Skype is adding PayPal integration to its Android and
iOS mobile apps today. The partnership will work in 22 countries,
including the US, UK, Canada, and a number of European markets. PayPal’s
integration into Skype will work just like it does in Slack and
iMessage, with the ability to send peer-to-peer payments with PayPal to
friends and family on Microsoft’s messaging platform.
Microsoft and PayPal are enabling the support in Skype
today, and you’ll just need the latest version of the Android and iOS
app to send money. The new PayPal integration comes just two months
after Microsoft unveiled an overhauled version of Skype mobile.
The redesigned app focuses on a new Snapchat-like Highlights feature
and messaging, but it also includes add-ins from YouTube and Giphy.
PayPal now joins the add-in list, as Microsoft seeks to expand Skype
beyond its traditional video calling features.
We’ve known Vizio would be updating its Google Cast-enabled TVs with its new SmartCast UI for a while now, and today that update began to roll out to the company’s 2017 P-Series and M-Series models. (The company says that additional sets, including the E-Series, will be updated later this summer.)
SmartCast’s launch officially marks the end of Vizio’s
short-lived experiment in creating a smart TV without apps. The
company’s 2016 line famously killed all the menus and interfaces,
relying on a bundled tablet and Google’s Chromecast for apps. But now
the remote is back, and users will be able to navigate to the bundled
apps just like they would on any other platform. Oh, and the Chromecast
functionality is still there, if you prefer the old method.
Vizio still isn’t taking a traditional approach when it
comes to smart TV apps, though. SmartCast isn’t running a custom-made
app for a closed system that will never see a software update. Instead,
Vizio’s “apps” are cloud-based HTML5 interfaces — basically, web apps —
that can be updated without having to install new firmware on your TV.
We finally have a few more details about RED’s forthcoming $1,200 Hydrogen One smartphone,
thanks to a video that Marques Brownlee just posted to YouTube. RED let
him take a look at a few different prototypes of the phone: a
non-working unit that represents what the final phone will look like,
one that shows off the phone’s new “holographic display,” and a third
that was a full, separate camera module with its own lens and sensor.
Overall, this was still just another big tease from RED, which has also been showing the phone to celebrities like Brad Pitt. There’s not much more information than what the company already shared at the beginning of July. But we were able to glean a few things from this video.
First off, this thing is huge. The Hydrogen One is “about
the same size as an iPhone 7 Plus — with a case on it,” Brownlee says.
That’s not terribly surprising, considering how RED wants this phone to
be packed with bleeding-edge tech, while serving as the base for a potentially huge modular camera system. A thin, small phone would be no good for that.
A few other details: the power button will double as a
fingerprint reader. There’s a dedicated video record button. There are
stereo speakers on the front, and dual-camera setup that was hard to
make out in the original press image. And, yes, there’s a headphone jack
at the bottom.
As for the unit that shows off the phone’s “holographic
display,” all we get to see is Brownlee’s reaction — he even went so far
as to blur that phone out in the shot where he uses it. Still, we
learned a bit about how it might work. Brownlee says he was shown
content that was shot specifically for this “four dimensional” screen,
as well as 2D video that was then converted to take advantage of the
tech. He says the screen creates a “crazy, deep, sort of 3D look,” but
that it “definitely wasn’t perfect,” noting that there was some light
bleeding at the edges of the screen and some stuttering in the motion.
The final prototype he saw is a phone-shaped module that
has a bigger lens assembly and its own image sensor. It’s an idea that’s
basically straight out of the patent application that that I wrote about last month,
which shows how RED is thinking of using something like the Hydrogen
One to be the gateway to an entirely modular camera system. Pretty wild.
But otherwise, that’s it. RED seems content with letting
the slow drip of details continue while fans of the company wrestle with
the idea of dropping $1,200 or more to preorder one of these phones in
the meantime. Brownlee says that RED will have a working prototype unit
within the next 30–45 days, so let the wait continue.
Facebook will change its algorithm for the News Feed in
the coming months to favor quicker-loading sites over slow-loading
ones, the company announced today in a blog post.
Facebook wields a huge amount of power over what sites get served to you
in your News Feed, and now the company is adding another layer to that
by taking site speed into account. According to Facebook, “Factors such
as the person’s current network connection and the general speed of the
corresponding webpage will be considered. If signals indicate the
webpage will load quickly, the link to that webpage might appear higher
in your feed.”
