SNL sketch scorches Mark Zuckerberg in hilarious ‘Weekend Update’ segment

While Facebook has certainly had its fair share of privacy scandals over the years, the recent controversy involving Cambridge Analytica undoubtedly represents the biggest challenge the social networking giant has faced to date. Cambridge Analytica, as a quick refresher, is a consulting firm that stealthily acquired information about 87 million Facebook users for political advertising purposes.

Over the past few weeks, Facebook has been in full-on damage control. Not only did Mark Zuckerberg issue an apology a few weeks back, various Facebook executives have been making the rounds in the media in an effort to assure the masses that their private data will remain just that, private. What’s more, Zuckerberg is slated to testify before congress on the matter this coming Tuesday.

In anticipation of Zuckerberg’s testimony before seasoned lawmakers, Saturday Night Live over the weekend had a little bit of fun at Zuckerberg’s expense by poking fun at his somewhat offbeat persona. During the Weekend Updateportion of the show, Zuckerberg — played ably by Alex Moffat — addressed the company’s ongoing privacy issues in a hilarious manner.

Right off the bat, the show pokes fun at Zuckerberg’s allegedly robotic demeanor. Upon being introduced, Zuckerberg, in an effort to appear more human, recites his inner monologue aloud and says: “Begin eye contact. One, two, three. Nailed it.”

When asked if he was going to resign, Zuckerberg responded: “No way homie. Because according to our data sets, I don’t have to and you can’t make me.”

The best part of the sketch, in my opinion, is when Zuckerberg briefly recalls the site’s ‘Poke’ feature, something Zuckerberg categorizes as “flirting for cowards.”

Source: http://bgr.com/2018/04/09/snl-mark-zuckerberg-sketch-video-poke-flirting/

OnePlus 6 Leaks In Blue, White, And Black Colors With Red Alert Slider

OnePlus is just a few weeks away from unveiling its next-gen OnePlus 6 flagship. The Chinese vendor has been teasing the device for quite a while now, and has confirmed many of its hardware specifications. OnePlus’s official statements, coupled with tons of OnePlus 6 leaks and rumors, have left little to imagination. Fresh renders emerging out of China suggest that the device would come in white, blue, and black color options.

According to a report from CNMO, OnePlus 6 renders showing the black, white, and blue color models were posted on Weibo. The existing OnePlus smartphones come in Midnight Black and Slate Gray colors. It means the blue color could be the highlight of this year’s flagship. The OnePlus 6 leaks also shed light on the phone’s features and design elements.

The images posted on Weibo re-confirmed that OnePlus 6 would sport an edge-to-edge display with the top cutout. The controversial notch that Apple introduced with the iPhone X has been copied by almost every major Android vendor, and OnePlus is no exception. The Chinese vendor has already confirmed the feature, and OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has publicly defended the decision to include the notch.

Thankfully, OnePlus 6 will have the option to hide the notch via software. OnePlus CEO Carl Pei has said that the company had tested the notch with top 1,000 Android apps to ensure a seamless user experience. Besides the tiny notch, there is no bezel at the top of the display, though it still has slim bezel at the bottom. The OnePlus 6 leaks confirmed that it would have a 6-inch OLED display with an 18:9 aspect ratio.

The phone has a red Alert Slider on the side, similar to what we saw on the OnePlus 5T Star Wars edition. OnePlus recently teased on Twitter that users will be able to “Slide to focus with the Alert Slider” on OnePlus 6. It means the Slider might allow you to adjust the focus of the camera, though it’s unclear whether the feature would work on the rear camera or the front camera or both. On the current OnePlus smartphones, the Alert Slider allows users to change user profiles such as Ring, Silent, and Do Not Disturb.

On the rear panel, you’ll see a vertically-positioned dual camera system, an LED flash, a fingerprint sensor, and the OnePlus logo. The fingerprint scanner is rectangular rather than circular in shape. The presence of a fingerprint reader on the back suggests that OnePlus 6 would not borrow the in-display fingerprint scanner from its sibling Vivo. Both OnePlus and Vivo are owned by China’s BBK Electronics.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau recently said in a forum post that OnePlus 6 would be powered by Snapdragon 845 SoC and up to 8GB RAM. There might also be a 6GB RAM variant. The phone is expected to be available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB storage options. In the camera department, it would have a 16-megapixel selfie camera, and a combination of 20MP and 16MP lenses on the rear panel. The company is expected to improve the low-light performance with the OnePlus 6.

