Month: July 2020

Samsung DeX might finally be getting a wireless mode soon. The company has been quiet about the potential changes it might have in store for DeX by the end of the year, but new evidence found by XDA-Developers indicates that Samsung hasn’t given up on the idea of a wireless mode for its desktop environment. On the contrary, the company appears be working on this feature as we speak, and with a bit of luck, it might debut on the Galaxy Note 20 series.

New evidence of a wireless mode for DeX can be found in the Samsung Tips app under the section named Become a power user. As you can see in the screenshots below, captured on one of our Galaxy Note 10 units, the first tip shown in this category is labeled DREAM_DEX_HEADER_USE_DEX_WIRELESSLY_M_TIPS. The odd formatting suggests that Samsung may have accidentally pushed this information to the Tips app ahead of time.

More importantly, the animation attached to the said tip shows a DeX quick toggle that, when tapped, reveals a list of devices available for a DeX wireless connection. The example offered by Samsung shows a wireless connection to a TV in the living room, indicating that DeX wireless mode won’t be limited to PC and/or Mac users. This is great news not only for the sake of usability but also because it seemingly confirms that Samsung’s ambitions for DeX haven’t diminished.

Wireless mode could be a game changer for Samsung DeX

As previously revealed by a SamMobile interview with Hyoungsik Kim, Principal Professional of Business Solution PM Group at Samsung Electronics’ Mobile Division, Samsung’s vision for DeX is to allow mobile device users to easily access apps and content on any screen, from TVs to personal computers and even the display of an autonomous vehicle.

Samsung first confirmed it was working on a wireless mode for DeX nearly two years ago. Since then, the company improved not only the platform itself with additions like window snapping and better multi-touch gestures, but the arrival of the Galaxy Note 10 series last year also marked the release of a DeX app for Windows and Mac. It gives users the ability to use DeX in conjunction with their flagships through a USB-C cable while eliminating the need for an HDMI dongle.

Samsung may want to push the boundaries of its DeX platform further with the release of the Galaxy Note 20 next month. The addition of a wireless mode could be the best way to bring DeX back into the public eye. Of course, Samsung’s recent slipup doesn’t outright confirm a 2020 release for wireless DeX, but there’s no denying that Samsung is working on this feature regardless of whether or not it will become available in the coming weeks. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we know more.

Mobvoi has announced its first-ever pair of over-ear headphones, the TicKasa ANC, which come with active noise cancellation and support for Hi-Res Audio.

The company, which is best known for its TicWatch smartwatches, has previously released true wireless earbuds like the TicPods ANC and the TicPods Pro, but this is the first time that it’s branched out into over-ear cans. 

According to Mobvoi, the new headphones come with “five built-in microphones and dual-microphone noise isolation” which allows the TicKasa ANC to “easily detect environmental noise, using ANC cancellation algorithms to analyze ambient noise and create the perfect soundwave to counteract it.”

They apparently also apply noise cancellation to your phone calls, like the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, “filtering background noise and adding vocal clarity” for crisp calls.

Cheaper than the XM3s

Mobvoi says that the new noise-cancelling headphones provide a “deep, powerful, and immersive sound at any volume”, and are powered by 40mm drivers. There’s also support for Hi-Res Audio thanks to Qualcomm’s aptX HD Bluetooth codec, as well as Bluetooth 5 for long wireless transmission distances.

Battery life comes in at 20 hours with ANC on, though Mobvoi claims you’ll get 30 hours of playback with this feature turned off – plenty of juice for a week’s worth of commuting or a long haul flight.

They should prove pretty comfortable too, as they’re made from a “breathable” mesh material and feature soft ear cushions. 

Available in grey and black, the TicKasa ANC Headphones will set you back $129.99 / GBP £109.99 / AU$189.99 – that’s significantly cheaper than the best noise-cancelling headphones of 2020, the Sony WH-1000XM3.

That means the new headphones could make a great cheaper alternative to the XM3s, though with the Sony WH-1000XM4 rumored to launch in August, the current Sony noise cancellers may not be so expensive for much longer.

Asus recently revealed its PN50 mini PC, and now the manufacturer has spilled some more details for the UK market on the supremely compact computer (which is just a 115mm square, and 49mm thick).

Asus notes that the PN50 will be capable of driving an 8K display (at 60Hz), or you could hook up four 4K monitors (at the same refresh rate). The manufacturer further boasted that the device offers around 35% more performance over similar current-gen Asus mini PC models (this is in Cinebench R20 testing, by the way).

In the UK, there will be four different models, with the top of the range being built around the AMD Ryzen 7 4800U mobile chip, and the others using the Ryzen 7 4700U, Ryzen 5 4500U and Ryzen 3 4300U (all with integrated Vega graphics). It also sports Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

Barebones units

These are barebones mini PCs with no memory, storage or operating system provided, but they can be fitted with up to 64GB of 3200MHz system RAM across two slots, and the PN50 has room for an M.2 SSD (NVMe), plus it has a bay for another SSD or 2.5-inch hard drive.

