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Thanks to iRobot's Roomba and Braava automated cleaners, floor caring is effortless and can be initiated by telling Alexa or Google Assistant to vacuum or mop. The same privilege is coming to the outdoors with the Terra, iRobot's new autonomous lawnmower, which will make grass trimming as painstaking as speaking to a smart speaker or pressing a button.
Samsung Electronics just published its 2018 financial results, and the figures are not looking good. Compared to Q4 2017, sales went down 20% and profit dropped 29%. The overall performance for the year has slightly progressed compared to 2018, though, with revenue up 1.75% and operating profit growing 9.77%. The Korean conglomerate's mobile division is the one with the worst realization, as both revenue and profit have decreased, comparing quarter to quarter and year to year.
With increasing capabilities such as 4K video recording, better processing power, and faster download speeds, smartphones are beginning to require more storage space. A few years ago, it was customary for a phone's base version to offer 8GB of internal memory. This figure has evolved over the years, with last year's Galaxy S9 offering a minimum of 64GB, and powerhouses such as the Note 9 having up to 512GB of internal space.
After distributing its beta version to American S9 and S9+ devices at the end of November and updating international versions of the phone earlier this month, Samsung is now releasing Android 9 Pie and One UI to Comcast’s Xfinity S9s. That's a bit of a coup for Xfinity, as we're not accustomed to seeing a smaller carrier's version updated first, especially not before unlocked handsets.
Picture quality is becoming a key differentiator for Android manufacturers, and many are racing to offer unique features that will make their devices stand out. Nokia is expected to launch a phone with five lenses, Google has developed an algorithm to improve low-light photography, and Samsung built a variable aperture technology into the Galaxy S9. To make its cameras even better, the Korean firm has allegedly bought Corephotonics, an Isreali company known for developing powerful lenses with optical zoom.
Thanks to its ARCore SDK, Google made developing augmented reality applications more accessible and streamlined. To guarantee a consistent experience across devices, the Californian giant has put a certification process in place, through which it ensures the camera, motion sensors, and CPU perform as expected. Among the list of officially supported handsets are the LG G7, V30, V35, and V40 series, which offer the same motion tracking as other certified products. Nevertheless, Google acknowledged autofocus is not correctly working on these phones for the time being, although that shouldn't alter the end user's experience.
If you're thinking about making your home smarter, or just adding an extra speaker to your house, now would be a good time to do so. B&H is discounting the second generation Amazon Echo Plus smart speaker down to $104.99 for a limited time, and throwing in a free Philips Hue A19 bulb, otherwise worth $14.99. With this deal, you get $165 worth of products for just $105.The premium speaker is amongst the most appreciated ones on the market, thanks to Alexa's helpfulness and its seven microphones, but also its integrated Zigbee hub, allowing you to communicate with many smart devices without the need for additional hubs. Therefore, you won't need to spend extra money on the $59.99 Philips Hue Bridge to operate the included lightbulb, as the Echo Plus itself will act as the controller.
If you're looking for a smarter way to stream the big game on your TV, you can save a few bucks on a new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K or Fire TV Cube, which have dropped to $39.99 and $79.99, respectively.
Whether you're looking for workout buds or just a pair of wireless headphones, the positively-reviewed Anker SoundBuds Curve offer great value for $20. Thanks to their 12.5-hour playback time and water resistance, they'll be a good companion for your workouts. They ship with silicone and foam tips to properly fit your ears, as well as a carry pouch to protect them while you're on the go.
After releasing Android 9 Pie for the American Galaxy S9, S9+, and Note 9, Samsung is now rolling out the new software to the US variants of the Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note 8. People in other countries, such as the UK, India, and Korea, were already able to participate in the beta program, and it only made sense for the 2017 handsets to follow in their siblings' footsteps.
Back in 2015, Facebook wanted to simplify picture sharing by launching Moments, its own Google Photos rival. The concept was simple: you would upload files from your gallery to privately share them with friends, keeping them separate from your Facebook albums. Despite 50 million downloads on the Play Store alone, the social media giant has decided to kill its app and is urging users to save their photos.
Huawei hosted a conference in Beijing today to showcase its upcoming 5G products: the Balong 5000, which it claims is the world's fastest 5G chip, and the 5G CPE Pro, a powerful home router. With these devices, the Chinese manufacturer is aiming at becoming a reference in 5G chips, and is trying to dethrone Qualcomm with a more powerful product.
While the main challenge Android manufacturers are facing this year is to get rid of the infamous notch, many by simply punching holes in their screens, LG seems to be taking a different route altogether. In a short video published yesterday, the company teased a device with hover gestures to be announced on February 24 at Mobile World Congress.