Sunday, September 22, 2019

Huawei announces the Mate 30 series. with Horizon Display and an all-new design



At an event in Munich, Germany today, Huawei formally announced the Mate 30 series after months of leaks. Most notably, the handsets have a circular camera module on the back, and that's probably the biggest design change. Huawei called the new design "iconic", something that the Shenzhen firm also said last year when it introduced the square camera design on the Mate 20.








On the front of the device, the Mate 30 Pro comes with a Horizon Display, curving the edges at 88 degrees. That screen is a 6.53-inch Flex OLED display, with a 2400x1176 resolution. The Mate 30 screen is flat, at 6.62 inches and 2340x1080.








Obviously, the bezels are shrunken down. With the Horizon display, it has 0mm side bezels, so none at all. The non-Pro has 2.8mm side bezels. On top, there's a 4.2mm bezel on the Pro and a 4mm bezel on the non-Pro model.


That also means that there are no buttons on the Mate 30 Pro. You'll be able to touch the sides of the screen to press buttons, and you'll even be able to move the camera shutter button around to wherever is most comfortable.


Huawei also says that the Mate 30 Pro has "the most advanced notch". It includes a gesture sensor, a selfie camera, an ambient light and proximity sensor, and a 3D depth camera.


Moving on, charging and battery life has been improved. The battery is bigger and the devices are lighter, coming in at 4,200mAh and 196g on the Mate 30 and 4,500mAh and 198g on the Mate 30 Pro. Naturally, they include support for the 40W SuperCharge technology that was introduced with the P30 Pro.


There's also faster wireless charging, coming in at 27W. Reverse wireless charging is now three times faster, presumably at 7.5W. Huawei is also introducing new car chargers, including a 40W wired charger and a dashboard mount that wirelessly charges your phone at 27W.The company also touted its 5G capabilities and the performance of its new Kirin 990 chipset. It now has 21 antennas, 15 of which are for 5G. And the handset supports eight 5G bands, compared to just three on Samsung's 5G phones. And of course, Huawei had to point out that Apple doesn't support any 5G bands.


And that leads into the camera, which gets some real improvements from the Kirin 990. The triple-lens array is a mix of sensors from the P30 and the P30 Pro. The 40MP main sensor is a 40-megapixel SuperSensing lens, which is Huawei's new RYYB technology. On the Mate 30 Pro, it's the same one as on the P30 Pro, and on the non-Pro, it's the same one as on the P30.


The same can be said for the 16MP ultra-wide; however, the eight-megapixel zoom lens is 3x on both models, which is the same sensor as the non-Pro P30. So, if you want that 5x Periscope lens, the P30 Pro is still your only option. The ISO sensitivity on the phones, from the main sensor, is 409,600 on the Pro and 204,800 on the non-Pro, so you get the same incredible low-light performance.


They support 4K 60fps video recording for the first time, but that's not all. You can shoot videos in portrait mode, 7,680fps slow motion, and it has the first studio light on a smartphone. ISO sensitivity for video is 51,200.


The Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro come in six different colors. Of course, there's Black and Space Silver, but Huawei also added Cosmic Purple and Emerald Green. Emerald Green is a gradient from matte to glossy from bottom to top, so it shouldn't catch fingerprints while you're using it.


And then there's Vegan Leather, which is another way of saying fake leather. Those come in Vegan Leather Orange, and Vegan Leather Forest Green. Huawei didn't provide a specific release date, but the new handsets will be available soon. Obviously, they won't be coming to the United States.


There's also the new Porsche Design Mate 30 RS, which is the fifth-generation Porsche Design model. It's made out of real leather, coming in red and black. It's meant to "embody the feeling of luxury", and Porsche Design says that it's designed to perform.

via : neowin

Huawei ready to push Google apps to the Mate 30 "over one night" if U.S. ban lifts








Huawei's placement on the U.S. Department of Commerce's (DOC) entity list in May banned it from purchasing any products from U.S. suppliers without approval from the United States' government. The trade sanctions were announced to be lifting in June, though it was later confirmed this applied only to widely available products. The situation hasn't looked to get any better in recent weeks, with the Commerce Department reportedly not granting any of the 130 trade license applications to trade goods with the Chinese firm it has received in the past few months.
Despite having to deal with all these issues, Huawei yesterday unveiled its flagship series of Mate 30 smartphones in Munich, Germany. As expected, the Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro won't be carrying any Google services upon launch. However, according to Android Authority, Huawei CEO Richard Yu is ready to have Google apps pushed out to the handsets "over one night" if the trade ban is lifted.






