Kyro, this will be fabricated on a 16nm process node likely from TSMC (TPE: 2330). No details on the chip’s GPU or CPU speed were announced.

However the most talked about feature of the Snapdragon 820 will not be the Kyro CPU, but rather the machine learning integrated into the chip called Zeroth. Qualcomm says Zeroth will allow the device to learn more about its surroundings by collecting data from all of its sensors such as its microphone and camera. All of the processing and machine learning will be done locally on-chip rather than in the cloud.

Qualcomm said that Zeroth’s capabilities will evolve over time. Its first use cases will be simple but things will improve as time goes on. Qualcomm said that it will have a number of technology demos on the show floor later this week.

For Qualcomm this is a way to differentiate its chips from the competition. Having lost the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge to the competition (in this case Samsung’s (KRX:005930) home-grown SoCs), Qualcomm needs something spectacular to set its chips apart from the competition. Progressively faster CPU and GPU speeds just won’t cut it anymore.

The Snapdragon 820 will start shipping in the second half of this year. Qualcomm did not say when devices containing it will be available to consumers.

The post MWC 2015: Qualcomm Gives a First Look At Snapdragon 820 appeared first on VR World.

Just how much storage space do you need on a MicroSD card? SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) is hoping 200 GB.

That’s the size of the memory card it introduced at this year’s Mobile World Congress.

In a statement SanDisk said that it was able to develop this super sized MicroSD by leveraging the proprietary technology developed last year for the 128GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card, and creating a new design and production process that allows for more bits per die.

The card supports transfer speeds of up to 90 MB/s.

The card will be available next quarter for a price of $400.

Unfortunately for those that will be buying a Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge, you are out of luck. Neither of these phones support SD cards.

The post SanDisk Reveals 200 GB MicroSD Card at MWC 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) unveiled three chips in its mobile Atom lineup at the 2015 Mobile World Congress, emulating its “good-better-best” style used for desktop and mobile Core processors.

The Atom x3, which occupies the low end of the lineup, is based on Intel’s SoFIA platform and comes with an integrated 3G or LTE baseband. The x3 will come in three editions, targeting different use cases and price points.

The first is the low-cost x3-C3130, which is intended for budget smartphones or devices marketed to the developing world. It has a 64-bit 1Ghz processor, Mali 400 MP2 GPU, and an integrated 3G modem.

Next is the Atom x3-C3230RK. It has a quad-core 1.2GHz CPU, with a Mali 450 MP4 GPU and 3G connectivity. Intel says this chip will be competitive against the likes of MediaTek’s MT6582 and Qualcomm’s MSM8212 by 50%.

Lastly we have the Atom x3-C3440, which is targeted at higher-end devices in the low-cost marketspace. It has an integrated LTE baseband, a 1.4GHz quad-core 64-bit CPU with Mali T720 MP2 GPU and NFC connectivity.

Intel said that the x3 lineup of chips would be integrated in devices between $75-$149.

On the higher end is the x5 and x7 lineup, formerly known as Cherry Trail. These are targeted at higher-end devices running Windows (Windows 10 will be fully supported) or Android. Chips in these lineups will be the first to be fabricated on Intel’s 14nm process node. They will not have an integrated modem so they will be required to be paired with something like the Intel XMM 726x.

Intel also announced that many leading vendors have already committed to building devices with the x3, x5 and x7 Atom chips.

More information on these chips, including in-depth benchmarking, is likely to be available at IDF Shenzhen in April.

The post Intel at MWC 2015: Atom Chips for Low-Cost Phones appeared first on VR World.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) opened a press conference Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress with the announcement of its new Lumia 640 and Lumia 640 XL smartphones. These two new phones are targeted towards a bigger tech market with its lowered price point, making it available to more consumers.

