ARCore is a New Augmented Reality Platform from Google

Google announced Project Tango back in 2014 and it sparked a lot of interest within the Android community. The company then launched a dev kit that cost over $1,000, but soon other OEMs stepped up and brought the technology to a consumer level. Google's initial approach required special sensors to work and this has had an adverse effect on the design of these consumer devices. Google has learned a lot since the inception of Project Tango (now known simply at Tango), and has released a new AR platform for developers called ARCore.

This is interesting because recently, Apple announced they wanted to get their feet wet in the augmented reality market. They did so in a big way too with what they call ARKit. Unlike Google's Tango technology, ARKit from Apple is able to work on millions of devices that are already available in people's hands. They found a way to implement convincing AR software into current smartphones without needing special cameras and sensors.

You would think this would put them at a disadvantage and it was in a way, but not so much in other ways. Sure, Apple's ARKit can't do as much as a dedicated Tango device, but it was good enough. That, coupled with the fact that it could be rolled out to current devices made it a major win for anyone interested in augmented reality. Google has taken note with what Apple has done and today has announced ARCore, a new augmented reality developer platform for Android devices and it's already being supported by the Unreal Engine.

Similarly to ARKit, ARCore does not need special cameras or sensors in order for it to work. There will likely be some limitations as far as hardware is concerned, but Google is confident that this platform will let developers create AR experiences for virtually any Android smartphone. This includes devices already in the hands of consumers as well as devices that will be released in the future. This is being launched in a preview phase with Google's Pixel and Samsung's S8, but Dave Burke says they're "targeting 100 million devices at the end of the preview."

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Source: Fast Company

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Samsung to Invest $7 Billion for Flash-Memory Production in China

We're seeing some smartphone OEMs losing money these days, but Samsung certainly isn't one of them. Reports say they shipped over 79 million smartphones during the second quarter of this year and that the Galaxy S8 was the best selling Android device for the quarter as well. Thankfully, the company isn't known for just sitting on their cash reserves like others do, and they're using the profits to invest in key areas that should benefit them in the long run.

In November of last year we learned that Samsung is investing in reducing the bezels of our smartphones and we've been seeing these results in the Galaxy S8 and the upcoming Galaxy Note 8. They're continuing to invest in their OLED production capabilities with a $2 billion deal being finalized at the start of this year. The company is even working on doubling the production capabilities of their smartphones that are manufactured in India.

Lately, we've been seeing a growing demand for NAND flash memory in the smartphone industry as well as others. Samsung is aware of this and will now be investing $7 billion over a 3-year period on its plant in Xi'an. Samsung has their hands in a number of industries (not just smartphones) and a ton of different products use NAND memory these days thanks to its performance, small footprint, and low power usage compared to other memory options.

So if you're using a microSD card in your smartphone, or a USB flash drive in your computer, you're using NAND memory in those products. Q1 of this year showed Samsung with 41% of the NAND market and their biggest competitor here is Toshiba with only 18%. Samsung wants to hold onto this market lead and even increase it since demand is growing and this big investment will help them do just that.

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Source: Bloomberg

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Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus with Improved Cameras, Metal Unibody Design Launched in India

Today Lenovo-owned Motorola officially launched the Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus in India. Originally announced last month, both devices are an upgraded version of the 5th generation Moto G smartphones which were launched back in February of this year.

As far as specifications are concerned, the Moto G5S comes with a 5.2-inch FullHD IPS display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa-core SoC, 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, a 16MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera and a 3,000 mAh battery.

On the other hand, the Moto G5S Plus sports a bigger 5.5-inch FullHD display. On the inside, it's powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 SoC as the Moto G5 Plus, coupled with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. However, the biggest upgrade to the Moto G5S Plus is in the camera department as the device now features dual-cameras on the back, making it the first ever device in the G series to feature a dual-camera setup. The dual-camera setup on the Moto G5S Plus is comprised of a 13MP monochrome sensor and a 13MP RGB sensor along with a dual-tone LED flash, and it offers features like background blurring (bokeh) and background color changing. Meanwhile, the device features an 8MP front-facing camera along with a front-facing flash to help users capture selfies even in low-light conditions.

Additionally, the Moto G5S Plus packs a 3,000 mAh battery and supports fast charging via Motorola's TurboCharge technology, which the company claims can give you up to 6 hours of power in just 15 minutes of charge.

Finally, both devices come with a front-mounted fingerprint reader, support for microSD card expansion, and run Android 7.1.1 Nougat out-of-the-box with Motorola's few additions such as Moto Display and Moto Actions on top.

Having multiple variants of the same device often causes confusion among potential buyers so, in order to avoid such confusion, Motorola is only releasing a single variant of the Moto G5S and Moto G5S Plus in the country.

As for pricing, the Moto G5S will retail for a price of RS. 13,999 ($218) while the higher-specced G5S Plus will set you back RS. 15,999 ($250).

The Moto G5S Plus will exclusively be available from Amazon India and Motorola's own offline store Moto Hub. On the other hand, the G5S will be available from Amazon as well as all leading offline retailers across the country.

