Xiaomi Max smartphone with 6.4 inch screen leaks ahead of official launch

Xiaomi Max smartphone with 6.4 inch screen leaks ahead of official launch

Xiaomi is holding an event soon where the company is expected to launch its biggest phone yet… and by biggest, I mean it will literally have a bigger screen than any other Xiaomi phone to date.

The Xiaomi Max is expected to have a 64 inch display. Thanks to a series of leaks in recent days (and a few teasers posted by the company itself) you don’t have to wait until May 10th to get a pretty good picture of the phone….

Continue reading Xiaomi Max smartphone with 6.4 inch screen leaks ahead of official launch at Liliputing.

Xiaomi Max smartphone with 6.4 inch screen leaks ahead of official launch

Xiaomi is holding an event soon where the company is expected to launch its biggest phone yet… and by biggest, I mean it will literally have a bigger screen than any other Xiaomi phone to date.

The Xiaomi Max is expected to have a 64 inch display. Thanks to a series of leaks in recent days (and a few teasers posted by the company itself) you don’t have to wait until May 10th to get a pretty good picture of the phone….

Continue reading Xiaomi Max smartphone with 6.4 inch screen leaks ahead of official launch at Liliputing.

Nightmarish transition from Verizon to Frontier has no end in sight

California lawmakers call hearings to discuss “government response.”

A visualization of Frontier outage reports on DownDetector. (credit: DownDetector)

A California legislative committee will hold hearings on problems former Verizon customers are having more than a month after their service was switched to Frontier Communications.

Frontier purchased Verizon's FiOS and DSL businesses in California, Florida, and Texas, taking over the fiber and copper networks on April 1. Outages and various other service problems hit customers almost immediately, and Frontier still hasn't solved all the problems.

Mike Gatto, a Democratic legislator from Los Angeles who is chairman of the California State Assembly's Utilities & Commerce Committee, issued a statement yesterday about the "ongoing Frontier Communications telephone and Internet outages after the Verizon FiOS changeover."

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Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 coming soon? (Leaks)

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 coming soon? (Leaks)

Samsung seems to be prepping an update for its Galaxy Tab S line of premium Android tablets. An unannounced tablet with the model number SM-T719 just passed through China’s TENAA website, and there’s reason to think that it’ll be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 8.0 when it launches.

There’s also probably a 9.7 inch model on the way.

According to the TENAA page, here’s what we can expected from the new 8 inch tablet:

  • 8 inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel display
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor
  • Android 6.0 software
  • 3GB of RAM
  • 32GB of storage
  • 4,000 mAH battery
  • 7.8″ x 5.3″ x 0.22″
  • 9.6 ounces

The size, weights, and screen are all pretty much the same as those for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0, which was released in the summer of 2015.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 coming soon? (Leaks) at Liliputing.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 coming soon? (Leaks)

Samsung seems to be prepping an update for its Galaxy Tab S line of premium Android tablets. An unannounced tablet with the model number SM-T719 just passed through China’s TENAA website, and there’s reason to think that it’ll be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 8.0 when it launches.

There’s also probably a 9.7 inch model on the way.

According to the TENAA page, here’s what we can expected from the new 8 inch tablet:

  • 8 inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel display
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor
  • Android 6.0 software
  • 3GB of RAM
  • 32GB of storage
  • 4,000 mAH battery
  • 7.8″ x 5.3″ x 0.22″
  • 9.6 ounces

The size, weights, and screen are all pretty much the same as those for the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0, which was released in the summer of 2015.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 coming soon? (Leaks) at Liliputing.

Critical Qualcomm security bug leaves many phones open to attack

Fix still isn’t available for most users, and many will probably never get it.

(credit: Qualcomm)

For the past five years, a vulnerability in many Android phones has left users' text messages, call histories, and possibly other sensitive data open to snooping, security researchers said Thursday.

The flaw, which is most severe in Android versions 4.3 and earlier, allows low-privileged apps to access sensitive data that's supposed to be off-limits, according to a blog post published by security firm FireEye. But instead, the data is available by invoking permissions that are already requested by millions of apps available in Google Play. Company researchers said the vulnerability can also be exploited by adversaries who gain physical access to an unlocked handset. Indexed as CVE-2016-2060, the bug was first introduced when mobile chipmaker Qualcomm released a set of programming interfaces for a system service known as the "network_manager" and later the "netd" daemon.

"CVE-2016-2060 has been present on devices since at least 2011 and likely affects hundreds of Android models around the world," FireEye researchers wrote. "This vulnerability allows a seemingly benign application to access sensitive user data including SMS and call history and the ability to perform potentially sensitive actions such as changing system settings or disabling the lock screen. Devices running Android 4.3 (“Jelly Bean MR2”) or older are the most affected by the vulnerability, and are likely to remain unpatched. Newer devices utilizing SEAndroid are still affected, but to a lesser extent."

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First autonomous robot to operate on soft tissue outdoes human surgeons

New surgical robot beat out human doctors at stitching up guts of living pigs.

(credit: Axel Krieger])

Step aside, Ben Carson. The once lauded ability to perform delicate operations with gifted hands may soon be replaced with the consistent precision of an autonomous robot. And—bonus—robots don’t get sleepy.

In a world’s first, researchers report using an autonomous robot to perform surgical operations on soft tissue and in living pigs, where the adroit droid stitched up broken bowels. The researchers published the robotic reveal in the journal Science Translational Medicine, and they noted the new machinery surpassed the consistency and precision of expert surgeons, laparoscopy, and robot-assisted (non-autonomous robotic) surgery.

