The latest US smartphone market stats for August are in, courtesy of market research firm comScore. A total of 191.1 million people in the US own a smartphone in the three month period ending in August, resulting in a 77.1% mobile market penetration.

The analytic data shows that Apple is still the leading OEM in the US with 44.1% of the market, up 0.6 percent points from last month. It’s followed by Samsung and LG with 27.4% and 9.1%, with the latter managing to grow its presence 0.9 percent points. Motorola and HTC are following with 4.7% and 3.4%, respectively.

As for smartphone platform market share, Android is still the top dog, despite a small fall from the previous three month period. Now, Android takes 51.7% of the market, while Apple is at 44.1% after a 0.6 percent point rise. Microsoft’s mobile OS is down slightly and is at 2.9%.

comScore has also run an analysis on the top smartphone apps and Facebook is at the top, as it’s installed on 3 out of 4 smartphones in the US. Next up is Facebook Messenger and YouTube at 59.8% and…

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News just got out about Sony’s latest purchase – a Belgian image sensor technology company by the name of Softkinetic. Its business is be centered around 3D technology, from the development of CMOS 3D sensors and camera modules, through connecting middleware hardware and software, all the way to analyzing and mapping algorithms.

No specifics about the deal have been disclosed and we can’t really be certain where the new company fits in Sony’s grand scheme, but the Japanese giant did roughly sketch out that the additional know-how will be put to good use in its thriving camera sensor division.

Softkinetic’s current tech is actually pretty impressive, despite its predominantly conceptual nature. The unifying technology behind the company’s DepthSense products is a concept referred to as “Time-of-Flight”. It entails measuring how long it takes for light to make the trip from the camera and back and then using said data for 3D special mapping.

The whole Softkinetic platform is allegedly smart enough to understand human gestures and actions, down to the most subtle ones, as well as recognize shapes and objects. Hence, it will be quite interesting to see what Sony’s intentions are for the company, especially now that the Japanese giant is pondering on the very future of its mobile business.

Source 1 | Source 2 |…

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Hot on the heels of the J2 (announced just a month ago), the Samsung Galaxy J3 has already passed the Geekbench test. The phone offers a great deal of upgrades over the affordable Super AMOLED-packing Galaxy J2.

The screen goes up to 5″ 720p, though software measurements of the diagonal are inaccurate and this may still be a 4.7″ screen. The resolution is a definite upgrade though, coming from 540 x 960px. Then the chipset – a Snapdragon 410 with a faster 64-bit Cortex-A53 processor. RAM and storage stay at 1GB and 8GB respectively.

The camera on the Galaxy J3 should be much better, perhaps the biggest update over the original. An 8MP camera with 1080p video capture, plus a 5MP/1080p selfie camera. For reference, the main camera on the J2 was worse than the J3’s selfie camera at 5MP/720p.

The Galaxy J series had an entry level device (J1 then J2) and a high-end device (J7), but no mid-range. The Samsung Galaxy J3 could be just what the J lineup needs to fill that hole.

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You can’t be a part of Apple and not have a Plus model, Beats Electronics will testify. The first product out of the company after the acquisition is the BeatsPill+ wireless speaker.

Sporting an updated design compared to the Pill 2.0, the new model keeps the shape of its namesake, but has the controls on a flat top plate and the drivers firing forward instead of up at an angle. 63mm high, the Pill+ is 17mm taller than the Pill 2.0, and it’s also 2cm longer. That doesn’t prepare you for the 745g of heft – the thing is 2.4 times heavier than the 2.0.

The stereo speaker has a 2-way crossover for a total of four drivers. The Pill+ connects wirelessly via Bluetooth, and if you pair it with a phone, you could use its speakerphone function. You can sync a couple of Pill-pluses and have each play a separate channel, or just have both pump out the same signal for more bang.