UK pricing is £499.99 for the Ryzen 7 4800U model, and £369.99 for the 4700U device. The 4500U model will set you back £319.99, and the 4300U-powered mini PC is pitched at £274.99, and that includes a three-year warranty.

Asus says these PCs will go on sale at some point in September, and Amazon has listed a release date of September 7, so it should be earlier rather than later.

Kano has unveiled its second-generation Windows 10-based hybrid PC designed with education in mind. 

The new system is powered by Intel’s Celeron N4000 SoC, promising better performance than the previously used SoC, and continues to be shipped with custom educational tools. 

Ever since the inception of the OLPC project more than a decade ago, the vast majority of inexpensive PCs for education have run Linux and its derivatives, which to a large degree limited their popularity in developed countries. Kano, a maker of PCs for education, understood such limitations at some point and teamed up with Microsoft to offer a Windows-based machine designed primarily for children and learning. 

Windows 10 education

Unlike traditional laptops and tablets, Kano PC — which can be used as a tablet and as a laptop once attached to a special keyboard — does not work out-of-box and has to be assembled by the owner. 

Attaching a battery and a speaker is of course not really a hard task, but for a young child this is a big deal; the process somewhat attaches the owner to his/her PC and therefore makes it a tad more personal. Furthermore, Kano offers ‘modular and customizable’ accessories — webcam, headphones, and mouse. 

To add a ‘high-tech’ element to the design, Kano PC also has a transparent backside that reveals some of its internals. While the design of the system is modular, the developer says that it is sturdy and will survive bumps of life as well as its young owners. 

The 2nd Generation Kano PC features an 11.6-inch touchscreen display that withstands a steel ball dropped from six feet. The system is based on Intel’s Celeron N4000 ‘Gemini Lake’ SoC with a 6 W TDP that looks to be a decent upgrade from the previously used Intel Atom x5-z8350 SoC with a 2 W TDP which was released in early 2016. Other internals include 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB eMMC storage, and a Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 5.0 module. Following the latest trends, the PC uses a USB-C connector for charging. According to Kano, the system lasts for up to 10 hours on one charge. 

The key element of the Kano PC is its software. The device runs Windows 10 Home with custom educational tools and comes with pre-installed Kano’s Software Studio that connects computing to practical projects, history, and the arts. 

“The Education sector is undergoing massive change enabled by technology, and our collaboration with Kano is truly advancing the vision of “technology for all,” said Jordan Chrysafidis, General Manager, Worldwide Education Device Sales, Microsoft. 

“Together we are delivering high quality, accessible and affordable Windows-based devices, combined with customized curriculum that teaches design, coding, 3D modeling and more, that enables Kano users to become digital creators.” 

Apple is making iOS 13.6 available to all users today. The update brings new features like improved support for downloading and installing system updates, the all-new Apple News+ Audio content, as well as the exciting Car Key feature.

We’ve seen a number of new features/changes over the last few months with iOS 13. Apple launched support for Exposure Notifications (contact tracing) in iOS 13.5 while 13.5.1 brought a patch for the vulnerability that the unc0ver jailbreak took advantage of.

After that, we got the iOS 13.5.5 beta (renamed to iOS 13.6) that brought along a peek at the Apple News+ Audio content. It brings professionally narrated audio stories curated from the Apple News team to your device. We went hands-on with the Apple News+ Audio feature after uncovering it early.

Apple detailed the new iOS 13.6 feature in a Newsroom post today. In addition to the Audio News+ audio stories (available in the US at launch), Apple is also debuting a new curated local news feature, CarPlay support for the News app, and more.

“Apple News showcases so much great journalism, and we’re excited to help bring it to life in new ways with Apple News+ audio stories and a new daily news show, Apple News Today,” said Lauren Kern, editor-in-chief of Apple News. “We also greatly value our many local news partners — our new local news feature highlights their work for readers who live, and are interested, in those communities.”

Another highly anticipated feature coming with iOS 13.6 is the launch of Car Key. 9to5Mac first discovered this back in February with the iOS 13.4 beta. Apple announced at WWDC that the feature will first arrive with the new BMW 5 Series. This is a digital key that will work for locking, unlocking, and starting supported vehicles. Users will also be able to easily share their digital keys with iMessage and the feature will work for up to five hours after an iPhone runs out of battery.

There is a new option in the Software Update > Automatic Updates section in iOS 13.6. Instead of a single toggle to turn automatic updates on or off that installs the most recent iOS release overnight, iOS and iPadOS 13.6 has two toggles, one to choose if you want to automatically download iOS updates and one to install the updates overnight.

