Technology News - The OnePlus 3 is dead, long live the OnePlus 3T

OnePlus hasn’t done a great job keeping a lid on the 3T. For the past week or so, both it and Qualcomm have been seeding social media with glimpses of the upcoming smartphone, finally taking the official wraps off the device today, a mere five months after launching its latest flagship, the OnePlus 3.

Those worried about the company cannibalizing its still fresh handset rest assured – the OnePlus 3T won’t be eating into the 3’s sales because it will be killing the device entirely. As the new handset is unleashed on the world, the hardware startup will be end-of-lifing its predecessor.

And it’s not hard to see why. For starters, there’s the fact that the new phone is, at its name implies, an upgrade to the existing line, bringing an even more impressive set of specs to the already well-received phone. And then there’s the fact that it’s hard to imagine the company’s dropping the 3’s $399 MSRP any lower to make room for the 3T’s $439 asking price.

The short lead time will sure irk those who rushed out to pick up the three, but for hold outs, there are some really solid hardware upgrades on board, starting with the already announced bump from Snapdragon 820 to 821 (at 2.35GHz), bringing it up to speed with the Google Pixel. That increased processing power is coupled with a more than generous 6GB of RAM.

The battery has been bumped up as well, now at 3400mAh, a 13-percent increases over the 3, coupled with the company’s proprietary Dash quick charging technology, which promises a day’s worth of power with a 30 minute charge – same as with the last one.

The 3T will be available with either 64 or 128GB of storage (on the gunmetal version) when it launches November 22 here in the States. It will be launching on the 28 in Europe with a gold colored version arriving soon. While the OnePlus 3 is going away, those who purchased one will still be getting the promised Nougat update according to schedule, along with all future updates, which will happen at the same time for both handsets.

Technology News - This is why Snapchat didn’t give Spectacles to techies

If you want to make something cool, don’t give it to geeks first. Google Glass learned that the hard way.

Despite Snapchat’s best efforts, Robert Scoble still got a hold of a pair of the Spectacles camera glasses. He’s the enthusiastic tech blogger above who shot a nude selfie wearing Google Glass in the shower that came to embody the gadget’s cursed brand. He even admits to me that it was smart that Snap Inc didn’t send him a pair.

A SpectaScobles selfie was the exact opposite of Snapchat’s plan. That’s why it didn’t deliver any review units of Spectacles to bloggers, or send them to tech celebrities who usually get early beta access to new products.

If it did, that would have forged a perception of Spectacles as a serious device meant to be painstakingly reviewed instead of casually played with as they should be. And it would have positioned them for serious adults and early adopters, instead of the typical teens that make up Snapchat’s core user base.

So instead, it suddenly dropped a goofy vending machine full of Spectacles on a beach boardwalk in LA, near a national park in Big Sur, California, and a roadside tourist trap off Route 61 near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Snapchat lovers scrambled to get there quick and stand in long lines in hopes of scoring a pair.

There are several reasons this was brilliant:

Artificial Scarcity – People love exclusivity, but with an air of egalitarianism. By not openly selling them online or in a permanent brick-and-mortar store, and instead making their availability extremely limited, somewhat random, and only for those willing to stand in line, their perceived value skyrocketed. Sure, people are selling them on eBay for huge markups at $800 to $2000 dollars. But the point was anyone with $130 and some luck could don the glasses.

Geographic Clustering – Snapchat itself blew up in LA high schools, becoming a hit with a densely interconnected group of teens long before the press picked up on the phenomenon. Facebook actually started quite similarly, only being available at a few elite colleges like Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. Spectacles were also launched like this. Beyond making everyone else a bit jealous, it limited the chance of someone being the only person in their area using the product. For Snapchat and Facebook, that meant people actually had friends to use the app with. And for Spectacles, it means there will still be hype left to exploit when they hit the east coast and abroad.

Buying As An Experience – When was the last time the acquisition of a product felt as momentous as owning the product itself, and that moment wasn’t annoying? Sure lots of people stayed up late to order their Apple Watch and tweet what configuration they got, though I wouldn’t call that fun. People got excited about their place in the waitlist to use the Mailbox email app, yet the eventual rollout was anti-climactic. But the googly-eyed Snapbot vending machine, dropped in scenic locations, with an augmented reality try-on screen, got almost as much coverage as the videos you make with Spectacles.

