DxO One Camera for Android is Now Available in an ‘Early Access’ Program ($499)

The primary reason why smartphone enthusiasts know about DxO Labs is because it's the company behind DxOMark, the popular smartphone camera reviewing website. It isn't the only service DxO Labs offers, though. The company now also has DxO One, a camera attachment for the iPhone, and has their own image editing software too.

In October, DxO Labs announced that the DxO One would be coming soon for Android, two and a half years after its release for the iPhone in June 2015. It has a 20MP 1-inch sensor (similar to the Sony RX100 series) with a f/1.8 max aperture.

The DxO One is pocketable because it doesn't have a primary display of its own. Instead, it has a small onboard OLED display and it relies on a smartphone's display for the viewfinder in order to frame photos. The Android version connects to smartphones via the USB Type-C port. The primary reason it can take better photos than most smartphones is because it has a larger sensor with 1-inch sensor size, compared to smartphone sensors, which range in size from 1/2.3-inch to 1/3.1-inch. It supports RAW photography via Super RAW, and records up to 4x slow motion video.

Now, DxO Labs has announced that the One camera is now available in an 'Early Access' program for $499. The $499 price includes the camera, a waterproof case for submerging the camera attachment up to 45-meters, and DxO Photolab – the company's image processing software. Normally, the case and DxO Photolab have price tags of $59.90 and $199 respectively.

Users can head to DxO's website and enter their email and phone model to order the DxO One camera. Strangely, the DxO One will support only a limited list of smartphones for now, instead of supporting every Android smartphone with a USB-C port. The current list of supported phones includes the HTC U11, Huawei Mate 9, Huawei P10, LG G6, LG V20, Moto Z, Nexus 5X, Nokia 8, Nubia Z11 mini, Samsung Galaxy A5 2017, Samsung Note 8, Samsung Galaxy S8 and Huawei Honor 9. If users have any other smartphone, they can select "other" and then specify their brand of phone.

The Android version of the DxO One will have full image and video capture capabilities out-of-the-box, but it won't have support for Facebook live streaming and time-lapse right away. DxO Labs says that it will add the aforementioned features and more in the coming months.

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Source: DxO LabsVia: Android Central

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TWRP 3.2.0 Released with Better Support for Installing Android 8.0 Oreo Zips and More

TWRP is the most popular custom recovery on Android, and its popularity continues to grow as devices need to have TWRP support if users want to flash custom ROMs, kernels, mods, etc. Recently, we have seen TWRP support added to more devices including the Xiaomi Mi A1 and Asus ZenFone 4 variants. The Google Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL first received an alpha release of the custom recovery, which was later upgraded to a beta.

Now, XDA Senior Recognized Developer  Dees_troy has announced the release of TWRP 3.2.0 for most devices. The last version of the custom recovery—version 3.1.0—was released back in March with support for ADB backup, A/B zips, and more. Version 3.2 is still a point release, so there is no addition of any major features. However, the changes are still welcome, as they improve on user experience. The changelog states:

• Allow restoring adb backups in the TWRP GUI (bigbiff)
• Fix gzip backup error in adb backups (bigbiff)
• Fix a bug in TWRP's backup routines that occasionally corrupted backup files (nkk71)
• Better support for installing Android 8.0 based zips due to legacy props (nkk71)
• Support vold decrypt with keymaster 3.0 in 8.0 firmwares (nkk71)
• Decrypt of synthetic passwords for Pixel 2 (Dees_Troy)
• Support newer ext4 FBE policies for backup and restore in libtar (Dees_Troy)
• v2 fstab support (Dees_Troy)
• Bring TWRP forward to android 8.0 AOSP base (Dees_Troy)
• Various other minor bugfixes and tweaks

The most notable changes include allowing users to restore ADB backups in the TWRP GUI, as well as better support for Android 8.0 Oreo zips. The Pixel 2 gets support for decryption of synthetic passwords. (Previously, Dees_troy detailed the amount of work done on the Pixel 2 to achieve decryption). The custom recovery now has v2 fstab support, and it has been brought forward to the Android 8.0 AOSP base.

Dees_troy notes that a lot of devices failed to build TWRP 3.2.0. The build errors should be fixed in the coming weeks, and we're sure to see more devices being given official support in the near future.

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Source: Dees_troy [Google+]

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Today Weather, Our Weather App Pick for AMOLED, was Chosen as one of Google Play’s Best Apps of 2017

We have been sharing our favorite weather app with the community for a while now. We have given out many upgrade codes for Today Weather and it has received a lot of positive feedback. That's why it's great to see that the Google Play store has named it one of the best apps of 2017!

A beautiful UI makes your weather data easier to read at a glance

Get all of the important information you need, on one simple page

Use live radar to track developing storms

The data-rich UI for Today Weather succeeds where other weather apps fail. It's the design of the illustrations that make all the difference when delivering lots of data. In only a few seconds you'll be able to get all the information that you'll need about your weather and forecast.

