Tablet

The release new iPad Pros may only be a matter of weeks away, but there has been plenty of talk about a new Smart Keyboard, too. Previously, there had been speculation about a Smart Keyboard with scissor-switches and backlighting, but Apply may have something even better up its sleeve.

Kami - YI Technology's new home-security brand - has released its new Wire-Free Outdoor Camera. As it lacks the need for connectivity hubs and has batteries that can be recharged in a USB-powered holder, it can be installed anywhere the user wants. It has a 165-degree wide-angle camera that supports FHD video at 20 frames per second (fps).

The latest headphone and earphone market research projects that this compound device category will "generate revenues of over US$45 Billion" between now and 2025. This growth is thought to be driven by several factors, which include the rise of the TWS earbud, the demand for "smart" features, as well as noise isolation, in this category.

MediaTek has made the Helio P95's page on its website live. By its name, this chipset sound like an iterative upgrade over its current 4G/LTE flagship. However, it boasts the AI Processing Unit (APU) 2.0, which, as the OEM claims, will improve its benchmarking in this area compared to its predecessor. Otherwise, the CPU has 8 cores with a max clock of 2.2GHz.

Recently, a GitHub driver page was spotted that lists upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad laptops. Among them are two models not announced or leaked before: The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Next and the ThinkPad X1 Nano. What could these devices be?

Samsung has announced that it has started to mass-produce DRAM chips of 16GB in size and LPDDR5 in quality. This next-gen mobile-device memory is capable of approximately 1.3 times higher speeds than the nearest LPDDR4X module made by this OEM. It may now find its way to 2020 or 2021 premium phones.

Huawei unveiled its vision for a complete, connected ecosystem of devices at its latest product launch. This involves the new AX3 series of routers, which is powered by this OEM's Gigahome SoCs for Wi-Fi 6 support (and more besides). The company also unveiled second-gen "Pro" 5G consumer premises equipment (CPE).

Huawei held a virtual product launch today (February 24, 2020) in lieu of its planned pre-MWC press conference. This event saw many new notebooks and other products. It also introduced the MatePad Pro 5G, a new variant of this OEM's flagship tablet.

Apple may be on the verge of unleashing a new US$399 iPhone, but it is rumoured to be putting the final touches to an iPad Pro refresh too. Now, new cases for the possibly March-bound tablets have appeared online, which confirm that Apple will switch to a triple rear-facing camera array for this year's models.

WhatsApp sets a lot of store by the privacy in messaging it supposedly offers. However, allegations that links that invite new users to private groups are searchable online have recently emerged. This is due to the fact Google has indexed them, meaning appropriate terms can bring them up.

Eve will launch its "last chance" to buy its first crowd-designed tablet, the V, soon. The company will sell the core i7, 16GB RAM variant of this product at less than US$800 on this date. However, the actual delivery of the same has been surrounded by controversy in the past; furthermore, it is to get a 2nd generation soon.

Samsung's newest production line is unique among the OEM's fabricators in that it is dedicated to the extreme UV lithography (EUV) process. This means that it is capable of making chipsets of the up-to-date 7-nanometer (nm) variety - and beyond. The company has announced that it is now open for mass-production.

Samsung will continue to launch new Android tablets in 2020, being one of the few Android OEMs to do so. The South Korean's next foray will seemingly be the Galaxy Tab A 8.4 (2020), a midrange tablet that comes with an Exynos 7904 chipset, 3 GB of RAM and possibly 64 GB of storage.

Google has made the Developer Preview page for the next version of Android live. This build is now available to download onto certain devices, Pixel phones included. It exhibits changes such as new security measures, privacy safeguards and electronic ID support.

Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP) is a popular alternative recovery used by those who like to root and modify their Androids. A new thread on Reddit asserts that Pokemon GO will not work if it detects signs of it in a device's storage. This behavior may be intended to prevent cheating in this augmented-reality (AR) game.

Apple may release a revamped version of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. According to Digitimes, Apple will launch an iPad Pro 12.9 with a triple camera array similar to that found on the iPhone 11 Pro next month, though shipments won't peak until late April at the earliest. However, this rumor should be taken with a grain of salt; there has been a lot of speculation as to the launch of the next iteration of the iPad Pro.

