Category Archives: News

News

PICO celebrates with new store and Christmas VR bundles

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With Christmas just around the corner, PICO has kick-started celebrations with the launch of its new VR store and game bundle to boot.

First VR Concept Store opens in Sunway Pyramid

PICO Flagship Store
PICO opens its first Malaysian VR Concept Store in Sunway Pyramid.

PICO fans will now be able to try their favorite devices at the first PICO VR concept store in Malaysia. The new store opened its doors on the 10th of December, located in Sunway Pyramid. The store has four experiential zones for gaming, fitness, entertainment and social for customers to try out the VR headsets, especially the new PICO 4 All-In-One headset for themselves. There is also friendly, trained crew in-store to help customers with their retail or technical queries.

Apart from attracting new customers, PICO also aims to please their existing customers with a dedication to aftersales service. Their current warranty programme allows a one-for-one exchange for defective units that can be easily performed at the concept store.

Regional Director of PICO Southeast Asia, Allen An hopes that through the store, customers will enjoy experiencing the PICO 4 headset, and will be convinced to get one. With that in mind, the store had a Store Launch Promo where the first 10 customers to purchase a PICO 4 will also get a PICO Neo Link 3 (256 GB) unit for free. The next 20 customers to purchase a PICO 4 can purchase a second unit for just half price. And if you missed out on the opening day deals, fret not as PICO has more to offer.

#TheBestXmasGift for VR fans by PICO

image 6
For fans of fitness, art, music and of course VR games, the PICO 4 has something for everyone.

With more games available, the PICO 4 All-In-One VR headset is proving to be a versatile gift for Christmas to satisfy fans of all genres. Gamers can enjoy the new archery game In Death: Unchained and zombie shooter After the fall. Stay fit with VR fitness classes in LesMills Bodycombat and All-In-One Sports VR, which features 11 different sports. Music lovers will enjoy Smash Drums, enhanced with the PICO 4’s binaural stereo speakers while art lovers can express themselves on the virtual canvas of MultiBrush.

Also on offer is a special bundle of games worth RM 476.93 for free with every purchase of the PICO 4 this holiday season. The Christmas Pack 4-game bundle consists of Superhot VR and In Death:Unchained for action games fans, LesMills Bodycombat for fitness and MultiBrush for art enthusiasts. These games are in addition to the standard Starter Pack bundle that comes with every PICO 4 purchase. Games included are All-in-One Sports VR, Down The Rabbit Hole, OhShape, and After The Fall, worth RM 440.00.

The PICO 4 All-In One VR Headset is retailing now at RM1699 for the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage variant and RM1999 for the 256 GB variant. To get your, head to the PICO VR Concept Store or buy online at Lazada, Shopee or TikTok shop. For more information on more products and the store, visit https://www.picoxr.com/my.

Android, iOS, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

YouTube ‘Add to Queue’ Button Coming Soon on Your Smartphone App

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One of the best features that your streaming apps have added into their interface is the ‘Add to Queue’ function. It is also one of the most underrated and one of those functions you tend to take for granted because the function seems too sensible and natural not to have. You can create your own instantaneous playlist without going through the hassle of curating and naming an entire playlist just for that one moment; why would you not have the button? Your YouTube app on your Android and Apple devices does not have it though.

Do not get us wrong, YouTube has an ‘Add to Queue’ function when you go on YouTube on your PC. If you are accessing YouTube via your smartphones or tablet, you do not get that functionality for reasons we cannot understand. You cannot even access that function if you access YouTube via your smartphone’s web browser unless you switch it to desktop browsing mode. For some time now, we have been quite frustrated with the limitation because, if you think about it, most of your YouTube consumption will be on your smartphone or tablet devices via the app itself. It is probably one of the most quietly demanded functions on the YouTube app too, we think.

As the year is coming to a close, there is some good news from Google. YouTube is now testing the ‘Add to Queue’ function on both Apple and Android devices. At this time, the test looks like it will go on only for a limited time. We can only hope that after the limited time the function will go on as a default feature on the YouTube app on both Android and Apple devices.