The Lumia 640 and the Lumia 640 XL are both technically the successor to the Lumia 630 and Lumia 1320 respectively. Featuring the Clear Black Display, the Lumia 640 sports a 5-inch, 1280×720 screen, while the Lumia 640 XL ups the size a bit to 5.7-inch. Spec-wise both are almost the same, 1.2 Ghz quad-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage. The Lumia 640 gets an 8-megapixel front camera while the Lumia 640 XL gets its 13-megapixel Carl Zeiss optics camera.

The Lumia 640

Lumia 640 XL

Perhaps the most notable feature of both phones is its one-year free subscription to Office 365 Personal, which saves its users at least $70 worth for the new units. Coupled with its relatively low-cost, Microsoft aims to widen the base for Windows Phone users, which would in turn help the development of more apps for its mobile OS.

Information for the announcement of the two new Windows Phone models was actually already leaked at least a day prior to the press conference at the Mobile World Congress. The leak was through an empty link header, which clearly detailed the announcement in the title.

Both the Lumia 640 and the Lumia 640 XL will be installed with Windows Phone 8.1. However, the two phones are also designed to be upgradeable to Windows 10 later on after it becomes officially released. It will be commercially available sometime around this month, at an equivalent price of about $156 (3G) and $178 (LTE) for the Lumia 640, and about $212 (3G) and $245 (LTE) for the Lumia 640 XL. It will also be available in matte and glossy versions, as well as in cyan, orange and black colors.

The post Microsoft Reveals the Lumia 640 and Lumia 640 XL at MWC 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Cheetah Mobile (NYSE: CMCM) announced today at the 2015 Mobile World Congress a partnership with Samsung (KRX: 005930) to bundle its junk-file cleanup technology into Samsung’s new flagship smartphone.

“We’re thrilled to join forces with Samsung to help Galaxy owners get the most out of their new phones with the ‘Powered by Clean Master’ feature,” said Sheng Fu, CEO of Cheetah Mobile. “Clean Master’s distinctive qualities have made it the No. 1 app in Google Play’s Tools category across over 50 countries, the top choice for hundreds of millions of Android users, and now a valuable partner for Samsung’s mobile phones.”

The “Powered by Clean Master” functionality in Samsung’s new Galaxy smartphone, which was unveiled at the 2015 Mobile World Congress, is the result of joint meetings across four different countries and extensive testing by both parties over the past year.

As Android users add a growing number of apps to their phones, all of those apps generate gigabytes’ worth of junk cache files and contribute to insufficient storage errors. Clean Master consistently helps first-time users get back more than 2GB of space. On average, Clean Master frees up 30% more storage than similar tools.

Cheetah Mobile announced in early February that its CM Security Suite package had hit 100 Million downloads.

What this means for Cheetah Mobile

The inclusion of Cheetah Mobile’s software in Samsung’s new Galaxy flagship is a big deal for the company. Having the app bundled into the phone is a big win for the company, and another step in its path to going mainstream in markets outside of China.

However, the mobile app space which Cheetah Mobile occupies has fierce competition. Rival Qihoo (NYSE: QIHU) also has impressive numbers, and an announcement of a similar partnership might be on its way at the 2015 Mobile World Congress.

The post Samsung and Cheetah Mobile Announce Partnership at MWC 2015 appeared first on VR World.

The 2015 Mobile World Congress has kicked off this week in Barcelona, and the phone announcements and releases are coming in fast. Samsung (KRX: 005930) gave the press a first peek at its flagship Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge Sunday night in Barcelona.

Also read: Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Will Have a Problem at MWC 2015

Samsung’s flagship for the year comes with a big boost in speed and specs compared to its predecessor. The phone comes with two processors from Samsung’s Exynos line, an octa-core 2.1 Ghz SoC and a 1.5 Ghz quad-core SoC, 3 GB of RAM, a 16-megapixel screen, 32/64/128 GB of storage, a 2500 mAh battery, a 5.1-inch screen, a screen resolution of 2500 x 1440 with 577 PPI, and Android 5.0. Some of the drawbacks include not having the ability to expand onboard memory via microSD and due to the new design implemented, the battery is no longer removable on either model.

