this week

Nokia tipped to unveil a total of six new devices on October 22

Nokia is holding an event dubbed Innovation Reinvented in Abu Dhabi on October 22 and according to sources close to the company's plans, the Finns are preparing to unveil a total of six devices.

At least two of them are going to be "new Lumias." Most probably, one of them is going to be the Nokia Lumia 1520 6-inch phablet that has been leaking recently. The other Lumia is allegedly the Nokia tablet, which is also going to be part of the Lumia family of products.
Additionally, there are going to be a set of accessories that'll also debut in Abu Dhabi. One of them, according to the TheVerge source is going to be "pretty special." No further details have been given, but we guess the rest of the devices will be budget mobile phones from the Asha series.
Nokia has been gradually revealing more information regarding its upcoming October 22 event. The start time of the event is yet to be confirmed.

Samsung ISOCELL image sensor likely to star in the Galaxy S5

Samsung has unveiled its latest CMOS image sensor, promising substantially increased light sensitivity. Dubbed ISOCELL, Samsung says its new imager produces photos with higher color fidelity thanks to its improved control of electron absorption.

The company states that all of these enhancements make the ISOCELL CMOS sensor suitable for its upcoming line of smartphones and tablets. As a result, it wouldn't be at all surprising to see the Samsung Galaxy S5 camera feature an ISOCELL image sensor.
The ISOCELL image sensor is the result of consumer desire for increased camera resolution as well as the quality of the photos without making the camera overly large. Pixels need to get smaller while at the same time preserving their performance. Samsung camera gurus compare the ISOCELL technology to FSI and BSI sensors in their inability to preserve pixel quality while shrinking its size at the same time.

Previous sensor technology developments focused on improving the light absorption of each pixel, and have progressed pixel technology from FSI (Front Side Illumination) to BSI (Back Side Illumination) which places photodiode at the top to maximize photoelectric efficiency. While being very effective at the time, this BSI technology also faced limitations in improving image quality as pixel sizes continued to decrease.

The first Samsung image sensor to adopt the new ISOCELL technology carries the model number S5K4H5YB and is an 8MP one with 1.12μ ISOCELL pixel size. The sensor is currently being sampled by Samsung customers and is expected to hit mass production in Q4 2013.

iPhone 5s chipset detailed, 1.3GHz CPU, PowerVR Series 6 GPU

the new iPhone 5s runs on a new Apple A7 SoC that utilizes a 64-bit processor. This new CPU turns out to be a dual-core unit clocked at 1.3GHz and uses the latest ARM v8 64-bit cores. Apple's new cores are called Cyclone and the whole SoC is manufactured by Samsung on its 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) process.

The GPU in charge is the quad-core PowerVR (Series 6) G6430, which supports OpenGL 3.0, DirectX 10 and OpenCL 1.x. It's currently among the best of the market and eats benchmarks for breakfast.
Apple kept the RAM amount the same - 1GB, though the RAM used in the iPhone 5s is of the newer LPDDR3 variety, compared to the LPDDR2 embedded in the iPhone 5 and 5c.
Finally, the modem chips are made by Qualcomm. If you want to know more about their model numbers and other embedded controllers just head over to the source link below.
So, as expected, Apple is currently using the latest pieces of available technology for its flagship. There are no other smartphones that utilize the new ARM v8 cores (Cortex A53 and Cortex A57 are yet to come) yet and the new Series 6 of Imagination's PowerVR GPU's is making its official debut

Oppo N1 announced with 5.9-inch fullHD display and Color OS

Oppo has just announced its latest smartphone in a special event in Beijing, China. It's called the Oppo N1 and runs the latest version of the company's home-brewed Color OS based on Android 4.2.