Currently the tested feature is only available to YouTube Premium users on both platforms. If you are a YouTube Premium user and have not seen the function, you might want to try to get into your Profile settings and turn on ‘Try New Features’ to not only test that one function, but other functions they might bring to the YouTube app in the future. To see if you have the function available to you, you simply have to click on the three dots that appear on the top right of your video and click ‘Add to Queue’. You will have full control over your video playlist with a display menu at the bottom of the screen after enabling the ‘Add to Queue’ function and creating a temporary playlist.

According to sources, the test will only last until the 28th of January 2023. Keep in mind that the function does not extend to adding YouTube Shorts into the playlist. There is no clear indication on whether or not the function will officially be available for YouTube app users in the wider scheme of things, but we are betting that it would be not too long after testing period.

Source: 9To5Google

Android, Mobile, News

Axon 40 Ultra Space Edition Takes ZTE To The Stars

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ZTE has unveiled in China, a souped-up version of their Axon 40 Ultra flagship with the new Space Edition.

axon 40u space edition 2
With memory options you can see from space, the Axon 40 Ultra Space Edition ups the flagship game.
Image source: GSMArena

Extra-large memory configurations and faster charging speeds

The major offering of this new edition is perhaps the largest configuration of memory and storage in the market. It is available in 12 GB RAM with 512GB storage or 18GB RAM with 1TB storage. This not the first time ZTE has done this, with its previous Axon Ultra 30 flagships offering the same in its Aerospace edition last year.

The Space edition shares mostly the same hardware with the Ultra 40 standard edition. It comes with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 platform, a 6.8-inch 120hz AMOLED display with 2480 x 1116 pixels resolution and 5000mAh battery. It also has the same dedicated security chip by ZTE that is claimed to have passed encryption testing and has three privacy and security certifications. However, no concrete details on specifications and functionality on this chip has been announced just yet. The camera setup is a triple 64MP sensor assembly with wide angle, ultra-wide angle and periscope capabilities respectively.

The hardware upgrades, apart from larger memory, is faster charging speeds of 80W from the base 65W. The design of the phone receives some changes for the better too. The back panel of the conventional Ultra 40 is replaced with ceramic material that is textured to give a more premium feel. The camera bump is now flush against the back panel, as opposed to the island design of the base unit.

Available only in China, ships with a bespoke box

space edition box
A bespoke box for a truly premium feel. Image source: GSMArena

The Axon 40 Ultra Space Edition is currently only available in China and comes with a bespoke box and protective case. Price estimates are RM3744 (5999 yuan) for the 12GB/512GB variant and RM4886 (7700 yuan) for the 18GB/1TB variant. For further details and availability in Malaysia, visit the official ZTE Malaysia website and follow ZTE Malaysia Facebook page.

Source: GSMArena

Accessories, Consumer Electronics, Editorial, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

[CES 2023] More SmartThings for the Future – A Samsung Editorial

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CES 2023 is upon us early in January of 2023, there is no surprises there. The show is also a place where you can find the latest and greatest from all sorts of electronics manufacturer, a sort of showcase of what end users like us can expect to see throughout the entire year. It is not uncommon to see new smartphone concepts, new laptop concepts, and even new ways to experience technology in the show. While it is happening early in the year, you can expect manufacturers to bring their big guns to the show. One of those manufacturers you can be excited about is Samsung.

Samsung is in a rather unique position in the world. It is a technology giant that is involved and participates in many industries. If you have not known yet, Samsung has rather unique role in the military equipment industry as well. What they are most known for today is their unique approach to smartphones with their folding flexible displays. But according to the latest editorial you can find in their newsroom, written by their current CEO, JH Han, that is not all they want to be known for.