The Galaxy S6 will be available in two versions: the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge. The internals of both smartphones remain the same, the only difference is the Galaxy S6 Edge comes with a curved display.

The curved screen offers the ability to see notifications and launch other applications. As you can see the Galaxy S6 Edge is an interesting exercise in industrial design, but it’s not clear how much of a benefit the curved screen will add — and if it will be worth it for the price premium it will command.

Overall Samsung has an interesting and compelling update to its Galaxy line. But the problem Samsung has, which it also had last year with the Galaxy S5, is that the incrementally updated feature set does not justify the buying a new handset. The specs simply aren’t revolutionary enough, and the pent-up demand is not there. The curved screen found in the Galaxy S6 Edge is a positive update, but time — and sales — will tell on where consumer preferences lie.

The Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge go on sale worldwide April 10.

The post Samsung’s Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge Are Released appeared first on VR World.

Smartphone commoditization has hit Taiwan’s HTC (TPE: 2498) hard. The top handset maker by volume in the US in 2011, HTC cratered over the next two years, posting its first annual loss in 2013 as Samsung (KRX: 005930) and low-cost Chinese brands chipped away at its market share. By 2014, HTC was no longer one of the top ten handset brands by shipments and held a pithy 1.5% share of the global market.

Analysts warned of HTC’s impending demise and suggested a buyout to increase its competitiveness. Going private would allow HTC to pursue strategies without an immediate payoff, but which would bear fruit in the long run, such as a push into lower-end handsets, they said.

HTC rejected the idea of a buyout. But it has cut costs, introduced cheaper handsets and is expanding into new product categories.

Following these moves, the Taoyuan, Taiwan-based company has returned to profitability for three consecutive quarters. Its fourth-quarter profit rose 49% to $14.8 million over a year earlier, beating analysts’ expectations of $10.4 million. Revenue increased 12% to $1.5 billion from $1.35 billion a year earlier. In the final three months of last year, HTC also posted its first quarterly sales growth since 2011.

HTC is forecasting an annual revenue increase of 30% this year.

Reading between the numbers

Aggressive cost cutting has driven HTC’s improved performance, industry experts say. A key part of that strategy has been outsourcing production of its non high-end handsets. In May 2014, chief financial officer Chang Chialin confirmed that contract manufacturers were making some HTC smartphones. He said the company’s outsourcing volume was below 50% of total shipments, but declined to specify the actual figure.

Compal Electronics (TPE: 2324) is handling a large portion of HTC’s orders. In 2014, the Taiwanese OEM made 2 million smartphones for HTC and may ship as many as 6 million this year, says Arthur Liao, a downstream analyst at Fubon Securities in Taipei. Compal also makes handsets for many other leading vendors including Sony (TYO: 6758) and makes Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Surface tablet.

“Outsourcing has improved the cost structure of HTC’s mid and low-end devices,” CK Lu, a principal research analyst at Gartner in Taipei, told VR World in an interview. “It’s an important part of their strategy to boost profitability.”

But there are limits to the benefits of outsourcing for HTC, because it still produces its premium smartphones in-house. Those high-margin devices are the company’s bread and butter, not lower-end handsets.

At the same time, HTC’s financials may be shakier than they appear. The New Taiwan dollar’s fall against the greenback was an important contributor to recent profitability, says Jeff Pu, an analyst at Yuanta Securities in Taipei.   “HTC was lucky that the NTD depreciated sharply,” he says. “Otherwise, they might have posted a loss in the fourth quarter.”

New product lines

As HTC tries to gain ground against its competitors, it is rapidly rolling out new product categories: tablet computers, action cameras, wearable devices, even a virtual-reality headset. The purpose of that diversification is to provide new sources of revenue and position the handset maker as a stronger consumer brand, analysts say.

