Facebook is building a Houseparty clone for live group video chat

Facebook is building a standalone app that incorporates ideas from Houseparty, the group video chat app that rose from the ashes of Meerkat, The Verge has learned. The app, which has the working name Bonfire, was recently demonstrated for employees. It is being targeted for a fall release, according to a person familiar with the matter. “We don’t have anything to share at this time,” a Facebook spokeswoman said.
Facebook’s move comes two years after Life On Air, which had helped usher in a new era of live broadcasting with its app Meerkat, pivoted to group video chat. The company’s founder, Ben Rubin, observed that most people never broadcasted more than a handful of times — whether on Meerkat or its eventual competitors, Facebook Live and Twitter-owned Periscope. And so Rubin and his team built Houseparty, which notifies a user’s friends whenever they have the app open, inviting them to hang out virtually on their smartphones.
The app took off among teenagers, and by November 2016 it had 1.2 million usersspending 20 million minutes a day using it. For Facebook, few competitive threats are as worrisome as a new social network growing quickly among teenagers. It’s why the company first tried to acquire Snapchat, and, once rebuffed, invested heavily in cloning its most distinctive features. Houseparty’s continued growth — it is currently a top 200 app in Apple’s US App Store, according to market research firm App Annie — all but guaranteed Facebook would explore copying it


Details about how Bonfire works could not be learned, though one person described it as essentially a clone of Houseparty. If that’s the case, the launch of Bonfire could pose a significant challenge for Rubin’s team. Should it overtake Houseparty, it would represent the second time in as many years that a Life On Air innovation is squashed by larger competitors. (Houseparty declined to comment.)
At the same time, Facebook’s track record with cloned products has been mixed. Slingshotand Bolt, two earlier Facebook apps designed to blunt Snapchat’s momentum, died quick deaths. And while the company appears to have struck gold with Instagram stories, its refined take on Snapchat’s ephemeral public posts, similar products in the main Facebook app and in Facebook Messenger have generated little enthusiasm among users.
But Houseparty’s core function — bringing close groups of friends together — encroaches on Facebook’s newly restated mission statement, which focuses on building tight-knit communities. That Houseparty employs video, the current obsession of the tech-media industrial complex, only gives Facebook more reason to study it.
Bonfire is not the only standalone video app Facebook is pursuing, sources said. Employees were also recently shown an app called Talk. While details were scarce, one source said the app is designed to encourage younger people to communicate with their grandparents using video chat

Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2 to launch on October 4, suggests Google billboard

Pixel XL 2 design

The biggest design lead we have so far comes from a render pulled together by Android Police that shows what the Pixel XL 2 might look like. It very much looks like an evolution of the 2016 Pixel, but in this XL form said to be made by LG, shrinking that glass panel on the rear so the fingerprint scanner sits in the metal back.

The big change here is a shift in aspect to 18:9 on that display, which we'll talk about below, but resulting in shrinking the bezels top and bottom of the display. We've seen this design also flaunted by MySmartPrice, teaming up with @onleaks to provide a render based on dimensions passed to case manufacturers.

Pixel 2 design

While the Pixel XL 2 had those renders, little was known about what the smaller model would offer. Thought to be built by HTC, we now have a image for that device too, thanks to a VentureBeat report from Evan Blass, who also shared the image on Twitter.

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2: Display

• Pixel XL 2: 5.99-inch 18:9 AMOLED display, 2960 x 1440 pixels
• Pixel 2: 4.97-inch 16:9 display, 1920 x 1080 pixels

With two Pixel models on offer giving you the choice of 5.0 or 5.5-inches, we're not really looking for a huge change. We also wouldn't expect a shift in resolution. The 2560 x 1440 pixels offered gives you the detail when magnified in a Daydream headset, it's crisp and sharp in all things.

There are rumours of changing the display aspect, however, very much in the style of LG and Samsung's 2017 flagships.

Pixel XL 2 (Taimen)

However, the report from XDA suggests that the new Pixel XL 2 will have a 5.99-inch display, but only mentions a 1440p resolution. That could see a shift back to Nexus 6 sizes, or a be a shift in aspect: the Galaxy S8+ is 6.2-inch in 18.5:9, but has 2960 x 1440 pixels.

The report from Android Police suggests a shift to an 18:9 AMOLED display for the Taimen, or Pixel XL 2 and gives a 6-inch size. This is reflected in shrinking bezels for the display in the images above, but also ties in with the 5.99-inches suggested by XDA previously, so is starting to sound legitimate.

We're now seeing renders appearing in cases on retailer sites too, like the image below from Mobilefun which shows an imagined Pixel XL 2 in a case.

