ZTE unveils Axon 30 Ultra Aerospace Edition with 18GB RAM and 1TB storage
The first smartphones with 16GB of RAM arrived in early 2020, followed a year later by the first phones with 18GB of RAM. Will we see the first 20GB phone before 2021 is over? Maybe, but we’re not there yet.
ZTE announced a limited edition of its current flagship dubbed the ZTE Axon 30 Ultra Aerospace Edition. This model will be promoted by actress Haocun Liu from the movie One Second. Besides the movie tie in, this device also celebrates the success of China’s space agency, which successfully sent an orbiter and lander to Mars (Tianwen-1) and three taikonauts to the Chinese space station (Tiangong).
The Aerospace Edition phone will have 18 GB of RAM, a feat already achieved by ZTE’s gaming division with the Red Magic 6 Pro. However, it will also feature virtual RAM, so that it will offer up to 20GB capacity – even if some of it is written out to the UFS 3.1 storage.
If this trick impresses you, it seems that even the Axon 30 5G with 12GB of actual RAM will be able to hit 20GB with the use of 8GB of virtual RAM.
Anyway, the ZTE Axon 30 Ultra Aerospace Edition (18GB/1TB) will be available in China starting on November 25. Pricing is yet to be announced, but it should cost more than the vanilla Axon 30 Ultra, which has an MSRP of CNY6,666 ($1,050/€925/₹77,600) for the 16GB/1TB version.
From Gsmarena
Moto Watch 100 gets official with $99.99 price tag, all-new Moto OS with 2-week battery life
There’s a new Motorola smartwatch on the block today, and it’s the Moto Watch 100 that leaked a few days ago. Unlike the last Moto 360 branded watch which launched back in 2019, the Moto Watch 100 forgoes Wear OS and starts the software journey from scratch with a brand new Moto OS. This “dramatically increases battery life”, to the point of two weeks, in the best case scenario. That is indeed a far cry from what Wear OS can provide, even today.
The Moto Watch 100 comes in one case size, which is 42mm. It has a 1.3″ circular LCD display (surprising in a world filled with OLEDs on watches), with an always-on mode – maybe the LCD spec is wrong? Anyway, you get 26 sports modes, SPO2 tracking, a heart rate monitor, gyroscope, accelerometer, and a 20mm strap size for easy changes.
The case is aluminum, and you can pick between Glacier Silver and Phantom Black colorways. The watch is 5ATM water resistant, and supports GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou as well as Bluetooth 5.0. Its 355 mAh battery charges from zero to full in one hour. The watch weighs 45.8g, and measures 42x46x11.9mm.
If you’re interested in getting one, you can pre-order for $99.99 straight from the official website – which is not Motorola’s, by the way, as the name is licensed for smartwatch use by a company called eBuyNow (which also produced the 2019 Moto 360). Pre-orders will ship “by December 10th”.
From Gsmarena
Motorola Edge 30 Ultra and Edge S30 pass through TENAA
Specifications and images of two upcoming Motorola Edge devices have surfaced from China’s TENAA certification site. Starting with the Motorola Edge X (possibly called ‘Edge 30 Ultra’), this is the same device we just saw featured in unofficial renders. This Edge model is on its way to being the first smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 898.
The Edge X’s revealed specs include a 6.67-inch OLED screen with FHD+ resolution and 144Hz refresh rate with support for HDR10+. Aside from the Snapdragon 898, there’s 8GB or 12GB RAM with up to 256GB of internal storage.
It’s 8.4mm thick and weighs in at 201g. There’s also a 4700 mAH battery supported by 68.2W charging, believed to recharge halfway in 15 minutes and fully in 35 minutes. Then there’s the triple camera: which includes a 50MP+50MP+2MP setup and a 60MP front-facing camera.
Next is the Motorola Edge S30. It has a large 6.78-inch LCD screen with FHD+ and 120Hz refresh rate. This one is powered by the Snapdragon 888+ and sports a 108MP main camera and 10X optical zoom. The specs of the other cameras aren’t provided. This one has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and comes with a 4700 mAh battery.
Motorola is expected to announce two new flaships next month, as recently tipped by DigitalChatStation.
From Gsmarena
vivo S12 Pro appears in a live shot, passes 3C certification
It seems vivo is gearing to release its S12 series soon. The successor to this year’s vivo S10 series will likely come in three variants once again and we now have a live look at the Pro variant. It features a curved screen with a notch at the top though we don’t have the exact size details. Tipster Arsenal mentions the phone will feature a 50MP selfie cam which looks to be joined by a second auxiliary module.
According to another Chinese tipster vivo S12 will bear the V2162A model number while the S12 Pro is V2163A. The Pro variant has already passed 3C certification revealing 44W charging on board and both the vanilla and Pro were seen on TENAA though their specs were not yet posted. The vivo S12 series is said to go official in China later this month.
From Gsmarena
vivo V23e 5G is coming on November 23 with a 44MP selfie camera
Last week vivo unveiled the vivo V23e, and the company will follow it up with a 5G variant next week – on November 23.
