Good Morning!

Sudden traffic spikes make me wonder why.....




Largest Manufacturing Base for Samsung?
"Vietnam, a nation of 93 million, is the largest smartphone production base for Samsung Electronics. "

One in 10 Smartphones made in Vietnam

Wave of New Nokia Handsets?
BKAV

LG Rolling out Robots

CNBC

Tech giant is rolling out new robots to replace workers in hotels, airports and supermarkets

• South Korean tech giant LG Electronics said Thursday it will showcase three new "concept robots" at next week's consumer electronics show in Las Vegas
• A McKinsey report released in November said that up to 800 million workers could be affected globally by automation and the rise of artificial intelligence
• Tech companies are testing robots to carry out various tasks that could affect the services industry, which employs nearly 50 percent of the global workforce, according to the International Labour Organization

The Verge

Drinks Suitcases & ShoppingLG is intent on making useful robots. Last year at CES it unveiled a pair of bots designed to clean up in airports and help travelers find their way around. Today, it announced a trio of new robots designed to help carry stuff — from drinks to suitcases to shopping.

LG Projector Review

Makes me think that LG and Celluon may have a more significant relationship - but I don't know.



Thanks Fuzzie


SisaWeek

LG Uplus has been bringing in the domestic Korean venture company's beam project overseas. It is an evaluation that it has begun to expand the market of ultra-small beam project with the advantage of lowering the price compared to specifications by collaboration.

LG Uplus announced on November 11 that it will launch portable mini projector 'U + pocket beam'. Pocket Beam was launched by Celluon, a venture company. It was sold overseas several months ago and it supports HD (1920X720, external output) resolution with Sony's optical engine.

The eye-catching point is that domestic sales prices are more than 100,000 won cheaper than overseas. The same product was sold for $ 429 (480,000 won) on the Celluon official homepage or in the US Amazon.

LG U + has been able to lower prices by taking charge of UI development and marketing of domestic products.

Given Yesterday's Projector News,

Very interesting, but certainly not definitive... very interesting given yesterday's projector news from LG.

There's quite a bit of web weaving going on, and it takes a long time -- but now that mass production is happening, things are going to move along quickly I think.

Notice that they're have "plans to build" the facility for the camera modules... it may not yet be a done deal, but it's not actively producing anything yet either.

Check here for a connection from some time ago: LG / Microvision 2014 

Hardware Zone
MacRumors
AppleInsider

While Samsung is reportedly the main supplier of OLED panels for the iPhone 8, LG Innotek is said to be the sole supplier of the facial recognition camera modules for the iPhone 8.

According to the Korea Economic Daily, LG Innotek plans to build a new facility worth US$238.5 million to fulfill Apple's orders of the camera modules. The facial recognition camera module will be front-facing and is rumored to be more advanced than Samsung's 2D camera on the Galaxy S8.

LG PicoProjector

LG Pico Projector

Thanks Joe, you're always on top of things.
Thanks Also Tomsvision

This appears to be the SONY engine, cranked up to 63 lumens... best guess so far.



LG Pico Projector Offering

U + Pocket Beam ▲ Brightness of the 16: 9 Wide HD (1920X720) resolution, which is specialized for image viewing ▲ Brightness of 63 laser ANSI lumens based on Sony's optical engine ▲ Autofocus and keystone for automatic adjustment of focus and tilt of beam image ) Function and so on. 

With an astonishing contrast ratio of 80,000 to 1, it is possible to express color accurately and abundantly. It can realize a display screen of up to 120 inches at a distance of about 3 to 4 meters from the screen. With a large capacity battery of 3500mAh, you can enjoy a movie for about 2 hours without connecting a wired adapter power source. 

It has a palm-sized size (6.65 x 13.8 cm) similar to a 5.9-inch cell phone, a thin 1.5 cm and weighs only 230 g. The sales price including VAT is 349,800 won, and it can be purchased by LGU Plus website and main stores nationwide from 12th, regardless of the communication company. 

Mobile Ecosystem

Mobile Ecosystem Forum (More at the source)

Today’s phones do everything: take pictures, give directions, play music. So why can’t they project movies? Seven years after writing about phone projectors, Tim Green is still waiting to own one…
Two years ago my family had a dream. We would build a cinema in our back garden.

OK, not a real cinema with seats and ushers and exorbitant popcorn. But somewhere we could sit on summer evenings and project movies in the muggy darkness.

In nine years, the smartphone has taken control of everything – alarm clock, diary, camera, camcorder, satnav, map, MP3 player. The projector remains out of reach.

If only there was a solution. If only I could stream Italian realist cinema to my 4G enabled iPhone and throw the pictures on the wall. No long wires. No connectivity issues. Well, I can’t. Which is disappointing because I was writing about projectors coming to phones seven years ago.

In 2009, pico tech was shrinking enough to sit inside handsets, and the phone makers were all over it. The breakthrough projector phone was the LG Expo, but even smaller OEMs like Micromax and Spice were trying it.

Smartphone Sales leaders

We know that Sony has been shifting gears with their corporate strategy, trying to focus on devices, and components over their own consumer electronics products - so some of this isn't a surprise.

What is interesting overall is that this is a quite fluid list. Yes, there are some big players here who have remained big players -- Samsung, Apple and LG; but some drop off the list, and some have risen very quickly (Xaiomi & Micromax)

Don't think for a second that Sony couldn't pop back onto this list in a big way with the right innovations (they have the manufacturing capability -- and a lock on a certain component that could make them immensely more popular.)

With the big players desperate for innovation -- and some small players providing it. I think the landscape is very interesting and still very favorable for Microvision.

TechPP  - more at the source.