It is no secret that Samsung, very much like Apple, wants to build an ecosystem for themselves. At some point, it looked like their ecosystem, known as the Galaxy ecosystem, built around the smartphone experience is going to take over and pivot the South Korean giant away from Google’s complete ecosystem. Now, they seemed to have turned things around a little and embrace Google a little bit more, save for a few things.

Samsung’s Galaxy ecosystem is not technically a failure though. It has evolved a little bit more instead. It has developed into something they call the SmartThings ecosystem.

SmartThings – The Heart of it All

SmartThings, in a lot of sense, has always been there. It is not a replacement to the Galaxy ecosystem; it is a big part of it. It has a lot more potential in the smart home space than you think though. For 2023 then, instead of focusing on the smartphone side of things, Samsung plans to bring more IoT products and expand on SmartThings, which could be more exciting than it sounds.

According to the published editorial, Samsung is working with more partners this time for SmartThings. That can only mean that Samsung is expanding its compatibility and ability to more than just Samsung products. They are integrating AI implementations into SmartThings too, which is not entirely unheard of, but just means that their SmartThings products can just be smarter and more intuitive to work with over time than before. Where this will sit between the Apple Home and Google Home IoT framework, only time can tell.

The focus is not to just make the SmartThings ecosystem smarter and more readily available for users, but to also make it more sustainable than ever before. In a way, Samsung wants to make SmartThings the center of your eco-friendly practices. That also means that Samsung will be committed to creating more energy efficient products and more environmentally conscious packaging decisions.

We mentioned earlier that Samsung is in rather unique position in the world. They are in all sorts of sectors and are rather successful in all the industries it has participated in. They make some of the world’s most popular Television, they are the world’s leader in terms of display technology, they are a leader in the world of smartphones in both popularity and innovation, they make very compelling and very clever home appliances. They are in the perfect position to introduce a whole host of products and solutions that can talk to each other and integrate them seamlessly into your lives.

From the published editorial, we think that we can be excited for Samsung in 2023. You can expect Samsung to shift its focus a little in 2023. Of course, that does not mean that you will not see the usual Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Z flagship smartphones being released and pushing smartphone technology to the limits. But you can expect Samsung to shift gears when it comes to their home appliances. For CES 2023 at least, we think that Samsung will focus more on smart home appliances or even announcing new partners to their SmartThings ecosystem. We can only wait and see.

Gaming, Lifestyle, News

God Of War TV Series Coming to Amazon Prime Video

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God of War is coming to life thanks to a deal between PlayStation Studios, Sony and Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime broke the news in a single tweet which read “God of War is coming”. The announcement comes barely a week after God of War won six awards at the Game Awards.

According to Deadline, Prime Video has been in negotiations with Sony and PlayStaion to bring the critically acclaimed game to the silver screen since its first report in March. It appears like negotiations have gone well with some of Hollywood’s best TV Fantasy talent coming onboard. The God of War series is apparently going to be helmed by Rafe Judkins who has worked on titles like Amazon’s “The Wheel of Time”, “Agents of SHIELD” and “The 4400” to name a few. He’ll be working with the creators of “The Expanse” Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby. The series has already been in production since March according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Fan of the series will definitely be excited to see where the series takes its inspiration as God of War as a franchise has a rich library of tales to tell. According to the report from Hollywood Reporter, the story will be taking its queue from the game after Kratos hangs up his blades and retires to the Norse realm of Midgard. Of course, if the game is any indication, we’re in for loads of adventure and thrills as Kratos and Arteus discover that his late wife’s last wish was a quest in disguise. The father and son duo will be facing the minions of Hel and take on new gods and mythical creatures as they seek to save the world.

God of War

God of War is the latest game in Sony’s library to get the Hollywood treatment. It joins the ranks of Unchartered and, most recently, The Last of Us. There’s no indication when the series will be released nor any news of the cast just yet.

News

OPPO’s Reno8 5G bedazzles with new color and more RAM

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OPPO has unveiled a dazzling new color variant for its Reno8 5G to brighten up this festive season.