“You can’t grow producing smartphones alone,” says Lu of Gartner. “The market is too saturated. HTC is the only major vendor without something else.”

Tablet computers are an odd place for HTC to start. Not only are the devices plummeting in popularity among consumers, but HTC’s previous foray into the tablet market in 2011-2012 was a flop. Its overpriced Flyer and Jetstream tablets each lasted less than a year.

Yet HTC is the producer of the new Nexus 9 tablet, which was released in October 2014. Reviewers have compared the device unfavorably to the iPad Air 2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4, criticizing the Nexus 9’s poor battery performance, screen resolution and camera. Sales peaked for the Nexus 9 “in the first few days,” says Pu of Yuanta Securities, adding: “It’s going to be a disappointment.”

The “Re” waterproof action camera shows better potential. Also unveiled in October, the tube-shaped device features a 16-megapixel sensor, a wide-angle lens and HD video recording capability. Since the device connects to smartphones wirelessly, it will be able to live stream directly to YouTube under a planned partnership.

The Re camera is selling well, HTC says. In December, it forecast sales of 20,000 units of the device by the end of 2014, with strong momentum carrying into 2015. Jack Tong, president of HTC North Asia, said at a product launch in February that the Re camera was performing well enough to boost the company’s overall first-quarter revenue.

HTC is competing with GoPro (NASDAQ: GOPRO) and Sony in the nascent action camera sector. Sander Research forecasts that market will grow 16% annually through 2018.

At this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, HTC is taking its new product categories a step further with the launch of the Grip fitness band and Vive virtual-reality headset.

Grip is HTC’s first wearable device. The GPS-enabled fitness band was co-developed with the American sportswear company Under Armour, which supplies wearables to the US military. HTC is positioning the device as a fitness wearable rather than a smartwatch, but it does have email, message and phone functions. Grip is also compatible with both Android and iOS devices.

The Vive virtual-reality headset, which uses technology from the US game developer Valve, is the more intriguing of HTC’s two new gadgets. Vive provides a panoramic high-definition view and tracks body and head movements as the user walks. HTC says Vive’s mobility distinguishes it from Samsung’s Gear VR and Google’s cardboard virtual-reality goggles, which users engage from the confines of a chair.

But unlike the Samsung or Google devices, HTC’s virtual-reality headset works only with PCs and consoles. HTC says it plans to make Vive compatible with mobile devices in the future.

A developer version of Vive will hit the market in spring and the device will be launched for consumers during this year’s holiday season.

The post HTC Looks Beyond Smartphones at MWC 2015 appeared first on VR World.

HTC (TPE: 2498) kicked off the 2015 Mobile World Congress with its flagship release for 2015: the One M9.

Visually speaking not much has changed since the M8. The phone retains the same design as its predecessors, with the changes only occurring under the hood. The aluminum unibody has a 5-inch 1080p screen, an Octacore Snapdragon 810 SoC, 3GB of RAM and a 2,840mAh battery (which should last a full day). For cameras, HTC is including a 20-megapixel rear facing camera with a f/2.2, 27.8mm lens as well as the ability to shoot 4K video and a front facing camera with its ‘Ultrapixel’ technology. HTC says Ultrapixel technology allows better low-light photography at the expense of resolution.

The phone runs Android 5.0 Lollipop on top of HTC’s own Sense Seven skin.

The HTC One M9 will be available later this month at $649.99 without a contract and $200 with a contract.

All in all the One M9 appears to be an incremental, rather than evolutionary, upgrade from its predecessor. It’s featureset and pricing its compelling but not anything special. In a market where low-cost high-feature phones such as the likes of Xiaomi dominate, HTC can’t expect sales to be anything special for this phone. It just doesn’t present a compelling case to upgrade for users of last year’s model.

The post HTC Makes the One M9 Official appeared first on VR World.