Snapchat isn’t the only one realizing big, flashy press conferences and early access for journalists aren’t the only way to release a product.

Facebook cut back on glitzy launch events following one it threw for Facebook Home, which immediately flopped. And after Sean Parker’s video app Airtime bumbled its 2012 launch extravaganza with broken demos featuring celebrities like Jim Carrey, its 2016 relaunch had no event attached.

Snap Inc CEO wearing Spectacles, shot by famous photographer Karl Lagerfeld for the WSJ Magazine

And poor Google Glass. It tried to normalize wearing a computer on your face by handing it to the least fashionable people around, bloggers and app makers. It needed people to look cool wearing it, or at least not super weird, before anyone cared what the reviews said and the apps did. That’s why the first memorable photos of Spectacles weren’t shot by Scoble, but by famous fashion photographer Karl Lagerfeld.

Scoble concludes that the Spectacles Snapbots “make a lot more sense than the way Google rolled out Google Glass to developers and nerds.”

Technology News - Samsung is looking for Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge owners to test Android 7.0 on their phones

It’s not a full on Nougat rollout, but it’s something. For a second year in a row, Samsung will be offering a select group of users early access to the latest version of Android through its Galaxy Beta Program.

Currently limited to Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge owners (no Note 7 for obvious reasons) in the US, UK, and Korea, the deal is first-come, first served, according to the company’s site, aimed at testing the stability of Android 7.0 on its flagship devices. The program will be arriving in China at some point in the near future, as well.

Participants will be asked to report bugs and other issues to help the company bring things up to speed for next year’s public roll out. Sadly, if you got your hands on the limited edition Olympics or Batman version of the phone, you can’t participate. Ditto for users in the UK who have devices locked by their carrier.

There’s a bunch more fine print on Samsung’s page, including the fact that “unexpected errors may occur,” because, well, that’s kind of the whole point of a beta program

“Anti-smartphone” Light Phone runs into delays

For people who feel that we are a little bit too connected these days, Kickstarter project Light Phone was promising a respite. It was scheduled to ship in May this year, but has seen a number of setbacks. This week, the company issued a statement. It says that while it missed its goal, it hopes to start shipping late this month.

Light Phone’s goal was to be the opposite of a smartphone. Including a 2G SIM card and the ability to take and make calls only, the phone aimed to have three weeks worth of battery life on a single charge.

Tiny, pretty, and with a three-week battery life. What’s not to love?

The company suggests “A few limitations in our initial user experience goals due to some iOS restrictions” is the reason the device is shipping late, but the company has received some criticism for how it has handled its Kickstarter campaign, too. It hasn’t posted any public updates since August last year, instead opting to post updates exclusively to its campaign backers. Not a big problem for backers, of course, but a bit iffy to those of us who were following the company’s progress from the sidelines.

The company came under fire for only offering a dated cell technology for the telephony side of the phone, suggesting that relying on 2G may have been a poor solution. In some countries, the 2G network is scheduled to be switched off soon. “Australian 2G is being switched off on 1st December 2016,” one backer writes, referring to the first round of switch-flicking during a 9-month shutdown process of 2G networks down under. The Light Phone company, in turn, offered to refund backers in countries where the phones would no longer be usable.

When the Light Phone was first announced about 18 months ago, it seemed like a novel and interesting idea. At $100 per device, it’s undoubtedly cool, but the device is also entering a spectacularly competitive space. You can pick up a no-name quad-band phone for a seventh of the price, and most carriers will let you turn off SMS functionality altogether, if you feel passionate about only receiving phone calls. That raises the question; who is the Light Phone actually for?

I look forward to trying the Light Phone out and learning what it feels like to live a life without fending off the barrage of social media notifications. Realistically, however, if this was a problem someone was passionate about solving, they’d have found a way of turning off the notifications or get a no-features burner phone already.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the design and the general concept, but it can’t be denied that creating a phone is a complicated process. On top of that, the types of radios used in mobile phones is heavily regulated throughout the world. The icing on the “hmm, is this gonna work” cookie: in telecoms R&D and manufacturing, a $400k budget (the amount the company raised from Kickstarter) to bring a product to market is an incredibly daunting prospect.

Either way, Light Phone is an incredibly inspiring company; it takes some serious focus and dedication to bring a complex product in this space from cocktail napkin to brick-and-mortar shops. The company is bringing a fresh pair of eyes to the humble mobile phone, and I’ll be cheering them on from the sidelines.