The authors, led by Peter Kim at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC, emphasized this feat is not intended to be a step toward completely replacing surgeons. Rather, they want the technology to provide new tools that help every operation go smoothly. “By having a tool like this and by making the procedures more intelligent, we can ensure better outcomes for patients,” Kim said.

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Samsung’s upcoming wearables leaked again… this time by Samsung

Samsung’s upcoming wearables leaked again… this time by Samsung

We recently learned that Samsung has a new fitness tracker and a new set of wireless earbuds on the way. Now Samsung has all-but confirmed it.

The company posted pictures of the upcoming Gear Fit 2 and Gear IconX earbuds on the Samsung S Health website. The images have been removed, but the folks at Mobile Bulgaria and Droid Life saved them.

As expected, the Gear Fit 2 appears to be a wristband with a curved display, similar to the original Gear Fit activity tracker.

Continue reading Samsung’s upcoming wearables leaked again… this time by Samsung at Liliputing.

Samsung’s upcoming wearables leaked again… this time by Samsung

We recently learned that Samsung has a new fitness tracker and a new set of wireless earbuds on the way. Now Samsung has all-but confirmed it.

The company posted pictures of the upcoming Gear Fit 2 and Gear IconX earbuds on the Samsung S Health website. The images have been removed, but the folks at Mobile Bulgaria and Droid Life saved them.

As expected, the Gear Fit 2 appears to be a wristband with a curved display, similar to the original Gear Fit activity tracker.

Continue reading Samsung’s upcoming wearables leaked again… this time by Samsung at Liliputing.

Imagine this: You order a Lyft, and when it arrives, there’s no driver

Investment in autonomous tech could pay off for automaker/rideshare partnership.

(credit: Sergio Ruiz)

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that General Motors and Lyft would be testing a self-driving taxi service within the year. GM pledged $500 million to Lyft in January, hoping to advance “driverless taxi research.” At the time, however, there was no mention of how long it would take for the companies to roll out an actual driverless taxi experience.

The WSJ indicates that GM will be using Chevy Bolts to test the service. The all-electric Bolt is slated to go into production toward the end of 2016, and it’s seen as the only real competitor to the all-electric, mass-market Tesla Model 3, which will go into production in late 2017. Tesla has already pushed some autonomous vehicle functions out to its Model X and S owners, and GM seems to be trying to follow suit—in March, the Detroit-based automaker bought Cruise Automation, a Silicon Valley software company, for $1 billion.

A Lyft executive told the paper that when the self-driving taxi service rolls out, it will be available to Lyft customers in one city that's yet to be determined. Customers will be able to opt out of hailing a self-driving car and, at the beginning, a driver will be required to sit in the driver’s seat in case anything happens. That's meant to appease regulators, "but the driver is expected to eventually be obsolete,” the WSJ reports.

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State chemist was high daily, thousands of drug prosecutions jeopardized

“All told, she estimated that she was smoking crack ten to twelve times a day.”

(credit: ibbl)

A former Massachusetts drug-lab chemist was high on the job nearly every day for eight years, according to a report from the state's attorney general. The report said that the chemist, Sonja Farak, was under the influence of drugs like crack, meth, LSD, and ketamine as she testified in court in drug cases and while examining drug samples in a crime lab between 2004 and 2013.

The report from AG Maura Healey also said the chemist cooked crack cocaine in a crime lab at night while working overtime.

Anthony Benedetti of the Committee for Public Counsel Services said that "thousands" of drug prosecutions were imperiled. "Anything that went through that lab while she was there is in question," he told the Boston Globe.

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Netflix now lets customers increase video quality on cellular networks

Netflix finally lets AT&T and Verizon customers stream at more than 600kbps.

Boost your video quality in Netflix's mobile app. (credit: Netflix)

Netflix has updated its iOS and Android applications to let customers adjust streaming quality on mobile networks so that users with high data caps or unlimited data can choose higher-quality video.

Netflix sets its default mobile bitrate at 600kbps, limiting resolution to about 360p on AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and most other carriers. This helps customers stay under restrictive data caps, but the one-size-fits-all policy prevented customers from boosting the quality of video. The default setting will remain at 600kbps, but the new controls available to Netflix customers worldwide will boost data usage to as much as 1GB in 20 minutes.

"The default setting will enable you to stream about three hours of TV shows and movies per gigabyte of data. In terms of bitrates, that currently amounts to about 600 Kilobits per second," Netflix said today. "Our testing found that, on cellular networks, this setting balances good video quality with lower data usage to help avoid exceeding data caps and incurring overage fees. If you have a mobile data plan with a higher data cap, you can adjust this setting to stream at higher bitrates."

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Deals of the Day (5-05-2016)

Deals of the Day (5-05-2016)

The Google Nexus 5 may have launched nearly three years ago, but it’s still a pretty good Android smartphone thanks to a compact size, a reasonably fast processor, a full HD display, and support for stock Android software (if that’s your thing).

While Google doesn’t seem to plan on releasing Android N for this aging phone, it’s likely that you’ll be find N-based custom ROMs for the phone once they’re released.

So why am I talking about a 2.5 year old phone today?

Continue reading Deals of the Day (5-05-2016) at Liliputing.

Deals of the Day (5-05-2016)

The Google Nexus 5 may have launched nearly three years ago, but it’s still a pretty good Android smartphone thanks to a compact size, a reasonably fast processor, a full HD display, and support for stock Android software (if that’s your thing).

While Google doesn’t seem to plan on releasing Android N for this aging phone, it’s likely that you’ll be find N-based custom ROMs for the phone once they’re released.

So why am I talking about a 2.5 year old phone today?

Continue reading Deals of the Day (5-05-2016) at Liliputing.