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Startup Company Unveils World’s First Foldable Smartphone, Beats the major Tech Giants

Quite unimaginable, but a start-up company has beaten the big giants by making the world’s first foldable smartphone named the Royole FlexPai. Although companies like Huawei and LG had expressed their intentions of developing bendable smartphones in 2019, now they won’t be the first ones to do so. The smartphone was unveiled by Royole Corporation, a California-based start-up company, at a conference, in Beijing, China on Wednesday.

The device is a tablet with a 7.8-inch display in a single panel that can be folded into halves, the screen remaining on the outer side, without breaking and making the size of the tablet fit into the pocket. The device is 7.8mm thick and can be bent up to 180 degrees, with the help of a hinge, that is placed at the spot of the fold. The device has the 1920×1440 pixels resolution screen. On the folded position, the screen on the edge shows the notifications and other settings options.

Royole FlexPai
Image Source: royole.com

The device is empowered by the Water OS 1.0, based on the Android 9.0 Pie OS and runs on the Qualcomm’s next-generation Snapdragon 8-series processor. Interestingly, the smartphone is using the latest processor, that still has to be launched officially in coming two months.

The smartphone is also providing better camera quality with a 16-megapixel widescreen lens and a 20-megapixel telephoto lens, dual camera, having an aperture of f / 1.8. The camera can be used when the screen is opened to the tablet format. The smartphone comes with a storage range starting from 6GB to 512GB, and a 3,800mAh Lithium Polymer battery.

The company has established a workshop in Beijing, China, for the manufacturing of the smartphones, and is currently available for the pre-orders in China only. The price for the three variant of the device is set as ¥ 8,999 (€ 1140) for 6GB RAM model, ¥ 9998 (€ 1265) for 8GB RAM model and ¥ 12999 (€ 1645) for 8GB RAM model. The company has proclaimed that it will spend 200 million yuan into global firms that would develop apps and software for the device. Also, the Royole FlexPai is said to be released in the global market in December 2018.

Mike Lazaridis : The Canadian Entrepreneur & the Co-Inventor of BlackBerry

A lover of science and a visionary innovator, Mike Lazaridis, is the one, who is known as the father of Smartphones, in the global wireless community. A science lover and a philanthropist, he is the true supporter of the power of basic science to improve and transform the world. With the development of wireless technology, Lazaridis changed the world of communication to an extent. He is one of the most influential people of the world, who have contributed and are continuously contributing to the betterment of the world with their inventions.

Early life

Lazaridis was born on 14 March 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey. His parents belonged to the Pontic Greek dialect, who later moved to Canada, in 1966, when Lazaridis was just five years of age. The family settled down in Windsor, Ontario, where he found his first love, i.e., Science, in the Windsor Public Library. He loved reading the scientific facts and was fascinated by how things worked. His love for reading books led him to win an award, at the age of 12, for reading every science book in the Windsor Public Library. He was a science enthusiast and spent most of his childhood, in the basement of his house, assembling and building, rockets and radios, along with his friends. He even built buzzer for the popular game Reach For The Top, when he was in high school.

Founding RIM

In 1979, he entered the University of Waterloo, where he adopted electrical engineering with an option in computer science. But, only before two months of his graduation, he dropped out of the college, to found his company, Research In Motion (RIM), to fulfil a contract that he received from the General Motors, in 1984. The contract included the requirement for developing a network computer control display system. Lazaridis founded the company along with his friends Mike Barnstijn and Douglas Fregin, with the money Lazaridis’ parents had lent them through a loan. The company later developed barcode technology for a film, that was the greatest accomplishment for a newly set up company.

Mike Lazaridis
Image Source: www.wlu.ca

By 1988, RIM was the first North American wireless data technology developer company. It also developed connectivity products for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks, becoming the first company outside Scandinavia, to do so.

The company was involved in emerging wireless technology and in the year 1999, it had scored many patents based on the same technology under its name. It had developed the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader, Mobitex protocol converter, Mobitex point-of-sale solution, RIMGate Mobitex X.25 gateway, Freedom-Type II PCMCIA radio modem for Mobitex. In 1996, RIM developed the first two-way messaging pager, a competitor of Skytel two-way paging network developed by Motorola, that was named as Inter@ctive Pager.

BlackBerry the Smartphone Startup

In 1999, under the name of RIM, Lazaridis, developed the BlackBerry 850 pager. The device was based on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, that could receive push email from a Microsoft Exchange Server. RIM, in April 2000, launched its first BlackBerry smartphone named as BlackBerry 957. The smartphone used the encryption and S/MIME, providing high security for the user data, making the phones popular in no time. The following smartphone range from RIM was also launched with the same prefix Blackberry, that became its trade name. The next smartphone launch included the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (the first BlackBerry phone having multimedia features), Curve 8300 series and Bold 9000.

