Intrinsyc Open-Q 670 HDK Development Kit Features Snapdragon 670 Processor

Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon 670 this August with improved camera capabilities and improved performance, including a near doubling of the performance of the AI Engine over the one in Snapdragon 660. Intrinsyc is normally the first company to launch mobile development platform for Qualcomm processor, and this time is no exception, as the company has just introduced Open-Q 670 HDK Development Kit with Snapdragon 670 Mobile Platform. Open-Q 670 HDK specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon SDA670 Octa-core 64-bit Kryo 360 processor with 2x high-performance Gold cores @ 2.016 GHz, 6x low-power Silver cores @  1.708 GHz, Qualcomm Adreno 615 GPU @ 430 MHz, and Qualcomm Hexagon 685 DSP dedicated for Computer Vision and Video Post Processing System Memory – 6GB LPDDR4x RAM Storage – 64GB eMMC 5.1 Flash Storage (non-PoP memory) + uSD card socket Display MIPI DSI connector with 1x 4-lane DSI port + Touch for included LCD panel […]

Linux on DeX (Linux on Samsung Android Phones & Tablets) Enters Private Beta

Linux on Dex

Samsung unveiled “Linux on Galaxy” a little over a year ago with the aim of allowing developers to running Linux desktop on their high Galaxy smartphones coupled with DeX Station dock, keyboard, mouse and display. It was not quite ready for public consumption yet, so I registered to their mailing list to get more information in due time. This morning, I received an email with the subject “Register for the Linux on DeX beta trail” that reads in part: As an early adopter, you signed up for Linux on Galaxy at the Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) 2017. This service allows you to project a Linux development environment onto a desktop environment, complete with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. So you can bring your code with you, wherever you go. This year, we have renamed the service Linux on DeX, and are beginning a private beta trial. Please visit our booth […]

Foldables to Get Official Support in Android, Samsung Unveils Infinity Flex Display

Samsung Foldable Phone Prototype

Several Android mobile device categories have been launched to the market with smartphones, tablets, phablets, smartwatches, etc… But there’s a new category coming soon: foldables. They will be two variants:  those with two display side-by-side such as ZTE Axon M, and smartphone with flexible displays that bend and fold, and are likely to be more popular. Google has just announced official support for foldables in Android, and Samsung has unveiled their Infinity Flex Display for foldables. Android will support both variants of foldables. When folded, foldables look like normal phones, but when unfolded, the screen size doubles transforming the phone into a tablet of sort. Android will automatically resize the screen in a seamless fashion which Google calls “screen continuity”.  You can start a video with the phone folded, and when you open it it will neatly switch to the bigger screen tablet-like experience. Several manufacturers will come with foldables, […]

Nubia X Dual Screen Smartphone Drops the Selfie Camera

Smartphone without front-facing camera

Consumers don’t seem to be fans of bezels, so manufacturers try to keep them as small as possible, and many phones are now launched with a notch for the front-facing camera, and some with a front-facing camera that pops up during use. The former is not eye-pleasing to some users, and the latter may not feel robust. Nubia X smartphone does away with either simply because the company dropped the front-facing camera, instead relying on the rear camera plus a second screen on the back for selfies. This setup enables an utra-slim bezel on all four sides. Nubia X specifications: SoC – Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor with 4x Kryo 385 Gold cores @ up to 2.65 GHz, 4x Kryo 385 Silver cores @ up to 1.80 GHz, Adreno 630 GPU System Memory + Storage –  6GB LPDDR4X + 64GB storage, or 8GB LPDDR4X + 128 GB storage Displays 6.26″ main […]

MediaTek Helio P70 Launched as an Upgrade to Helio P60 Processor

MediaTek Helio P70

MediaTek Helio P60 processor was introduced earlier this year as one of the first Arm Cortex A73 processors from the company, and also integrated NeuroPilot AI technology for faster or more complex A.I. workloads. The company has now launched an upgrade with Helio P70 that comes with many of the same features combined with incremental performance and power consumption improvements. MediaTek Helio P70 key features and specifications with highlights in bold showing differences over Helio P60: CPU – big.LITTLE octa-core with four Arm Cortex-A73 up 2.1 GHz and four Arm Cortex-A53 up to 2.0 GHz GPU – Arm Mali-G72 MP3 at 900MHz Multi-core AI processing unit (Mobile APU) – 280 GMAC/s; offers deep learning facial recognition, object and scene identification, user behavior-informed performance and other AI and AR application enhancements. System Memory – Up to 8GB, dual-channel LPDDR4x @ 1800 MHz, up to 4GB LPDDR3 @ 933 MHz Storage –  […]

Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 Cortex-A76 based Processor Targets High-Tier Mid-Range Smartphones

Snapdragon 675

Last August, Qualcomm unveiled Snapdragon 670 processor with performance and efficiency Kryo 360 cores believed to be based on Cortex-A75 and Cortex-A55 cores, but the company has just announced an update with Snapdragon 675 mobile platform powered by Kryo 460 cores which are based on Arm Cortex-A76  according to Anandtech, and so far, Cortex-A76 was only found in “premium” processors such as HiSilicon Kirin 980. Beside the upgrade cores, the company also claims the processor brings “outstanding gaming, a leap in artificial intelligence (AI) capability and a cutting-edge camera”. Snapdragon 675 main specifications: CPU 2x Kryo 460 (Cortex-A76 based) @ 2.0GHz with 256KB L2 6x Kryo 460 (Cortex-A55 based) @ 1.8GHz with 64KB L2 GPU – Adreno 612 DSP – Hexagon 685, Qualcomm AI Engine Display – Support for FHD+ display Camera – Spectra 250L ISP with triple-camera support Audio – Qualcomm aptX and Aqstic Modem – Snapdragon X12 LTE […]

Linux 4.19 Release – Main Changes, Arm and MIPS Architectures

Linux 4.19 Changelog

With Linus Torvalds taking a leave from the Linux kernel project, Greg Kroah-Hartman was the one to release Linux 4.19 last Sunday: Hi everyone! It’s been a long strange journey for this kernel release… While it was not the largest kernel release every by number of commits, it was larger than the last 3 releases, which is a non-trivial thing to do. After the original -rc1 bumps, things settled down on the code side and it looks like stuff came nicely together to make a solid kernel for everyone to use for a while. And given that this is going to be one of the “Long Term” kernels I end up maintaining for a few years, that’s good news for everyone. A small trickle of good bugfixes came in this week, showing that waiting an extra week was a wise choice. However odds are that linux-next is just bursting so […]

Google Launches Pixel 3 & Pixel 3 XL Smartphones for $799 and Up

Google Pixel 3

Google just hosted a Made by Google hardware event, where they announced several products, and it’s always interesting to check out what they come up with. In this post, I’ll check out Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL premium smartphone from the company, and see if they implemented any significant “innovations”. Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL specifications: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor with 4x Gold cores (Cortex A75 based) @ up to 2.50 GHz, 4x Silver cores (Cortex-A55 based) up to 1.60 GHz, Adreno 630 GPU, Pixel Visual Core, and Titan security chip System Memory – 4GB LPDDR4x Storage – 64GB or 128GB UFS storage Display Pixel 3 – 5.5″ FHD+ (2160×1080) flexible? always-on OLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 Pixel 3 XL – 6.3″  QHD+ (2960 x 1440) always-on OLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 Cameras Rear camera – 12.2MP dual-pixel camera with […]