Smart Home

NVIDIA now stocks the new Pro and non-Pro variants of the SHIELD TV on its official site. As projected, the latter is a 4K streaming stick with HDR 10. Both new Android 9.0 devices support Dolby Audio, can access GeForce NOW and have Google Assistant built in.

The consumer-grade security development group Nok Nok Labs has unveiled its new SDK. It asserts that it is the first such app software capable of conferring FIDO-based authentication on smartwatches. This, then, may help users depend more on their wearable for more functions typically carried out on a phone.

Qualcomm's Venture division has announced the implementation of the 5G Ecosystem Fund, a source of investment worth up to US$200 million. As the name suggests, it will help support start-ups involved in new, innovative and potentially lucrative applications of the new mobile-data standard. The company also intends the new fund to help get 5G in devices besides smartphones.

Recently, Amazon may have accidentally spoiled the launch of the NVIDIA SHIELD TV Pro, an upcoming update to the 2017 streaming machine. A new leak indicates that the OEM has indeed prepared a 4K HDR streaming stick as well as the usual full-scale box. It apparently has 8GB in internal storage, whereas the SHIELD TV Pro has 16.

A firmware update pushed out to Google Home and Google Home Mini smart speakers earlier this month has been bricking devices, leaving them completely unresponsive. Google has acknowledged the problem and promised a resolution in the near future. Unfortunately, the tech giant is apparently not replacing out-of-warranty devices.

ARM has revealed four new processors that should help enrich consumer tech products aimed at the mainstream market. The new additions to the company’s lineup are the Ethos-N57 and Ethos-N37 Neural Processing Units (NPU), the Mali-G57 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), and the Mali-D37 Display Processor Unit (DPU).

Fitbit has expanded access to its Spotify app to the first-generation Versa and Versa Lite. The Ionic fitness watch is also included in this update. It enables these wearables to manage playback and podcasts on the music streaming platform, and to control other devices that can use the same.

Google also announced its new Nest Wi-Fi home product at the 2019 Pixel launch event. It consists of scalable router and point units in various muted colors. A single 802.11s router covers up to 2200 square feet of space each, whereas each point doubles as a smart speaker.

The Nest Mini is a new Connected Home devices launched by Google at its latest live event. It is a smart speaker with integrated Assistant functions and touch controls. It is now up for pre-order at a price of US$49.

Qualcomm has announced that over 30 manufacturers have taken the Snapdragon X55 modem up in order to produce their 5G fixed wireless broadband consumer-premises hardware. This means the equipment carriers and ISPs will install in homes in order to access this relatively new form of broadband is highly likely to integrate this modem.

LG has unveiled new products called the Tone+ Free earbuds in its home country. Unlike the OEM's earlier similar products, these wearables are completely wireless and come in a charging case like the AirPods and other similar devices. They come in black or white and are available for pre-order from now.

The NVIDIA SHIELD TV is due an update soon. The most likely candidate to fit this bill has gone through registration with the FCC, and has also just secured Bluetooth SIG approval. Therefore, there may still be time for it to be released this year

Soundcore has unveiled its new Liberty 2 Pro truly wireless earbuds. The company claims that they have been designed in a way that produces true "sonic alignment", thus delivering a more accurate soundstage, clear bass and distinct treble. They will be available in October 2019 for about US$150.

The market for fingerprint readers (from capacitive to thermal, and consumer- to government-grade) is estimated to be worth about US$3.5 billion at present. This worth is thought to grow to as much as $7.1 billion by 2024, however. The scanner type we have become most familiar with is thought to represent the largest sector over these next 5 years.

Xbox consoles are steadily upgrading in order to use the more popular virtual assistant platforms. The latest of these is Google Assistant. Those who wish to connect the two can join a forum group for a new public beta update and follow the instructions found thereon.

Amazon has introduced a new Echo Studio speaker and Echo Buds in-ear wireless headphones. Both feature the latest sound technologies including support for Dobly Atmos in the former and Bose active noise-cancelling circuitry in the latter.

Xiaomi has quietly brought its Mi LED TV range to Europe, having listed the Mi Smart TV 4S 55-inch on Amazon.de on Monday. The affordable big-screen TV runs Android 9.0 Pie, has 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage on which to install apps. The 4K TV supports HDR, DTS, Dolby Audio and comes with Google Assistant built-in. The Mi Smart TV 4S 55-inch is currently on sale at €399.99 (~US$439.98), with Amazon claiming that it will typically sell the device for €699.95 (~US$769.93). The TV is available in Russia too.