Word has finally gone out. Last month, Vaio had finally opened its sweeping update announcement about its new upcoming line of products as an independent brand. Spearheading the company’s promotional campaign is the reestablishment of its Vaio Z line of high-end top performance notebook PCs. The company introduced two new models, the new Vaio Z laptop, and more interestingly, the Vaio Z Canvas, which obviously will be our topic of discussion for this article.

But, what’s in it for us with the upcoming Vaio Z Canvas? Would it be different from, let’s say, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10? How does it differ from another hybrid 2-in-1 PC? And ultimately, would you want one? Probably, and here are some of the reasons why.

It’s at the right time and the right place

We all know that the concept of high-end, productivity-focused tablets is hardly a new one. Take the Asus (TPE: 2357) EEE Slate EP121 for instance. It’s a top spec tablet with superb overall performance, built for PC-level productivity in the fresh tablet year of 2011. But despite all of its perks, it never caught on, or at least it never went popular so as to firmly establish tablets as hardcore productivity devices.

Fast forward to 2015, a time where tablets are now significantly better and owning one is considered as normal. In a market where hybrid 2-in-1’s are already prevalent, the Vaio Z Canvas may finally find its spot as a high-end productivity tablet. No more clunky Windows 7 touch interfaces, and say hello to better hardware optimization. If you think the Vaio Tap 11 was already amazing, then Vaio’s promotion of the Vaio Z Canvas is probably more than eager to prove you wrong.

A portable office in its own right (or so they said)

The Vaio Z Canvas is advertised as one of Vaio’s two new “monster PCs”. It was purposely built and promoted as a product that would be desirable for businessmen, artists, and casual users alike. It showcases its “Z Engine”, which is an undisclosed combination of a Core i7 Haswell processor and an Iris Pro Graphics card. Coupled with a few other hardware tweaks such as screen parallax reduction, its use is supposed to help the user feel closer to writing on paper than on a hard graphics tablet.Normally, the tablet option for 2-in-1 PCs is designed for casual, on-hand use. The company however strongly promotes its tablet mode productivity, and are even adamant to prove its worth as an item of creativity. Drawing? Check. Composition? Check. Animation? Check. General media editing? Check. How it actually performs is of course another matter in itself, as this assessment is solely based on how it’s introduced until now.

Designed to give, not take

We’ve mentioned that the main selling point of the Vaio Z Canvas is productivity and creativity. What better way to promote this than to sell this high-end unit as a canvas? As stated in its latest presentation, “tablets provide something“, whether it’s information, data or multimedia. But “an empty, open canvas creates“. It is the user himself or herself that provides the information, data or multimedia.So, not only does it function both as a laptop (for typing work) and tablet (for data management), but according to the company it can also be used in various graphics related professional work. Much so, that they put hard emphasis on the kind of pro-level functionality that is also being promoted by companies like Samsung and Asus in their 2-in-1 hybrids and high-end tablets. The product hinges on the concept of a transformable and portable digital sketchboard, showcasing to its users an experience that is supposedly not very different from an actual digital art office.

Its Z carries its $

Let’s face it. Even during the height of the Vaio brand under Sony (TYO: 6758), its Z series always ended short on one critical factor: its innards and price do not add up. Potential consumers are usually hard pressed to justify its premium price, and those that do own one never usually purchased it with economy or optimization in mind.

The Vaio Z Canvas is introduced at a hefty price of 200,000 yen in Japan, an equivalent of about $1,670. Great features, but with the same gaping disparity in specs and price. How is it different then? The Vaio Z Canvas is a notable exception because this time, the company clearly wants it to be presented as an investment, rather than a general, all-purpose high-end gadget. It introduces itself as a work machine, and claims to offset its premium price with its productivity features. Again, its actual performance is still yet to be tested, but it’s quite nice to see the potential.

