Knowledge Update

Kathmandu, Feb 14 (IANS) Chinese technology company Coolpad on Tuesday launched Cool 1 smartphone in Nepal. Priced at Nepali Rs 30,996, the smartphone has dual rear 13MP camera, dual-tone LED flash and 5.5-inch full-HD display. "We aim to sell around 5,00,000 units of Coolpad smartphone and be one of the top five players in 2017 in Nepal," said James Du, Global CEO, Coolpad, in a statement. Cool 1 is powered with 1.8GHz octa-core processor and comes with two different RAM variants -- 3GB and 4GB -- with an internal storage of 32GB. The device sports 8MP front camera and houses 4,000mAh battery with fast charging support. The company also showcased three other models -- Note 3S, Mega 3 and Mega 2.5D -- in the country.

​New York, Feb 13 (IANS) Apple's upcoming iPhone is set to come with wireless charging which will enavle users to charge the phone without having to plug it in. "Apple will sell separate wireless chargers made by Luxshare, the Chinese company behind the inductive charging in the Apple Watch," Forbes.com reported on Sunday. Apple is also planning to introduce a new connector type for accessories for the iPhone, iPad and other devices through its official Made-for-iPhone (MFi) licensing programme. Called 'Ultra Accessory Connector' (UAC), the eight-pin connector is slightly less thick than USB-C and near half as wide as both USB-C and Lightning. Apple will allow accessory manufacturers to make Lightning to UAC, USB-A to UAC, and 3.5mm headset jacks to UAC cables which will allow headphones with an UAC port to connect to various Apple devices. Apple's next generation iPhone 8 is rumoured to sport a bold new design and would feature an OLED display without a bezel. "The iPhone 8 won't be able to buck a trend that's seeing customers increasingly choose older devices, like the iPhone 6s, instead of newer handsets, like the iPhone 7," Fortune quoted Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz as saying earlier this year. Apple has some opportunities to significantly grow in the coming years by investing in India and expanding its services business which includes Apple Music, added Moskowitz.

​London, Feb 10 (IANS) French cosmetics company on Thursday confirmed that it was LOréal has confirmed it was exploring sale of London-based The Body Shop as the beauty retailer registered fall in sales and profits. The company said that it had not made any decision on the future of the retailer, which has more than 3,000 stores in 66 countries, but had "decided to explore all strategic options" in order "to give it the best opportunities and full ability to continue its development", The Guardian reported. The Body Shop's operating profit had dived 38 per cent to 33.8 million euros ($36 million) in the year to December 31, 2016. Sales sank nearly five per cent to 920.8 million euros ($981 million). The pace of decline stepped up in the final and most important quarter of the year -- sliding by 6.3 per cent in total. Last year, The Body Shop tried to reaffirm its ethical principles with 14 targets for 2020, including ensuring all its natural ingredients were traceable and sustainably sourced, compared with just under half today, and that 70 per cent of its packaging did not come from fossil fuels, compared with 30 per cent today, the report pointed out. But the group now has more competition from more upmarket ethical brands such as Dr Hauschka and Chantecaille, as well as the British rivals Lush and Neal's Yard. L'Oréal, which owns a plethora of international brands including Garnier and Maybelline

​New York, Feb 8 (IANS) US tech giant Apple announced that BeatsX wireless earbuds will be available globally later this week. BeatsX earphones deliver up to eight hours of battery life and with "Fast Fuel", a five-minute charge gives you two hours of playback. "The earbuds come with unique flex-form cable that provides all-day comfort and easy pocket portability, while eartip options provide a personalised fit and secure-fit wingtips offer added stability," Apple said in a statement. BeatsX features optimised noise isolation, RemoteTalk allows you to take calls with a built-in mic, play music, adjust volume and activate Siri and also comes with variety of eartip options to offer personalised comfort.

