smartphone News - Page 47 of 73 - CNX Software

February 28, 2015March 2, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition Octa-core Smartphone to be Unveiled at MWC 2015

BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition may have been the first phones launched with Ubuntu operating systems, but the device is rather an entry-level smrtphone with Mediatek MT6582 quad core Cortex A7 processor and 1GB RAM. If you’d like a much faster and powerful Ubuntu phone, Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition will be announced at Mobile World Congress 2015. The specs has not been disclosed yet, but it’s highly likely the hardware will be the same as the Android version of Meizu MX4: SoC – MediaTek MT6595 octa core processor with 4 Cortex A17 @ 2.2GHz, and 4 Cortex A7 @ 1.7GHz in big.LITTLE configuration with a PowerVR G6200 GPU. System Memory – 2GB dual-channel LPDDR3 RAM, 933MHz Storage – 16, 32, or 64GB eMMC Display – 5.36″ IPS touchscreen; 1920×1152 resolution; Corning Gorilla Glass 3 Camera – 20.7MP rear camera with dual tone LED flash, 2MP front-facing camera Audio – 3.5mm […]

February 20, 2015December 17, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 6 Comments

Qualcomm Unveils Snapdragon 650 and 652 ARM Cortex A72 / A53 Processors

[Update: Title updated to reflect the new names of the processors. Snapdragon 618 is now Snapdragon 650, and 620 is now 652 to reflect the better Cortex A72 cores used in those processors] Qualcomm has announced four new processors including Snapdragon 415 and 425 octa-core Cortex A53 processor, as well a Snapdragon 618 and 620 big.LITTLE processor with the latest Cortex A72 cores coupled with four Cortex A53 little cores. Snapdragon 618 is the hexa-core version with 2 Cortex A72 cores, while Snapdragon 620 comes with eight cores including 4 Cortex A72, but apart from the difference in number of cores, both share the same technical specifications: CPU Snapdragon 618 – 64-bit dual-core ARM Cortex A72 @ 1.8GHz and quad-core Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz Snapdragon 620 – 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex A72 @ 1.8GHz and quad-core Cortex A53 @ 1.2GHz GPU – Next generation Qualcomm Adreno GPU with support for […]

February 11, 2015March 9, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

ZTE Blade S6 Smartphone Runs Android 5.0 Lollipop on Snapdragon 615 Processor

Android 5.0 (Lollipop) was released on last October, together with Motorola Nexus 6 phone running the latest version of the operating system. Since then some other global brands like Samsung, HTC, or Sony have ported Android 5.0 to some of their devices, but it’s currently pretty hard to find a Lollipop smartphone on Aliexpress made by low cost Chinese manufacturers. ZTE Blade S6 is one of the first “Chinese” smartphone boasting Android 5.0, so let’s have look. ZTE Blade S6 smartphone: SoC – Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (MSM8939) Octa-core processor with 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.5 GHz, 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.0 GHz, Adreno 405 GPU, Hexagon V50 DSP, and a 4K HEVC capable video decoder. System Memory 2GB RAM Storage – 16 GB eMMC – No micro SD slot Display – 5.0” capacitive touch screen IPS display (16M colors). 1280×720 resolution Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi , Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, […]

February 10, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Sia Lab Has Designed a $34 Medical Lab Dongle for Smartphones

Technology makes live easier, and often helps bringing down the cost of services. Medical care is one of these things that can be cumbersome, for example if you need to regularly perform some medical tests at your local hospital, and that can also be expensive. That’s why I believe we’ll see more and more affordable devices, at least for diagnostic purpose such as Scanadu Scout tricorder, and there are also some open source solutions for Prosthetics, electrocardiographs, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) equipment used to copy DNA sequences. Eventually, I even expect robots to replace most tasks currently performed by doctors. Sia Lab, a lab focusing on tissue engineering and point-of-care diagnostics, has recently published a paper entitled “A smartphone dongle for diagnosis of infectious diseases at the point of care” describing how a low cost dongle can diagnose disease like HIV or Syphilis, and targeting health professionals in developing […]

