Android Blog AppsApk

Category: News

No Plans for Nintendo CEO to Launch a New Switch Model in 2020

A video game device, the Nintendo Switch, was founded by Nintendo, which was released in March 2017. It is a composite device that can be used at home as well can be used as a portable device. It has wireless controllers with buttons and parallel sticks for hand-held style play. The software supports internet connectivity for online games.

This game comes under the eighth generation of video game consoles and is based on the NVidia Tegra X1 chip. The Switch has a memory of 4GB and 32GB internal memory with Quad-core Cortex-A57 + Quad-core Cortex-A53 processor.

It supports removable microSD CARD up to 2 TB. With a display screen of 6.2 inches, the Nintendo Switch ensures an excellent gaming experience. Also, the leather case provides complete protection from scratches and dirt.

An increasingly popular platform, Nintendo Switch is the most newly designed gaming console in the market. The device can be connected with your big TV screen with a dock. There are various games exclusively designed for the Nintendo Switch. In addition, the Switch has multiple Mario games and is increasingly becoming popular with other developers.

Recent Updates

Coupled with the Multi-touch capacitive, the Nintendo Switch ensures more than one point of contact at the same time. Recently, there have been rumors that there isn’t any plan for the Nintendo CEO, Shuntaro Furukawa, to launch a new switch in 2020.

There has been technically two release of the Switch in 2019 – the Switch lite and the Nintendo Switch, with better battery life and hand-held facility.

The Switch Pro that is rumored to be in the works claims to have an upgraded version of the previous hardware, thereby ensuring excellent graphics as well as a high powered processor. According to the reports, it is claimed that there won’t be many improvements except the device would be a little faster

The Production Update

A Taiwan newspaper reported that a massive production would start from the first quarter of 2020. But since this is a rumor, it has been turned down by the company. Another American Journal report has claimed that the Nintendo Company is working on two types of switches.

The first Switch would be suitable for the budget gamers, and the other device would be the refined version of the console with improved features for the hard-core gamers.

The company is currently trying to upgrade its processor, which would enable the Switch to work for a long time without heating up, thereby making the Switch harder to hack. However, all these are mere assumptions.

Bottom Line

There has been controversy regarding the release date of the new Nintendo Switch. However, the Nintendo switch has turned down all the rumors in the market. They have claimed to turn down all the free rumors in the market. We are, however, still in the dark regarding the release of the new version of the Nintendo Switch.

The earlier version of the Nintendo switch gained worldwide popularity with significant growth in sales.

March 3, 2020
iQOO 3 5G Flagship Smartphone: AI Eye Tracking Technology And More

iQOO is all set to step up operation in India as a separate identity and not just a sub-brand of Vivo. Over the past years, Vivo has amped up its business in the second-largest market for smartphones in the world.

The very first device the iQOO shall be launching in India is the iQOO 3. It is a flagship 5G smartphone, which is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC chipset that is one of the best available in the market.

iQOO is owned by the BBK Group, which has five primary brands under its name, which are OnePlus, Vivo, Oppo, Realme, and iQOO. The director of the company has further come ahead to assure that they shall be selling more than 1 million iQoo handsets in the next one year. The all-new iQOO 3 is scheduled to be launched in India in just a matter of a few days now.

Connectivity

Packed with features like 5G connectivity, AI Eye-tracking technology, new and improved battery technology, and eye-catching camera arrangement, the iQOO 3 is being regarded to become one of the best-in-class premium segment smartphones in India.

iQOO plans to begin its sale online initially and later on, catch up with the retail business offline. It has already set up a team of 80 members that are based in Bengaluru. iQOO has also added that each and every one of their products will be manufactured in India.

Targeting the premium category or segment for smartphones, iQOO intends to gain both mind and market shares in India. The growing trend for premium phones in India is giving way for the brands as well as sub-brands to roll out new devices providing a smooth smartphone experience.

Specifications

Talking about the specs of the iQOO 3, the Weibe account for iQOO has given away a few details about the smartphone. The most interesting one of which is the AI Eye-tracking technology. This feature mainly concentrates on the eye of the individual in a frame. More details are yet to be rolled out.

Camera

The iQOO 3 comes with a quad electronic camera arrangement along with a central 48-megapixel sensing unit. Additionally, the camera features a 50 mm expert picture lens. Also, based on various leaks on Weibe, we can well tell that the smartphone will feature at least a 12 GB massive RAM and most definitely work on Android 10.