​Beijing, Feb 7 (IANS) Shipping 44.9 million iPhones to China, Apple has beaten Xiaomi, touted as the 'Apple' of China that shipped 41.5 million smartphones and slipped to fifth spot, market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed. According to IDC's Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, Apple dropped from 58.4 million iPhones in 2015 and Xiaomi from 64 million Mi phones, drops of 23 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively. Oppo, which shipped 78.4 million phones -- more than double the 35.4 million it shipped in 2015. Huawei came in at second, shipping 76 million phones, while Vivo managed to almost double its shipments, going from 35 million in 2015 to 69 million last year. "Increased dependence on mobile apps has led to consumers to seek phone upgrades, thus helping drive the large growth in fourth quarter of 2016. In lower tiered cities, there was a similar demand by consumers, which Oppo and vivo met by aggressively pushing mid-range smartphones in these cities," said Tay X iaohan, Senior Market Analyst, IDC Asia/Pacific's Client Devices team, in a statement. Despite the decline, IDC does not believe Chinese vendors have actually eaten away Apple's market share. Most Apple users are expected to be holding out for the new iPhone that will be launched this year, and that will help the brand to see a growth in 2017. Apple's 10-year anniversary iPhone will also likely attract some of the high-end Android users in China to convert to an iPhone. "The smartphone market in China saw a 19 per cent year-on-year growth and 17 per cent quarter-on-quater growth fourth quarter of 2016. For the full year of 2016, the market grew by nine per cent with top Chinese smartphone vendors taking up a larger share of the market," the findings showed. At present, out of the top three Chinese vendors in China, Huawei is the most successful with half of its shipments coming from markets outside China in fourth quarter of 2016. Cameras will continue to be a key focus in the marketing messages by vendors especially given the strong selfie culture in China, as exemplified by the popularity of apps such as Meitu, the report added.

​New York, Feb 2 (IANS) Defying the massive fake news scandal that hit the social networking giant during the US presidential election as well as analysts, Facebook has registered strong growth in its mobile advertising business, with total revenue reaching $8.8 billion from $5.84 billion last year. It means $1.41 profit per share instead of the $1.31 that Wall Street was expecting. The quarterly profit was $3.57 billion -- more than double ($1.56 billion) the company reported last year, Fortune reported on Thursday. For the full year, Facebook's revenue climbed by $10 billion or 54 per cent to just over $27.5 billion compared with $17.9 billion in 2015 and the company's net income for the year more than doubled to $10 billion. Mired in controversies like "fake news" and inaccurate advertising, Facebook itself expected a slowdown in the growth rate of its advertising revenue. The one way by which the Menlo Park, California-based company registered the growth was by adding more than 265 million new monthly active users in 2016 -- almost as many users as the micro-blogging website Twitter has in total. Facebook now has more than 1.8 billion users who log on every month and more than 1.2 billion users who do so every day. Daily active users hit 1.23 billion, up from 1.18 billion last quarter and up 18 percent (Year-on-Year), compared to 17 percent last quarter. Another major growth engine for the social media giant was mobile. Over 1 billion of Facebook's daily users access the site primarily on their phones or tablets and that number grew by 23 per cent in the latest quarter. Mobile ad revenue made up about 84 per cent of the company's total ad revenue. Facebook also said it earned $12.4 billion in income from operations last year, nearly double the total from 2015 ($6.2 billion). Mobile now makes up 84 percent of its ad revenue -- the same as last quarter -- signalling that Facebook has successfully shifted to mobile. "During the earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg was repeatedly asked about Facebook's video content strategy. He explained that "we're focusing on shorter form content to start", and that the company needs to build a sustainable ad revenue sharing business model to pay professional creators to bring that content to Facebook, Tech Crunch reported.