The Oppo N1 is built around a 5.9" IPS display of full HD resolution, which equals out to a pixel density of 377 pixels per inch. The display is super sensitive and allows you to use gloves and even pens, just like the Sony Xperia Z1.
Below the display there are 3 capacitive Android keys - back, home and menu. The whole phone is made of plastic and will be available in two color options - black and white. The Oppo N1 sports either 16GB or 32GB of internal memory, but sadly, there's no microSD card slot.
The Oppo N1 measures 170.7 x 82.6 x 9mm, which is just a bit thicker than the Galaxy Note 3 (8.3mm), and weighs 213 grams. The phone is powered by a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600, Adreno 320 GPU and 2GB of RAM.
The back of the Oppo N1 is especially interesting. Firstly, there sits the 13MP camera with CMOS sensor and f/2.0 aperture and Oppo's specially-designed in partnership with Fujitsu IPS imaging chip. Oppo dubs the N1 as the first Android smartphone to feature 6 piece lens design. The whole camera module rotates 206 degrees allowing it to act as a front-facing camera as well.
Oppo says the swivel mechanism of the N1's camera has been put through 100,000 times of rotating in a durability test. This means the Oppo N1's camera can be swivelled 40 times a day for 7 years and it'll be as good as new.

Oppo has also created special plug lens. Not to be confused with Sony's QX100 and QX10 camera modules, Oppo's lens are like usual plug-in lenses that attach to the phone. Oppo boasts it only takes 0.6 seconds for the camera to fire and shoot a photo.
Secondly, the area below the camera is touch sensitive. The feature is called O-Touch and depending on the gesture that you make, the phone is can either play next song, browse the web or do a custom action. For example you can long touch the back of the phone while the camera app is on and it'll take a shot with the front facing camera. The supported gestures are long press, sliding and double tapping.
Oppo has also made a special bluetooth camera accessory dubbed O-Click. It is essentially a remote control for the camera and can operate within 50 meters away from the phone - perfect for self group shots. It's also included in the retail box of the Oppo N1.
Right below the camera there's a dual LED flash, while on top of the phone you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack. Below the back cover sits a 3610 mAh battery, which is respectable for a phone with such size.
On the connectivity side, the Oppo N1 sports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. Oppo has partnered with two of the major NFC payment systems in China to allow paying for transportation as well as other goods just by using the N1.
The Oppo N1 will be priced at $571 (3498 CNY). China Mobile customers can already pre-order the Oppo N1 and expect it to arrive some time October. Oppo is yet to announce exact dates for worldwide availability.
Lastly, at the event Oppo announced their rumored partnership with Cyanogen. While no further details were given, the Oppo N1 is going to be able to run pure Android thanks to CyanogenMod. It's speculated that customers will be able to choose between Color OS and CyanogenMod upon ordering the N1 from the Oppo website.

Google Search now powered by a Hummingbird

Google celebrates its 15th anniversary by announcing that it's changed its underlying search algorithm -- again.

MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Google kicked off its 15th anniversary a day early by once more invading its original headquarters in Susan Wojcicki's former garage at 232 Santa Margarita Ave. Along with a hearty pat on the back, the company revealed that it's changed the engine that drives its queries.
The new engine, called Hummingbird, is the first change to Google's core algorithm since the launch of Caffeine in 2010. Hummingbird, said Amit Singhal, Google senior vice president and one of its earliest employees, affects 90 percent of searches with Google worldwide.
"When I joined Google, people would be amazed when a simple query for a Web site would work. As they became more comfortable, they began to ask more complex questions. Hummingbird," he said, "is the result of that foundational rethink."
Singhal was careful to note that while page ranking and indexing are bound together in a search engine, Caffeine focused more on the ranking side of the algorithm. Hummingbird is more about indexing.
"Hummingbird gave us an opportunity after years of building to rethink how we use the power of these things," he said, referring to Google Search features old and new. He had previously noted that as Google has added features to the search engine such as autocomplete, synonym recognition, voice recognition, precaching, universal search, and contextual recognition, searching itself has gotten easier.
Google may not be afraid to examine its engineering of search, but Wocjicki, who's now a senior vice president of marketing at Google, said that the company's central values haven't changed.
She reiterated what she called the company's three commitments. Google, she explained, has always been focused on building great search for its users, on reaching a global audience, and on what she called "thinking big."
"When we were here and a small, tiny company, we were thinking big. It's just that not as many people were listening," she said. "Today, we're looking at projects like Glass, or Loon for access, or driverless cars."
Wocjicki recalled how even when Google only had seven employees, there was a whiteboard in the back room that read, "Google Worldwide Headquarters."
"Even though a lot of things are different with Google, the core is really the same," she said.