XDA also reports that the display on the XL 2 will have an "always on" option, so can be set to show notifications or useful information even when the phone is switched off

The Apple iPhone X' all new A11 Bionic chip smokes past Android's best: A closer look reveals why

Apple’s new iPhones will be powered by an all new chip, the A11 Bionic. As usual, the chip smokes the competition and yet again raises the bar as far as performance is concerned.The A11 Bionic chip is the first hexa-core chip from Apple, though in some ways, one might even consider it a 10-core chip. Details are scant, but the little that we’ve gathered from Apple’s announcements and leaked information tells us that the chip features a 6-core CPU, a 3-core GPU and an M11 motion co-processor.
The 6-core CPU comprises of 2x high-performance cores and 4x energy-efficiency cores. This is two more than on the previous generation. The GPU, which handles all the graphics processing tasks, is the first graphics chip that Apple has designed. Previously, Apple used GPUs from Imagination Technologies. When news broke that Apple would no longer use Imagination Technologies’ chips, the company’s stocks fell by 70 percent and it’s now up for sale.
The information we’ve found so far suggests that the A11 Bionic uses 64-bit ARM cores that use the ARM v8-A instruction set. These are said to be TSMC-built 10 nm chips. The previous A10 chip was built on a 16 nm process, meaning that the A11 is far more efficient. The 10 nm process also means that the chip can be clocked higher, resulting in higher performance.

• 
  

Moto X4 is likely to be the first Android One branded device from Motorola in United States

MOTO X4 FULL SPECIFICATION

Moto X4 may be one of the first devices to pack Android One after the much anticipated Xiaomi Mi A1 launch in the Indian market. According to a report by GSMArena, Moto may be looking to launch Android One-powered X4 in the United States in coming future.

Image Credit: Evan Blass, Twitter

X4 is likely to the first Android One powered device to launch in the United States as early Android One devices were limited to developing markets. Infamous tipster and leaker Evan Blass posted the render of the back side of the device.

The backside of the device sports a curved finish to the device along with well-rounded corners on the device. The device also sports a dual camera setup on the back of the device along with the Moto and Android One branding. The renders also point out at the volume and power buttons on the right side of the device. The report points out that it is not confirmed if the device will be named as X4 at the launch. But there is no proof to the contrary.

According to the specs, the Moto X4 will be housing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 chipset which will house an octa-core processor of up to 2.2 GHz along with Adreno 508 GPU. The phone is expected to sport a 5.2-inch Full HD AMOLED display protected by Gorilla Glass 3.

The Moto X4 will house 4 GB RAM and will come with 64 GB internal storage capacity, which is expandable to 256 GB using a microSD card. Interestingly, the variant with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB storage will be manufactured for Asia Pacific region, while handset with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB will be for the European market.

NETWORK	Technology	GSM / HSPA / LTE

LAUNCH	Announced	2017, August
	Status	Coming soon. Exp. release 2017, September

BODY	Dimensions	148.4 x 73.4 x 8 mm (5.84 x 2.89 x 0.31 in)
	Weight	163 g (5.75 oz)
	SIM	Single SIM (Nano-SIM) or Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
		- IP68 certified - dust/water proof over 1.5 meter and 30 minutes

DISPLAY	Type	LTPS IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	5.2 inches (~68.4% screen-to-body ratio)
	Resolution	1080 x 1920 pixels (~424 ppi pixel density)
	Multitouch	Yes
	Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass (unspecified version)

PLATFORM	OS	Android 7.1 (Nougat)
	Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon 630
	CPU	Octa-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A53
	GPU	Adreno 508

MEMORY	Card slot	microSD, up to 256 GB
	Internal	32 GB, 3 GB RAM

CAMERA	Primary	Dual 12 MP, f/2.0 + 8 MP, f/2.2, phase detection autofocus, dual-LED (dual tone) flash
	Features	1.4 µm pixel size @ 12 MP, 1.12 µm pixel size @ 8 MP, geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection, panorama, auto-HDR
	Video	2160p@30fps, 1080p@30/60fps,
	Secondary	16 MP, f/2.0, 1.0 µm pixel size, 1080p, LED flash

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes
		- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic

COMMS	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, WiFi Direct, hotspot
	Bluetooth	5.0, A2DP, LE, EDR
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO
	NFC	Yes
	Radio	FM radio
	USB	Type-C 1.0 reversible connector, USB On-The-Go

FEATURES	Sensors	Fingerprint (front-mounted), accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	HTML5
	Java	No
		- Fast battery charging - MP3/AAC+/WAV/Flac player - MP4/H.264 player - Photo/video editor - Document viewer

BATTERY		Non-removable Li-Ion 3000 mAh battery

MISC	Colors	Super Black, Sterling Blue
	Price	About 400 EUR