Another change with this release is the ability to track new symptoms in the Health app like headaches, chills, sore throat, and more. Finally, there are some minor tweaks to the News app privacy notices and links that can be found by heading to Settings > News.

iOS 13.6 will be rolling out shortly to all users, check the Software Update section of Settings on your device to see if it’s available.

Apple has also released macOS 10.15.6, tvOS 13.4.8, watchOS 6.2.8, and audioOS 13.4.8 for HomePod to all users today.

Here are the full release notes for iOS 13.6:

iOS 13.6 adds support for digital car keys, introduces audio stories in Apple News+, and contains a new symptoms category in the Health app. This release also includes bug fixes and improvements.

Digital car keys

Unlock, lock, and start your compatible car with your iPhone

Securely remove digital keys from a lost device via iCloud

Share digital keys easily with iMessage

Driver-specific profiles so you can configure shared keys for full-access or restricted driving

Power reserve lets you unlock and start your car for up to five hours after iPhone runs out of battery

Apple News

Audio stories are professionally narrated versions of some of the best reads from Apple News+, selected and produced by the Apple News editors as part of your Apple News+ subscription

Apple News Today is a new, free audio briefing on the day’s top stories from the Apple News editors, also available in the Podcasts app

A new Audio tab makes it easy to find Apple News Today and Apple News+ audio stories

CarPlay allows you to listen to Apple News Today and Apple News+ audio stories while on the road

Local news in your Today feed provides extensive coverage of San Francisco, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Houston, and New York City

More stories available from local news providers with a subscription to Apple News+

Your daily newsletter from Apple News can now be personalized with stories that reflect your interests

Health

New category for symptoms in the Health app, including symptoms logged from Cycle Tracking and ECG

Ability to log new symptoms, like fever, chills, sore throat or coughing, and share them with third-party apps

This update also includes bug fixes and other improvements.

Adds a new setting to choose if updates automatically download to your device when on Wi-Fi

Addresses an issue that could cause apps to become unresponsive when syncing data from iCloud Drive

Fixes an issue that could cause data roaming to appear to be disabled on eSIM even though it remained active

Fixes an issue thats causes some phone calls from Saskatchewan to appear as originating from the United States

Addresses an issue that could interrupt audio when making phone calls over Wi-Fi Calling

Fixes an issues that prevented some iPhone 6S and iPhone SE devices from registering for Wi-Fi Calling

Resolves an issue that could cause the software keyboard to appear unexpectedly when connected to certain third-party hardware keyboards

Fixes an issue that could cause Japanese hardware keyboards to be incorrectly mapped as a U.S. keyboard

Addresses stability issues when accessing Control Center when Assistive Touch was enabled

Provides a mechanism for administrators to specify domains to exclude from traffic carried by always-on VPN connections

The Galaxy Z Fold 2 is Samsung’s third foldable smartphone, with the Galaxy Z Flip bridging the gap between it and the company’s first attempt with last year’s Galaxy Fold that had some serious issues before a revised launch a few months later. 

All the wrinkles should be ironed out this time around, and fans are excited to see the Fold 2 at Unpacked on August 5, but there were reports that the handset would be a no-show at the event and had been delayed until ‘at least October’ but it seems that plans have changed, now that a revised release date has slipped out.

According to noted Twitter leaker Ice Universe, the Galaxy Z Fold 2 will still make its debut at Unpacked in August, and will be available to buy a month later, on September 20. The catch? That date is for China only.

The news I got is that the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is still released on August 5th and will be sold on September 20th (China)July 15, 2020

Fellow tipster Max Weinbach, who was the source for the initial news of the delay, also backed up this new information, saying the announcement is still going ahead at Samsung’s event, but he’s pegged October for the launch. 

Update 2: expect announcement with release likely in October.

Industry analyst Ross Young has explained that the device won’t ship until early October as assembly is only set to kick off in September. As Weinbach elaborates, the foldable display panel and Ultra Thin Glass are complicated to make and have a low yield. He adds that Samsung “doesn’t expect to sell many” so it’s focusing production on the Galaxy Z Flip 5G model, which will be revealed at Unpacked, and the Galaxy Note 20. 

Taking all of that into consideration, Weinbach warns that it’ll “be a while before it launches in non-major regions,” and reiterates that “it’s impossible for them to release it on the 5th [of August].”

Announcing the Fold 2 next month seems like the wise thing to do, especially with the flurry of leaks Samsung has been springing in the run up to Unpacked. We’ve already heard a number of specs-related titbits about all of Samsung’s upcoming devices, with the most recent rumour spilling the beans on the Galaxy Z Fold 2’s camera setup, which is set to be the same as the base Galaxy S20 model.