House of Marley has released its second-gen TWS earbuds, called the Redemption ANCs. Unlike their predecessors, they resemble Apple AirPods, albeit ones finished in sustainable bamboo. They also have a 4-mic system for voice calls, an IPX4 rating and a case with a USB type C port.

Microsoft has restructured its apps for the Android platform, mainly by combining all of them into one. It is now called Office on the Play Store, and allows access to OneDrive as well as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. However, it is reportedly not optimized for tablets.

Some specifications for the upcoming Microsoft Surface Book 3 and Microsoft Surface Go 2 have been leaked online. The Surface Book 3 convertible can expect to sport 10th Gen Intel processors and GPUs from Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 16 series lineup. The Surface Go 2 is rumored to be getting a low-end chip that could be Pentium Gold branded or Core M.

The ViewSonic M1 Mini LED Pocket Projector has won one of the IF Design Awards for 2020. It has been conferred due to its innovative and functional stand, which also doubles as a lens-protector when not in use. It also packs a battery rated for up to 2.4 hours of cable-free use and a speaker from JBL.

Imaging sensors are used in a huge variety of electronics, which include digital cameras and smartphones. Their market was worth US$15.93 billion in 2018, but is now projected to be worth $29.99 billion in 6 years. This is thought to be related to their emerging relevance to autonomous vehicles.

A company called Aria has put its new true-wireless (or TWS) earbuds up for crowdfunding on Indiegogo. This isn't hugely unusual these days - however, these SONG X products distinguish themselves with an innovative "Star Ring" charging case. They are also described as capable of delivering high-quality audio with robust Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity.

All the talk and expectation around mobile silicon from Qualcomm this year is understandably focused on its beastly Snapdragon 865. However, there are to relatively new PCs on the market that are running PC-optimized versions of the 2019 flagship Snapdragon 855. These are of course, the Samsung Galaxy Book S and the Microsoft Surface Pro X. The Galaxy Book S runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx while the while Microsoft’s Surface Pro X runs a custom variant of the 8cx dubbed the Microsoft SQ1. So, what are the differences between them and is there much of a difference in performance between the chipsets?

The recent Samsung Galaxy S20 launch event also served to unveil the addition of the Live Caption feature to Google, in which video-call speech is converted into text in real time. Now, there is evidence that this function is also being ported to Chrome. This app's gerrit shows the integration of an API necessary to deliver it within the browser.

Roh Tae-moon, the president of Mobile at Samsung, has claimed that the OEM has developed devices with "even more" hinges than the new Galaxy Z Flip. However, these multi-folding phones are apparently not ready for prime-time yet. This is due to the idea that consumers will want much more UX polish in such products.

Is Apple planning 5G and A14X Bionic iPad Pros this year? Well, that is the current speculation, at any rate. The rumour may well be wide of the mark, though.

At the turn of the year, rumours and renders appeared online of Apple's iPad Pro 2020 series. Slated for a March release, Apple appeared to have made only minor changes from the iPad Pro 11 and iPad Pro 12.9 that it released in 2020. While the information originated from reputable sources, it has now come to light that the next iPad Pro series may have been delayed until Q3 2020, instead.

The popular online messaging service WhatsApp has reported that it has passed an important milestone: 2 billion users. It emphasized its simple, convenient and private interface in its statement on this matter. Furthermore, it asserted its ongoing commitment to protecting the (doubtless huges amounts of) data sent through it daily.

Eve, or rather Eve Distribution as it has been called since late last year, has announced its next 2-in-1. Called Version 2.0 for the time being, the company is promising to deliver a Tiger Lake-powered 2-in-1 that will improve upon the original Eve V without abandoning its Surface Pro-esque design. Claims of unfulfilled orders and refund refusals continue to dog the company, though.

WhatsApp has secured approval to roll out a new facet of its service in India. It is a new payment platform that has just been approved by the relevant authories. This may help the Facebook-owned app compete effectively with others such as Google Pay/Tez and Paytm in the country.

Chargeasap, the company responsible for the Infinity Cable, has introduced another new product via Indiegogo. The Flash power bank is described as based on Tesla graphene-battery technology, which allows it to fill up at a maximal rate of 150 watts (W). It also purports to deliver 100W USB-Power Delivery (USB-PD) through a type C port, and that's not all.

Qualcomm has released its first earnings report for the year 2020. The quarter (1Q2020) saw no less than US$5.1 billion in revenue for the chipmaking giant. This is a 5% improvement compared to 1Q2019. In addition, the company's latest pre-tax earnings saw a year-on-year increase of 69%.

