Wednesday, 1 April 2020

Today Marks the 44th Anniversary of Apple's Founding

44 years ago today, on April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne signed a contract founding the Apple Computer Company.


Days later, Ronald Wayne bowed out and received $800, leaving Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to launch the Apple I that led to Apple revolutionizing the personal computer industry before moving on to other markets and becoming one of the most successful companies in modern history.


Steve Wozniak left Apple in 1985, leaving Steve Jobs at the helm. Under Jobs' leadership, and after weathering a few hiccups like Jobs' time at NeXT, Apple launched iconic products like the iMac G3, the MacBook, the iPod, the original iPhone, and the iPad, along with services like the App Store and iTunes.


After Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, Tim Cook took over and kept Jobs' legacy alive, launching new iPhones and iPads and new product lines, such as the Apple Watch, HomePod, and AirPods. Cook also oversaw Apple's deep foray into services with the launches of Apple News+, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple Music.


Today Apple is weathering a storm and has temporarily shuttered its stores outside of China, and device sales are seeing a drastic dip as a result. It will take Apple some time to recover, but there are many innovative products on the horizon, such as the 5G iPhones, Macs with Apple designed Arm-based processors, AR glasses, and more, some of which will come this year and some of which are slated to launch over the course of the next few years. As it has in the past, Apple will bounce back.

April 1st, in addition to being the day Apple was founded, is also April Fools' Day. Given the current situation, MacRumors will not be sharing the April Fools' pranks that typically circulate, and many companies, such as Google, have bowed out of jokes this year. We wanted MacRumors readers to be aware of the date to avoid falling for any ill-timed pranks or joke products.
This article, "Today Marks the 44th Anniversary of Apple's Founding" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Another Exynos-powered 5G phone is here, and it’s not by Samsung

The Vivo S6 5G.Vivo

Samsung’s Exynos chipsets can be found in its own flagship phones, but Vivo has also decided to use them in its latest mid-range 5G phone.

The Chinese brand announced the Vivo S6 5G this week, packing an upper-mid range Exynos 980 processor. This chipset offers the latest CPU cores, featuring two Cortex-A77 cores paired with six power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores. You can also expect a Mali-G76 MP5 GPU, an NPU for machine learning, and an 8nm manufacturing process.

Samsung’s chipset also delivers sub-6Ghz 5G support, as the Vivo S6 5G name implies, owing to an integrated 5G modem. There’s no mmWave capability here, but sub-6Ghz is the most popular 5G standard right now anyway.

The Vivo S6 5G.Vivo

Vivo’s phone isn’t too bad in other areas either, packing a 6.44-inch FHD+ OLED screen, 8GB of RAM, 128GB or 256GB of storage, and a 4,500mAh battery with 18W charging.

The Vivo S6 5G also delivers a 32MP selfie camera in a waterdrop notch, and a quad rear camera. The latter consists of a 48MP main shooter, 8MP ultra-wide snapper, 2MP macro camera, and 2MP depth sensor.

Other specs worth knowing include an in-display fingerprint sensor, 3.5mm port, USB-C, and FunTouch OS atop Android 10.

Vivo’s mid-range 5G phone starts at 2,698 yuan (~$380) for the 8GB/128GB option, and 2,998 yuan (~$422) for the 8GB/256GB variant. It’s not the first Vivo device to use the Exynos 980 chipset, but it’s certainly cheaper than the Vivo X30 series, which ranges from ~$471 to ~$615.

We’ve asked Vivo about wider availability and will update the article when they get back to us. But if the company can bring this device to other markets without a huge price increase, we could be looking at one of the cheapest 5G phones outside China.

More posts about Vivo



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Xiaomi's total revenue reaches CNY 205 billion in Q4 2019

Xiaomi announced that the company reached a total revenue of CNY 205.8 billion in Q4 2019. The company believes that this due to its technological innovations.
Xiaomi's total revenue reaches CNY 205 billion in Q4 2019
Xiaomi's total revenue reaches CNY 205 billion in Q4 2019

Xiaomi's huge 2019 growth

Xiaomi YoY growth
Xiaomi YoY growth

Reaching CNY 205.8 billion in total revenue indicates a 17.7 percent YoY growth for the company. In terms of adjusted net profit, Xiaomi achieved CNY 11.5 billion which is a 34.8 percent YoY growth.

According to Xiaomi, this is mainly due to its pursuit of the "Smartphone + AIoT" dual-engine strategy in 2019.

In 2020, Xiaomi will move to its "5G+AI+IoT" roadmap wherein they plan to increase the company investment by CNY 50 billion over the next 5 years.
Xiaomi IoT platform figures
Xiaomi IoT platform figures

Currently, there are 235 million IoT devices connected to Xiaomi's IoT platform which indicates a 55.6 percent YoY growth. Also, there a 4.1 million users with 5 or more devices connected to the platform which is a 77.3 percent YoY growth. Lastly, there are 60 million mostly active users of Xiaomi's AI assistant.
XIaomi's overseas revenue
Xiaomi's overseas revenue

In terms of smartphones, Xiaomi recorded revenue of CNY 122.1 billion. There were 125 million global shipments of Xiaomi smartphones which is good enough to put the brand at rank 4 globally. 2019 Q4 smartphone shipments also grew by 30.5 percent YoY.

In terms of IoT and lifestyle products, Xiaomi saw a 41.7 percent YoY growth. Xiaomi's Smart TVs reached 12.8 million global shipments which translate to 25 percent YoY growth. 

This made Xiaomi number 1 ranked in mainland China and 5th globally for TV shipments. It is also the number 1 brand in India as well.

46.8 percent of Xiaomi's total revenue came for the overseas market with Western Europe leading the growth. In 2019, overseas revenue total to CNY 91.2 billion which is 30.4 percent YoY growth.

Q4 2019 alone got a 40.7 percent YoY growth at CNY 26.4 billion overseas revenue.

What do you guys think?

Source: Xiaomi


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Tuesday, 31 March 2020

Don’t believe Zoom: Its video calls are not encrypted end-to-end


It’s a brand new day with a brand new privacy issue for popular video calling app Zoom. Last night, The Intercept published a report highlighting that Zoom‘s claim of having end-to-end encryption for its meetings is not true. The video conferencing company boasts about end-to-end encryption on its website, and in a separate security-related white paper. However, The Intercept’s report found that the service uses transport encryption instead. [Read: This tool erases web page text to reveal hidden poetry] Transport encryption is a Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, that secures the connection between you and the server you’re connected to. That’s…

This story continues at The Next Web


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4 things I learned about innovation by working under Intuit’s Scott Cook


In the case of many technology companies, when you’re talking about the founder, it is the person who successfully brought a great new innovation to the world. They are often the big personalities behind the corporate stories; they are visionary leaders who drove the companies through transformative steps over decades. The only difference in Silicon Valley is that there haven’t been many iterations or generations of leaders. The founder’s story isn’t in the archives, and neither is the founder. Many founders are still involved with the company. [Read: As a CEO I’m often wrong — but that’s okay] There’s a little mystique…

This story continues at The Next Web


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