Apple to Debut 3 New iPad Models in 2017 : Reports

The last earnings report from Apple indicated how important the tablet business still is for Apple. The last quarter saw Apple selling 9-percent less iPads, yet the revenue grew 7 percent thanks to a higher selling price. Now, it seems it could be bringing new models to attain whatever market share’s left in the tablets space.

A new report, courtesy of MacRumors via noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, indicates that three new iPads could be coming in 2017, including the first ever 10.5-inch iPad that can occupy the middle ground between the larger models. Other variants include a new, cheaper 9.7-inch model and a 12.9-inch model to sit either side.

There is no word given for the iPad Mini as he thinks the arrival of the larger iPhones could have quashed the demand of the smaller tablet, altogether.

More-important, however, are the big changes that Apple has planned for 2018. The year could see the company revealing a “revolutionary” AMOLED iPad model with a flexible display and “radical” design changes. No further details were given for the same.

As for the near future, Ming-Chi Kui lowered his expectations of the current line-up’s shipments, shunning it from 45-50 million to just 35-40 million tablets, given the lack of models which are to be expected this year.

The market for tablets has for long been considered to be fairly stagnant, but it now appears that we could be headed towards some exciting announcements finally. Or perhaps it could be the final hurrah for the market? Only time will tell.

INTEL to Start Producing ARM Based Chips for Smartphones

Intel and ARM are the two biggest competitors in the world for chip architecture. But recently Intel has entered into a licensing agreement with its rival ARM to manufacture 10-nanometer ARM-Based chips in Intel factories.

The agreement was announced yesterday at the Intel Developer Forum and it’s part of a strategic move from Intel to offer its large-scale custom chip manufacturing facilities to third-party manufacturers.

The new chips are designed to compete with smartphone chipmakers such as Qualcomm and potentially, Apple.

LG Joins the Intel-ARM Bandwagon

Intel also announced that the South Korean consumer electronics company LG will be one of the first to use Intel’s new service.

LG Electronics will produce a world-class mobile platform based on Intel Custom Foundry’s10 nm design platform

LG stated that it is likely to produce a “world-class mobile platform” of its own design based on ARM and it is destined for release in a new smartphone. With LG on board, Intel will also try to find a way to reel in Apple too. Apple A-series chipsets are also based on the ARM architecture, that are made by Samsung, although it is heavily customized by their own engineering teams. Apple, however, is unlikely to make a switch due to its standing contract with TSMC.

I think it can make a real difference in the industry. For me, it simply makes sense. – WillAbbey, GM at Artisan IP at ARM

Intel will now be able to manufacture 64-bit ARM cores and physical IP in Intel’s own factories. Before this license, excess of manufacturing space at Intel was going to waste. With the new agreement, Intel can make processors for the giants in the smartphone industry such as Apple, Samsung, LG and others. This gives the Intel a much-needed boost in the smartphone space that it wasn’t able to achieve on its own.

Google is Secretly working on New OS called Fuchsia

Rumors have arrived indicating that Google is working on a new OS. And no, it’s not an update to Android or the Chrome OS. In fact, the new system is not even based on the Linux kernel.

The move is surprising because every single operating system developed by Google uses the Linux Kernel. It has powered Google hardware for years.

The new OS is reportedly being called Fuchsia. Although Google hasn’t officially announced anything regarding the OS, it released its details on Github.

Presenting Fuchsia

The allegedly new Fuchsia OS runs on the Magenta kernel which is based on the LittleKernel project on Github. Magenta is being designed as a competitor to commercial embedded OSes such as ThreadX. The Magenta kernel is designed to run on embedded devices, smartphones and desktop computers.

The interface of the new OS is the new Flutter UI and the programming language that is used for the OS is Dart.

The renderer that is being is called Escher, which supports light diffusion, soft shadows, and other visual effects. Soft shadows and light diffusion is also a major part of Material Design so it is possible that both Flutter and Escher are also designed with Material Design UI in mind.

Fuchsia is being designed with support for both 32-bit and 64-bit ARM CPUs and also 64-bit PCs.

Why Is a New OS Being Developed?

Right now, no definite answers exist as to why Google is developing a new OS. The most obvious guess would be that Google plans on replacing either Chrome OS or Android, or even both, with Fuchsia.

Maybe Fuchsia is being developed to cater to the smart home accessories by Google such as the OnHub router and Google Home or Chromecast.

It could also be the case that Google is just using Fuchsia for experimenting. No plans for further development and release have been set for now. Only time will tell what Google has in store for us.

WhatsApp introduces Call Back & Voice Mail Features

The popular messaging service, WhatsApp, has been introducing some interesting new features such as the ability to send bold, italic and strikethrough messages and it is now rolling out two new features for its iOS users: callback and voicemail.

The new update carries the version number 2.16.8 and is available on the App Store. With the new update installed, you will now see that if you call someone and it gets rejected, you will now have three new options:

1. Cancel
2. Call Again
3. Voice Message

The “Cancel” button takes you back to the chat screen. The “Call Again” will, as the name implies, try to call the person you are trying to contact again and the third “Voice Message” button will record and send a recorded message to the other person’s phone.

How to Send a Voice Message?

The new update allows you to send a voice message or a voicemail if the person you are trying to contact does not answer the call. If your call is rejected you will now see an option of Voice Message on the extreme right side.

In order to use it, tap and hold onto the button to record a message. When you’re finished, just lift your finger off the screen and the message will be sent. The user on the other end will receive the voice message as a recorded voice note, just like you would regularly send it.

If the recording gets messed up or you want to cancel sending it, you can just swipe the Voice Message button to the left in order to stop the recording. Unfortunately, there is no way to listen to the recording before sending it.

How Do I Get the New Features?

iOS:

For iOS users, it is very simple. All you have to do is visit the App Store and update WhatsApp to version 2.16.8. Alternatively, you can follow this link.

Android:

The new features aren’t available as an update for regular users and they are only available for beta testing as of now. However, you can download the new update as an APK file and install it. In order to do so, follow the instructions below:

1. Download the APK file from this link on your Android smartphone.
2. After it’s done downloading, make sure you have allowed your phone to install applications from Unknown Sources.
3. Install the APK.
4. You’ll now have the updated WhatsApp.

That’s all that you need to do to get the new features on Android. We have tested this and can confirm that the new features do work.

Beware ! downloading application from unknown sources may cause serious hacks/viruses

Seagate built a 60TB SSD

Remember when Samsung launched the world's first 15 terabyte SSD? It wasn't that long ago, in March 2016, but it was a crazy amount of solid state storage at the time. 

Now, Seagate blew that record out of the water: On Tuesday, at the Flash Memory Summit conference in Santa Clara, the company has demonstrated a 60TB SSD, currently the largest solid state drive out there. 

Unless your media collection is really, really large, one of these babies should last you a lifetime, as the 60TB capacity is enough to store 400 million photos or 12,000 DVD movies, according to Seagate.

As you might imagine, though, the 60TB SAS SSD is a product aimed at enterprises, and the price will probably be outside of most individuals' range. Samsung's 15TB SSD is also an enterprise-grade product.

And if you thought 60TB is a lot, just check Seagate's sales pitch for the new drive (pictured above): "Reach 1PB (one petabyte) with only 17 drives." 

Seagate's monstrous SSD is currently available for demonstration, and is expected to hit the stores "some time in 2017."