Ntablet has announced its eponymous open-source tablet, a device that supports Android and Linux. The Ntablet can be connected to external sensors and actuators, while it even has a replaceable processor.

The JEDEC solid-state assocation has unveiled UFS 3.1, the immediate successor for the memory standard found in some of the most premium smartphones out today. The organization asserts that it will build on its last generation in terms of speed and power-efficiency. It also has a new optional companion standard that may further boost read speeds.

HYPER has put its new charger up for crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Despite packing a maximum rate of 100 watts (W), it is described as even smaller than the MacBook Pro brick with the same kind of port. This is due to its gallium nitride (GaN) technology, which can offer greater power transfer in a smaller footprint.

The European Parliament has announced that it will hold a vote on a motion to write its 2014 Radio Equipment Directive into law. This would probably result in an obligation for mobile device OEMs to fit all products to be sold in the EU with a universal charging connector. Therefore, those companies with in-house ports may have to drop them for that market.

The UK company Brand Finance releases a yearly report on the top 500 most valuable brands. Its 2020 edition concludes that the tech sector is the most valuable, with a combined worth of nearly US$967 billion. 5 of its brands, including Huawei, Samsung and Microsoft, also found their way into the report's top 10.

This is the second foldable smartphone patent filed by Intel, showing that the company has taken a more serious interest in mobile devices. Unlike the first concept released last year, this one has only an outward-folding display, but the folding mechanism appears to be much sturdier and the screen itself is completely bezel-less.

Another Surface product that could be receiving a refresh this year is the Surface Go, according to another round of 3DMark listings. The Surface Go 2 with an Intel Core m3-8100Y processor would offer a decent performance boost over the current Pentium Gold-powered Surface Go, while 3DMark shows that an LTE SKU could be on the cards too.

What is Jasper Lake? This has been a valid question since a leak referenced it alongside Rocket Lake in July 2019. Now, new evidence suggests that it is a mobile SoC based on the new Tremont microarchitecture. The same also nods to a novel micro-server chipset called Jacobsville.

Well-connected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued his latest research note on Apple’s 2020 product pipeline for TF International Securities and Apple fans are in for a treat if Kuo’s predictions materialize. Among new products expected in the first half of 2020 include Apple’s budget 4.7-inch iPhone, an iPad Pro refresh, AirTags, MacBook Pro/Air refresh, a small wireless charging mat and a set of high-end Bluetooth headphones.

If you're running out of juice and don't have a charger nearby, welcome to the club. The Quick-E charger is a small and environmentally friendly one-time use battery bank with a pre-paid postage stamp for buyers to return once the battery bank is depleted.

Chuwi has launched its latest 2-in1 tablet, the Hi10 X. The tablet is aiming to tempt people in with its affordable pricing and its metal unibody design, along with dual USB Type-C ports and a detachable keyboard dock.

A Lakefield chip from Intel has been discovered in UserBenchmark’s database. The processor is named as the Intel Core i5-L16G7. The benchmark entry reveals that the chip has 5 cores and 5 threads, and it offers a base clock of 1.4 GHz and average turbo up to 1.75 GHz. Lakefield SoCs could eventually be used in devices such as the next-gen Microsoft Surface Go.

Inclusive Technology has debuted the Skyle, a housing for the larger iPad Pro 2018 variant that allows this tablet to be operated using eye-movements alone. It can allow certain users to access the App Store independently for the first time, while also integrating with other personal or household devices that have infra-red (IR) receivers.

Today, the world seems filled with screens of high enough resolutions to consume the content they can show regardless of their size or portability. However, a new report shows that TVs have still managed to retain the greatest share (over 50%) of videos watched among respondents in the US. They spend an average of 20 hours per week using their TVs, compared to 4 hours watching phones.

A new rumor from French website iPhonesoft claims that iOS 14 will be compatible with the iPhone 6S, 6S Plus, and original iPhone SE. However, the upcoming version of iPadOS will supposedly drop support for the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 4. Apple is expected to announce the new versions of their mobile operating systems at WWDC in June.

Byte has emerged from beta onto the Play Store and the App Store. It, much like its predecessor Vine, allows the user to make videos of 6 seconds in length. Both apps also have a creator in common, who hopes to bring a form of revenue-sharing to this platform soon.