HTC takes brand-licensing route for a comeback; launches Wildfire X

The HTC Wildfire X comes in two RAM and storage configurations - 3GB/32GB and 4GB/128GB - priced at Rs 9,999 and Rs 12,999, respectively.

Business Standard : Taiwanese technology company HTC on August 14 launched the Wildfire X smartphone in India through its official brand licensee InOne Smart Technology. This Flipkart-exclusive product brings back HTC into the smartphone business after a silent gap of around a year.

The phone comes in two RAM and storage configurations – 3GB/32GB and 4GB/128GB – priced at Rs 9,999 and Rs 12,999, respectively. It will go on sale at the home-grown e-commerce platform starting from August 22.

HTC Wildfire X specifications

The HTC Wildfire X is a budget smartphone. It boasts a 6.22-inch IPS LCD screen of HD+ resolution. The screen has a waterdrop-shaped notch on top, accommodating the phone’s 8-megapixel front camera. On the back, the phone has a glass-like reflective design with a 3D gradient finish and a triple-camera set-up stacked vertically on the top left side

The rear camera module includes a 12MP primary sensor, an 8MP telephoto lens for 2x optical zoom and 8x hybrid zoom, and a 5MP depth sensor. The phone is powered by 2.0GHz octacore processor built on 12nm process node and a 3,300 mAh battery, which supports 10W charging through the supplied USB type-C charging port.

The phone boots the Android Pie operating system, integrated with the ‘Mybuddy’ personal security feature, which triggers alarm, sends live location information to pre-saved numbers, and records and transmits audio/video of surroundings in real time in a time of crisis.

“HTC has always echoed the vivid taste and needs of the Indian customers with several firsts to its credit. The HTC Wildfire X with its unique “my buddy” feature is another step in this direction. This coupled with our six months no-questions-asked accidental & liquid damage protection and the smartphone’s sleek look, 8X hybrid zoom and large storage will help create a distinctive positioning for the smartphone amidst target customers. 

Besides focusing on the above aspects, we are also restructuring our market penetration plans along with InOne, our local licensing partner,” said Charles Huang, vice-president of HTC APAC, in an official statement on the launch of the HTC Wildfire X.

CES 2019: HTC announces Vive Pro Eye with built-in eye-tracking feature

The technology also allows for an easier gaming experience. You no longer require additional controllers to navigate. Simply look at an option and the cursor will appear.

HTC, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, is pushing its efforts in the virtual reality (VR) headset business. The company introduced on all-new Vive Pro Eye at the ongoing CES 2019.

The successor to the current Vive Pro, the Vive Pro Eye comes with a built-in eye-tracking mechanism which makes VR headset experience, a little more realistic.

One of the biggest advantages of using eye-tracking into VR headset means foveated rendering that adjusts which parts of a virtual scene get priority when processing graphics, Gizmodo reported.

By making the headset prioritise graphics based on eye movements, the overall graphics requirements needed to run VR apps is reduced.

The technology also allows for an easier gaming experience. You no longer require additional controllers to navigate.

Simply look at an option and the cursor will appear as if the headset knows exactly what you intend to do.

Business Standard

Google unveils Pixel 3, other devices to stay afloat in hardware business

The search giant unveiled the Pixel 3, a smart speaker with a built-in screen and a tablet that doubles as a PC.

Business Standard : Though sales of its devices have been slow, the search giant unveiled the Pixel 3, a smart speaker with a built-in screen and a tablet that doubles as a PC.

For much of the last decade, Apple and Samsung have dominated sales of smartphones. So why would anyone bother trying to sell a new phone?

That hasn’t dissuaded Google. The company on Tuesday unveiled new versions of its Pixel smartphone, which is a high-end challenger to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy phones. It also introduced a smart speaker with a built-in display and a laptop that doubles as a tablet, in response to products from Amazon and Microsoft.

The gadgets are Google’s third wave since it started making consumer devices in 2016. The internet company has pushed these products as a way to showcase its prowess in areas like artificial intelligence and image processing.

Yet the efforts have not had a meaningful impact on Google’s sales or market share. For a company that makes most of its money selling advertising next to search results, the hardware increasingly appears to be an expensive hobby. One of its biggest hits thus far is a Google-branded wireless router, which is too much of a niche product to serve as the foundation of a hardware strategy.

“There’s some skepticism about how committed Google is,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for Creative Strategies, a consumer electronics research firm. “They are still nowhere near where they need to be to make a dent in the industry.”

Google has said that hardware businesses rarely become overnight successes and that it remains focused on the long term. The company said it put more stock in indicators like high customer satisfaction in its effort to build a loyal base. Google doesn’t break out revenue or profit for its hardware business.

The search giant is also starting to spend heavily on the hardware business. Last year, it used an advertising blitz to promote its new products over the holidays. In January, it closed a $1.1 billion deal to acquire most of HTC’s smartphone design unit, with more than 2,000 HTC engineers moving to Google. A month later, Google’s hardware business absorbed Nest, which makes smart home appliances and previously functioned as a separate subsidiary.

While the handset market is no longer growing as much as it did five years ago, the company wants Pixel to be a blockbuster and to set the bar for devices running Android, Google’s mobile operating system, said Mario Queiroz, Google’s vice president of Pixel hardware... Read More