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MWC 2021 day one wrap-up
“It is great that MWC is back,” Samsung UK’s James Kitto said, opening up this year’s presser. “And behalf of everyone at Samsung, it’s great to be back at MWC.”
What, precisely, it means to be “back” in 2021 is another question entirely. Samsung was, of course, one of a number of major industry players who announced that they would not be exhibiting at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It was hard not to see an echo of last year’s event, when key players pulled out, one by one, forcing the GSMA to cancel the event altogether.
This year’s event is different for myriad reasons. For one thing, MWC’s traditional timeframe of late-February/early-March put the event directly in the crosshairs of COVID-19’s arrival in the EU. For another, this time out, the organizing body had another year to prepare.
The simplest route would have been to do what the CTA did with CES and go all-virtual. The first all-virtual CES had plenty of issues of course, but attempting an in-person element ahead of a widespread vaccine rollout in the U.S. would have, at best, complicated things by orders of magnitude.
COVID-19 continues to be a concern in Spain – as with much of the world. The GSMA opted to go ahead with the event this year, however, after pushing MWC back several months from its standard dates. The company has implemented all sorts of safety measures, but judging from early videos taken at the event, social distancing ought not to prove an issue on the show floor this year.
Image Credits: Samsung/Google
It seems safe to assume that most who are “attending” the event are doing so virtually – a list that includes the vendors themselves.
Samsung is among those high profile companies that presented a pre-recorded virtual press conference. Perhaps companies still see value in being attached to this sort of event even if it’s virtual, or maybe the on-going partnership with the organization is worth nurturing. The cynical part of me wonders how many of the sponsored sessions just couldn’t be reversed.
Samsung’s event was arguably the biggest of the day, but the presser felt like little more than a placeholder. The biggest news of the press conference was an expansion of a partnership Google announced at I/O last month, while much of the rest of the stream was pointing toward an Unpacked event happening later this summer.
Image Credits: Samsung
In fact, the event closed with a black and white slide reading “See you soon at the next Unpacked,” in case you didn’t get the hint. Bottom line: no hardware.
Lenovo, on the other hand, didn’t hold back. That’s due, in part, to the fact that the company releases a tremendous amount of hardware, so why not tie it to MWC, right?
The list of announcements inluces a new version of the Smart Clock Google Assistant alarm clock with a built-in wireless charging pads for phones and several tablets, including the Yoga Tab 11 and 13, which sport combination hanger/kickstand. The 13-inch system also doubles as an external monitor, which is when the kickstand really comes in handy.
Image Credits: Lenovo
TCL got out ahead of the event early, with the announcement of NXTWEAR G – a wearable OLED cinema display. The headmounted device approximates a 140-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The company also offered a better look at the 20 Pro 5G, which is coming to the States at just a dollar short of $500, featuring a snapdragon 750G processor and a headphone jack to boot.
TCL NEXTWEAR G
Those are your top line headlines for the show so far. The event runs through July 1st, so still plenty of show left, whether or not anyone will be there to see it in person.
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AWS expands on SageMaker capabilities with end-to-end features for machine learning
Nearly three years after it was first launched, Amazon Web Services’ SageMaker platform has gotten a significant upgrade in the form of new features, making it easier for developers to automate and scale each step of the process to build new automation and machine learning capabilities, the company said.
As machine learning moves into the mainstream, business units across organizations will find applications for automation, and AWS is trying to make the development of those bespoke applications easier for its customers.
“One of the best parts of having such a widely adopted service like SageMaker is that we get lots of customer suggestions which fuel our next set of deliverables,” said AWS vice president of machine learning, Swami Sivasubramanian. “Today, we are announcing a set of tools for Amazon SageMaker that makes it much easier for developers to build end-to-end machine learning pipelines to prepare, build, train, explain, inspect, monitor, debug and run custom machine learning models with greater visibility, explainability and automation at scale.”
Already companies like 3M, ADP, AstraZeneca, Avis, Bayer, Capital One, Cerner, Domino’s Pizza, Fidelity Investments, Lenovo, Lyft, T-Mobile and Thomson Reuters are using SageMaker tools in their own operations, according to AWS.
The company’s new products include Amazon SageMaker Data Wrangler, which the company said was providing a way to normalize data from disparate sources so the data is consistently easy to use. Data Wrangler can also ease the process of grouping disparate data sources into features to highlight certain types of data. The Data Wrangler tool contains more than 300 built-in data transformers that can help customers normalize, transform and combine features without having to write any code.