Reno8 Sunkissed Beige 2
Shimmer and dazzle with Reno8 5G’s new Sunkissed Beige color.

Dubbed Sunkissed Beige, the new color appears as a light gold finish that shimmers when catching the right light. Coupled with a new glossy back, it promises to add a touch of elegance to the Reno8 5G. The RAM capacity gets a boost, now coming with 12 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB with its original release in July 2022. The device still retains the original specifications, with a MediaTek Dimensity 1300 chipset, 6.4-inch 90Hz AMOLED display, 4500mAh battery with 80W SUPERVOCC fast charging and 256GB of storage.

A new sheen for the “Portrait Expert” experience

Reno8 Sunkissed Beige 1
Dual Sony Flagship sensors for better portraits.

With the new color, fans will still get OPPO’s “Portrait Expert” experience with the Reno8 5G. The camera setup has Dual Sony Flagship sensors, with the main camera an IMX766 50MP sensor with autofocus and front camera a Sony IMX709 32MP sensor. The rear camera setup also has a wide-angle camera with 112-degree field of view and Macro camera. True to its moniker, the device features AI Portrait Retouching and Night Portrait for the best shots in any lighting.

Reno8 Sunkissed Beige 3
Get the new color and increased RAM for the same price.

Same great price with deals to boot

The Reno8 5G is available now for RM2399 like its predecessor, even with the increased RAM. From now until 31st January 2023, each purchase of the device comes with OPPO Care’s 1-Year Screen Protection Plan and 1-Year Extended Warranty. To sweeten the deal, OPPO is offering a PWP deal to get the Enco Buds2 at only RM 10 with every purchase. You can get your own at OPPO Brand stores, official OPPO Malaysia Online Store, Telco Partners, E-comm partners and our Chain-store partners.

Business, News

Pos Malaysia Digitization Efforts Enhances Parcel Delivery Offering with Amazon Web Services

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Malaysia’s national postal and courier service is going full monty with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to achieve its digitization goals. The drive for digitization and agility comes as a multi-year plan that was initiated back in 2019. Plans were put into high gear with the sudden onset of the pandemic later that year. However, the pandemic also saw an increase in parcel deliveries driven by increased transaction volumes on e-commerce platforms.

Pos Malaysia
Source: Pos Malaysia

With that in mind, Pos Malaysia has already rolled out a number of customer-facing and internal digital initiatives to provide better service for their customers. Having already experienced the effects of an estimated 24% growth in the e-commerce sector during the COVID lockdown, the company is looking to further improve their service further. To date, the company has already migrated 60 critical applications which include parcel tracking, point-of-sale retail, SAP, supply chain, mail tracking, and human resources to the cloud with Amazon Web Services. They are now in the process of migrating the remaining workloads and applications to AWS by 2023.

Pos Malaysia’s digitization efforts will utilise Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (ECC) which provides secure, resizable compute capacity. Most importantly, it will allow Pos Malaysia to dynamically scale to meet customer needs during periods of increased demand. It will also allow them to more efficiently manage resources for day-to-day operations. The scalability will be a cornerstone of Pos Malaysia’s ability to provide frictionless deliveries during peak periods.

Eric Conrad Regional Managing Director Worldwide Public Sector ASEAN AWS profile
Source: AWS

“Pos Malaysia’s digital transformation with AWS is a great example of how a traditional last-mile
logistics business can simplify, modernize, innovate, and scale. Using AWS, Pos Malaysia can capture
growth opportunities in e-commerce as demand for online shopping accelerated across Southeast
Asia during the pandemic. Pos Malaysia is delivering goods into the hands of customers in a cost-
effective, efficient, and agile manner, especially during peak periods with high parcel volumes.”

