The much-talked about Vivo Nex is now launched in India. The phone that made it to the headlines for its out of the box design that took the courage to ditch the in-trend notch on top of the display. To find a new place for the camera and achieve this incredible screen to body ratio, Vivo got creative to bring the old motorised tech and fit in a pop-up camera on top of the phone. Also, it retains the in-display fingerprint sensor that we’ve seen on the Vivo X21 earlier. 

The China variant of the phone has a Snapdragon 710 powered New A variant, but only the high-end variant has made it to Indian market. As mentioned, the highlight stays the it’s notch-less immersive display and a cool-quotient of the pop-up selfie camera, which automatically comes out and goes in when you access the camera app. The pop-up camera is controlled by precise micro-stepping motors paired with independent drive ICs and precision control algorithms. 

But that’s not all about the Vivo Nex

It’s impressive that Vivo, for the first time in India, has opted to bring the industry-leading hardware to their flagship phone at a price that’s reasonable. It has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It’s also got a whopping 91.24% screen to body ratio having a 6.59-inch with full HD+ resolution. 

In terms of optics, the Vivo Nex features a dual camera setup at the back consisting of a 12-megapixel primary dual pixel camera with a Sony IMX363 sensor, f/1.8 aperture, 4-axis OIS, dual LED flash and a secondary 5-megapixel camera with f/2.4 aperture. On the front, the device sports an 8-megapixel pop-up selfie camera with f/2.0 aperture.

It is powered by a 4000mAh battery with 22.5W fast charging support. Having all this packed in a premium looking shell costs Rs 44,990, which seems like a great price when compared to it’s rival Oppo Find X, which costs Rs 59,990. The hardware is almost the same on both phones, although Oppo has found a better implementation of tech to reside the front camera. Further, the Vivo Nex also competes against the OnePlus 6, that touts a notch on the display and has a similar set of configuration in terms of hardware. But again, the Oxygen OS on top of Android Oreo does a much better job than Vivo’s own custom UI on the Nex.

The Vivo Nex has been priced at Rs. 44,990 and will be available exclusively on Amazon from today and it will also be available on the company’s website starting July 21.

http://www.techradar.com/news/vivo-nex-with-a-pop-up-selfie-camera-is-the-companys-first-true-flagship-in-india

Earlier in the year, experimental Chromecast support was made available to VLC users on Android and Windows 10 devices with the popular open-source media player’s 3.0 update. 

Now, that long-awaited feature has finally made its way to the iOS version of the app, offering an easy way for users to watch videos of all file types and digital container formats on their living room TV. 

With VLC version 3.1 on iOS, users are now able to cast content stored on their iPhone or iPad (or from their media library) directly to their television set or monitor, so long as it’s got a Chromecast connected to it or has that functionality built-in. 

Along with the newly added Chromecast support, the update also provides a number of performance improvements, including the ability to view 360-degree videos by moving your device around, improved audio playback quality and several bug fixes.

To start using the new casting feature, simply update the VLC app on your iOS device or head to the App Store to download the latest version.

http://www.techradar.com/news/vlc-for-ios-finally-gains-chromecast-support-in-new-update

Despite Facebook’s often-stated intention of being a neutral and open platform, the social media giant has announced that it will begin removing any posts that contain misinformation with the motive of inciting violence.

In a statement to CNBC, a Facebook spokesperson said that, “There are certain forms of misinformation that have contributed to physical harm, and we are making a policy change which will enable us to take that type of content down.” 

Technically, the policy will be implemented “during the coming months”, although it has already been used in Sri Lanka, where the recent spread of false information targeting the country’s Muslim minority has lead to multiple instances of mob violence.

Delicate situation

The new policy will target Facebook posts that contain text and/or images that are deemed to be deliberately inflammatory – specifically, posts that have the intent of “contributing to or exacerbating violence or physical harm”.

So who makes the call on what’s acceptable speech and what’s not? Along with the social media’s existing image-recognition technologies, Facebook says it will work with local and international organizations to both identify and verify the intent and veracity of the posts in question.

While these external parties are yet to be identified, the matter of the impartiality of these organizations is obviously going to play a significant part in the success of the policy overall, just as Facebook itself promises to hold the same standard of neutrality.

Where to draw the line

Employing such policies treads a difficult ethical line – one between the absolute freedom of expression that a neutral platform should (in theory) allow, and the equal opportunity of such expression that comes from the promised safety of the community as a whole.

In a recent discussion with Recode, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company would draw the line at false information that didn’t deliberately incite violence or physical harm, instead simply making such posts less prominent.

As an example, Zuckerberg raised the issue of Holocaust denial – a stance which he has said he personally finds repugnant, yet one that would be allowed on the site if it didn’t explicitly incite violence (albeit in a significantly de-prioritized state).

In a clarifying statement provided to Recode, Zuckerberg reiterated that he found the topic “deeply offensive” and that he “absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny [the Holocaust]”.

“Our goal with fake news is not to prevent anyone from saying something untrue — but to stop fake news and misinformation spreading across our services.”

http://www.techradar.com/news/facebook-is-taking-down-misinformation-that-could-lead-to-violence