Amazon also unveiled the Feature Store, which allows customers to create repositories that make it easier to store, update, retrieve and share machine learning features for training and inference.
Another new tool that Amazon Web Services touted was Pipelines, its workflow management and automation toolkit. The Pipelines tech is designed to provide orchestration and automation features not dissimilar from traditional programming. Using pipelines, developers can define each step of an end-to-end machine learning workflow, the company said in a statement. Developers can use the tools to re-run an end-to-end workflow from SageMaker Studio using the same settings to get the same model every time, or they can re-run the workflow with new data to update their models.
To address the longstanding issues with data bias in artificial intelligence and machine learning models, Amazon launched SageMaker Clarify. First announced today, this tool allegedly provides bias detection across the machine learning workflow, so developers can build with an eye toward better transparency on how models were set up. There are open-source tools that can do these tests, Amazon acknowledged, but the tools are manual and require a lot of lifting from developers, according to the company.
Other products designed to simplify the machine learning application development process include SageMaker Debugger, which enables developers to train models faster by monitoring system resource utilization and alerting developers to potential bottlenecks; Distributed Training, which makes it possible to train large, complex, deep learning models faster than current approaches by automatically splitting data across multiple GPUs to accelerate training times; and SageMaker Edge Manager, a machine learning model management tool for edge devices, which allows developers to optimize, secure, monitor and manage models deployed on fleets of edge devices.
Last but not least, Amazon unveiled SageMaker JumpStart, which provides developers with a searchable interface to find algorithms and sample notebooks so they can get started on their machine learning journey. The company said it would give developers new to machine learning the option to select several pre-built machine learning solutions and deploy them into SageMaker environments.
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The revamped Motorola Razr foldable launches October 2, starting at $1,200
Foldable phones have had…quite the journey over the last few years. The second time appears to have been the charm for the Galaxy Fold, with a far more robust design than the first generation. And now Motorola’s hoping for similar luck with a revamped version of the Razr.
The Lenovo -owned brand announced this morning that the latest addition of the phone will officially launch in North America on October 2. And for a limited time, it will be available from select retailers — including Amazon, Best Buy, B&H and its own site — for $1,200. That’s a $200 initial discount for early adopters with faith that Motorola nailed it this time out.
The original version of the handset, launched last year, had everything working in its favor, from an iconic name to the latest in smartphone devices. Ultimately, however, it ran into poor reviews, keeping with a theme of the initial wave of foldables. It was a big letdown for a legitimately exciting device. Here’s what a spokesperson told TechCrunch about this latest model:
We’re confident in our foldable system, which is why we retained much of the same technology from the first iteration of Razr. While evolving Razr’s design to include 5G, we focused on areas to make mechanical refinements, based on direct consumer feedback.
Announced three weeks back, the new device will arrive in the States in a matter of days, sporting 5G connectivity and a lower price than the original (on top of the aforementioned limited time discount). AT&T and T-Mobile will also be carrying the new model.
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Lenovo brings some unique features to its new gaming phone
Gaming phones are a weird one. They make sense on paper to some degree. As we well know, everyone’s a gamer these days, and much or most of that gaming happens on mobile devices. So why aren’t devoted gaming phones a more popular phenomenon? It’s not for lack of trying.
Lenovo is the latest company to toss its hat in that highly specific ring. That’s the sort of thing you can do when you’re the size of Lenovo and can experiment with such things. Gaming phones are a kind of go big or go home proposition, and the company’s doing mostly the former with the Legion Phone Duel, a mobile addition to the company’s Legion line of gaming PCs.
Image Credits: Lenovo
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For starters, the handset was briefly alluded to in Qualcomm’s recent Snapdragon 865 Plus announcement — and is now one of a very small club of phones sporting the chip. From where I sit, however, the most interesting thing about the category is the way it affords manufacturers an opportunity to experiment with ideas in a way that you don’t often see on flagships. And, indeed, there’s definitely some interesting stuff happening here.
For one thing, it has two batteries — something you don’t really see outside of foldables. Of course, those sport them for the very pragmatic reason that phone batteries don’t fold. Here, however, the batteries are separated to prevent overheating, leading the company the split the extremely healthy 5,000mAh capacity in two. You’re going to need that sort of battery for a gaming-centric 5G handset.