The company does note that under the new system, it’s
possible that a slower site will see less referral traffic from
Facebook, and is helpfully sharing tips for developers to improve their loading times.
Samsung is unveiling the Note 8 on August 23rd, and we already have an extremely clear idea of what it'll look like. Now, we might even know its specs. Today, VentureBeat’s Evan Blass published what he expects to see from the Note 8, going off of information from someone who was briefed on the device's configuration.
Here's what Blass' source says the device will have:
6.3-inch Super AMOLED display with 18.5:9 aspect ratio
162.5mm x 74.6mm with 8.5mm of thickness
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor in the US and Exynos 8895 processor globally
6GB of RAM with 64GB of storage, as well as expandable storage
Dual rear-facing cameras with 12-megapixel sensors; one
is wide-angle while the other is a telephoto lens that enables 2x
optical zoom. Both feature optical image stabilization
A front-facing camera with an 8-megapixel sensor and an f1.7 autofocus lens
Fast-charging 3,300mAh battery that's charged through USB-C or wirelessly
Available in midnight black and maple gold. Later available in an orchid grey and deep sea blue
Rear fingerprint sensor
Will cost around €1,000, or a little over $900
Last year, Samsung emphasized its bigger 3,500mAh battery in the Note 7. This year, it's scaling back for obvious reasons.
Instead, it's relying on the camera to be the device's standout
feature, as well as the same Super AMOLED display technology we saw with
the Galaxy S8.
The Note 8 is slightly larger than the S8 Plus, which was 6.2 inches,
but it includes the same bezel-less design with square corners. The
notable difference between the devices are the camera systems and the S
Pen support on the Note 8.
Like the S8, the Note 8 also features a rear fingerprint
sensor on the back of the device, directly next to the cameras. This
isn't great for fingerprint prevention. With these specs now out, there
isn't much left to learn at Samsung's event, but maybe there's a chance
the company will surprise us with something.
Asus’ new ZenFone AR, which supports both Google’s Tango augmented reality tech and its Daydream virtual reality platform, is available for preorder at Verizon
for $648 outright or $27 per month on a leasing plan. Asus had been
rather quiet about the pricing and availability details of its
AR-enabled handset, even refusing to disclose the details at a hands-on press event in San Francisco last week.
However, as of today, the product page is up at Verizon and should
hopefully have a confirmed ship date sometime soon. The device comes
only in a 128GB option.
First announced at CES in January, the ZenFone AR is the second phone, after the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro,
to come equipped with Tango technology. That effectively lets the phone
“see” the world around it, using a mix of cameras and sensors to detect
objects, sense depth, and then place virtual objects in the real world,
viewable through the camera viewfinder. It also supports Daydream,
meaning you can place the phone inside a supported VR headset, made
either by Google itself or a certified third-party hardware maker, and
access the limited but growing library of Android-based mobile VR apps.
The other specs for the ZenFone AR are pretty standard
for a medium- to top-tier Android phone. You have a 5.5-inch AMOLED
display, Snapdragon 821 processor, 6GB of memory, and a 3300 mAh
battery. the device is also decked out with cameras, mostly to support
Tango. But it also has a 23MP rear-facing camera for good old fashioned
2D photography. That’s not a bad deal for the price, especially when you
consider the baked-in AR and VR capabilities.
LG has announced that its “next flagship smartphone,” widely reported to be the V30, will feature a six-inch OLED panel as rumored.
LG is describing the screen as a FullVision display, meaning it'll have
a taller 18:9 aspect ratio and thinner surrounding bezels like a G6.
The display is said to cover 109 percent of the DCI-P3 color space and
support HDR10, as well as having been chosen with VR performance in
mind. It'll be LG's first OLED phone since the G Flex 2, which was announced two and a half years ago.
The still-unnamed upcoming phone is smaller than last year's V20,
LG says, despite the bigger screen; the upper and lower bezels have
been reduced by 20 and 50 percent, and the LG logo has been moved to the
back panel. LG is also hinting that the plastic OLED screen allows for
the edges to be curved, though from the clipped image below it doesn't
look like the company will go as far as Samsung has in its recent
designs.
The presumed V30 will be announced at an event at the IFA trade show in Berlin on August 31st. LG likes to announce its phones several times before they're formally announced, though, so you can expect more official information to trickle out ahead of time.