There’s no denying that Chinese OEMs are rocking the smartphone industry since the last few years with the IC Insights report for 2015 stating that 7 among the top 12 smartphone OEMs were based in China. This year’s report by the American analytical firm however cites some more interesting news. As per the report, some established market players including the likes of Sony, Microsoft and Coolpad have been kicked out of the Top 12 Smartphone OEMs list by a few emerging brands like Meizu and Micromax thanks to their breathtaking growth during the first quarter of 2016.

Sony, the Japanese giant has been struggling with its smartphone strategy, both in high end and low end markets. Recently, the company has tried to get rid of the Xperia Z series for Xperia X, but that doesn’t seem to have made any significant impact. Microsoft on the other hand, has almost given up on the Windows 10 Mobile, with hardly any new Lumia phones released since 950 and 950 XL. What was once considered to be a viable alternative for iOS and Android, is slowly but surely getting relegated to insignificance.

Micromax, the Indian smartphone maker has in fact jumped up to the 12th spot after having secured sale of 5 million smartphones in the last quarter, thereby making their first entry into the list. Sony, Microsoft and Coolpad on the other hand saw their figures of 3.4, 2.3 and 4 million respectively. The analytical firm expect Micromax to record a year on year growth of 74% leveraging on its head start in the first quarter of 2016. Thus it can be assumed that the homegrown smartphone brand isn’t quite facing a slowdown in the sales thanks to its Chinese counterparts, and going by the report, it seems to be dominating the retail smartphone market in the India.




Samsung however is still leading the pack with a sales figure of 81.7 million smartphones (Q1 2016) and is closely followed by Apple. IC Insights however expects them to incur a fall in their smartphone shipments by 1% and 3% respectively by the end of this year. Samsung’s Korean counterpart LG however has fallen down a rank and is now placed at 7th spot just below the high flying Vivo. Apart from that, most other Chinese smartphone makers have successfully held on to their places with Huawei and Oppo securing the 3rd and the 4th spots respectively.

Incidentally, Xiaomi which was one of the high flying Chinese smartphone brands during 2013 and 2014 has failed to make an impact this year and is still stuck at the 5th spot. With the likes of OnePlus 3, ZUK Z2 Pro competing with the Xiaomi Mi5 with their stellar price to performance ratio, Xiaomi needs more than just the Redmi Note 3 to turn tables.

LG --- isn't that interesting?

Just had an interesting conversation with Joe Spaz. He asked if I noticed something. As usual he noticed a little more than I did. 

Thanks Joe!!

Go to the Microvision site.

Find the investors' presentations here: MicroVision Presentations  (The LD Micro Conference PDF, download it.)

Look on page 15: You'll see this picture:

You'll notice that the smartphone is LG. The Robot is LG, the AR/VR is LG, as is the smartwatch. 

Does something look familiar?  - More at the source

LG 360 VR

LG announced a VR headset which is a departure from the usual bulky ones available today. Weighing only 118 grams, the headset works with the LG G5 over a wired connection. The prototype was working though the resolution was low and it allowed a lot of ambient light in which ruined the experience. These issues might be sorted in the final version. No price or availability was announced but it should be out later this year. 

Anandtech  -- more at the source

Today LG pre-announced significant additions to their high-end wearable, the LG Watch Urbane, via a new edition called the LG Watch Urbane LTE. Both devices will officially launch at Mobile World Congress next week. From a feature standpoint, the LG Watch Urbane LTE adds more wireless functionality via the inclusion of LTE, VoLTE (not 3G voice), GPS, and NFC.

These additions dramatically expand LG's ability to cover the movement use case of wearables and places the Watch Urbane LTE alongside the Samsung Gear S as the only devices to include cellular functionality. This provides a safety net when making a fitness excursion, as emergency calls are now possible. LG had this use case in mind specifically as they included a single key press to initiate an emergency call. Additionally, the inclusion of NFC enables mobile payments, although LG has not yet provided details on how this works. Finally, LG has dramatically increased the battery size from 410mAH to 700mAH, which will help immensely with powering the LTE radio. I should note this is the largest battery I have seen to date in a wearable.

Augmented Reality Innovation.... who leads?

So, Augmented reality is getting big. People are talking about it. Techies everywhere are looking at it, and trying to position themselves in the space:

• Hololens
• Samsung Gear VR
• Oculus Rift
• Google Glass

You might want to find the company with the most patents in the space as that one key place to invest. Get there before the herd to maximize your profits.

Well, MicroVision is in the lead.

From PatentVue

Microvision Inc. topped our list as the largest US patent holder in this space, owning 233 US patents primarily related to hardware components for augmented reality systems, with a focus on miniaturized MEMS and PICO level systems.

Interesting new stuff headed for Verizon? UPDATED 5/13/2015

From PhoneArena

Verizon is seemingly getting ready to release several interesting devices, including the Sony Xperia Z4, two unannounced tablets from Apple and LG, and a new Desire from HTC. According to Evan Blass (aka @evleaks), all these devices are "coming to Verizon", though there's no word on exactly when they'll be released. 

We don't know if the Xperia Z4 that's headed to Verizon is similar to the Japanese version of the handset. Sony is supposedly preparing a global variant of the Z4, so we assume that's the one that will be sold by Verizon. 

As for the upcoming Verizon tablets that we mentioned above, these are, reportedly, the Apple iPad mini 4, and the LG G Pad X 8.3. Since the iPad mini 3 was announced in October 2014, we're not expecting the iPad mini 4 to be unveiled before October this year. We don't know anything about the LG G Pad X 8.3, but this is likely the successor to the LG G Pad 8.3 from 2013 (which Verizon is currently selling for $129.99 on contract). 

Another Article found later: TechTimes  

"Serial leaker @evleaks took a break from his quiet life of retirement to announce that Verizon will be carrying four interesting new devices, two of which remain unannounced."