Eric Conrad, Regional Managing Director of
Worldwide Public Sector, ASEAN at AWS

AWS is will become the home of Pos Malaysia’s central data repository for an integrated data platform. This data will be able to provide insights which will enable them to better understand customer demands, find delivery efficiencies and improve operations across the country. They will be able to do this using AWS services like SageMaker which will allow the company to build, train and deploy machine learning models for virtually any use case. This will allow Pos Malaysia to build data-driven models that will be able to predict peak periods. This will allow the company to proactively deploy more staff and vehicles to ensure smooth delivery.

Android, Mobile, News

Vivo X90 launches in China, glimpses Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

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Vivo has announced through its official Chinese website, its latest X90 series. The highlights include a contender for best camera setup and the first to offer Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in its premium variant.

x90 pro plus
The first flagship with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform, vivo X90 Pro+. Image source: Vivo

The X90 Pro+ Plus is the premium option for the series and is the only one to offer the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 platform. With the flagship mobile platform only recently announced, Vivo has taken the lead in releasing the first device to run it with X90 Pro+ available from December 6th. Apart from the expected performance upgrade, the new platform has AI integration for image enhancements and camera features. Vivo has decided to capitalize on this with an enhanced camera setup.

Vivo’s challenger for best smartphone camera 2023

The main shooter is a 50MP, 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor and a secondary 50MP IMX758 2x telephoto shooter. There is also a 64MP 3.5x periscope camera and a 48MP ultrawide shooter with 114-degree field-of-view. The four-camera setup is housed in a camera lens-esque bump on the rear, with corner mounted flash. The cameras also have added features such as astrophotgraphy, a freeze motion mode in low light and, HDR video and a lens flare portrait mode.

Improved 4 camera setup
Improved four-camera setup with AI enhanced features challenges for the best-in-class. Image source: Vivo

With the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 onboard, it will be the first to utilize Qualcomm’s new 3D Sonic Max In-Display Fingerprint Sensor. It will run the Android-13 based Origin OS3. Storage options of 256 GB or 512 GB with UFS 4.0 flash storage for the fastest read and write speeds in the market. The display is a 6.78-inch 120Hz OLED screen with 3,200 x 1,440-pixel resolution and the device comes with IP68 rating. Powering it is a 4700mAh battery with 80W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

Affordable but no push overs

While the X90 Pro+ promises to give the full flagship experience, the standard and Pro variants have a lot to offer too. Both devices come with the Mediatek Dimensity 9200 processor and a 6.78-inch 120Hz OLED display with lower resolution of 2800 x 1260 pixels. The Pro series steps ahead with the same 50MP one-inch main and 50MP 2x telephoto shooter setup in the Pro+. However, it does not have the periscope camera and has a third 12MP ultrawide shooter. It also offers a larger 4870mAh battery, 50W wireless charging and IP68 rating.

vivo x90 color options
The standard comes in a unique Ice Blue while the rest are available in Original Black and Huaxia Red.
Image source: Vivo.

The standard option on the other hand has a 4810mAh battery with no wireless charging and an IP64 rating. The camera setup is also a step down with a 50MP IMX866 main, 12MP ultrawide with 108-degree field-of-view and 12MP 2x telephoto shooters.

All three devices come with Origin OS 3 based on Android 13 out of the box, a 32MP selfie camera in punch-hole cutout on the screen and a faux leather back. The vanilla X90 is available in four memory configurations of either 8 GB or 12 GB RAM with 256 GB or 512 GB of storage. The X90 Pro comes in 8 GB RAM with 256 GB storage, 12 GB RAM with 256 GB storage or 12 GB RAM with 512 GB of storage.

Pricing and availability

The X90 series is currently only available to the Chinese market starting 6th December 2022. All devices are available in Original black or Huaxia red color options, with the vanilla variant available in Ice Blue. Based on pricing in the Chinese market, the standard X90 will retail starting at approximately RM2340 (3699 yuan). The X90 Pro will retail approximately from RM3165 (4999 yuan) and X90 Pro+ from RM4115 (6499 yuan). For official updates on price and availability, visit the Vivo Malaysia Official Store and Vivo Malaysia Facebook page.