Style

Coming to its style, the iQOO 3 is known to have a hole-punch style, which also comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner. The 6.44-inch huge OLED screen will display unmatched picture quality that is life-like and with brilliant color representation. Furthermore, it supposedly comes with a substantial 4410Mah battery.

March 3, 2020
TikTok Deepfakes – Manipulated videos with face-swapping technology

TikTok is one of the leading social media platforms for new generation youngsters. It has become one of the most used applications in the world. In 2019, TikTok was the most downloaded application, with more than 46 million downloads just in the first quarter of the year.

Recently, a face-swapping technology, Deepfakes, has become widely popular among TikTok users. There are several users of TikTok who have gained immense popularity just by creating short 60 second videos in the app.

There are also some users who use the content from such popular TikTok users to make themselves famous. The face in the videos is replaced with different caricature faces or other human faces to attract more viewers to their own accounts.

TikTok Deepfakes

This face-swapping technology is known as deepfakes, which is a term used for videos or images. Later, that have been doctored using artificial intelligence to suggest something fake. Deepfakes are often used by comedians and other influencers to create a video or image. Hence, they would seem like someone has said or done something, whereas, in reality, nothing of that sort has happened.

Wrapping it up

A lot of users have also expressed their concern on how this technology could be misused to spread misinformation or affect reputations. Facebook has also recently banned the use of such deepfakes on the platform. However, it also has certain loopholes.

March 2, 2020
An all-new Contender for TikTok: Byte

A video-sharing social networking site, TikTok is a Beijing based company launched in 2016 for iOS and Android and is available in 40 languages. This networking site has gained popularity worldwide.

The TikTok app allows the user to create and upload short videos up to 60 seconds with background music and dialogues. This also allows short lip sync videos. The app comes with the ‘react’ and ‘duet’ feature. The react feature allows the user to give reaction top specific videos, whereas the Duet feature allows two videos to be played simultaneously.

The privacy of the user is highly secured. The personal information can be kept blocked from a specific user, and the user can choose or reject his friends whenever he likes. Certain videos can also be kept public or private, according to the wishes of the user. There is a feature of viewing recommended videos in the “for you” page for the users to view various videos and react to them.

Like TikTok, Byte is also a video-sharing social networking site launched in January 2020 by Dom Hofmann led the development team and is available in 41 languages.

This was initially launched for iOS and Android. This app allows the user to share a 2 to 6.5 seconds video. For this, the user needs to register for an account. The app allows the user to react to other’s videos and can also search for videos according to searching categories.

The Byte app has posed a severe challenge to the existence of the long-lived and widespread TikTok. Byte has been ranked No. 1 in Apple’s U.S. App Store, as a free iOS app in Canada, and No. 10 in Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and the U.K.

Though there is nothing that can challenge the 60 seconds format of TikTok, the newly launched Byte app had 780,000 times downloads in its first week. By now, it has downloads of more than 1.3 m by contrast to 1 billion TikTok downloads, which seems to be an impressive start.

TikTok’s attractiveness lay in its viral-friendly features accompanied by various filters, visual effects, lip-sync features. But the Byte lacks in these features. What Byte possesses is its large number of influencers. However, both apps have a similar interface since both the apps do the same work of sharing videos.

More bout Byte Videos

The Byte is best suitable for fast and quick videos. The Byte allows the user to get paid for uploading a video that is absent in the case of TikTok. But the TikTok users can earn money by the ads that are released by the app, but this is not available to everyone.

However, Byte is not available in North America and Canada, and unless this problem is fixed, Byte cannot catch TikTok for sure. Besides these, TikTok has more features than Byte, and if Byte wants to surpass TikTok in its popularity, then it has to pull up its socks with various new features in the future.

Bottom Line

Though Byte has shown impressive downloads in its first week, yet it is far behind TikTok in many aspects. It cannot beat the popular TikTok app unless it makes some improvements soon.

March 2, 2020
Everything You Need To Know About The Android’s New File System

Mobile gaming is one of the booming industries today. With numerous games of different genres to cater to all kinds of users and players, the Android gaming section is only going for a rise in the future. Games in all categories like adventure, arcade, educational, puzzle, simulation, strategy, trivia, music, or card, both free and paid, are prevalent amongst youngsters in today’s time.

Recently, Google has rolled out rumors of developing a new feature for Android that shall allow users to start gaming even before they finish installing the game. Google has made few patch submissions to check to merge support for the new system into the Linux Kernel.

