Tag Archive for: promise

Xiaomi announces 13T Pro with promise of four major Android updates

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Xiaomi is launching the 13T and 13T Pro today, two smartphones that will benefit from more Android upgrades than what it’s offered previously. Both are due to receive four major Android updates as well as five years of security patches, Xiaomi’s communications director, Daniel Desjarlais, announced earlier this month. 

The Xiaomi 13T Pro will start at £649 (€799, or around $790), while the 13T will start at £549 (€649, or around $669), and both will be available starting today in the UK. The phones will primarily be sold in European markets, but based on Xiaomi’s previous smartphone releases, they’re unlikely to be officially available in the US.

Xiaomi 13T Pro in green.
Image: Xiaomi

A support commitment of four major Android updates and five years of security patches brings Xiaomi more or less in line with what Samsung promises for its latest Galaxy S23 phones and is technically better than the three major Android upgrades Google offers with its latest Pixels. But there’s an important caveat with Xiaomi’s 13T series: they’re shipping with last year’s Android 13 out of the box. So at least one of these Android upgrades is going to be used on updating the phones to this year’s Android 14. 

And in black.
Image: Xiaomi

Like Xiaomi’s previous phones, the 13T and 13T Pro once again feature a Leica-branded camera system, though there are fewer hardware novelties this time around. There’s no one-inch-type sensor like we saw with the Xiaomi 13 Pro, nor are Xiaomi buyers getting a 200-megapixel sensor this time around. (It’s probably for the best.) Instead, on both phones, you’re getting 50-megapixel main cameras with a 1/1.28-inch sensor paired with a 50-megapixel telephoto, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and a 20-megapixel front camera. 

Internally, the Xiaomi 13T Pro is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9200 Plus processor, while the 13T packs a Dimensity 8200-Ultra. Both have 5,000mAh batteries, but only the 13T Pro can be fast-charged at up to 120W for a full charge in as little as 19 minutes. (The non-Pro 13T tops out at 67W.)

Around front, both phones have a 6.67-inch display with a 144Hz refresh rate, a peak brightness of 2,600 nits (1,200 nits typical), and a…

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Cryptocurrency’s promise met with skepticism – Twin Cities

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Old-time vaudeville star Jimmy Durante’s catchphrase, “Everybody wants ta get inta the act!” well describes the current state of cryptocurrencies. These are forms of electronic money, the accounting and control of which are outside usual banking and government-sanctioned central banking orbits, and for which encryption and anonymity plays a key role.

Edward Lotterman

These are not new. Bitcoin started in 2008. Millions of people reportedly now are owners and users. Additional millions certainly follow its value.

But some developments are new: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently issued a cautious statement affirming cryptocurrencies. Minnesota GOP Rep. Tom Emmer has taken an enthusiastic interest in such currencies as do some other elected officials.

The most concrete recent development is the pending IPO of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency company that would be the first as a publicly-traded corporation. Its reputation is clouded by reports of accountholders who saw hundreds of thousands of dollars disappear from their accounts. But the company says these losses were due to lax security of account numbers and passwords by the depositors and not from any misstep by of Coinbase. The IPO is expected to be successful. Expectations are that Coinbase will assume a significant role in payments systems.

Traditional credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard, entrenched within traditional banking systems, are running scared. They have held — and abused — monopoly positions for decades. PayPal and other new competitors already have eroded their power. Cryptocurrencies will hurt them further.

I am sure Powell is right that cryptocurrencies, or features of their technologies, will grow as payment platforms. Yet history also demonstrates there will likely be major hiccups along the way. Unbreakable codes, like computer security systems and “impenetrable,” tank armor, always get broken into or penetrated. Much of the attraction of cryptocurrencies is their opaqueness and hence their utility in helping users evade taxes and launder money. Those very features will also make it hard to solve any inevitable electronic heists.

Enthusiasts argue that criminal uses of cryptocurrencies…

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Apparently The New Litmus Test For Trump’s FCC: Do You Promise To Police Speech Online

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Last month we wrote about how President Trump withdrew the renomination of FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly just days after O’Rielly dared to [checks notes] reiterate his support for the 1st Amendment in a way that hinted at the fact that he knew Trump’s executive order was blatantly unconstitutional. Some people argued the renomination was pulled for other reasons, but lots of people in DC said it was 100% about his unwillingness to turn the FCC into a speech police for the internet.

While it seems quite unlikely that Trump can get someone new through the nomination process before the election, apparently they’re thinking of nominating someone who appears eager to do the exact opposite: Nathan Simington, who wants the FCC to be the internet speech police so bad that he helped draft the obviously unconstitutional executive order in response to the President’s freak-out at being fact checked.

Three sources close to the matter say Nathan Simington, a senior advisor at the NTIA within the commerce department, has emerged as a leading candidate to take over Republican Commissioner Mike O’Rielly’s seat at the FCC.

Simington is said to have helped draft the administration’s social media executive order, and his nomination would be a victory for Republicans who want to see the FCC take a larger role in regulating social networks.

You can see the Trumpian logic here: “O’Rielly gently pushed back the tiniest bit on our plan to ignore the 1st Amendment and compel social media companies to host the propaganda and disinformation we spew, so let’s replace him with someone who supports that singularly stupid argument. How about the guy who drafted the executive order!”

The idea that “will you support the FCC being the speech police” is now the Republican litmus test for being an FCC Commissioner is a freakish 180 from the history of Republican FCC Commissioners who have spent decades arguing against that on the things they actually have authority over (with the notable exception of obscenity, which GOP Commissioners have, at times, wanted to police). Either way, this seems like yet another example of the Republican party not having any core principles other than punishing the companies and people that Trump doesn’t like.

Techdirt.

Samsung’s three-year upgrade promise raises the bar for Android updates – Android Authority

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Samsung’s three-year upgrade promise raises the bar for Android updates  Android Authority
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