Facebook opens analytics and FbStart to developers of Messenger’s 34,000 bots

Facebook has been putting a lot of effort into growing Messenger as a bot platform this year, and now there are 34,000 of these bots in existence, built to present you with news and entertainment, let you shop, and more — expanding Messenger’s use beyond simple chats with friends. Today, that strategy is getting a significant boost: Facebook says it will now let developers track bots on its free analytics platform, alongside ads and apps. At the same time, Facebook is also opening up its developer program, FbStart, to bot developers.

Both potentially give bot makers more reasons to build and monitor how their new widgets are working.

Josh Twist, a product manager for Facebook Messenger’s bot efforts, who is an Englishman based in Seattle but is in London today to debut the tools at a developer event, tells me that Facebook expanded the analytics and FbStart tools after a lot of requests from the developers.

“Getting bot support for messenger is the most frequently requested feature from bot developers,” he said. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise: Facebook already provided these kinds of tools to other developers on its platform, and bots have seen a massive surge of interest since they first made their debut earlier this year. That interest has not just come from users curious about how they work; developers are also very keen to see if bots really are the next big thing.

Twist tells me that for now, the analytics will cover bots built just for Messenger. But given how bots are making their way to other communication platforms, from competing messaging apps like Viber’s through to enterprise-focused platforms like Slack, don’t be surprised if Facebook expands its both analytics to other platforms beyond Messenger.

“It is something we have talked about and haven’t ruled it out,” he said. “It’s possible, absolutely, since we already support analytics for other platforms for apps. But right now we’re prioritizing support for Messenger bots.”

Analytics, of course, is an essential tool for a developer, both to be able to track how well something is working and other kids of feedback. Here Facebook says that features that will be included are reaches across mobile and desktop devices and measurement of customers’ journeys across apps and websites.

Developers also will be able to view reports on messages sent, messages received, and people who block or unblock your app. And they will also get access to anonymized data reports on bot demographics, which include details like age, gender, education, interests, country and language to figure out who is using your bot.

FbStart, meanwhile, currently has some 9,000 members who get feedback from Facebook on their apps, ads and bots, as well as Facebook ads credits and other free tools from partners like Amazon, Dropbox, and Stripe. If Facebook was looking at ways of swelling those ranks, tapping 34,000 developers could be one way of doing that.

Twist points out that while there are a lot of standalone bot developers coming to Facebook for the first time, there is a lot of crossover with other Facebook services like apps and ads. Those who are leveraging these together — for example using the recent ability to channel a person from a News Feed ad through to your Messenger experience — will be able to look at the effectiveness of those efforts now, and make potentially more ad buys based on them.

Huawei Mate 9 review: A big phone with an bigger battery

Huawei is in a tough position. The company is coming out of China with no strong presence in the U.S. market, and yet it prices its phones similarly to top competitors from Samsung and Apple. To beat the best, Huawei needs to be better than the best, and by a sizable margin. With each new phone, Huawei is a bit closer to that goal, but it never quite reached it.

Enter the Huawei Mate 9. After rumors of crazy-good specs, this was the device that had all the makings of becoming the best phablet in the world, and with the Samsung Galaxy Note7 out of the picture, the task appeared to be even easier. And while the Mate 9 is a very good phone, it will only be the best for some users: those who care deeply about battery life, fast charging and some niche features like black and white photography.

The Huawei Mate 9 is a 5.9-inch phone with the latest octa-core Huawei 960 Kirin chipset (paired with a Mali-G71 graphics chip), it's got 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage (expandable via microSD cards), has dual cameras on the back (20- and 12-megapixels), an 8-megapixel selfie shooter, a fingerprint sensor, and runs on Android 7.0, skinned with Huawei's latest EMUI 5.0 user interface.

On paper, that's the best Android phone around, if we disregard two specs: its huge screen only has a full HD resolution (many competitors, including the now-discontinued Note7, have Quad HD resolution), and it's not waterproof. Huawei pointed out that this phone is currently the top dog in Geekbench's multi-core test, and I've confirmed this to be the truth.

 

Huawei Mate 9 scores amazingly well in Geekbench 4's multi-core test; the score is a bit less impressive (but still very good) in the single-core test. For comparison, these scores make it the top Android phone out there; compared to the iPhone 7, it wins in the multi-core test but lags behind in the single-core test.