BeatsPill+ speaker

The battery inside Beats’ latest creation should be good for up to 12 hours of playback, and when it dies you can charge it with the included AC adapter and USB-to-lightning cable. That’s one of the most significant changes in the design, as the old model came with a standard microUSB connector, and the new one has a full-size USB and Lightning. As before, you can use the speaker to charge other devices.

The BeatPill+ will be sold in black or white and has a MSRP of $229.95, but is yet unavailable for purchase. You can sign up on the company’s site to get notified when that…

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It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and a lot of industry pioneers and former titans, like Siemens and Nokia, for example, have all but disappeared from the handset scene. Others, like Sony have been struggling to stay relevant and afloat in the market.

But being successful on a large scale and long-term means that you really have to address the weaker links in the system. Sony has been making strides in this respect and things seem to be turning around with the new lineup of Z5 premium phones, as well as solid mid-range offers like the M5, but things might not be moving fast enough. The company CEO Kazuo Hirai gave the mobile division a year or so to start bringing in a profit, before resorting to other measures:

We will continue with the business as long as we are on track with the scenario of breaking even next year onwards, . Otherwise, we haven’t eliminated the consideration of alternative options.

While this statement definitely has a doomsday vibe, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Sony’s mobile business will disappear completely in twelve months or so. More likely, the division will be spun off like its PC business. Another viable survival path might be similar to Alcatel’s current strategy of catering to carrier needs, rather than end users. But that seems a lot less likely, given Sony’s current product vision. Still, Hirai remains hopeful:

I do have a feeling that a turnaround in our electronics business has shown progress. The result of three years of restructuring are starting to . show,But we still need to carry out restructuring in smartphones.

In any case, something should be done to improve Sony’s mobile business, which currently has around 17.5% market share on its home turf in Japan, less than 1% in the US and is headed towards a huge operating loss for the current fiscal…

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US-based smartphone maker InFocus launches its latest flagship the M812 today in India. Available through Snapdeal, the phone costs $300 (INR 19,999) and packs quite the features for the price.

The InFocus M812 is built around a 5.5″ 1080p IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3 layer of protection. Beneath the aluminum unibody ticks a Snapdragon 801 chipset and 3GB of RAM. Internal storage is 16GB but sadly isn’t backed by a microSD card slot for further expansion.

At the back there’s a 13MP shooter with a f/1.8 aperture and dual-tone flash. The front camera is 8MP. The phone boots with Android 5.0 Lollipop garnished with the InLife UI on top.

Finally, check out the InFocus M812 promo video…

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There is nothing like a healthy competitive market to help deliver a constant stream of new and better deals to users and few modern businesses know this better than the gaming industry. Keeping a console fresh, relevant and appealing is no easy task, especially with the hardware’s extended life span so constant bundles, exclusives and price drops definitely seem to be the way to go.

In keeping with this tradition, starting tomorrow (October 10) the PlayStation 4 gets a new permanent price cut down to $349.99 (that is for the base 500GB model). This comes alongside the release of Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, which will be bundled with the console. Besides the US, the price cuts will be carried over to Canada where the same bundle will go for the equivalent CAD 429.99.

If you were keeping a close eye on Sony then this new price drop comes as no surprise, as it does follow a previous permanent discount in Japan. Also, this effectively brings the price of the PlayStation 4 to Xbox One levels once again, leaving the two consoles to battle it out based on performance, exclusive titles and functions alone.

The next scheduled bundles for the PS4 are said to come in mid-November, with titles like Star Wars Battlefront and Disney Infinity 3.0: Star Wars. For more details, check out the chart below.