Can iOS 7 induce motion sickness?

Some users trying out the new parallax and zoom features are getting sick to their stomach, experiencing vertigo, headaches and nausea. Some are comparing it to getting car sick. The experience has been making some iPhone owners so ill, that they have resorted to downgrading back to iOS 6.

With the new parallax feature, iOS 7 users can have the screen appear as though they are head on, even if the screen is tilted in another direction. The zoom feature works when accessing applications. The zoom feature can not be disabled but the parallax feature can be shut off. Go to the Accessibility menu in iOS 7. Choose "Reduce Motion" and you should be able to eliminate that effect.

For those sensitive to such things, this is no joke. Some have complained about having to go home from work because of severe vertigo. The complaints are similar to what those who used the HTC EVO 3D used to report after viewing the stereoscopic screen for hours.

You can no longer downgrade from iOS 7 to iOS 6

After a significant period of testing, Apple's overhauled iOS 7 has made the move and gone public and official. As with any major software rework, there was no shortage of bugs (some bigger than others), nor was there a lack of complaints about the new look of the OS. At PhoneArena we're overall happy with the new iteration of iOS – it sure is a work in progress and needs some tweaking, but the change was definitely needed, and for the better.

As always, however, there are those who don't quite like the new OS and want to revert back to iOS 6. Whether their concerns are strictly related to the new design, or they simply suddenly found out just how old their iPhone 4 is getting (the oldest iPhone to support the new OS), due to the significantly more animation-heavy iOS 7, they're simply not given a voice. Said more explicitly, in a typical Apple fashion the plug has been pulled on iOS 6 officially, meaning that whatever ways you could find to revert back will no longer work. That's not to say you can't revert back to it at all, it's just that Cupertino has stopped signing older firmware, meaning that you won't have access to essentials, such as the iTunes store.

Some of you will be quick to demonize Apple for this, and we fully get it – we're, after all, enthusiastic proponents of choice. On the other hand, Apple has traditionally kept OS fragmentation to a minimum thanks to a strong hand approach like this -- a good thing for a number of reason, like an overall better and more targeted support for our iPhones.

European group finds a way to get around the Touch ID on Apple iPhone 5s

Saying that the hardest part about hacking the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the Apple iPhone 5s was finding an iPhone 5s to use, the Chaos Computer Club has found a way to circumvent the new fingerprint sensor on the latest full-featured iPhone. The process requires someone to take a picture of a person's fingerprints at 2400 DPI and then print it at 1200 DPI. The image is used to make a latex sheet that is used to trick the Touch ID sensor.The bottom line is not to count on the Touch ID sensor to protect your more important information such as the number of your secret Swiss bank account. Granted, this is not a quick 1-2-3 process, but on the other hand there are not enough hurdles to prevent someone from doing it. The actual process dates back to 2004 showing you how elementary it is to fool the Touch ID sensor on the Apple iPhone 5s.

Moto X beats out iPhone 5S, 5C, and Galaxy S4 for durability

Apple fanboys and Samsung believers aren't going to like this: Google's Moto X has been crowned the king of durability.
The latest "breakability" score by protection plan company SquareTrade claims Moto X is the best surviving smartphone when it comes to drops, slides, and water dunks. Coming in second place is Apple's iPhone 5S, then Apple's iPhone 5C, and lastly Samsung's Galaxy S4. SquareTrade only tested these four smartphones, so its unclear how other brands and models would rate.

BlackBerry's problems affect Taiwan manufacturers

After announcing on Friday that it would write off nearly $1 billion worth of BlackBerry Z10 models, some Taiwan handset manufacturers are affected by the Canadian manufacturer's decision to leave the consumer market. For example, ODM/OEM Wistron is expected to have its orders from BlackBerry reduced by half as BlackBerry cuts its line up from 6 models to 4. That will consist of 2 high-end and 2 entry-level phones.
Other suppliers such as keypad producers Silitech and Ichia will both be less affected by BlackBerry's plans since they have already started cutting back on their reliance to orders from the Waterloo based firm. Sales to BlackBerry represent only 10% of each company's revenues.
Sources close to the situation say that BlackBerry has started taking deliveries of its first 5 inch model, the BlackBerry Z30. But initial orders for the most powerful Berry ever from the Canadian handset provider are lower than the initial orders placed by BlackBerry for the BlackBerry Z10 back in Q1. But back then, the BlackBerry 10 platform was untested and there was real hope that BlackBerry had come up with a winning OS. But after announcing its intention to do the write off, it certainly looks like the whole BlackBerry 10 platform has not been the success that was hoped for.