Sources: Android Authority, ArsTechnica

News

OPPO MariSilicon Y Promises High Fidelity Bluetooth Audio

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After announcing their MariSilicon X last year, OPPO is continuing their foray into the silicon space with a new dedicated processing unit they’ve named the MariSilicon Y. This year, they aren’t focusing on optics though, they’ve set their eyes on Bluetooth Audio. The MariSilicon Y comes with a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) and is capable of up to 509 GOPS of on-device computing.

MariSilicon Y
Source: OPPO

The new System on a Chip (SoC) is made using N6RF technology – the same technology used to create cutting edge 5G technology. OPPO has utilised the fabrication to create a dedicated chip that helps increase the fidelity of Bluetooth audio by increasing Bluetooth bandwidth by up to 50%. This is in comparison to currently available Bluetooth SoCs. OPPO has developed an in-house Pro Bluetooth pack that enables this increase. It allows for transmission of 24-bit audio at 192kHz. That’s the same lossless quality we used to get with audio CDs! Simply put, this processor is able to give you more detailed audio over the same Bluetooth connection that you have with your wireless earbuds.

The unprecedented bandwidth, 12Mbps transmission ratge and audio quality empowers a more robust listening experience complete with the capabilities for spatial audio experiences. OPPO also uses an in-house codec to achieve this. OPPO touts that their new URLC codec is supposedly able to have better compression rates than current codecs like LDAC, LHDC, AAC and AptX. However, the MariSilicon Y still supports these codecs for universal compatibility and is one of the first SoCs with next generation L3C codec support.

MariSilicon Y Key Art
Source: OPPO

The MariSilicon Y also has built-in AI that is able to take listening experiences to the next level. It is able to recognise and isolate different layers of music and even change the spatial location of given layers. In the demo during the INNO Day 2022, they isolated a single instrument – the guitar – in the audio and were able to up the volume as well as swap the space which the sound occupied during playback. Of course, this would be more obvious with headphones than on a speaker.

Being in the sound technology space is not very new for OPPO. Prior to being a big name in the mobile space, the company built its reputation with some of the best audio products on the market until 2018. However, they have recently been returning to the audio space with products like their OPPO Enco line up of earbuds.

Health, News

OPPO Steps Into Health Devices with the New OHealth H1

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OPPO has made a name for itself when it comes to smartphones. Now, the company is looking to make similar advancements in health devices with the OHealth H1; its first health device that combines six vital sensors to bring better, more accurate health metrics. The announcement of the device comes together with the announcement of OHealth becoming an official sub-brand of OPPO.

The OHealth H1 brings together ECG, SpO2 (Blood Oxygen), heart rate, body temperature, sleep tracking and heart and lung auscultation sensors into a single device. While it may seem like the device is intended for medical professionals, but no, OPPO is intending its users to be the everyday Joe and Jane. The H1 is a family health monitor which works together with the OHealth app on smartphones.

OHealth H1 Key Art

The H1 provides more accurate SpO2 readings purely because of the mathematics of things. Using a similar sensor to the ones we have in smartwatches and fitness bands, it measures the SpO2 of the vessels on the fingertips which far outnumber the vessels on the wrist. It is also able to provide body temperature readings by using infrared measurements of the forehead.

In addition, sleep tracking is contactless with the H1. Instead, it measures micromovements from breathing, body movements and heartbeat while being adjacent to the user. OPPO hasn’t clarified how this will work when it comes to shared beds. Using its own OPPO Sense algorithm, the data collected is processed and displayed in the OHealth app. OPPO has also collaborated with Omron to enable blood pressure measurement. It’s also able to work as a digital stethoscope.

OHealth Stethoscope

While OPPO hasn’t announced pricing or availability yet. The OHealth H1 is one of their most innovative devices to date in a brand new category. Not only does it have implications for fitness enthusiasts, but it also empowers telemedicine and better, more personalised healthcare which is an upcoming conversation in patient care and medicine.