It’s NOT made by Sony

Okay, that one was pretty sarcastic, but logically, this statement is true. In fact, this may be the most important reason why anyone would have a change of heart for the brand at all. True, Sony may not be that notorious when it comes to PR announcements and marketing, but many people will agree that Vaio’s demise in Sony was partly due to the company’s poor introduction of the brand.Poor, in the sense that it still maintained its glorified laptop status in the face of dwindling sales. In light of this realization, Vaio has pledged a slightly different approach. Sure, the price tag will probably remain the same, but the company is now attempting to market its products to where it is needed, or at least that’s how it looks. The name says it all: Vaio Z Canvas. Need its artistic essence be explained further?

Of course, there are still a few unmentioned potential dealbreakers for the Vaio Z Canvas. Most notably its accessories, as the brand’s previous owner had the notorious reputation of developing proprietary accessories to its products. There’s also the issue of whether the Vaio Z Canvas would be officially available outside Japan. However, there’s at least a few more months to wait, so interested consumers still have plenty of time for updates and new tidbits about the product.

The post 5 Reasons Why You MIght Want a Vaio Z Canvas appeared first on VR World.

Today Valve formally announced Vive, its virtual reality headset, to the world and delivered details on how the Steam-powered hardware will impact the world of VR.

To make its peripheral a reality, Valve has tapped Taiwainese smartphone maker HTC (TPE: 2498) to manufacture the hardware.

Originally prototyped at ValveVR, Vive is the finalized form of the company’s virtual reality hardware. Vive will make use of Steam VR’s tracking technology as well as tap into the platform’s array of games–but Valve has plans to embrace a wide scope beyond gaming.

With Vive, the partners claim that users will be able to literally be able to seamlessly walk around and explore the VR space thanks to the Full Room Scale 360 Degree Solution, “inspect objects from all angles and truly interact with your surroundings”.

“A gyrosensor, accelerometer, and laser position sensor combine to precisely track the rotation of your head on both axes to an accuracy of 1/10th of a degree, allowing you to look around the virtual environment naturally.”

To tap into the full potential of Vive you’ll need to hook up a pair of SteamVR “base stations” to track your movement, pretty much giving a motion capture effect within a limited 15 feet x 15 feet space.

As for visuals, Vive VR headset will simulate 1200 x 1080 high-definition images at 90 frames-per-second on two screens over each eye, promising to fill your field of vision “in all directions”.

But you’ll need to hook up your own headphones for audio immersion, as the Vive is an eyes-only experience.

As for input, HTC is creating specially designed “simple and intuitive” wireless controllers to interface with Vive, which will be fully tracked to simulate user input within the virtual space. The HTC VR Controllers will be sold and packaged in pairs.

What kind of games can Vive VR host?

A recent thread on NeoGAF showcases a very such game that could fully tap into the potential of the Vive headset. The Gallery, and upcoming project from from Cloudhead Games, looks to be a leading example as to what developers can pull off on the platform.

Below we a quote from the game’s press release that talks about what Vive means for the dev team:

“We now have a hardware target that matches the original vision for The Gallery: Six Elements. To unleash the user into full, volumetric, 360 roomscale experiences with motion control!

“The HTC and Valve VR experience offers hardware so precise and exacting that we now have the fidelity in our mechanics that we did not have access to before. You will not believe this tech until you get a chance to use it yourself. This is something to be excited about!”

But it’s not all about gaming. Valve wants to help bridge the gap between virtual reality and actual reality to change our lives.

Vive can be used to aid in communication between people across the world, simulate travel to foreign countries, and a million other possibilities.

The company is also partnering with entertainment producers like HBO and Lionsgate Films to bring immersive video experiences to the device.

Valve has already shipped out Beta versions of the Vive Developer Editions out to a variety of game devs including Vertigo Games, Bossa, Cloudhead Games, Dovetail Games, Wemo Labs, and more.

“HTC Vive is real, it’s here and it’ll be ready to go before the start of 2016,” Cher Wang, Chairwoman of HTC, said in the official press release.

Be sure to drop by the Vive VR homesite for more information or to sign-up for e-mail announcements.

