Samsung galaxy S8 coming soon

Samsung could ditch the home button on its upcoming Galaxy S8 phone, making way for a larger screen that fills the front of the device.

Leaked images of the next generation of the Korean electronics giant's flagship handset show it could have a large display with curved edges and a selfie camera right at the top.

The pictures also dispel any suggestions that Samsung is planning to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack.
The Galaxy S8 will come in two sizes with 5.8-inch and 6.2-inch versions, according to prominent leaker Evan Blass, who posted the alleged pictures of the phone. The screen will take up 83pc of the front of the phones when switched on and will use AMOLED technology. It could also be pressure sensitive, following Apple's lead with 3D Touch.

Samsung has taken the popular curved design from the Edge versions of earlier models for all of the handsets.

The front-facing camera on the phone will be 8MP, with the one on the rear next to the fingerprint sensor 12MP. The main camera could have a new augmented image search that lets users search the web for items they point it at. For example, it could take them to a shopping website for a product in the frame. 

Next to the selfie camera is a second iris scanning sensor, first found on the recalled Note 7, which will let users unlock their phone by looking at it.

The phones are expected to run Android Nougat, the latest version of the Google-made software. They could feature the first application for Samsung's yet-to-be-unveiled virtual intelligent assistant, which rumours say will be called Bixby.

They will be 11pc faster and 20pc more energy efficient than the Galaxy S7, Venture Beat reports, thanks to improved microchip and graphics technology. It comes with the ability to connect to a monitor so to control the phone with a keyboard and mouse, the Guardian reports.

WhatsApp to let users edit and recall sent messages

WhatsApp could soon introduce the ability to recall sent messages, easing the minds of people that regularly panic after sending texts by mistake.

The long-awaited feature will mean that users can delete a message from the receivers phone if it is yet to be read. The delete function is currently being tested on the beta version of WhatsApp's next update, along with the ability to edit send messages that haven't been read.

Features are generally included in beta versions before making them into a full consumer release, although it is unclear when this might be.

As well as these edit tools, WhatsApp is also testing a new feature that could make it a lot easier to coordinate meeting a group of friends.

A new feature unique to WhatsApp is being tested that lets users send friends their moving location so that they can find one another more easily.

Called Live Location Tracking, it lets users show their movements to friends within a group chat. They can opt to share their moving position for a limited time of one, two or five minutes.

It builds on WhatsApp's popular send your location feature that allows users to share their exact position at a given time.
WhatsApp users will probably have to manually turn it on in Settings, allaying privacy fears. It is currently being tested in the beta version of the messaging app's next update, meaning that it could soon be released to all users, although no time frame has been announced.

Other features being tested in the beta include the ability to reply to status messages, as well as shaking you phone within a conversation to contact WhatsApp and report spam.

One of its biggest focuses recently has been to add live features that take it beyond text messaging, such as video calling. It also recently added the ability to edit pictures and draw on them, in a similar way to Snapchat.

Kids using robots and drones to learn

Some argue that the education this generation of children is receiving is little different from that their parents or even their grandparents had.
But, in a world where artificial intelligence and robots threaten jobs, the skills that this generation of children need to learn are likely to be radically different to the three Rs that have for so long been the mainstay of education.
The BBC went along to the Bett conference in London in search of different ways of teaching and learning.
A stone's throw from the Excel, where Bett is held, stands a new school that is, according to its head Geoffrey Fowler, currently little more than a Portakabin.
Despite this, the London Design and Engineering university technical college - which caters for 14- to 19-year-olds - was massively oversubscribed when it opened its doors for the first time in September.
The 180 pupils lucky enough to have got a place have had a very different experience of the curriculum in the 12 weeks since they joined.
One group have designed from scratch a virtual reality environment that takes viewers on a journey around an Ethiopian village as part of a project to highlight the work of the charity Water Aid.
Another has spent the term teaching Pepper - the school has two of SoftBank's human-looking robots - how to make a variety of moves, including the dab currently beloved of children around the country.
A third group are heading off this weekend on an unusual skiing trip. Travelling with them will be 11 Nao robots, which the pupils plan to teach how to ski.
The school - which sets no homework, relying instead on pupils wanting to get on with their projects in their own time - is, according to Mr Fowler, "inspiring children to be part of a new type of learning".
While other schools may see the projects listed above as fun "add-ons" to the core curriculum, Mr Fowler thinks it has to be embedded within it.
Sixth-formers work on what is called an extended project qualification, which is the equivalent of half an A-level.
The school works with a range of industry sponsors, including the University of East London, Thames Water and Fujitsu, all of which offer input into the types of skills they would like to see children learn to equip them for the workplace as well as offering apprenticeships.
There are 48 university technical colleges (UTC) in England currently - and the scheme has proved controversial.
One set up in East London in 2012 closed after just two years, having failed to attract enough pupils, while another in Bedfordshire was branded inadequate by Ofsted.
Some head teachers seem to be resisting the idea of the vocational style of education, barring UTCs from recruiting pupils from their schools.
But statistics suggest that pupils attending UTCs have just as good results if not better than those in more conventional schools.
It is something James Culley, head of computer science at the school, sees for himself every day.
"I have never seen students learn so quickly," he told the BBC.

WhatsApp Users in India Sent Record 14 Billion Messages on New Year's Eve

New Year's eve saw a whopping 14 billion messages being sent onWhatsApp in India as more people opted to send season's greetingsthrough the instant messaging platform than traditional routes like SMS and greeting cards.
India is the largest market for the Facebook-owned company, accounting for about 160 million ofits over 1 billion users.According to data shared by WhatsApp, 14billion messages were sent on December 31, 2016 alone -- an all-time high from India.