Also worth pointing out is the horizontal pop-up selfie camera — the most notable feature from early leaks. The idea here, of course, is that serious mobile gaming happens in the landscape configuration. As such, the design makes sense for video capture to stream to services like Twitch and YouTube. It’s a highly specific use case, of course, but this is a highly specific phone. And, of course, your results of taking selfie video on the mobile device you’re using to game may vary.
Image Credits: Lenovo
Speaking of unique feature positions, there are also two separate USB-C charging ports — one in standard position on the bottom, and the other on the side. Again, the idea here is to make it as easy as possible to remain in landscape mode. If you’ve ever attempted to charge your phone and play a game at the same time, you know how much of a pain that can be.
Along with the aforementioned Snapdragon chip, you’ll also find up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. The display is 6.65 inches at 2340×1080, with a 144Hz refresh rate. The phone does not appear to be coming to the U.S. for now, but will be available this month in China (where it will be called the Legion Phone Pro), followed by the Asia Pacific region, Europe/Middle East/Africa and Latin America.
Pricing is TBD.
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Android’s Ambient Mode will soon come to ‘select devices’
You’ve probably heard murmurs about Google’s forthcoming Ambient Mode for Android . The company first announced this feature, which essentially turns an Android device into a smart display while it’s charging, in September. Now, in a Twitter post, Google confirmed that it will launch soon, starting with a number of select devices that run Android 8.0 or later.
At the time, Google said Ambient Mode was coming to the Lenovo Smart Tab M8 HD and Smart Tab tablets, as well as the Nokia 7.2 and 6.2 phones. According to the Verge, it’ll also come to Sony, Nokia, Transsion and Xiaomi phones, though Google’s own Pixels aren’t on the company’s list yet.
While your
charges, Ambient Mode comes to life. Hear how it delivers a proactive Google Assistant experience to your #Android phone. pic.twitter.com/67rrgTTxqO
— Android (@Android) November 25, 2019
“The ultimate goal for proactive Assistant is to help you get things done faster, anticipate your needs and accomplish your tasks as quickly and as easily as possible,” said Google Assistant product manager Arvind Chandrababu in the announcement. “It’s fundamentally about moving from an app-based way of doing things to an intent-based way of doing things. Right now, users can do most things with their smartphones, but it requires quite a bit of mental bandwidth to figure out, hey, I need to accomplish this task, so let me backtrack and figure out all the steps that I need to do in order to get there.”
Those are pretty lofty goals. In practice, what this means, for now, is that you will be able to set an alarm with just a few taps from the ambient screen, see your upcoming appointments, turn off your connected lights and see a slideshow of your images in the background. I don’t think that any of those tasks really consumed a lot of mental bandwidth in the first place, but Google says it has more proactive experiences planned for the future.
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The Motorola Razr could return as a $1,500 foldable smartphone
Motorola has revived the Razr name a few times over the years, but the once-mighty brand has failed to regain the heights of its early days as an ultra-slim flip phone. But what better time for the phone maker’s parent Lenovo to bring back the brand in earnest as the mobile world is readying itself for a wave of foldable smartphones?
Nostalgia’s a bit of a mixed bag in consumer electronics. Take the recent returns of Nokia (good), BlackBerry (okay) and Palm (yikes). Slapping a familiar brand on a new product is a fast track to prominence, but not necessarily success. What ultimately may hinder Razr’s rumored return, however, is price.
All of this stems from a new Wall Street Journal report noting Lenovo’s plan to revive the Razr as a foldable smartphone. The price point puts the handset north of even Apple and Samsung’s flagships, at $1,500. Of course, there isn’t really a standardized price point for the emerging foldables category yet.
The Royole FlexPai starts at around $1,300 — not cheap, especially for a product from a relative unknown. And Samsung, the next on the list to embrace the foldable, has never been afraid to hit a premium price point. Ultimately, $1,500 could well be standard for these sorts of products. Whether or not consumers are willing to pay that, however, is another question entirely.
The new Razr is apparently destined for Verizon this year. The carrier (which, as it happens, also owns TechCrunch) has had a longstanding relationship with Motorola. Success, however, is going to hinge on more than name recognition alone.
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Motorola’s Z3 Play modular handset arrives this summer for $499
At an event in Brazil this morning, Lenovo announced the latest addition to its line of modular handsets. The Moto Z3 doesn’t represent a big leap for the line, but it does introduce a slight change in approach for a company hoping to make a bigger splash on the modular side of the question.