As per the document that Google has submitted, Incremental FS is a virtual Linux New File System that allows the execution of a program even while its binary functions and resource files are in the process of downloading. This technology is almost similar to the ones which operate in PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

In simpler words, Android will allow its users to start playing games even before the game has been downloaded and installed completely. So, let’s say you would like to download a 4GB game on your device. This will take a considerable amount of time to download and launch on your smartphone.

But the new incremental FS can effortlessly launch the game without any discontinuity while the game gets downloaded in the background.

The User Experience

From the recent proceedings, it is visible that Google is trying out new ways and means to enhance the overall user experience. This could also be a beginning to the method of gaming in which gamers will no longer require to download massive games to start playing entirely.

This would also result in serving as a native Instant Apps replacement, which will not need developers to work extra as the implementation will be directly done in-kernel.

In we go deeper into the documentation submitted by Google, we can see that Google suggests Android will be downloading the data packages first. This means an intro file will be downloaded initially while the complete game can be downloaded later. It also recommends loading ‘hot blocks,’ which shall be used as filler content to avoid any kind of discontinuity or friction while gaming.

Incremental New File System feature

Google has also confirmed that new Android devices with the Incremental FS feature will have an incremental data directory, which will contain subdirectories for each of the app installed or launched on the particular device.

For the past year, Google has been testing the Incremental FS feature in Google Pixel 4 XL. However, there has been no significant news about the success of the feature now. We hope to see the feature roll out with Android v12 later in 2021.

March 2, 2020
Realme 5 Pro: Android 10 Upgrade

Most of the handsets that have been released in 2019 and the previous year have started receiving the Android 10 upgrades. Android had begun rolling out the Android 10 version to the Pixel devices last September.

Now moving to the other devices, it seems likely that Realme 5 Pro is due to get its direct version of Android 10 by the coming month while the Realme X should have it by this month.

Several Realme devices have already been testing the Android 10 beta versions. Still, for now, it is most likely that the Realme handsets will no longer get the beta firmware update but move directly to the stable Android 10 version.

According to reports, Realme has published its software release dates and timeline in January 2020, wherein it has confirmed the Realme 5 Pro to receive the Android 10 version soon. It has assured that its users should keep an eye on the regular announcements regarding the update. It is all set to arrive in March 2020.

The Software Updates

Realme 5 Pro has been receiving regular software updates ever since its release but did not receive the Android update as yet. But, now it shall skip the beta programs moving straight the core version of the Android 10.

It has been the same case for Realme X as well. But it shall have the update to the most recent Android version earlier than the other Realme handsets. The users of Realme X can get themselves prepared for a leap from Android Pie to Android 10.

March 2, 2020
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 rolls out Android 10 update in Germany and the USA
Samsung launched the beta release a few days ago. Now, the smartphone giant Samsung has finally released an Android 10 update for Samsung Galaxy Note 9. It comes with UI 2.0 features. Android 10 is now on its way to the public. Samsung has rolled it out in Germany and the USA

For those who didn’t try the beta, it’s been a long time for them to get an Android 10 update. Currently, it is in Germany and the USA. But we can expect its rollout across the globe in a matter of weeks. Comments have also rolled out of the internet from various users receiving the update of Android 10.

Inclusions in Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Android 10 update

Android 10 update comes with a firmware version, N960FXXU4DSLB. This firmware has unique features that will significantly improve the smartphone.

They’ve officially released it as ‘System Update 16’ with the inclusion of the February 2020 Android Security Patch Update. In what’s a new section during the initial update process, it shows only Android 10.0 and updated user experience.

Also, another point to notice here is that only users with Verizon’s network have received the update. If you’re a Note 9 user on Verizon’s network, you might have already got a notification pop-up on the bar.

It mainly contains One UI 2.0 (UI is User interface). So, it is a big package deal for users like a gift that includes all features of UI 2.0. However, everyone is yet to get lucky.

Updates in One UI 2.0

One UI user interface is just a year old, a little earlier than that. But, there is a lot of room for improvisation, according to Samsung.