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

BQ Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition is the First Official Ubuntu Smartphone

Canonical announced its plans for Ubuntu for Phone over 2 years ago, and all that work may finally pay off, as BQ Readers will soon launch Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition, the first Ubuntu smartphone that’s based on the company’s Aquaris E4.5 smartphone running Android 4.4. BQ Aquaris E4.5 (Ubuntu Edition) specifications: SoC – Mediatek MT6582 quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.3 GHz with Mali-400MP2 GPU up to 500 MHz System memory – 1 GB Storage – 8 GB eMMC, microSD card (up to 32 GB) Display – 4.5″ IPS multi-touch screen (5-point); qHD (540 x 960) resolution Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, FM Radio, GPS and A-GPS Cellular Connectivity – 2G GSM (850/900/1800/1900), 3G HSPA+ (900/2100). Dual micro SIM. Audio – 3.5 mm headphone jack, microphone, Ambient noise cancellation, Dolby sound technology Camera – 5MP front-facing camera, 8MP rear camera with autofocus and flash USB – micro USB […]

February 4, 2015May 22, 2017 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

ARM Unveils Cortex A72 Processor and Mali-T880 GPU

ARM has just announced their new Cortex A72 ARMv8 core with 3.5 times the performance of Cortex A15 ARMv7 cores, together with Mali-T880 GPU delivering 1.8 times the performance of Mali-T760, and CoreLink CCI-500 Cache Coherent Interconnect to link the new CPU, GPU and I/Os together. ARM Cortex A72 Some of the key features of the new core include: Architecture – ARMv8-A Multicore – 1-4x SMP within a single processor cluster, and multiple coherent SMP processor clusters through AMBA 5 CHI or AMBA 4 ACE technology ISA Support AArch32 for full backward compatibility with ARMv7 AArch64 for 64-bit support and new architectural features TrustZone security technology NEON Advanced SIMD DSP & SIMD extensions VFPv4 Floating point Hardware virtualization support Cache – 48KB I-cache, 32KB D-cache, and 512 KB to 2MB L2 cache with ECC Debug & Trace – CoreSight DK-A57 Process – 16nm FinFET A cluster can support up to […]

January 21, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Transform Your Smartphone into a Projector for $24

Cheap Android projectors cost more than $200, and I’m not sure you can really expect a clear and bright pictures at this price. But there’s now an easy and inexpensive way to transform your phone (or tablet?) into a projector thanks to a kit comprised of a cardboard box, a magnifying lens, a stick pad, a few other accessories that I found on DealExtreme for $23.49, but very similar kits are also available on Ebay or Aliexpress. All you have to do is to follow the assembly instructions provided, start a movie on your phone, and place the phone in the box. Some useful data about the kit: “High quality” glass lens with 8x magnification Self assembly, glue is not included Dimensions (Assembled) – About 21cm (W) x 11cm(H) x 17cm(D) Max dimensions for Phone – 8cm x 14.5cm At first, I thought this is probably just garbage, and it […]

January 15, 2015 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Project Ara Modular Phone Update

The modular phone concept started with PhoneBloks, whose founders shortly got to work with Motorola Project Ara, and since Google bought parts of Motorola, the concept is now part a Google’s project. Project Ara Developers Conference 2015 has taken place yesterday in California, but if you’ve missed it, another one is planned in Singapore on January 21, and it will also be live-streamed. We’ve now got a bit more information, a neat video has been uploaded to YouTube showing how a battery, a (broken) display, speakers, and camera modules would slide into the phone, and a pilot project has started in Puerto Rico. Google has very recently shipped Spiral 2 developer hardware enable prototyping and development of modules for the Ara platform. The kit consists of: A board with the UniPro Switch in the Ara endoskeleton and multiple modules interfaces with UniPro Bridge ASICs (Tosbiba T6WM8XBG-0001) supporting multiple bridged and tunneled protocols; An […]