LG Electronic's solar energy solutions are in show at the 2019 Solar Power International expo. They include the new NeON R ACe Solar Panel, which comes with its own AC micro-inverter so as to be compatible with conventional power circuits. It will be available in markets such as the US soon.

LG launched the V40 about a year ago as a Galaxy Note 9 competitor. That sounds good on paper and the hardware does compete, but all of that falls apart when one realizes that a host of V40 users are still on Android Oreo, the same version of Android the device was released with.

Facebook is still persisting with its Portal hardware-based communications platform. The social media company has unveiled three new models including an 8-inch Portal Mini, a 10-inch Portal and a new Xbox Kinect-like Portal TV device designed to turn your living room TV into an AV communications tool.

Huawei also unveiled a new smart TV at its Mate 30 launch. It is called the Huawei Vision, and will come in 55- to 85-inch variants. The OEM asserts that it can also act as a full smart home control, and has AI-powered user interaction.

Today, (September 17, 2019) Xiaomi has unveiled its latest Android TVs in India. The are of the new 4X series, and come in 65-, 55- and 43-inch variants. They include the latest features from their OS, including an in-built Chromecast, Google Assistant and a Data Saver setting.

A OnePlus executive has been spilling more details on its first-gen smart TV, in order to build hype ahead of its launch. The latest of these hints is that its back panel will be finished in a carbon-fiber effect. It will also support Dolby Vision and have a dedicated image processor.

No larger than a smartphone, the NUC 8 Rugged is powered by refreshed Apollo Lake CPUs with ultra-low-power TDPs of only 6 W. Gaming on these systems is clearly out of the question, as the HD Graphics 500 iGPU is only aimed at IoT applications. It comes with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB eMMC storage. which are both soldered, but users can add an NVMe or SATA SSD through a spare M.2 slot.

Hisense has brought some new and large TVs to show off at this year's IFA. They include an 85-inch QLED XD panel that is also 8K and voice-command responsive. The company also showed off a new Sonic Laser product, which is the first of its kind capable of scaling down to 75 inches.

Starting next month, Xiaomi is bringing Android 9.0 Pie to four Mi TV devices. The TVs, which launched running Android 8.1 Oreo, will be updated in batches with a wider roll-out planned a few months later. Xiaomi also told XDA Developers that these updates represent it trying to set a standard for how frequently and quickly Android TVs receive OS upgrades.

The Xiaomi sub-brand Redmi has been previewing the 48MP capabilities of its upcoming smartphone the Note 8. It has posted some attractive shots with a watermark indicating they were taken by the phone. One of its new modes, Super Night Scene, was also described as "shocking".

The One Zoom may be a device soon to be released by Motorola. It is projected to be a quad-rear-camera device with Amazon Alexa integration. Some new images, shared by the legendary leaker Ishan Agarwal, may show what this phone will look like.

The CEO of OnePlus (Pete Lau) has confirmed that the first-gen TV from this OEM will launch in a month from now (August 2019). It will be released to the Indian market initially. A Twitter tipster claims to have dug its CPU, GPU and Android version info, which also applies to this region.

Redmi has packed a number of exciting details in its latest official announcement. Firstly, it has confirmed that its promised 64MP camera will debut in the Redmi Note 8 Pro. It will be released alongside the base Note 8 at an event on August 29, 2019. The 70-inch Redmi 4K TV will also be unveiled at this event.

Huawei and its sub-brand Honor has attracted attention recently as it has sent what seems to be a whole generation of new smartphones, tablets and assorted wireless accessories to the Bluetooth SIG for certification simultaneously. Now, however, it has done the same with even more products. They include 6 new models clearly labelled as TVs.

OnePlus has just introduced its first large-screen product as the...well...OnePlus TV. Leaks from other sources have claimed that this new product will be released in the last week or so of September 2019. It is also rumored to come in sizes from 43 to 75 inches and to have Bluetooth 5.0.

After Huawei presented EMUI 10 at its Developer Conference last week, more details about features and innovations have appeared online. A teaser video for the upcoming Android Q-based OS and promotional pictures offer an insight into the redesign, with Huawei having announced the commencement of its beta program too and which smartphones are included.

The YI Home Camera 3 is an AI-powered security camera. It notifies the user about possible intrusions - however, it solves the problem of potentially indiscriminate, unnecessary messages by using its new software to judge which ones will be important. The new YI camera also has a magnetic stand, so it can be installed anywhere.