Like its predecessor, the Z3 Play will be priced at an extremely reasonable $499. That includes some upgrades, such as a slight redesign with a glass back (Gorilla Glass 3 on both sides) and a screen that’s been extended to six inches (a 2160 x 1080 resolution at 18:9), courtesy of thinner bezels and fingerprint reader that’s been moved around to the side of the devices.
That’s a 79 percent screen-to-body ratio, by Motorola’s count, but no embrace yet of the nearly ubiquitous top notch. The company, it seems, is saving that for the upcoming Motorola Power One, its upcoming iPhone X-like flagship. The Z3 Play, for all of the flashiness of modularity, is still a mid-tier handset, as evidenced by (among other things), the octa-core Snapdragon 636 inside.
One of the key differentiators here, however, is how the company is selling the device. Bundles make a lot of sense with a device for which accessories are a key selling point. A number of third parties have offered some version of this, discounting mods with the purchase of the phone. Now, however, the bundles are being offered from the get-go, included as part of that $499 price point.
The Z3 will ship with either Motorola’s first-party speaker or battery pack. Availability will depend on the country. Here in the States, for example, it seems we’ll only be getting access to the battery version, which augments the handset’s solid 3000 mAh “all day” battery. It is, understandably, the best-selling Moto Mod — the speaker, meanwhile, is in second place. The availability of said bundles will be dependent on the popularity of those devices in a given location.
Motorola’s given out these numbers before, but they bear repeating: one-third of those who purchase a Moto Z device end up picking up a Mod. Roughly 60 percent of that number, meanwhile, buy two or more. Those numbers are surprisingly low, given that Mods seems like such a central selling point for the product.
After all, the company has made some sacrifices for such modularity. Chief among these are the fact that there’s really not a lot of wiggle room with regard to device footprint. As long as the company wants to continue making the devices backward-compatible with Mods, the phones are going to have remain roughly the same size.
Motorola squeezes a little more screen out of the device through the above-mentioned methods, and while it tells me that it’s confident there’s still space to work with on future devices, it does seem to have painted itself in a corner here. For all of Essential’s seeming struggles, the device’s connector allowed for a broader range of sizes and shapes.
The company’s no doubt hoping these bundles will kickstart interest in Mods. Until one comes along that really excites the fan base, however, it’s easy to see how making the two most popular Mods available essentially for free could ultimately eat into potential sales.
Meantime, the device will be arriving at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Fry’s and B&H Photo this summer. It will also be available through Amazon’s Prime Exclusive program.
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Lenovo teases a slick, all-screen smartphone that doesn’t have a notch
Lenovo has teased a new arrival that might top Apple’s iPhone X in a bid to deliver a true all-screen smartphone.
Apple’s iPhone X goes very close but for a tiny bezel and its distinctive notch, but Lenovo’s Z5 seems like it might go a step further, according to a teaser sketch (above) shared by Lenovo VP Chang Cheng on Weibo that was first noted by CNET.
The device is due in June and Cheng claimed it is the result of “four technological breakthroughs” and “18 patented technologies,” but he didn’t provide further details.
The executive previously shared a slice of the design — see right — on Weibo, with a claim that it boasts a 95 percent screen-to-body ratio.
Indeed, the image appears to show a device without a top screen notch à la the iPhone X. Where Lenovo will put the front-facing camera, mic, sensors and other components isn’t clear right now.
A number of Android phone-makers have copied Apple’s design fairly shamelessly. That’s ironic given that Apple was widely derided when it first unveiled the phone.
Nonetheless, the device has sold well and that’s captured the attention of Huawei, Andy Rubin’s Essential, Asus and others who have embraced the notch. The design is so common now that Google even moved the clock in Android P to make space for the notch.
Time will tell what Lenovo adds to the conversation. The company is in dire need of a hit phone — it trails the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Huawei on home soil in China — and the hype on the Z5 is certainly enough to raise hope.
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Apple continues to dominate the tablet market as sales decline once again
Bitcoin and crypto aren’t the only things on the decline, sales of tablet devices once again dropped in 2017, according to new data. Figures from analyst firm IDC show that overall tablet shipments fell by 6.5 percent to 163.5 million units last year. That’s down from 174.9 million in 2016, when the annual decrease was in double digits. Despite demanding falling overall, Apple… Read More
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Though PC and console VR are the sexier formats we’re all excited about, is mobile where VR will really scale in the near term? This is a question I’ve been posing to investors and innovators.