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Citation 500 : Harman Kardon’s $700 Google Assistant Speaker

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Harman Kardon Citation-500
Image Source: pocket-lint.com

Harman Kardon is a leading speaker producer company that is known for its unmatched audio quality. The company is about to launch its new range of speaker Citation 500 that is going to be a high-end Google Assistant speaker.

Unlike, the other Harmon Kardon speakers, the Citation 500 is higher in price, i.e. about $700. The company has rendered the speaker in two shades, grey and black, and is covered with the similar coloured woollen fabric. The speaker boasts 200W of stereo audio having high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz support and is smart enough to receive your commands, responding in the same way. But, with the LCD screen and the playback control buttons, available on the top of the speaker, you can adjust the volume, skip the songs or select a particular song manually without shouting at it.

The Citation 500 is a high-end Google Assistant speaker that you get at a mid-range price. It is like a smart-home hub that is feature-rich and goes with your decor.

Harmon Kardon is planning to unveil the smart speaker at the IFA 2018, in Berlin, later this week. And, will start taking preorders, by the end of the September, from its customers, in Europe only. The company has not commented on when the speakers will be available in other regions of the world.

Sony’s Dog Robot to be Launched in the US in coming October

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Aibo
Image Source: wsj.net

Its been around more than two weeks after the Anki’s Vector was launched. Now, Sony has also announced the launch of its Aibo does robot in the US by the coming October this year. Interestingly, The Anki robot has been a success with its launch having a low price of $250. The Sony Aibo, comparatively bigger in size robot has also got more features than the Vector robot and also the price is even higher. The cost of the Aibo robot will be $2,899, and the presale will start in September. Although before delivery they will be exhibited at the Sony Square in Manhattan from Friday through Oct. 14.

The Sony Aibo is a smart dog robot, sleeker than its ancestor Boxy robot and is capable of remembering over 100 different faces, through its OLED-screen eyes. The robot can sense the smile, touch, praise and can play music. It can speak 1,000 words and is enabled with the feature to imitate a real dog, responding to its owner’s commands with a bark. Having a camera on its back and different sensors embedded into it, are helpful to map your house so that it can walk freely in your house. You can add new tricks to its knowledge base and also, using its Aibo app, you can map its activities, give it commands and also manage your house by enabling its camera feature on.

The new Aibo dog robot comes with a charging station, a pink ball and an Airbone. Even having many features included to it, the Aibo robot’s sale may be a little less than the Anki’s Vector due to its high price. As earlier in Japan too its sale was much lesser than the other home robots.

Qualcomm Announces new Flagship Chip featuring 5G connectivity

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Qualcomm Snapdragon
Image Source: mybroadband.co

The world’s largest semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm has announced its new flagship processor, built on the 7-nanometer mode process. Noticeably, the Apple’s A12 processor and Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor are also built on the same technology. And now Qualcomm is also about to produce its own high-performance processor.

The processor is considered to be the Snapdragon 855, and Qualcomm has claimed that the processor will provide better speed, improved battery backup, and performance. The flagship chip is likely to be the first mobile platform that will be 5G-capable and will be implemented in the premium flagship smartphones when used with the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50. Although Snapdragon X50 5G modem is not new to the technical world, it will be used in a smartphone for the very first time. And, according to Qualcomm, it has already begun coupling the processor with OEMs developing next-generation consumer devices.

The President of Qualcomm Incorporated stated, “We are very pleased to be working with OEMs, operators, infrastructure vendors, and standards bodies across the world, and are on track to help launch the first 5G mobile hotspots by the end of 2018, and smartphones using our next-generation mobile platform in the first half of 2019.”

Qualcomm is already considered as a leader in 3G and 4G mobile technologies. Now this time it is coming with the 5G technology with its faster, smaller and power efficient Snapdragon 855 to be used with high-end smartphones.

Huawei & Other Chinese Companies Banned from Australia’s 5G network

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Huawei
Image Source: xiaomitoday.com

The national security is a critical issue and the Australian government has given this reason to ban the world’s third largest smartphone company Huawei from its 5G network project. The news of banning Huawei started hitting the headlines in the month of June this year, and finally, on the last Thursday, it was officially imposed on Huawei.