With telecom operators charging a premium forSMS on occasions like New Year and Diwali, WhatsApp has been gaining popularity as analternative as it is available free for users (apart from data charges).
The traffic on the last day of 2016 was higher than WhatsApp's last record of 8 billion messages in one day onDiwali last year.About 32% of messagessent on December 31 were in some form of media -- photos, GIFs, videos and voice messages. About 3.1 billion images, 700 million GIFs and 610 million videos were sent on that day.Interestingly, WhatsAppstopped working on older versions of Android, iOS, and Windows Phone on December 31. Devices running on Android 2.2 or lower, iOS 6 or lower, and Windows Phone 7 are not supported by the app anymore.

Amazon Alexa Beats Apple, Google And Others to Lead The Technology Revolution: CES 2017

Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa is emerging as one of the big winners at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, cropping up in TVs, cars, fridges -- you name it -- in what may signal a breakthrough moment for the smart technology
.
Alexa's voice-activated artificial intelligence tool was everywhere at the annual tech gathering in Las Vegas -- a closely-watched testbed for the latest industry trends -- even though Amazon was notofficially taking part.

Tech giants Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft are all vying to develop the most sophisticated connectedassistant -- but the dominance of Alexa at CES 2017 suggests Amazon is winning the race.It may also be the sign that smart home hubs -- heralded for years as a coming consumer tech revolution but slowto catch on in the marketplace -- have finally come of age.
To name just a few of her appearances at CES,Amazon's Alexa is integrated into the LG smart refrigerator, allowing consumers to"talk" to their fridge to find out what food is onits shelves and order fresh groceries.
Source : news18.com

OLED vs. QLED - LG Display Dismisses New Samsung QLEDTV Technology: It's Still An LCDPanel

LG unveiled a gorgeous4K OLED W series at the show, while Samsung vowed to revolutionize the TV experience and heralda new era of entertainment with its newQLED TV series.Samsung touts that its QLED TVs deliver thebest picture quality ever,marking a "majorparadigm shift in the visual industry."
LG Is Not That Impressed By QLEDLG, meanwhile, is not utterly impressed by Samsung's new QLED TV technology and explains that it's not all that revolutionary after all. LG continues to focus on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs and says that the new quantum dot light-emitting diode (QLED) TV technology does have an upside, but it's not that major.More specifically, LG reckons that QLED has greater luminance, but that's about all it has extra compared to Samsung's previousquantum dot TVs.
It's Still An LCD Panel"The only change in Samsung Electronics' new product and previous one is luminance. In quantum dot, luminance can vary according to backlight,"says Han Sang-beom, LG Display vice chairman, as cited by Business Korea. "It is true that Samsung improved the efficiency of quantum dot, but it is a very small part of it. It is still [an] LCD panel."The LG executive's comment comes in response to Kim Hyun-seok, Samsung Electronics' president of the visual display business, who praised the new QLED TV technology and said that "further competition of visual quality is meaningless."While LG's executive gives credit to the impressive color reproduction achieved withquantum dot technology, he also points out that LG has its white color solution technology based on IPS Nano.OLED vs. QLED
The LG Display vice chairman further highlights that comparing QLED to OLED is useless, like comparing apples to oranges. OLED is self-light-emitting whereas QLED isnot, so they are obviously two different display types.

LG Display plans to continue expanding its large OLED business, as well as its small and mid-size plastic OLED (P-OLED) business this year. At the same time, the company plans to bank on its premium LCD business to strengthen its dominant position in the global display market.Moreover, LG plans to double its largeOLED panel production output compared to last year and more than double it each year in the future by changing its business structure to OLED, kicking off sixth-generation small and mid-sizeP-OLED panel production.Both Samsung and LG continue to innovateand add impressive new technology to make theirTV offerings stand out. While Samsung introduced QLED, LG unwrapped a new technology called Crystal Sound OLED (CSO), which basicallyoffers a high-end OLED panel with a sound system baked in.LG claims that CSO will deliver outstanding sound quality compared to using external speakers, which only produce reflective sound. The company showcased CSO technology at CES 2017 on 55-inch and 65-inch UHD TVs and the demonstration was quite impressive.All in all, it seems that competition keeps heating up between LG andSamsung, heralding an exciting future for high-end TVs. Which one do you prefer, Samsung or LG? Let us know in the comment section below.
Source: Tech times

How To Back-Up Your Chats, Contacts, Photos On iPhone

iPhone back-ups are stored on Apple's iCloud servers.To launch a manual back-up of your chats, go to WhatsApp Settings > Chats >Chat Backup and tap Back Up Now.
Alternatively, you can enable automatic,scheduled back-ups of your data by tappingAuto Backupand then choosing the frequency of the back-up.This will back up your chats and media to your iCloud account Within the WhatsApp Settings > Chats > Chat Backup menu, you can choose to include or exclude videos from the backup to save space on iCloud.Be warned – the iCloud backup process can take a while to complete, dependingon your Internet connection and back-upsize.

Whatsapp block : How To Back-Up Your Chats, Contacts, Photos On Android

The simplest way to ensure your previous WhatsApp conversations are backed-up ready for your move to a new Android phone is with Google Drive.TheGooglecloud storage solution only works if you have Google Play Services must be installed, and you have enough free storage on your phone and Google Drive to accommodate a full back-up of your data.Then head to Menu Button > Settings > Chats > Chat Backup.Tap onBack Up to Google Drive and set the frequency of the backups you'd like, or tap Back Up to launch an immediate backup.
Next, you'll be prompted to select a Google Account to use to back-up your chat history to.If you do not have a Google account, tapAdd Account when prompted to set one up.