The post Valve Announces Vive VR Headset Powered By Steam VR appeared first on VR World.

Samsung (KRX: 005930) has had a rough go of it during the last year. The Korean electronics giant has posted consecutive quarter-over-quarter declines in profit, with its fabled electronics business at the center of the storm.

While there are a few reasons Samsung has failed to impress investors, the issue at the center of the mess was underwhelming sales of last year’s Galaxy S5 and Note 4. These phones were simply not that interesting: boring design and underwhelming specs kept them on shelves and out of the pockets of consumers.

Samsung Galaxy S6 specs

Like any high-profile mobile launch, the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S6 have been aggressively leaked during the past few months. While these specs are not confirmed here’s a rundown of the most promising leaks:

The flagship will have a QHD display which comes in at 1440×2560. This is a big upgrade from the full-HD screen of the Galaxy S5. The screen on the Galaxy Note 4, which is also a QHD variant, was highlighted as one of the best thus far on a mobile device, and it is looking likely that the same screen will be featured in the Galaxy S6 as well.

The actual chip used in the phone is not known at this time. It could be a Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) Snapdragon, but this is not likely as Qualcomm confirmed it had lost a “big customer”. The hardware that we’ll see powering the device will possibly be the 14nm Exynos 7 SoC Samsung announced earlier this year. That means that we’ll be seeing an octa-core CPU clocked at 2.1 GHz for the Cortex A57 cores and 1.5GHz for the Cortex A53 cores.

Also interesting to see will be whether the new flash memory modules — UFS 2.0 — will make their way onto the device. Current rumors suggest that that may indeed be the case, which would mean that the entry-level variant of the Galaxy S6 will feature 32GB memory, ditching the 16GB storage variant.

Considering Samsung makes the UFS 2.0 based storage modules in variants of 32, 64 and 128GB, it is likely we’ll see a 128GB version of the Galaxy S6.  It has been rumored that Samsung will stick with a 16MP variant on the device, with the sensor itself tweaked to take better images in low-light conditions.

The design of the device should be a continuation of what Samsung has undertaken thus far with the Galaxy A series, which suggests that we’ll see a metal finish on the sides of the device. Also, there are rumors suggesting that the Galaxy S6 would feature a glass back. Design-wise, the leaks thus far have failed to highlight any radical changes, although the addition of metal and glass would serve to better distinguish the Galaxy S6 as a high-end device (a facet that was severely lacking in the Galaxy S models of old).

Samsung Galaxy S6 pricing

In North America and Europe many carriers will be offering the Samsung Galaxy S6 at subsidized price points. For those that want to buy the phone off contract, here’s the expected pricing:

• Samsung Galaxy S6 32 GB: $849
• Samsung Galaxy S6 64GB:  $963
• Samsung Galaxy S6 128 GB:$1,706

Will Galaxy S6 save Samsung?

Samsung is in a tough place right now. The company is feeling pressure from investors to improve its bottom line. There once was a time where Samsung was a scrappy underdog against a market dominated by Apple (NASDAQ: APPL). But this is no longer the case: Samsung has to compete with the likes of Xiaomi. Competition has never so intense.

Samsung’s Galaxy S5 failed because it was underwhelming. There was no demand for a smartphone that was only an incidental upgrade from its predecessor.

It’s too early to tell just how well the Galaxy S6 will do. The phone’s rumored specs are not spectacular. While there’s a high degree of certainty that these will be the phone’s final specs, Samsung could throw in a wildcard and include something unforeseen it’s very likely what we see right now is what we get. With HTC (TPE: 2498) rumored to make heavy inroads into bettering the camera on the One M9, the Taiwanese vendor’s offering will seem like a more logical choice to more and more users given its aluminum design flair and the software-based features offered by the Sense UI. So far, there’s nothing too compelling from a price or performance standpoint about the Galaxy S6 that would suggest a change of fortunes for Samsung.