Get important weather alerts with more detail

There are tons of different widgets to choose from, to put on your homesceen

Forecast and temperature widgets are well designed

When it comes to weather alerts, you'll want the most important developments with the most detailed information. Today Weather will alert you with the latest developments while including all the details you'll need.

Easily switch between multiple different cities

See a detailed heat map of the world

Choose your favorite data source to pull information frim

If you still haven't switched to one of the best weather apps on the Play store, it's time to try it out.

Download for Android Download for iOS   Discuss on XDA

We thank Today Weather for sponsoring this post. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including server costs, full time developers, news writers, and much more. While you might see sponsored content (which will always be labeled as such) alongside Portal content, the Portal team is in no way responsible for these posts. Sponsored content, advertising and XDA Depot are managed by a separate team entirely. XDA will never compromise its journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company, or alter our opinions or views in any way. Our opinion cannot be bought.

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Ambient Lock Screen Music is a Root App that Shows any Music on the Pixel 2’s Ambient Display

Google's latest Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL flagships have an awesome new feature called "Now Playing." Using a combination of software, hardware, and machine learning, the Pixel 2 uses an offline database to identify tens of thousands of songs playing in the background. It then displays those songs on your device's lock screen, always on display, or as an ongoing notification. The feature sounds gimmicky on paper, but after using it myself I found that it works really well. That being said, this kind of feature isn't everyone's cup of tea, so XDA Recognized Contributor Quinny899 came up with an app called Ambient Lock Screen Music which allows you to display the name and artist of any currently playing song on your device where the Now Playing text would normally appear.

As you can see in the video above, the developer enables the app and then starts playing a song from Google Play Music. When they show the lock screen, you can see the currently playing song at the bottom where you would normally see the Now Playing feature insert text when it recognizes a song.

The application only works on the Pixel 2/2 XL as it sends an intent whose corresponding intent receiver is only available in the SystemUIGoogle app present on the Pixel 2. Furthermore, the application requires root access in order to function. You can download the application from XDA Labs at the link below.

Ambient Lock Screen Music (Free, XDA Labs) →

It is not only free, but it's also totally ad-free as well. It supports displaying song titles/artists from almost any music app such as Google Play Music, Spotify, YouTube Red, and more. You can also blacklist apps from showing text on the ambient display. Finally, the app even allows you to double tap on the text shown on the ambient display to launch the music app.

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How Ambient Lock Screen Music Works

The Intent

As mentioned previously, this application works by sending an intent to the SystemUIGoogle application. In Quinny899's app, this is the code responsible for sending the intent:

  Intent intent = new Intent("com.google.android.ambientindication.action.AMBIENT_INDICATION_SHOW").putExtra("com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.VERSION", 1).putExtra("com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.TEXT", broadcastString).putExtra("com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.TTL_MILLIS", time);  if(clickIntent != null)intent.putExtra("com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.OPEN_INTENT", clickIntent);  else if(packageName != null) intent.putExtra("com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.OPEN_INTENT", PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 1, context.getPackageManager().getLaunchIntentForPackage(packageName), 0));  intent.setPackage(pName);  context.sendBroadcast(intent, "com.google.android.ambientindication.permission.AMBIENT_INDICATION");  

Let's break this down some. The action in this intent is "com.google.android.ambientindication.action.AMBIENT_INDICATION_SHOW" and it has a few intent extras that can be send with it.

The first extra is "com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.VERSION" which currently just takes an integer value of 1. The next extra is "com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.TEXT" which is where we set the string that we want displayed on the ambient display lock screen. The third extra is "com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.OPEN_INTENT" which accepts a PendingIntent that opens on a double tap of the text. Quinny899 set the PendingIntent to open up whatever application is playing music or a picker for android.intent.action.MUSIC_PLAYER.

Finally, in order to send this intent, the calling app must have the permission "com.google.android.ambientindication.permission.AMBIENT_INDICATION." This permission is defined as signature|privileged so that is why this app requires root access.

If you want to test this on your own, you can open up a rooted terminal or ADB shell session and enter the following command:

  am broadcast -a com.google.android.ambientindication.action.AMBIENT_INDICATION_SHOW --ei com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.VERSION 1 --es com.google.android.ambientindication.extra.TEXT "hello world"  

This will display the text "hello world" on the ambient display. It won't allow you to double click

Displaying the Song

The app has two methods for capturing what song is being played. The first is through MediaController, which requires the app to be bound as a notification listener (though it doesn't actually mean that the app is intercepting notifications to read the currently playing song). The second is through broadcast receivers which doesn't require a notification listener (and thus consumes less memory) but is less compatible as some music apps do not send a broadcast intent that this app is set up for.

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LG Shuffles Mobile Execs Following $331 Million Loss

LG has had a rough go of it lately — and that's putting it mildly. Even breakout hits like the V30 couldn't keep the Seoul, South Korea-based company's mobile division from losing $331 million in the past fiscal quarter. But after successive reorganizations and a renewed focus on reducing manufacturing costs, LG's finally ready to get back in gear. The first order of business? Appointing Hwang Jeong-hwan president and CEO of the Mobile Communications arm.