To attract potential buyers, Motorola is also offering several launch day offers for the Moto G5S Plus. That includes an extra RS.1000 off on exchanging a Motorola device, up to 80% discount (up to RS.300) on e-books on the Amazon Kindle app, No Cost EMI on all credit cards, and up to 50GB of additional 4G data for Reliance Jio subscribers.

Available in Blush Gold and Lunar Grey color options, both devices will go on sale tonight at 11:59 pm (IST) on Amazon India.

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Source: Amazon India

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OnePlus 5 to Receive an Official Build of LineageOS 14.1 Next Week

The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T was and still is an incredibly popular smartphone here in the XDA forums. With Google dropping the Nexus series last year, it seemed as if the latest from OnePlus was able to step up and fill that role for the enthusiast community. The company had a bit of a bumpy launch with the OnePlus 5 but things have smoothed out since then and now we are a week away from an official build of LineageOS 14.1 available for the community.

Many of us are likely already looking forward to Oreo for the next custom ROM that we flash, and official builds from the popular custom ROMs are currently being worked on. This takes time though so you'll need to look for a Nougat ROM for the OnePlus 5 if you're anxious to flash something right now. This build of LineageOS 14.1 is becoming available thanks to XDA Recognized Developer linuxxxx, XDA Senior Recognized Developer codeworkx, xingrz, amartinz, and jumoog.

As with other builds of LineageOS 14.1 right now, it is considered a Nightly, but there shouldn't be any major bugs when it's released. For those who are currently on the unofficial build of LineageOS 14.1, you will need to perform a factory reset and then do a clean install of this. We're told the developers missed the cutoff point to get a build pushed out this week, so we'll have to wait until the build server creates one for the OnePlus 5 next week.

When available, you'll find the downloads on the LineageOS website here, and you can keep track of the changes happening right on their changelog page as well. You can find a GApps package on the LineageOS Wiki just in case you wanted to download it ahead of time.

Are you excited about LineageOS 14.1 for the OnePlus 5 or would you rather stick with OxygenOS (or even a different custom ROM)?

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Check out LineageOS 14.1 in our OnePlus 5 forum

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Latest L Speed Mod Now Compatible with Android Oreo

L Speed is one of the XDA's most popular mods. The application combines many tweaks to improve a device's performance and it's been available for rooted phones since early 2015.

XDA Recognized Developer and Contributor Paget96 has recently released the Android Oreo compatible version of the mod. The developer is actively seeking for Android O users to test some features, so if you are running the latest Android revision, give it a spin!

You can join the beta channel in Play Store to get the latest version, and you can also check out L Speed's forum on XDA.

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Test out the beta

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Honor 9 Kernel Source Released

Big news for the Honor 9 Development community: The Kernel source has been released! The Honor 9 has already seen a bit of success with development, while the community has put out some custom ROMs and mods that work on the device. Now that the kernel source has been released, you can expect that to turbo-charge development for this phone.

The Honor 9 was released in June of 2017

The unique light-catching design on the Honor 9 makes it one of the most stylish phones available.

In the XDA Forums you'll find that the community has put together a RROS ROM, a LineageOS ROM, a TWRP recovery and several other mods.

Grab the source code from the link down below and be sure to check out the XDA Forums for the Honor 9, where you can find more development-related threads.

Get the Kernel Source Here Honor 9 Forums

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Playback Audio Won’t Pause for Notifications in Apps Built for Android 8.0

Audio ducking on Android refers to the volume of audio decreasing when another audio source (usually notifications) starts playing. When a notification ducks the audio of the already playing audio source, it's taking the audio focus away from the app, just like Pokemon Go does you start it up while music is already playing. A way to fix that was detailed here, by the way. Apps do have the choice to duck audio or even entirely stop playback; for example, if you play a song on Spotify then open a YouTube video, Spotify stops music playback entirely. However, for any apps that target Android Oreo (SDK level 26), that will be changing as playback audio will no longer pause for incoming notifications.

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Android Oreo has Changed the Way Playback Audio Respond to Notifications

Now with Android Oreo, apps targeting the latest release will no longer stop playback whenever another app, or a notification, takes audio focus. Instead, these apps will simply duck the audio by default. For example, the Podcast Addict application will stop media playback briefly whenever a new notification comes in, then resume playback afterwards. If Podcast Addict instead is updated to target SDK level 26 (AKA Android 8.0 Oreo), then it's volume will be lowered (audio ducking) rather than completely paused when a notification is received.

This among other changes such as Rescue Party and Project Treble are showing how Android Oreo is more about optimization and behind-the-scenes improvements, rather than large scale changes. It's great to see Google making improvements in smaller areas and paying attention to the little parts of the operating system. The smaller bugs of Android have been the subject of criticism for years.

We'll continue looking for other changes that have been made. Stay tuned to the XDA Portal using our XDA Labs app to keep up to date with all of the latest Android 8.0 and other Android related news.

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