Synthetic tests like this one don't tell the full story, but the Mate 9 did feel fast and smooth, no matter what I threw at it.

Good but generic design

All the Huawei phones I've reviewed in the past couple of years have had exceptionally good build quality, and the Mate 9 is no exception. It just feels rock-solid.

The design, however, is nearly the same as the design of its predecessor, the Mate 8. Yes, the bezels are thin, the speaker grille is a bit more pronounced, the edges are ever-so-slightly curved, but these days you need to do more to stand out. Place an iPhone 7 or a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge next to it, and both will inspire more lustful sighs.

 

A big part of the smartphone experience these days is the screen, and as I've said many times, I don't mind the 1,920 x 1,080 pixel resolution. That's the same resolution as the iPhone 7 Plus, and no one is complaining. The screen is also brighter than on any other Huawei phone I've seen. And while earlier Huawei phones have had some problems with visibility in the sunlight, the Mate 9 appears to be better (but not perfect) with that regard.

Great battery life and insanely fast charging

One benefit of having a lower-resolution screen (it feels silly calling full HD resolution on a 5.9-inch screen "low," but that's just where we are these days) is better battery life. The huge, 4,000mAh battery also helps, and so does Huawei's SuperCharge charger that promises a full day's worth of battery life in just 20 minutes of charging.

In my testing, the battery life was not as impressive as on the Huawei Note 8 (which also has a 4,000mAh battery), but it was still great. The phone never lasted less than a day, and often I'd still have more than 30 percent of battery life left when I went to sleep.

The super-fast charging is even better. While writing this review, I started charging the phone at 10 percent, and it took just two hours to bring it to 100 percent. The charger is a bit bulkier than you'll get with most phones, but the tradeoff is worth it. Often, I forget to charge my phone and need a quick charge before going out. With this thing, I easily got 20 or 30 percent worth of battery life by the time I brushed my teeth and put on some clothes.

About that dual camera

This is where Huawei Mate 9 stumbles a bit. Huawei had a big head-start on the iPhone when it comes to dual cameras; the Huawei P9 had a 12-megapixel, Leica-branded, dual camera five months before iPhone 7 Plus did.

 

The Leica-branded dual camera is positioned above the phone's super-fast fingerprint sensor.

On paper, Huawei Mate 9 sounds like it should annihilate every camera out there. It has optical image stabilization, an advanced bokeh mode and a 20-megapixel sensor.

But here's the problem: Only one of the cameras has a 20-megapixel sensor, and it only takes pics in monochrome. The other sensor is 12 megapixels, meaning that color photos on the Mate 9 cannot go beyond 12 megapixels; just like on the Huawei P9. Of course, the iPhone 7 Plus boasts the same resolution, so this is not awful by any means, but it just feels like wasted opportunity.

Before we dive into the details of photo quality (and there's a lot to cover), there are a few more things to mention. The bokeh mode only works well in ideal conditions, with the subject of the portrait near and flat towards the camera, and the background far in the distance. Any other conditions and you'll likely to see strange blurry patches in the photo and imperfections around the object that's in the focus. Check out an example, below.

Notice how the edges of the headphones are blurry and odd, especially on the left earcup? The Mate 9's bokeh mode works well in ideal scenarios, but give it anything a bit tougher and this happens.

Also, the phone boasts some sort of hybrid 2x zoom mode, which is not optical. I fail to see how this is different from digital zoom, so I mostly disregarded it.

The Mate 9 has an 8-megapixel selfie camera, just like its predecessor. But thankfully, the "beauty" mode is no longer the default; gone is the unnaturally smooth skin and bulgy eyes. The selfies are decent if not spectacular, but this little change means more to me than improvements in picture quality.

Finally, the Mate 9 takes 4K video, a first for Huawei.

Photo quality: Stunning in black and white, solid in color, shoddy in low light

Huawei places a lot of emphasis on its partnership with Leica, which yielded the company's dual-camera system. The idea is to combine a monochrome sensor that takes very sharp photos with a color sensor to get very sharp color photos. It worked well on the Huawei P9, but how does it work on the Mate 9, where the monochrome sensor has a higher resolution than the color one?