The promotion comes almost a year in Jo Seong-jin's tenure as Mobile Communications president. Mr. Seong-jin, a 40-year veteran of the company who previously headed LG's home appliance division, failed to turn things around as quickly as company brass would've liked, and was replaced by Juno Cho, the current president. Mr. Cho will take on a new, unannounced role within LG's parent company when Mr. Jeong-hwan steps in.

LG's upper management has a lot of faith in Mr. Jeong-hwan, and not without good reason. He has years of experience in the company's research and development department, and was closely involved in developing one of Mobile Communications division's first smartphones in 2009.

Mr. Jeong-hwan isn't the only executive taking on a new role. Dr. Park Il-pyung, who was previously the head of LG's Software Center, will become Chief Technology Officer. The previous CEO, Dr. Skott Ahn, will move into a brand-new division at LG's headquarters in Seoul. Han Chang-hee, who was most recently vice president of the Appliance Marketing Communications division, will lead the company's Global Marketing Center. And Brian Na, who previously led LG's communications efforts, will assume the role of president of LG's Western Europe operations.

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Source: LG Newsroom

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Google Chrome Will Soon Begin Blocking Code-Injecting Apps

Google Chrome for Windows is a fast, capable web browser, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Case in point: Chrome's proclivity to slowdowns, crashes, and other unwanted behaviors as a result of third-party applications. It's a serious problem, but Google's working on fixing it.

In a post published Friday on the Chromium Blog, Google says that it found that roughly two-thirds of Chrome for Windows users use applications that interact with Chrome. In past, these applications needed to inject code in Chrome in order to work properly. The problem, according to Google, is that this form of code injection is 15 percent more likely to cause a crash.

Google's proposes that instead of injecting code inside of Chrome processes, developers use Chrome extensions and Native Messaging. Soon, they won't have a choice — starting with Chrome 68 in July 2018, Google will begin blocking third-party Windows applications from injecting code into Chrome on Windows.

Google says that the transition will happen in three phases: In April 2018, Chrome 66 will begin showing affected users a warning after a crash, alerting them to the presence of the code-injecting application. It'll also show them how to update or remove that application.

The next phase will take place in July 2018, when Chrome 68 starts to block third-party code-injecting applications. Google says that if the offending applications prevent Chrome from starting, it'll restart and allow the injection. However, it'll display a warning showing users how to remove the application.

The final phase starts January 2019, when Chrome 72 begins blocking all code injections by default. (Google encourages developers to use Chrome Beta for testing.)

According to Google, most software that injects code into Chrome will be affected by these changes. Some exceptions include Microsoft-signed code, accessibility software, and IME software.

"Fewer crashes means more happy users, Chrome Stability Team member Chris Hamilton wrote in a blog post. "[We] look forward to continuing to make Chrome better for everyone."

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Source: Chromium Blog

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Samsung’s W2018 Flip Phone Has Dual Displays, a Snapdragon 835 SoC, and a 12MP f/1.5 Camera

After months of leaks and rumors, Samsung on Friday took the wraps off of its latest clamshell phone: The Samsung W2018. It's the successor to the Samsung W2017, which launched around the same time last year, and it marks the 10th anniversary of Samsung's W series.

The Samsung W2018 is unlike most other smartphones on the market, featuring a unique clamshell design with a display panel on either side of its top half. The body of the handset  is made out of metal and glass and measures 132.2 x 63.2mm, with a weight of 247 grams.

As far as specifications are concerned, the Samsung W2018 doesn't skimp. It features two displays: A Full HD 4.2-inch external screen, and a Full HD internal AMOLED display, same as its predecessor. Powering the phone is Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 835 system-on-chip (SoC), which is paired with 4GB of RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, depending on the model. There's a microSD card slot for expansion, and in terms of optics, the W2108 makes do with a 5MP front shooter and 12MP rear shooter with the industry first f/1.5 aperture, beating even the record-setting LG V30. (Samsung says the aperture will automatically switch between f/2.4 and f/1.5 depending on the lighting condition.)

The battery is unchanged from the last year's model, so you're looking at a 2300mAh capacity battery. But the charging port's been upgraded to USB Type-C port from microUSB, and on the software side of the equation, the W2018 ships with Android 7.1.1 Nougat and Samsung's Bixby voice assistant, which can be accessed from the phone's dedicated Bixby button. There's also a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor on board, too, and support for fast wireless charging.

The W2018 is available in two colors, Elegant Gold and Platinum, and will go on sale in China through China Telecom at an unspecified date. The pricing hasn't been disclosed at this point, but if the Samsung W2017 is any indication, it won't be cheap — it's unclear at this point when, if ever, the device will make its way to markets outside of China.

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Source: Tech Sina (In Chinese) Via: Gizmochina

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