In a group interview following the Mate 30 series' unveiling, Yu clarified that aside from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) base, which serves as the foundation of EMUI, no other Google software will be included. It is no doubt quite a challenge for the Chinese firm to be launching its flagship devices in these circumstances. From Yu's aforementioned statement regarding a possible lifting of the ban scenario, however, it does look like that the company is well-prepared to equip users with Google apps as soon as possible through an over-the-air (OTA) update.

Yu also believes that Huawei is a "bargaining chip" in the U.S.' trade war with China, though he expects the situation to get resolved soon. Even executives of major U.S. tech companies, such as Microsoft, have started speaking out against their government's treatment of Huawei. Keeping all this in mind, it may be some consolation for potential Mate 30 buyers that at least the Chinese tech giant is ready to quickly bring Google apps back into the fold if and when the trade sanctions are lifted.

via :neowin

Roku TV licensing program expands into Europe

Roku has announced that it has expanded its Roku TV licensing program into Europe. This move will allow TV manufacturers to license Roku TV reference designs and use Roku OS. The firm will be hoping to expand its strong lead in the U.S. to the European market and has already announced that Hisense will begin selling Roku TV models in the United Kingdom during the fourth quarter.
According to the Roku press release, Hisense will bring affordable Roku TV models to the UK with screen sizes up to 65”. Roku says it’s now actively seeking manufacturers who are interested in developing their own Roku TV products. As Roku manages the entire software ecosystem on Roku TVs, customers will be assured of receiving frequent software updates which include new features.
Commenting on the expansion into Europe, Roku said:
“While consumers love Roku TV’s simplicity and advanced features, TV manufacturers benefit from the low cost of manufacturing, a variety of technology options, and support from Roku. The ability to quickly bring to market a leading smart TV experience that is regularly updated by Roku and is packed with entertainment gives TV manufacturers an edge in the competitive TV business. We are pleased to bring the Roku TV licensing program to Europe and look forward to the first Hisense Roku TVs in market this year.”
Like many companies, Roku is currently at IFA 2019 which runs from September 6 to September 11. Attendees can see the first Hisense Roku TV for Europe at Roku’s Booth #234, Hall 26 and at Hisense’s Booth #201, Hall 6.2. Prices and specifications for Hisense’s upcoming Roku TVs have not been announced yet but details will be released as we approach the date of their availability.

via :neowin

Translation and assisted setup modules in Dynamics 365 Business Central get improvements



Last month, Microsoft revamped Dynamics NAV as a more modular solution, converting it to Dynamics 365 Business Central. The service was updated a few days ago to introduce new tools for data classification. Now, Business Central is getting improvements for both its translation module and its assisted setup module.
For those unaware, the translation module allows the adding and modification of language translations for user data. For example, this could be useful when selling items or explaining standard operating procedures in other regions. On the other hand, the assisted setup module holds all Business Central setup guides in one place, providing detailed guidance for the setting up of complex features.
Now, a new capability to identify fields for which to enable translations has been added in the former module. After this process, a calculated "Value" field can be displayed on the page to actually show the translated part. Notably, translations can only be added for persisted records on the database, not temporary ones.
As far as the assisted setup module is concerned, it now contains all assisted setup capabilities that were previously present in the Business Central service. Furthermore, discoverability of other guides is also being made easier; in case your extension used a guide to provide setup assistance, you can add that guide to this module.

Skype version 8.52 brings group call scheduling, better contact sharing

Microsoft is rolling out a new update to Skype on all platforms, bringing the version number to 8.52. The latest release includes a few new features depending on what platform you're on. First, there's the ability to schedule group calls, which is available for Skype on both desktop and mobile devices.
For desktop users, it's also now possible to share a contact with someone by dragging them from the contact list and into the conversation. Rather than immediately adding them as a member of the conversation, Skype will now ask you if you want to add the contact to the conversation, or simply share the contact information with the other user. As for Android and iOS, the app now supports the system-wide dark mode on the latest versions of both systems - Android 10 and iOS 13.
This release also includes a number of smaller improvements, most of them focused on the Split View UI on desktop devices. Here's the list:
  • conversation window sizes and positions remembered in Split View
  • ability to move and resize your video preview during a video call in Split View
  • focus in composer after opening the conversation in Split View
  • indication of new messages in the individual conversation windows in Split View
  • minimized windows are restored when a conversation is activated from recent chats or the call monitor window in Split View
  • grouped notifications on Android
The update is dated for September 16, though the changelog has only been published today. As such, it's possible you've already received this update, but if you haven't, it should be rolling out in the coming days.

via :newowin