Since I've already done a detailed analysis of P9's photo-taking capabilities, the easiest way to test the Mate 9 is to test it directly against the P9. I've also thrown in photos taken by a 12-megapixel Canon 450D DSLR for good measure. Given the enormous amount of features all of these cameras offer, I've mostly taken photos on auto settings, which is the way most users will do it anyways.

The short verdict is that the Mate 9 takes very similar photos to the Huawei P9. They're great and sharp in sunny outdoors shots, but lag behind today's top phones in low light conditions. And if you like black and white shots, the Mate 9 will occasionally take a photo that will beat professional-grade cameras.

Huawei Mate 9

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Check out the outdoors shots above. In the park photo (comparison below), the Mate 9 takes a stunningly sharp photo, but it looks a bit too post-processed. The colors are also a bit washed out, while the Canon leans to the blue a bit too much; the P9's photo has the best color accuracy.

In the palm photo, it's the P9 that does too much sharpening. The Huawei Mate 9 gets it just right; both phones produce a far sharper photo than the Canon.

In a monochrome photo, the Mate 9 wins over the P9 due to its 20-megapixel resolution. And while both cameras takes absolutely stunning black and white photos, it's worth noting that pretty much the only thing that separates them is the resolution; in fact, on some occasions the P9 took a better photo.

Go inside a bar or a dark room, however, and the Mate 9 isn't as good. Its f/2.2 aperture lags behind the iPhone 7, Google Pixel XL and the Galaxy S7 Edge, and it shows; the low-light photos it takes are always a tad to dark and grainy. The phone's HDR mode is a must here, but you have to turn it on manually.

The verdict — despite Huawei's partnership with Leica and its experience with dual-camera phones — is that the Mate 9 takes great photos in some cases, but doesn't exactly shine where it counts the most, in those party/beer bar/concert shots most of us love to take.

Details that might change your mind

These days, smartphones are little powerhouses that do a ton of things, and even though people care the most about performance, battery life and camera, it would be very unfair to judge the Huawei Mate 9 on those criteria alone. The phone comes with a plethora of minor but useful features not many competing phones have. Here's a little list of notes I've made while reviewing this phone.

The software has been vastly improved and polished since the Mate 8. It's not just Android 7.0; Huawei has cleaned up its EMUI, making sure you can get to most features with fewer clicks. And if you don't like the cram your apps into folders on the screen, iPhone-style, the Mate 9 now has an optional app drawer as well.

Huawei claims the phone comes with software that learns user habits and improves performance the more you use it, with peak performance coming after 16 months of use. It's tough to test that in only a week, but the phone was definitely very fast.

The company pointed out to me that the software on the device I had for testing is unfinished, and that an update get pushed out before the device hits the market. However, I did not encounter any bugs while testing the phone.

The Mate 9 comes with stereo speakers (a close competitor, the Pixel XL, has a mono speaker) which sound amazing for a smartphone — probably the best I've heard. It also has four directional mics, which make recording interviews much easier; you can listen to sounds that came from a specific direction and mute all other sounds. On the other hand, it does not support Bluetooth aptX, which is a shame.

A single USB-C connector is positioned between the speaker grilles on the bottom. On the top, there's (thankfully) a headphone jack.

The Mate 9 has a headphone jack. This is important to point out now that the iPhone 7, and many new phones, like the HTC Bolt, do not. I have a lot of headphones which I frequently plug in and out of multiple devices, and this is a big deal for me.

The phone has an IR blaster, in case you want to use it as a remote. I rarely do, but hey, a lot of competing phones don't have the feature.

With a 5.9-inch screen, the phone is big but manageable; it's roughly, as Huawei itself highlighted at launch, the size of an iPhone 7 Plus. But the more important implication is that the Mate 9 has a bigger screen than most top phablets out there. The Note7 had a 5.7-inch screen, but that's all gone now, and the S7 Edge, Google Pixel, iPhone 7 Plus all have 5.5-inch screens. If you need a little extra screen estate, the Mate 9 might be a better choice.

Verdict

The Huawei Mate 9 is an ambitious device, polished and powerful. But the Galaxy S7 Edge and the iPhone 7 Plus have a better design and camera. They're also waterproof. And Google's Pixel XL has a better camera and tons of Google-unique software perks.

The Mate 9 more than makes it up in other areas. It has a great battery that charges crazy fast, and is a little bigger than top competitors. It also has top specs and some nifty details, like four microphones and stereo speakers. It takes amazing black-and-white photos.