Huawei’s in-house HongMengOS is here and its shipping name is officially HarmonyOS. The idea behind the naming is that is a scalable micro-kernal that can work across internet of things devices right through to TVs, wearables and smartphones.

Huawei's first TV is in fact slated to be released by its sub-brand Honor, and is to be called the Smart Screen. It may be reasonable to assume that this product will run Android for these larger devices. However, the OEM is now rumored to deploy one of its own long-anticipated OSs on the new product.

A new publication by Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center points out an increasingly popular avenue used for cyber attacks: the Internet of Things (IoT). The publication states that researchers discovered a new attack that exploited vulnerabilities in simple IoT devices like a printer and a VOIP phone to access an enterprise network.

According to reports from China, Apple will start mass-producing displays with an in-screen Touch ID sensor that will complement Face ID in anticipation of their inclusion in the 2021 iPhone series. The upcoming displays will likely have a custom Qualcomm ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which will have a larger recognition area than comparable sensors found in current flagships like the Mate 20 Pro, P30 Pro and Galaxy S10 series.

A study conducted by Consumers International, in conjunction with the Internet Society has reportedly found that most individuals surveyed find connected devices (mostly IoT or "smart home" products) "creepy". In addition, 53% of this group said that they do not trust these devices with their privacy. Concerns such as these put 28% of a sub-group without these devices off buying one.

Google Nest - the new name for this company's smart-home arm - has partnered with the Reeve Foundation to help members of the community built around this organization. They are individuals affected by paralysis or movement loss disorders. As many as 100,000 of them will receive a free Home Mini as a result of this collaboration.

Honor now plans to release its first smart TV in the near future. This product is to be called the Vision, and will be powered by a newly-announced SoC, the Honghu 818. It will also incorporate a pop-up camera for user authentication.

Internet-protocol (or IP) cameras shipments are thought to grow to over 100 million by 2025, or 20% more than there are now. These projections are part of newly-published research on the IP surveillance market. It is thought to be mainly driven by commercial buyers, although domestic products may also play a role in their growth.

Prime Day 2019 is now over, and the stats on it are rolling in. Preliminary analysis published by WD Partners show that the online traffic to the retail site for the event's 1st 24 hours increased 100% compared to the same averaged over the preceding 5 days. This may contribute to the US$400+ billion in takings projected for the company this year.

The Belgian news outlet VRT NWS claims to have gained access to audio recordings made as a result of Google Assistant 'listening' to user speech or activity. The recordings were leaked to VRT by a Google subcontractor. This apparent evidence suggests that the search giant allows these workers access to information that would have remained private were it not for the presence of the Assistant.

Thanks to its dual-NPU design, the i700 SoC provides 5X increased A.I. acceleration when compared to the already available i500 chip. It also features eight ARM Cortex cores, a PowerVR GM 9446 GPU and supports up to 8 GB of LPDDR4x-1866 RAM. The chip is targeted at smart IoT devices, fitness and entertainment devices that enable AR experiences and warehouse autonomous vehicles.

The Nest Hello device is a smart doorbell with an inbuilt camera. A leak concerning a software update for this product has found that it may gain the ability to detect when a package has been delivered. This code may also allow for a follow-up feature in which it can tell when the same has been picked up again.

Mobvoi has unveiled a new, LTE-enabled version of the Ticwatch Pro. This wearable has most of the specs of its original variant, including its innovative battery-saving dual display. On the other hand, the LTE model is enhanced with Corning Gorilla Glass and double the RAM.

Those who own the Mi TV 4A can now apply for a kind of Android Pie beta-test. Xiaomi is working on what it calls an 'early-access build' for this 32- or 43-inch device, and is currently inviting users to install and test it. The 4A's new OS adds support for the Play Store and Google Assistant (albeit in a slightly roundabout way).

A United States Senator has obtained a response to a letter sent to Amazon HQ concerning user privacy as it relates to the retail giant's Alexa platform. It advised the public representative that, although a given user can delete their own voice data from their accounts at will, the voice assistant's responses to queries are recorded and retained by Amazon for its own purposes.

Although its relationship with the US has improved a lot and last month's troubles seem to be gone, Huawei is working hard on its own operating system. HongMeng OS will replace Android on a wide range of devices and some of its components — LiveFace, Meetime, LinkTime, and Belink — have just been trademarked.