There are several features of UI 2.0 and looking at them; it seems they’ve worked on identifying root issues of display, notifications, positions, permissions, camera, arrangement, and many more. Let us list down a few for you.
- - Quick toggles won’t come up on tapping lock screen notifications.
  - Position of app permission dialogues is at the bottom now
  - Separate Active and silent notifications
  - UI interface lock screen can far better recognize color differences
  - Time and date size in the drop-down reduced
  - The camera will be in full-screen mode while opening from messaging apps
  - Optimized Camera app arrangements and feature positions
  - Options such as aspect ratio, split-screen, pop-up view
  - More simplified calendar
  - Device care station now has a new design at screen bottom now
  - All-time related stuff combined in one scree (world-clock, alarm, timer, stopwatch, etc.)
Many other updates are not visible on the front screen but will contribute to the performance of your mobile. Many different corners of the world are yet to receive the update.

You can check if you have the update available in your country. You will need to go to the Software Update menu in settings and select download and install.

It is also available via the Samsung Firmware website. One thing is sure that Samsung Note 9 users will have a more comfortable and smooth life now.
March 1, 2020
Realme C3 launched in Thailand with rear Fingerprint Sensor
Shenzhen-based Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme has launched C3. It is the sibling with the same appellation that the company launched in India some time ago. But the siblings differ from each other in terms of configuration, specifications, and price in both countries. In India, Realme launched C3 under the tag of ‘Budget Phone,’ while in Thailand, they haven’t attached any such label. In the Thai variant, internal features, camera, fingerprint sensor, memory options are upscaled.

Realme C3 Phone Specifications

Although Thailand’s variant has few commonalities with the Indian version. It comprises a MediaTek Helio G70 SoC CPU, a 6.52- inch screen, as well as a 5,000 mAh battery. However, the differences are that there’s a third camera, along with a fingerprint sensor.
- - The unique feature of the Thai version is the triple rear camera. It has a 12 MP primary sensor, 2 MP macro lens, and 2 MP depth sensor.
  - Aperture f/1.8 is quite an impressive up-gradation along with 4x electronic zoom. As far as the front camera is concerned, there’s no upgrade from the Indian variant.
  - It is the same 5 MP camera with charm and HDR option having an aperture of f/2.4.
  - MediaTek Helio G70 SoC is an Arm cortex A75 CPU with 2 GHZ and A55 single octa-core clusters.
  - It comprises a dedicated Camera Control Unit (CCU), RSC, and EIS features.
These features specifically improve the video recording performances up to 240fps. As evident, MediaTek Helio G70 and triple camera in the C3 device suit each other well.

Apart from camera support, G70 SoC also has exciting features such as Accelerated positioning, Dual 4G VoLTE supporting 802.11 connectivity. It certainly improves the phone’s performance over Wi-Fi and high internet speed. G70 provides Integrated voice backup and fast AI-performance, which puts the mobile in competition with other gaming smartphones.

The most attractive addition is the rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, which wasn’t present in the Indian version. On the software aspect, the smartphone comes with Android 10 with Realme UI 1.0.

In terms of memory, Realme has launched it with 2 GB, 3 GB, 4 GB, and 8 GB RAM options. Also, there are 32 GB & 64 GB of storage capacity options. The 5000 mAh battery supports reverse charging technology. The whole world is marching towards the USB Type-C charging port. But Realme has continued with USB 2.0 port only.

Realme C3 Price and Launch Date

In India, Realme launched it as a budget phone at Rs 6, 999. In Thailand, they’ve launched Thai siblings at THB 3,999 (equivalent to Rs 9,100). With the addition of such interesting features, the new Thai Price seems pretty fair and still holds a good deal. It is available in the Thai online market via Shopee and Lazada from February 20, 2020.

However, this is the price for only the most-basic variant i.e., 32 GB storage with 3 GB RAM. The smartphone maker has not yet revealed the price of other high-end variants. Notably, Realme has launched C3 in Frozen Blue and Blazing Red colors with backside sunrise design.
March 1, 2020
PUBG Down: PC update 6.2 full patches notes, Shakedown Survivor Pass detailed

Hey, Gamers! All the PUBG lovers out there, got the new update? Yes, it is PUBG 6.2. Here are the necessary details.

PUBG, basically known as Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, is a gaming platform. It is a multiplayer game that involves targeting, shooting and winning. The game was found by Chang Byung-Gyu in 2017. The game is known to each and every house in India. It is very popular among kids and youth. The game has been receiving a lot of love, appraisal, and popularity since its launch.

PUBG 6.2 update

PUBG has recently launched a new update. The game was offline during the development of the update. Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds was offline from 4:30 PM, 18th February to 1:30 AM, 19th February. It was so because the game underwent major changes and had a new update.