We don’t have the vivo V23e 5G’s full specs yet, but the company’s Thai branch has set up a promo page on its website revealing the smartphone’s design and color options. The V23e 5G looks similar to its 4G counterpart and has the same color options.
However, unlike the V23e, which comes with a 50MP selfie camera, the V23e 5G will feature a 44MP selfie shooter. vivo has confirmed that the triple camera system on the phone’s glass back will consist of primary, ultrawide, and macro units, but it hasn’t revealed their resolutions.
The V23e 5G’s pictures shared by vivo confirm the presence of the USB-C port at the bottom, which is flanked by a speaker and a microphone. However, there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack here, and it’s unlikely to be placed at the top since the 4G version doesn’t have one on board.
With the launch event still six days away, you can expect vivo to reveal more about the V23e 5G in the lead-up to the announcement.
From Gsmarena
Google Cloud outages take down Snapchat, Discord, Spotify, and more
A Google Cloud outage this morning is responsible for taking down parts of Snapchat, Discord, Spotify, and a host of other services that rely on GCP for hosting.
The outages are more partial in nature with most of the nytimes.com and the Spotify player still working. In the case of the music streaming service, Spotify Connect is offline.
Users on Downdetector have also reported issues (404 errors) with Etsy, Pokemon Go, The Home Depot, and various games. Bit.ly is also affected, impacting a lot of links on the web. Meanwhile, there’s a Nest login outage impacting:
Setup & Pairing, Nest Apps, Nest Thermostat, Nest Protect, Nest Cam Live Video, Nest Cam Video History, and Works with Nest
There are no problems with Gmail, Drive, Meet, or any other Workspace app at this point. YouTube is also fully functional.
The company has acknowledged an issue with Google Cloud Networking this morning that started at 9:53 a.m. PT.
As of 10:17 a.m., Google says the “issue with Cloud Networking is partially resolved,” but there’s no “ETA for full resolution at this point.”
Customers will be unable to apply changes to their load balancers until the issue is fully resolved.
Services are starting to come back online with Nest saying that its issue was resolved at 10:43 a.m. The entire Google Cloud outage was resolved shortly after that:
The issue with Cloud Networking has been resolved for all affected projects as of Tuesday, 2021-11-16 11:28 US/Pacific.
Customers impacted by the issue may have encountered 404 errors when accessing web pages served by the Google External Proxy Load Balancer between 09:35 and 10:10 US/Pacific.
Customer impact from 10:10 to 11:28 US/Pacific was configuration changes to External Proxy Load Balancers not taking effect. As of 11:28 US/Pacific configuration pushes resumed.
Google Cloud Run, Google App Engine, Google Cloud Functions, and Apigee were also impacted.
From 9to5Google
Here’s Samsung’s One UI 4 with Android 12 update roadmap for India
Samsung has dozens of Galaxy smartphones and tablets waiting for the latest Android 12-based One UI 4.0 update, and the release schedule for India is now official. The company confirmed the tentative roadmap through the Samsung Members app, according to which Indian customers can expect One UI 4.0 to drop starting December.
From Sammobile
Remember Windows Media Player? Microsoft is finally replacing it
Needless to say, the antiquated Windows Media Player looks completely outdated with Windows 11‘s modern UI, and Groove has been lackluster since Microsoft gave up on its streaming service, so it’s about time they got a replacement. The company today began to roll out the new simply named ‘Media Player‘ to Windows 11 Insiders in the Dev Channel.
Media Player is a relatively minimalistic app that replaces both the old WMP and the Groove Music app; Microsoft says your library and playlists will automatically be transferred over from the latter. For now, it seems the new app will live alongside the Movies & TV app, although by the look of things Media Player will eventually replace that as well.
Microsoft says Media Player “is a full-featured music library that allows you to quickly browse and play music, as well as create and manage playlists.” The app will show “album art and rich artist imagery,” which will also be displayed in both full-screen and mini-player modes. You’ll be able to browse and manage your local video library as well.
From Thenextweb
Russia Says Actually It’s Fine That It Blew Up a Satellite, Filled Orbit With Deadly Space Junk
Russia blew up an out-of-commission satellite this week, sending over 1,500 pieces of shrapnel hurtling. It was an unexpected test that could have some serious consequences, endangering not only the lives of NASA astronauts but Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station as well.
“It is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement today, “but also their own cosmonauts.”
Now, Russia’s Ministry of Defense is defending its reckless actions. Sergei Shoigu, minister-general of Russia’s army, claimed in a statement that the resulting “fragments do not pose any threat to space activities,” as translated by Google. Shoigu also called the test “successful,” in a dubious choice of words.
From Futurism
A ninth planet in our Solar System may have just been discovered
Data gathered in 1983 shows signs of what a British astronomer believes to be possible evidence of a ninth planet in our solar system. The news could provide some solace to people who are still upset over Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet.
Michael Rowan-Robinson, a leading astronomer and Emeritus professor of astrophysics at Imperial College London, found that data gathered by an early space telescope showed a possible candidate for the ninth planet theory. The data was pulled from historical observations made by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), which launched in 1983. It was the first orbiting observatory to look at the entirety of the night sky in the infrared spectrum.
From BGR