Remotely lock your Android device with Android Device Manager  

                

Early last month, Android users received a gift from Google called the Android Device Manager. Used in combination with an app that you install on your Android phone, the Device Manager allows you to have your phone ring at maximum volume, just in case you lost it in your couch. It also allows you to track the device in real time so that if the phone is lifted by a thief, you can track him and your phone to his lair inside the third stall in the mens' room inside Grand Central Station. And in case you're worried that this master criminal who stole your phone is going to discover your Fantasy Football draft secrets, you can wipe the data completely clean off the phone.

Google has added another very important feature that enhances the safety of your Android model. Now, the Android Device Manager will remotely lock your Android phone. This actually helps you delay that gut wrenching moment when you wipe all data off your phone. With the remote lock, you can buy some time to find the device before you go with the nuclear option.

With the new feature, it doesn't matter if your Android handset is locked down using a pattern, PIN or other method. The Device Manager will override it and allow you to create a new password that will be used to open the handset once it is back in your possession, if it ever is. The feature will also allow you to turn off the screen if it's on. Just make sure that under the security section for settings, the Android Device Manager is listed as a Device administrator.

AppSeed turns your sketches into functioning app prototypes 

In a bid to streamline the app creation process, Canadian design studio Transmitter has created AppSeed — an app that uses real-time computer vision to automate the process of turning a two-dimensional sketch into a functioning prototype right on your device.
It looks super easy to use. You draw the page elements inside two crop marks and then photograph the sketch with your phone's camera. The app then identifies the crop marks and automatically sizes the sketch to fit the screen. It also identifies separate enclosed-space elements on the page — the user can then go through and choose, from a drop-down menu, the element type, such as a map, a button or a text input field.
"The secret sauce behind AppSeed is the use of computer vision to search your sketch and isolate individual elements," the team said. "Specifically, we use the wonderful OpenCV to isolate lines and drawn shapes within your sketches. We then use our own algorithms to identify the UI elements. These are generally identified because they follow a visual pattern (for example, an enclosed rectangle can be taken as a button). That drawn element is then copied from the original image and made into a button with the drawn shape as its up state."
Once you have a prototype on your phone, you can export it as an HTML5 app or send it to Photoshop via PS Connection, which will separate out all the elements into their own layers for individual editing.
This will allow designers and developers to showcase their ideas to clients, co-workers and backers without having to undergo the fiddly middle process of manually coding an app from design to prototype.
Initially, AppSeed will be available for iOS, with an Android version further down the line, should the project reach its stretch goals.
The app alone is being offered as a reward for the CA$8 pledge tier, and you can get the app and sketchbook combo for CA$30. For CA$40, you can also get five crop-mark whiteboard stickers. Head over to the AppSeed Kickstarter page for more information.

Samsung in 'final stages' with a 64-bit Exynos processor, prime candidate for the Galaxy S5

Samsung won't be far behind Apple with a 64-bit mobile chipset, it seems, as Korean media is reporting its own Exynos line has a 64-bit SoC in final stages of development, most likely utilizing the scorching ARM Cortex-A50 architecture, whose advantages you can see in the slideshow below.After it became clear that Samsung is still producing the A7, and the Koreans chimed in they are all for doubling the mobile chipset bits, it was a matter of time before we learn such an Exynos is indeed in the pipeline, and we might see it in the next flagship, the Galaxy S5. This chip is meant for smartphones as well as tablets, said the Samsung source, cited by the publication.

The 64-bit architecture has its advantages before the 32-bit, and these are not only the much higher amount of addressable RAM it allows, but also multitasking and overall productivity shenanigans. Its power will really shine when software gets written from the ground up to take advantage, and what better way to push developers than actually have flagship phones and tablets with the tech already on the market.