The timings of the shutdown were available on the official website prior to it. The new update is 6.2. It is there on PUBG with patch notes that includes a new map called Karakin. The new update introduces changes in the weapons and ground. Also, it intends to improve the quality of the game.

PUBG 6.2 Patch notes

The first and foremost change to the game is the map. The PUBG makers have given a new map called Karakin which is an Island of Northern Africa. It is a map of 64 players with hard terrain and rocky-mountains.

Black Zone is also one feature available in Karakin. In this, the players are able to ruin buildings into smoke and dust. The intention behind this is to take players out of the safe buildings. The next feature is the Sticky bombs. They can destroy the walls and floors that have breach points.

Along with this, a new vehicle called a motor glider will also be available in PUBG. It is available on Erangel and Miramar. The motor glider has a lot of features with it including its speed and controls.

Survivor Pass details

There are four modes of missions that will be there in the new update. In Community Missions, everyone can join-in and claim rewards. The other one called the Season Mission has three tracks. The next is the Progress Mission which has a set of daily missions that you need to complete within the given time.

The Challenge mission is a little tougher than the other three. It has a list of weapons that are very different. These weapons include Skorpion (Handgun), Win94 (SR), QBZ (AR), AKM (AR) and QBU (DMR). All these missions have a lot of features. The details about these are available on the official website of the game.

In the new update, PUBG is having different gameplay and a lot of new features are there. Map selection, mastery system, pass button, skins and items, replay system are some new features in the 6.2 update. Also, there is an improvement in the quality of the sound, performance, and display of the game.

All the further related information and details are available on the official website of PUBG.

March 1, 2020
PS5 logo revealed at CES 2020
At CES 2020, which lasted from 7^th Jan to 10^th Jan, Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, took the stage to reveal sales figures of their Play Station 4 console and VR systems. Not just that, he also revealed the logo of their new PlayStation 5 and briefly mentioned some hardware features that this new PlayStation 5 will be focusing on. They will disclose more information about PS5 in the months ahead. Keep streaming for more updates on PS5!

A great sale by Sony

A great year for Sony Entertainment, as they have successfully sold 106 million PlayStation 4 consoles. The figures were about 102 million just a couple months ago, and now a sudden hike in such a small period is something really admirable and fascinating.

With this, the company has sold over 5 million PlayStation VR systems. While considering the software side, Sony has seen much growth in games selling making 1.15 billion units worldwide. That’s huge!

Sony subscribers are leading in the race consistently, making 103 million active online users on PlayStation Network, among which 38million subscribers are for PlayStation Plus alone. If we see 2 years growth statistics, in 2019, Sony sold a total 14.4 million PS 4 system, whereas it sold over 18million PS4 systems in 2018.

That’s strange, but this happened because the software was around 275 million copies in 2019 from 231 million in 2018. Fluctuations occur, but Sony always leads when it comes to Gaming, AI, and Virtual Reality.

Coming to PS5, what features can we expect from PlayStation 5? Let’s see ahead in the upcoming months.

Features in PS5

The success of the console is the reason why Sony is changing and modifying features about the PlayStation 5, comparing the PlayStation 4 branding, hardware, and various other parameters. Undoubtedly, PS5 is a higher and faster version of the gaming system with additional hardware ray tracing. Jim also mentioned some more information regarding the improvement which the fans already knew from Sony’s latest announcements.

PlayStation 4 Pro specifications were somewhat similar to PS4 like –
- - CPU: 2.1GHz
  - 8-core AMD Jaguar
  - GPU specs: 4.2TEFLOP AMD Radeon
  - It had a memory of 8GB GDDR5+1GB
  - Resolution: 4K (upscaled)
  - Storage:1 TB
In PlayStation 5, gamers are expecting much better features than they had in PlayStation 4 like-
- - Backward Compatibility
  - Higher graphics processing power
  - More games
  - Space
  - Speed
  - Modified VR features
  - Unique console design,
  - Controller design
  - Blue-ray tracing and Disc drive
  - Haptic feedback and adaptive-resistance trigger
This is how gamers want to play out with PS5! Everyone is happy about the features, except for the branding. Sony doesn’t like to mess with its branding, and thus, there isn’t much difference in the new PlayStation 5 logo.

What do PS fans want from PS5? Whoever owns PS4 wants what they already have but with a bigger space feature, and that’s exactly what PlayStation 5 is going to do! Gamers are waiting for further updates on PS 5.

Keep looking for more updates on the PlayStation 5 series and let the game on.
March 1, 2020