As in 2007, Apple launched iPhone and encouraged RIM to launch its first touchscreen phone, the BlackBerry Storm, launched in 2008. Till the fall of 2010, the company had 21 million BlackBerry users in the united states. The company also expanded worldwide having 79 million BlackBerry users globally. In 2012, Lazaridis and Balsillie became the co-CEOs of the company. Only after one year of Lazaridis’ joining as the co-CEO of RIM, he resigned on 28 March 2013 from his post.

Personal Life

Lazaridis is married to Ophelia, along with whom, he has participated in various philanthropy works. The two have donated money for various research works, like for the establishment of the Perimeter Institute for Research in Theoretical Physics, the Institute for Quantum Computing in the University of Waterloo, and establishing a building for Nanotechnology Engineering program, in the same university. He is one of the members of the board of governors of the University of Waterloo and served as the vice-chancellor of the university between 2003 to 2009.

Lazaridis was awarded an Academy Award and an Emmy Award for his technical achievements. In 1999, he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Waterloo.

Flipkart Hosts the Sale for the Latest Nokia 5.1 Plus Today

In the August month of this year, HMD had announced the launch of the new Nokia 5.1 plus smartphone. But, it did not disclose the date of the launch and the price of the smartphone. Finally, last week HMD launched the smartphone, and the sale is about to start in less than an hour, today, on Flipkart.

Last week, HMD unveiled the Nokia 5.1 plus, having an iPhone X-like 5.86-inch HD+, 2.5D rounded edge glass display screen. The smartphone is a look-alike of the Nokia 6.1 plus, supporting 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage expandable up to 400GB external storage.

nokia
Image Source: gadgets360cdn.com

The Nokia 5.1 Plus runs on the Android 8.1 Oreo and is powered by octa-core MediaTek Helio P60 SoC, having advanced AI features. The smartphone will get regular security updates, and soon it can be updated with the latest Android Pie. The Nokia 5.1 plus has a glass sandwich design providing a great grip and better touch properties for the user. The smartphone will be available in Gloss Black and Gloss Midnight Blue colours.

The new Nokia 5.1 plus like its contemporaries, support the dual camera. It has a 13 MP f/2.0 primary sensor, and a 5 MP depth sensor. The camera is placed vertically on the back of the phone, along with the LED flash, and the fingerprint sensor. Also, it has an 8 MP f/2.2 camera with 80.4-degree wide-angle lens, on the front. The old Nokia phones were known for its battery backup and the Nokia 5.1 plus is backed up with a 3060mAh battery. It is a dual sim 4G smartphone, having a type-C USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Nokia 5.1 plus sale will take place on Flipkart, that will start today in the afternoon. The sale will start in less than an hour, and the smartphone will cost 10,999 INR. The buyers must update their address and the payment method on the site. It is expected that, with such a price, the smartphone will lack the availability soon on successful completion of the sale. The buyer will receive multiple offers, like Rs 1800 cashback for the Airtel postpaid users, and other EMI offers on various bank’s cards.

Apple’s Fall Event 2018 : All About the New Launches

iphone
Image Source: osxdaily.com

Apple’s annual event took place yesterday in San Francisco, California. The event was streaming live on the Apple TV and Apple’s event page, broadcast in London, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney.

Apple, in its 2018 event, has announced a range of new iPhones along with its FDA-approved watch, that is capable of reading the heartbeat.

Apple’s new iPhone series includes the iPhone XS having a 5.8-inch OLED display screen, iPhone XS Max with 6.5-inch OLED display screen and iPhone XR with 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display Screen.

The iPhone XS and XS Max has come with a better camera resolution and are embedded with the faster A12 processor implanted in a stainless steel body. The new iPhones will support the eSim feature that will eliminate the need of inserting an extra sim card with the help of an inbuilt sim card.

On the other hand, the iPhone XR is having an aluminium body with a single 12MP wide angle back camera, providing the same depth-of-field effect. The iPhone XR has come with an improved battery with approximately 90 minutes more battery life. The iPhone XR will be available in six different colours black, white, blue, red, yellow, coral.

The price of the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR will start from $899 (Approx. 64,800), $999 (Approx. 72000) and $749 (54000), respectively. All the three phones will be available in a storage range of 64GB, 256GB and 512GB, that will vary the price accordingly. And, finally, the new iPhones are going to have two sim card slot that can help in boosting its sale.