The phone will likely pack a huge 3,450mAh battery, which should last a full day of normal usage. My 7-month-old OnePlus 5 lasts almost 35 hours with normal usage on a single charge. The upcoming flagship would run Android 8.1 Oreo with OxygenOS on top. According to OnePlus 6 leaks coming out of China, the device would cost CNY 3,299 for the 64GB model, CNY 3,799 for 128GB version, and CNY 4,399 for the top-end 256GB variant.

OnePlus recently disclosed on its Facebook page that it had teamed up with Marvel Studios, apparently to launch an Avengers-themed OnePlus 6 model. The Avengers: Infinity War is set to hit the theaters on April 27th. The OnePlus 6 is expected to debut around the same time. Last year, the Chinese vendor launched a Star Wars edition of OnePlus 5T in select markets.

A recent report indicates that the company would introduce OnePlus Bullets Wireless earbuds with the next-gen flagship. The OnePlus Bullets Wireless headphones last week appeared on the Bluetooth certification site. The listing revealed that the Bullets Wireless would be similar to Apple’s AirPods and Google’s Pixel Buds. It would be based on Bluetooth v4.1 and would run a Qualcomm chipset.

The launch of OnePlus Bullets Wireless headphones doesn’t mean OnePlus 6 would drop the 3.5mm headphone jack. The Chinese company has assured fans that the new smartphone would retain the audio jack. The Bullets Wireless would be an alternative to the wired earbuds. We can expect them to be priced competitively considering the Bullets V2 headphones sell for as low as $20 in the United States. The rumor mill claims the upcoming earbuds would work with Google Assistant.

Source: https://www.valuewalk.com/2018/04/oneplus-6-leaks-colors-alert-slider/

It sure looks like we’re getting three new iPhones this year

For the entirety of Steve Jobs’ stewardship of the iPhone program, Apple never released more than one phone per year. A single device should always be able to strike the right balance of features and price, so Jobs’s theory went, and introducing more than one phone is a sure way to clutter the lineup.

But with Jobs firmly in the company’s rear-view mirror, the iPhone lineup has been growing at speed. First came the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 2014, and just three years later, Apple released the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X within the same quarter. According to yet another analyst report, that three-phone trend is going to keep going strong in 2018.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani has penned another note suggesting that Apple will release three iPhones in 2018, all at the same time. There will be a follow-up to the iPhone X (maybe the iPhone X2?) a bigger iPhone X Plus, and some kind of cheaper plus-sized iPhone with a 6.1-inch LCD screen.

Of those three, Daryanani expects the LCD iPhone to sell the best, accounting for around half of all iPhone production. “We think the new LCD iPhone (iPhone 9?) will be featured with a 6.1” full screen, and possibly with 3D sensing,” Daryanani writes. “Based on our channel checks, we believe the new features should drive iPhone 9 sell-through, provided pricing is reasonable. Additionally, we think there is potential for a larger-capacity battery as new features are added to iPhones.”

In a previous note, Daryanani suggests that the iPhone 9 would cost around $650 or $700, in line with the current iPhone 8. It’s a price cut of sorts however, as Apple has never sold a big-screen iPhone for less than $749. The normal-sized iPhone X2 would also get a price cut compared to the current iPhone X, and end up around $899, making it more competitive with the Galaxy S9 ($800 at most carriers).

The other big takeaway from the note is that iPhone X demand has been well under what Apple’s suppliers expected. “Based on our channel checks with suppliers, we believe current production expectation for new iPhones is ~80-90M units for second half calendar 2018, which is below suppliers’ expectation of ~100-120M units for iPhone 8/X in early 2017,” Daryanani writes. “However, we would note compared to the very optimistic expectation for iPhone 8/X sell-through, supply chain partners now have a more subdued expectation.

Source: http://bgr.com/2018/04/09/iphone-x2-coming-2018-new-iphone-release-date/

LG G7 ThinQ confirmed and practically announced by LG itself

LG has a partly interesting, partly puzzling strategy when it comes to major announcements. It somewhat sits in between Samsung’s silence and OnePlus’s breadcrumb teasers. LG more often than not, actually pre-announces parts and features of its upcoming flagship, practically leaving nothing left to the imagination. It is doing so yet again, confirming what we’ve practically been hearing all along. The next flagship is going to be called the LG G7 ThinQ and it’s coming three weeks’ time.