Bundle (Release Date)
Current Price (MSRP)
New Price (MSRP) (effective 10/9)

UNCHARTED: The Nathan Drake Collection PS4 Bundle (10/9)
US$399.99 / CA$449.99
US$349.99 / CA$429.99

Limited Edition Call of Duty: Black Ops III 1TB PS4 Bundle (11/6)
US$449.99 / CA$549.99
US$429.99 / CA$499.99

Limited Edition Disney Infinity 3.0: Star Wars PS4 Bundle (11/13)
US$449.99 / CA$549.99
US$399.99 / CA$469.99

Limited Edition Star Wars Battlefront PS4 Bundle (11/17)
US$449.99 / CA$549.99
US$399.99 / CA$469.99

Star Wars Battlefront PS4 Bundle (11/17)
US$399.99 / CA$449.99
US$349.99 / CA$429.99

NHL 16 PS4 Bundle
(Available now, Canada…

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The Apple iPhone 6s/6s Plus pair has been available for two weeks now and initial hype around its new camera and 3D Touch is starting to wear off. Curious minds are now digging deeper and are looking into the difference between the Samsung and TSMC A9 chips in terms of performance and battery life.

The Samsung-made piece is manufactured on a 14nm production line, while TSMC employed a 16nm process. Teardowns revealed the former to measure 96 sq.mm, and the latter is a bit larger at 104.5 sq.mm. All that would lead you to believe the Samsung A9 to be more efficient, but in practice that appears not to be the case.

A couple of folks have rounded up a number of iPhones with different chips and done some comparison tests with results that are rather startling at first, but not all that disturbing in the end.

For example, running GeekBench parallel on two devices with identical settings shows the Samsung chip to be 33% less efficient than its TSMC counterpart. Or if you spin it the other way around, the TSMC will last up to 50% longer than the Samsung. In consecutive runs of GeekBench, that is, which is an isolated CPU benchmark and in no way representative of actual use. An hour-long YouTube video playback test results in 15% vs. 14% drop in battery level for the two respective chips, well within the margin of error for such a short test.

Another YouTuber has attempted a more life-like usage scenario for his comparison. The test kicks off with a 30-minute timelapse recording, which leaves the Samsung-equipped iPhone 6s at 84%, while the TSMC one is at 89%. Ten minutes of 4K video capture later, both phones are down an additional 9%, and an iMovie export of the same 4K video leaves the two devices at 60% vs. 66%.

It couldn’t go without some GeekBenching but in this case it was from a performance point of view and the TSMC model scores marginally higher. No difference is found between the two when subjected to a GPU-focused GFXBench Metal, and after the entire ordeal the iPhone 6s with a Samsung chip inside is left with 55% of juice, while the other one shows 62%.

There’s an app in the App Store called Lirum that can tell you the model of the chipset you got, but this can only happen post-purchase. In the end, there’s no way of knowing, which one you’re getting before you actually buy it. That said, unless your smartphone use is dominated by timelapse recordings (whose isn’t), it shouldn’t make much difference for purposes practical.

Source 1 Source…

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The Huawei-made Google Nexus 6P smartphone, which was made official last week along with the LG-made Nexus 5X, will be carrier exclusive to SoftBank in Japan. The carrier will begin taking pre-orders for the device on October 9 – tomorrow.

What’s good is that you’ll also be able to pre-order the Japan-exclusive Gold color model of the handset (shown above), although only in the 64GB configuration. The model is officially called Nexus 6P Special Edition. Another thing worth mentioning is that none of the colors will be available in the 128GB configuration.

Meanwhile, both NTT and Y!Mobile will sell the Nexus 5X – while the former will carry only Quartz and Carbon color options, the latter will offer Ice variant as well. There is currently no word from any of the carriers on the pricing of the devices.

Via 1…

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Cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks published a report yesterday revealing that they discovered a network of fake LinkedIn profiles which they say belonged to an Iran-based hacker group known as Threat Group-2889 (TG-2889).

A total of 25 such profiles were identified. While a few among them were those of “leaders” (who claimed they held top positions in industries like technology, banking, and oil), others were supporting personas (those who supported and lend credibility to “leaders”), the report noted.

Of the more than 200 legitimate LinkedIn profiles that were found to be connected to these fake ones, majority belonged to those who worked in the middle-east, especially in the telecommunications sector. The remaining belonged to those working for governments and defense organizations.

When reached out for comment, a LinkedIn spokesperson said that all fake profiles have since been…

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