Noticeably, as a result of the friction between the US and China, U.S. had also banned Huawei in its lucrative market over national security concern. Now this time, Australian intelligence agencies have also raised the same matter by saying that Beijing can force the Chinese companies to share sensitive data with them.

According to the reports, Australia’s acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison said that the Government’s priority would “always be the safety and security of Australians”. Another government official stated, “Huawei owns political committees and they have to serve the Chinese intelligence agencies, under the Communist law if requested”.

Huawei Australia has denied all the connection with the political parties and has given an assurance that all the shares of Huawei are owned by its employees and the Chinese Government has nothing to do with its functioning. It also came on to twitter saying, ”This is an extremely disappointing result for consumers. Huawei is a world leader in 5G. Has safely & securely delivered wireless technology in Aust for close to 15 yrs”.

The ban on Huawei is only for Australian 5G network. It is already supplying equipment for the 4g network in Australia and will continue to do so. Along with Huawei, some other Chinese companies are also banned from the Australian 5G network, including ZTE.

Apple Pulls Out 25000 Illegal Apps From China’s App Store

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App Store
Image Source: wccftech.com

The news of Google re-entering into China has already created many controversies, even within the company resulting in a mass protest by its employees. Now again Apple, an American company is facing some regularity issues in China.

Noticeably, the State media broadcaster CCTV had recently criticised Apple for allowing many illegal apps on the App Store. The media has been giving a negative feedback to Apple for its no control over such apps. Apple has removed over 25000 apps from its App Store and allegedly, 4000 of them, were based on gambling. With the removal of these illegal apps, Apple has also removed those developers that distribute them.

Gambling is not allowed in China and most of these apps had used Gambling as a keyword. China media had criticised Apple for not doing enough to stop this kind of illegal activities. Apple has even made guidelines for uploading Apps on to the App store and has restricted these type of apps.

“Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China,” Apple said in an emailed statement sent to Bloomberg on Monday. “We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store.”

It is a tough task for an American company to maintain a business in world’s largest economy and Apple is trying hard to fall in line with Chinese authorities. Last year Apple pulled out nearly 700 VPN apps from its App Store. Apple has been entangled in conflicts with China in the past. Also, the growing friction between Washington, D.C. and Beijing is also causing the American companies in China to follow all the rules carefully to keep China on their side.

Apple’s new “Low Cost” MacBook Launch after 4 Years

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MacBook Air 2018
Image Source: igeeksblog.com

It has been more than three years when Apple had launched its last Mac Book laptop in 2014. Also, the MacBook Air was upgraded with a faster processor last year, remaining the cheapest laptop by Apple. The MacBook Air is the only laptop by Apple, without a high-resolution screen, costing about $1000.

Reportedly, Apple is about to launch a new upgraded version of its MacBook, or it can be the upgraded version of MacBook Air. The launch may be by the end of this year, with the launch of other Apple products including the new iPhones and iPad.

Last year the MacBook sale went down by a large scale as the upgraded MacBook cost higher and could not meet the professional needs of the consumers. Since 2010, it sold the fewest number of its MacBooks in a quarter this year. The other companies like Lenovo and Acer also launched high-end laptops that attracted the customers with their new features.

By looking at the reduced sale of the MacBooks and desktop computers, last year, MacBook was planning to launch the new MacBook at the beginning of the year but got delayed. Later, it was set for June and July of this year, but again due to some production issues, the launch is now delayed for October 2018.

The new Apple laptop is going to be similar to the MacBook Air, but, added with a high-resolution, Retina-version display. The screen will be about 13 inches and will include thinner bezels around it. It will including the 14nm Kaby lake processors from Intel. The new MacBook is expected to be cheaper, that may result in the reduced storage for the basic models, up to 128 GB SSD reduced from 256 GB.

Apple considers its laptop and computer lineup as an important part of their company and will continue its production and sale. For now, Apple has not declared anything officially. But the trusting the sources, we can expect the launch of new MacBook by the fall of this year.