The post Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Will Have a Problem at MWC 2015 appeared first on VR World.

Mobile World Congress is all about mobility-enhancing technologies. But while much of the technology media is focused on the consumer-facing technologies and devices during the event, MWC also celebrates innovations in the underlying tech that supports our devices and networks. As part of MWC 2015, this author was tasked to be among the panel of judges for the Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough category.

Entries in this field mostly consist of vendors and solution providers with devices or embedded technologies that improve performance, connectivity and platform convergence meant for mobile use.

One of the finalists is Airvana OneCell, which is an LTE small cell system meant for both enterprise and consumer-facing applications, which mobile operators can use to augment their capabilities in servicing customers in urban and indoor settings.

Airvana’s technology is borne out of the need to have strong wireless signals even inside buildings. One limitation of LTE — and wireless signals in general — is that signal strength is significantly reduced with obstructions. Building foundations act like a cage, after all, where radio signals are good at bouncing within the structure, but not necessarily across from inside-to-outside and vice-versa.

“Outdoor macro cell towers cannot fully penetrate building walls to deliver quality LTE service indoors, and upgrading legacy distributed antenna systems (DAS) for LTE is prohibitively expensive,” says Airvana. An alternative would be standalone small cells, but this is not effective in large enterprise settings, because these create many “cell borders.” In addition, these are not easy nor cost-efficient to deploy.

“These borders create large areas of interference between cells that result in low throughput, poor VoLTE quality, frequent handovers, complex RF planning, and macro interference challenges. Furthermore, they have static capacity, limited upgradeability, and support only a single operator.”

A cross-carrier solution

Airvana’s OneCell solution addresses the challenge of delivering consistent, high-speed LTE services for multiple operators, but without the cost and complexity of a DAS. Basically considered as a “cloud RAN”, the solution involves a single baseband controller, with radio points distributed throughout a building or establishment. These radio points act as a single cell, which results in zero cell borders, border interference and handovers — which mean better energy-efficiency for the connected mobile devices.

Industry experts consider cloud RAN as a disruptive technology because of two benefits: centralization and virtualization. Centralizing the baseband means significantly cheaper operational expenses — operators in South Korea, China and Japan have demonstrated 30% to 50% OPEX reduction with the use of such technologies. Meanwhile, virtualization of network functions will reduce capital expenditure, particularly the need to build standalone cell towers or micro-cell sites.

An added benefit of OneCell’s solution is that the nodes connect with each other via regular ethernet connection, and each radio point runs on power-over-ethernet, further reducing the complexity of deployment. According to a study by Real Wireless, deployment of OneCell is 69% less expensive than a traditional DAS. Material savings from the passive infrastructure can reach 90%, while simplified cabling means labor savings of 75% to 90%.

And a bigger benefit for enterprises: convergence across carriers. “Large enterprises and public spaces are typically multi-operator environments, and OneCell is designed to cost-effectively support multiple wireless providers with a single infrastructure,” says Airvana. “Architecture is designed to allow operators to take advantage of upcoming LTE capabilities, such as carrier aggregation, Coordinated Multipoint (CoMP) and distributed Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) via software upgrades, without replacing any installed equipment.”

Full signal bars

Scalability and cost efficiency are the most relevant benefits for enterprises and other establishments that require indoor wireless broadband connectivity. Meanwhile, for consumers, it means excellent connectivity even within buildings, for a “five signal bar experience.”

“There’s a clear interest among operators in serving indoor enterprise environments with scalable, distributed solutions that are also cost-effective,” says Ed Gubbins, senior analyst at Current Analysis. The potential market for OneCell’s technology is 1 billion users, as the Chelmsford, MA-based firm has dealings with mobile operators from Europe, Asia and North America.

The direction here is clear: the combination of centralized and distributed architectures provided by technologies like the OneCell are a boon to those seeking scalable and cost-efficient means to improve quality of service for mobile broadband users.

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