This leaves us with the question of the price. The Mate 9 will be available in the U.S., but I have not been able to get the exact date and price from Huawei. We know the price in Europe, however: 699 euros ($750). That's a fair price for what you get, but you need to take a good long look at other phones sold at this price and choose which features you care about.

Huawei Mate 9

The Good

Top specs • Takes amazing black and white photos • Premium feel • Great stereo sound • Great battery life and super fast charging

The Bad

Bland design • Camera lags behind top competition • Pricey

The Bottom Line

The Huawei Mate 9 is a polished and powerful phone with great battery life, an innovative camera and — how about that? — a headphone jack.

Samsung Galaxy S8 Tipped to Sport Pressure-Sensitive Display

Samsung may be the next handset manufacturer to go for pressure-sensitive display technology for its next flagship, if a new report citing multiple industry sources is to be believed. Notably, Samsung's pressure-sensitive display technology is expected to work same as Apple's 3D Touch seen on iPhones.

The technology will be able to distinguish between a light tap and deep press, enabling access to more functions just by pressing harder. Notably, Samsung won't be the first Android handset vendor to bring pressure-sensitive display technology to its phones as Huawei was the first to unveil the force touch tech. To recall, Huawei's Mate S was the first Android smartphone featuring Force Touch technology.

The report by The Investor cites an official of a Samsung supplier who said, "Samsung is mulling to adopt the force touch technology partially from the S8 but the full adoption will come in one or two years. It is a matter of time before other major Android smartphone makers deploy the technology that will help enhance user interface." The report also suggests that Samsung may utilise its own force touch tech developed by Samsung Display, which also supplies force touch displays to Huawei.

Additionally, Samsung's Senior Executive at component division on condition of anonymity claimed that the South Korean company was working on the force touch tech "for the adoption in the near future."

A recent report claimed that Samsung's Galaxy S8 may launch in two screen size variants - 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch. Prolific phone tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) claimed that the Samsung Galaxy S8 models will have model numbers SM-G950 and SM-G955 for 5.7-inch and 6.2-inch screen sizes respectively.

Based on preliminary leaks, Samsung Galaxy S8 will sport a 5.5-inch 4K (2160x3840 pixels) Super AMOLED display with impressive pixel density of 806ppi. It is further expected to pack company's own Exynos 8895 SoC coupled with 6GB of RAM. Rumours so far have claimed that Samsung will launch the alleged Galaxy S8 flagship smartphone on the side-lines of MWC 2017 in Barcelona on February 26.

Boom!!! Samsung to Note 7 owners: Here's an extra $100 for your phone

Samsung really, really wants you to turn in your Galaxy Note 7.

The Korean electronics titan said it will give $100 in credit at "carrier or retail outlets" to customers who turn in their Note 7 for another Samsung phone, starting Thursday afternoon

The offer comes after Samsung and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission once again issued a recall for the Galaxy Note 7 -- including for replacement units. Two days earlier, Samsung confirmed that it had killed off the Note 7 and warned consumers to power down and turn in their phones.

"The Galaxy Note 7 recall has proven to be a real challenge for Samsung. I am very concerned that consumers who exchanged their phones for replacement Galaxy Note 7s are now at risk again," CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye said in a statement.

The extra financial incentive serves three purposes: It's a token gesture meant to soften the blow of the second recall for its most loyal customers. It's an incentive to convince stubborn superfans who have opted to take the risk and keep them. It's also a way to keep people using a Samsung device.

The second recall marks the latest chapter in the nightmare saga that is the exploding Galaxy Note 7. Samsung moved quickly to recall the first batch of Note 7 phones, only to encounter incidents in which the supposedly safer replacement phones began to catch fire as well. The company has already warned that the debacle will cost $2.3 billion in lost operating profits, but the bigger damage will be to its brand and credibility.

To date, according to the CPSC, Samsung has received 96 reports of Galaxy Note 7 phones overheating in the US -- 23 more than it had since the original recall on September 15 -- including 13 reports of burns and 47 reports of property damage.

"We appreciate the patience of our consumers, carrier and retail partners for carrying the burden during these challenging times," said Tim Baxter, chief operating officer of Samsung Electronics America. "We are committed to doing everything we can to make this right."