Another product that was introduced at the event is an edge-to-edge screen watch, with a thinner body and a 30% larger screen, an addition to the Apple Watch Series 4. The new Apple 4 series watch is a GPS-only cellular model watch that is redesigned with enhanced software and hardware. The watch is having a faster S4 processor and ECG/EKG monitor. The watch is capable of reading the heartbeat rhythm and can sense if the user has fallen. In such a situation the watch will make a call to the emergency asap.

The preorders for the iPhones as well as the watch will start from 14 September and will be available in the American markets from 21 September, this year.

Qualcomm Announces new Flagship Chip featuring 5G connectivity

Qualcomm Snapdragon
Image Source: mybroadband.co

The world’s largest semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm has announced its new flagship processor, built on the 7-nanometer mode process. Noticeably, the Apple’s A12 processor and Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor are also built on the same technology. And now Qualcomm is also about to produce its own high-performance processor.

The processor is considered to be the Snapdragon 855, and Qualcomm has claimed that the processor will provide better speed, improved battery backup, and performance. The flagship chip is likely to be the first mobile platform that will be 5G-capable and will be implemented in the premium flagship smartphones when used with the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50. Although Snapdragon X50 5G modem is not new to the technical world, it will be used in a smartphone for the very first time. And, according to Qualcomm, it has already begun coupling the processor with OEMs developing next-generation consumer devices.

The President of Qualcomm Incorporated stated, “We are very pleased to be working with OEMs, operators, infrastructure vendors, and standards bodies across the world, and are on track to help launch the first 5G mobile hotspots by the end of 2018, and smartphones using our next-generation mobile platform in the first half of 2019.”

Qualcomm is already considered as a leader in 3G and 4G mobile technologies. Now this time it is coming with the 5G technology with its faster, smaller and power efficient Snapdragon 855 to be used with high-end smartphones.

Features of Freshly Launched Samsung Galaxy Note 9

Samsung Galaxy Note 9
Image Source: theverge.com

After the launch of Android Pie on 7 August 2018, now Samsung has come up with the launch of its flagship Smartphone, addition to its Samsung Galaxy 9 family. The smartphone was launched at the Barclays Center in New York. The online booking of the phone is already started and will be available in the market from the 24 August 2018. It is the last member of the Samsung Galaxy 9 family and costlier than the previous editions of the Samsung phones. The cost for the 128GB / 6GB RAM model will start from $999 (Appro. INR 68000) and 512GB / 8GB RAM version for $1,250. (Appro. INR 86000) Yes, you read it right. I don’t know what attracted your attention more the price or space, but both are too high. Along with the increased space, Samsung has launched its new baby with the following features added to it:

Look, Size & Color: The new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is quite a colourful range including Midnight Black, Metallic Copper, Ocean Blue, and Lavender Purple. The famous S Pens of the Note series are of the same colours as the phone, except the Ocean Blue phone is having a yellow stylus. Now talking about the look of the phone, likewise, Note 9 is no different than the Galaxy 8 and 9 series which is a disappointment, but, the size of this phone is little bigger comparatively.

Camera Added With New AI Features: Except the new AI features embedded in it, its camera is no different from the Note S9 camera. It still has the 8-megapixel selfie camera, with the dual 12-megapixel camera on the back. But AI has enabled it to detect what you actually need to capture and bring that thing into focus. It has also got a Flaw Detection feature that prompts when there is a flaw in the captured image, like the blink of the eye. Also, it has got a scene optimizer to adjust the white balance, saturation and contrast. Also, it can identify 20 scenarios like snowflakes, fire, food, pets, sunsets, plants, cityscapes, etc.

Bluetooth Stylus: The Note 9 SPen is all similar to the other SPens of the Note series with an addition of Bluetooth to it. With the help of the Bluetooth, the Stylus is turned into a remote control which can be used to click pictures, slide the presentations, play/pause your music apps and also, you can use it to open any app by creating a shortcut for the apps.

DeX software embedded to Note 9: Now this time the DeX software resides inside the Note 9 phone itself, so you can connect the phone to monitor independently using a USB, for the desktop-experience without a dock.

Samsung has claimed to replace the laptops with their Galaxy Note 9 by including with a high-performance processor, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and battery is also bigger than before i.e. 4,000-mAh. The position of its Fingerprint reader has also moved to below the camera whereas it was on the side of the camera in the S8 and S9 series. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 will be the last of its series as Samsung has announced the launch of Galaxy S10 by the month of March next year. Till then Note 9 will be their latest innovation of 2018. Though it is on the high end due to its price maybe it will be able to grab customers with its new features.