San Francisco, Feb 1 (IANS) Riding on the success of iPhone 7 and Apple Watch, the Cupertino-based company on Wednesday announced an all-time record revenue of $78.4 billion -- with a record quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.36 -- for the first quarter of 2017 that ended on December 31. The results compare to revenue of $75.9 billion and earnings per diluted share of $3.28 in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 64 per cent of the quarter's revenue, the company said in a statement. Apple shares rose three per cent in after-hours trading following the results. "We sold more iPhones than ever before and set all-time revenue records for iPhone, Services, Mac and Apple Watch," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Revenue from Services grew strongly over last year, led by record customer activity on the App Store, and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline," he said. Apple faced falling revenue for three consecutive quarters as Chinese competition hit sales of its flagship iPhone series. But iPhone7 changed Apple's fortune in 2017 first quarter. The company sold 78.3 million iPhones, up from 74.8 million a year before. "It reported revenue of $54.3 billion from iPhone sales, along with $7.2 billion from the Mac, $5.5 billion from the iPad and $4 billion from other products, including the Apple Watch," BBC reported. "Our outstanding business performance resulted in a new all-time record for earnings per share, and over $27 billion in operating cash flow," said Luca Maestri, Apple's CFO. "We returned nearly $15 billion to investors through share repurchases and dividends during the quarter, bringing cumulative payments through our capital return program to over $200 billion," Maestri added. Revenues from its services division -- including the App Store, Apple Music and iCloud -- were $7.1 billion.

Beijing, Jan 31 (IANS) Volkswagen China will recall 1,993 vehicles in China due to defective body control modules (BCM), according to the country's top quality watchdog. The recall, set to begin on February 20, affects 1,476 imported 2016 Magotan travel series manufactured between Febuary 9, 2016 and May 30, 2016, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. It will also affect 517 imported 2016 Magotan four-wheel drive series manufactured between Febuary 9, 2016 and June 2, 2016, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine. The defective BCM of affected vehicles might cause the dysfunction of car lamps when driving, posing safety risks, said the statement. Volkswagen China promised to check all the affected vehicles and replace the defective parts free of charge.

​London, Jan 31 (IANS) A French designer duo has unveiled a new concept for the future smartphone which is made around holograms, voice control and face-tracking technology with translucent gelatinous features, media reported. The smartphone, called Alo, will be designed in a way that is appropriate for the palm of a hand, said Philippe Starck and Jerome Olivet. Controlled by voice commands, every time the user wants to open a text message or watch a movie on the device, it will pop up in a 3D hologram. "Alo provides a fully vocalised interface in all phone functions, reads SMS and emails, and even allows them to dictate their messages rather than typing them," design magazine dezeen.com quoted Olivet as saying. The translucent skin emits vibrations by producing heat depending on its activity and its skin repairs automatically as soon as it is damaged. The holographic images will be projected by a so-called "eye" which will allow the reader to read the texts he detects or to identify the faces. Moulded aluminium alloy core at the centre of the device will function as haptic interface giving feedback through heat as well as vibration. "While it is currently only a concept, Olivet plans to develop Alo, or a version of it, into a prototype. It is attached to French electronics brand Thomson," the report added.

​New Delhi, Jan 30 (IANS) Hit by a high-profile exit amid falling numbers in China, Xiaomi -- once touted as the Apple of China -- will not showcase any product at the upcoming Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industrys largest event in Barcelona, Spain next month. First Hugo Barra, Xiaomi's high-profile head of international operations, quit and announced joining Facebook to lead its virtual reality (VR) efforts last week and then came fresh figures from China for 2016 where the company slipped to fourth spot as the demand for its smartphones declined 22 per cent annually in the country. According to a report in Tech Crunch, a company spokesperson has confirmed that Xiaomi will skip the MWC event entirely. "The move is an unexpected one since it was widely assumed Xiaomi would attend. Barcelona-based Mobile World Congress is one of the largest events for the global mobile industry, attracting over 100,000 attendees, and it has a reputation as the place to show off the latest developments in mobile," the report added. There are reports that Xiaomi doesn't have new devices to showcase during the MWC show. Xiaomi used last year's event to introduce Mi5, its flagship smartphone, through a press event that was live-streamed. On its slump in the Chinese market, the key reason is Xiaomi's rivals racing ahead with key features, innovation, bigger marketing budgets and wider online and offline distribution channel during the year, said the report by market analytics firm Counterpoint Research. Huawei, Oppo and Vivo emerged as clear winners with Oppo and Vivo registering significant growth. Hit by the Note 7 fiasco and a delay in Galaxy 8 launch, Samsung is another big player which will not roll out a new device at MWC.