Some carriers have already given out a $25 bill credit for switching out their phone for another Samsung device, and customers who took advantage of that offer can get another $75. Customers who opt for a full refund will get $25. Likewise, customers who switch to another brand will only get $25. All of the US carriers are offering customers the choice to swap out the device for an entirely different phone.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 7 at a splashy event in early August in New York, and the critically lauded handset was set to challenge the iPhone for phone supremacy this holiday-shopping season. Some consumers, however, found that their phones would overheat and even catch fire. The device was banned on planes and trains.

This second recall follows the CPSC's official recall last month, which is said to have involved 1 million of the 2.5 million phones that were manufactured.

Samsung to hobble Galaxy Note 7 charging in US with software

Most Galaxy Note 7 users in the US have returned their devices. For those who haven't, Samsung will soon start limiting the device's charging capabilities.

Samsung on Friday said 85 percent of all recalled Note 7 phones in the US have been replaced through its refund and exchange program, "with the majority of the participants opting to receive another Samsung smartphone." The company didn't immediately provide information about how many phones had been returned around the world.

For the remaining holdouts in the US, Samsung said it will release a software update in the coming days to limit the phone's ability to charge beyond 60 percent. It also will issue a reminder pop-up notification every time a consumer charges, reboots or turns on the screen of their Note 7 device.

"We remain focused on collecting the outstanding Galaxy Note 7 phones in the market," the company said in a statement on its website.

Even though people have been warned to stop using their phones, some super fans have continued to hold on to their Note 7 devices. Along with issuing the charging limitation software in other markets, Samsung has taken more drastic measures to get people to turn in their devices. Earlier Friday, the company said it had teamed up with carriers in New Zealand to cut off access to wireless networks for customers still using their Note 7 devices.

Samsung aims to entice Note 7 owners, and iPhone 7 Plus gets an upgrade

Samsung hasn't yet gone that far in the US or other major markets.

The Note 7, which hit the market in mid-August, was expected to solidify Samsung's lead in the mobile market after a strong showing with its Galaxy S7. The company had just begun to regain its swagger after stumbling the previous year with lackluster products.

Then came the battery problems, which caused some units to overheat and catch fire. Samsung issued a global recall of the popular device in September. But then some replacement units started having the same problem. That caused Samsung to issue a second recall in mid-October and permanently stop production of the device. It's offering Note 7 owners $100 to exchange the device for another Samsung phone.

Samsung has said the Note 7 recall will cost it more than $5 billion over the next few quarters. The company on Friday also issued a recall for 2.8 million washing machines due to injury risk. The two fiascos have raised questions about Samsung's quality and assurance testing and have dealt a blow to its reputation. 

Tricks to Use One WhatsApp Account On Two Phones

Want to use one whatsapp account with two different phones?It will be fun doing this.But don’t try to snoop anyone.One of the downsides of WhatsApp is that it every WhatsApp account is associated with a single phone number making its use limited to one phone at a time. Because the WhatsApp app on your phone periodically checks for an active phone number and if it doesn’t find a match, it will prompt you to re-verify to use it again. Therefore, multi-phone use of the same WhatsApp account on multiple phones usually doesn’t work. But there is a simple workaround.
Even though it is not the most elegant of solutions, it works. And it only needs an active internet connection on the second phone and functions even without a SIM card.

            

Use One WhatsApp Account On Two Different Phones

STEPS TO DO THIS:

1. Open the Web browser on the second phone that you want to also use WhatsApp on and go to web.whatsapp.com.

2. On the mobile browser, it will automatically redirect you to the WhatsApp home page. From the browser options, choose “Request desktop site” (where you find this could vary from browser to browser) and it will then open up the desired Web page with a QR code displayed prominently.

3. On the phone that has WhatsApp installed and running, go to options/settings and choose “WhatsApp Web” (If you are already using WhatsApp Web on any other browser, you will have to log out before proceeding). It will fire up the QR scanner.

4. Scan the QR code displayed on the second phone with the WhatsApp app on the first and it will automatically log in with your account to WhatsApp Web on the second phone. You can now simultaneously use WhatsApp on two phones.

The catch is that you can use this method to use WhatsApp on only one additional device (other than the primary phone on which WhatsApp is installed) and to use on another device, you will have to log out from one.
Also WhatsApp Web isn’t a full-feature replacement for the installed version of WhatsApp. You wouldn’t get notifications and the interface isn’t optimised for mobile use. You might want to switch to landscape to for a fuller view.