LG is quite proud to explain that it is its first ThinQ-branded phone in the G series. Mind, it’s not the first ThinQ smartphone. That distinction belongs to the LG V30S ThinQ announced at MWC just two months ago. And like that V series smartphone, the LG G7 ThinQ is going to put an emphasis on AI.

ThinQ is LG’s new umbrella brand for anything and everything related to AI. It started off by rebranding the old SmartThinQ smart home appliances and now it’s extending that to its smartphones. Unlike other OEMs, LG isn’t yet making its own smart assistant and, in fact, integrates with Google Assistant. Its focus, instead, is to integrate AI into different features, like the usual photography intelligence, smartphone and smart home controls, and more.

LG hasn’t yet hinted at anything other than the name and its focus but, being LG, we can expect more pre-announcements in the coming days. Besides, by now the LG G7 ThinQ has pretty much been leaked to death. The leaked official render above acquired by AndroidHeadlines pretty much confirm a taller and slimmer phone compared to the LG G6. Almost like a Samsung Galaxy S9 with a notch.

It will definitely be interesting to see how the market will react to this new direction, especially considering LG supposedly started from almost scratch for the G7 ThinQ. The company will be unveiling the smartphone on May 2 at the Metropolitan West in Manhattan.

The Substitute Phone is designed exclusively for smartphone addicts

In today’s day and age, asking a person to stay away from their smartphone for a few minutes can be a difficult task. We’ve grow used to having a device to fiddle around with when we get bored. We tend to scroll through social media sites or turn on the phone and randomly browse through apps like an involuntary action even when we don’t want to. It’s an addiction that may not be one of the more harmful kinds, but is still an addiction nevertheless. This is what pushed Austrian designer Klemens Schillinger to create the Substitute Phone – a tool made to help smartphone addicts abstain from using their phone.

This novel product is essentially designed looking at our touchscreen habits. I say product because this really isn’t an actual phone, but simply a smartphone-shaped block of high-grade plastic which features a line of stone beads set vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The beads act as ‘substitutes’ for touchscreen and users can roll their fingers on them to mimic daily smartphone actions like scrolling, zooming or swiping. The tool not only gives a sort of placebo effect, but Schillinger says it will provide smartphone addicts a therapeutic way to cope with withdrawal symptoms. “The object, which some of us describe as a prosthesis, is reduced to nothing but the motions,” he explains.

“More and more often one feels the urge to check their phone, even if you are not expecting a specific message or call. These observations inspired the idea of making a tool that would help stop this ‘checking’ behaviour,” he told Dezeen.

Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/technology/story/the-substitute-phone-is-designed-exclusively-for-smartphone-addicts/1/1097978.html

Android flagship LG V30 set for India release next month: Phone price revealed

The accelerated response time effectively eliminates afterimages, an important consideration for action movies and VR. And with support for HDR10 and Google Daydream VR platform, it guarantees immersive and expansive cinematic visual experience on the V30.

Furthermore, LG V30 boasts military-level-durability MIL-STD-810G certification and is capable of handling a wide-range of environment conditions that include: low pressure for altitude testing; exposure to high and low temperatures plus temperature shock (both operating and in storage); rain (including wind blown and freezing rain); humidity, fungus, salt fog for rust testing; sand and dust exposure; explosive atmosphere; leakage; acidic atmosphere, acceleration; shock and transport shock; gunfire vibration; and random vibration.

It also comes with IP68 water-and-dust resistant certification, meaning LG V30 users can take it for a dip in the swimming pool for close to 30 minutes, provided it is not less than five feet.

Another notable aspect of LG V30 is the camera hardware. It is the world’s first phone to boast f/1.6 aperture. With such large aperture, LG V30 camera will be able to absorb 25 percent more light to the sensor compared to an F1.8 lens seen in rival brands.

In a bid to improve the image and video recording quality, LG has incorporated a glass-based Crystal Clear Lens to deliver greater light-collecting ability as well as better colour reproduction than a plastic lens.

LG V30 comes with dual-camera, one a 16MP standard shooter (F1.6 / 71-degree Field Of View: FOV) and a 13MP wide angle (F1.9/ 120-degree FOV) snapper. On the front, it houses a 5MP camera with 100-degree wide-angle lens and f/2.2 aperture.

Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.in/android-flagship-lg-v30-set-india-release-next-month-phone-price-revealed-750826