Huawei P9 uses Leica dual-lens camera tech to refocus

Huawei has unveiled an Android smartphone that uses dual-camera technology to let owners refocus photos after they have been taken.

The feature is the result of a collaboration between the Chinese tech firm and German camera-maker Leica.

It means the P9 can create shallow depth-of-field shots more commonly associated with larger lenses.
Analysts say the innovation could help Huawei promote itself as a premium brand and expand its market share.


The Shenzhen-based company shipped more than 106 million handsets in 2015, representing 44.3% growth on the previous year, according to the research firm IDC.


That was the fastest rise in sales of any of the major brands and put Huawei in third place in terms of market share.

However, Apple still sold more than double the number of phones and Samsung more than three times the figure.

"The camera is one of the things that defines a premium smartphone, and there's still plenty of room to improve the quality of the photography," commented Ian Fogg from the IHS Technology consultancy.

"And there are things you can do when you put two camera sensors on the back that you can't do with a single sensor."

Shallow focus effect

Rather than offering users the ability to take two different types of photos- as is the case with LG's dual-camera G5 handset - the P9 combines the data from both its rear sensors to create its 12 megapixel shots.

One captures red, green and blue (RGB) information about the view, while the other is limited to collecting monochrome image data.

By making use of both types, the firm says, the phone can deliver better contrast and offer superior performance in low-light conditions.

But the standout feature is the ability to simulate wide-aperture photography - the effect of allowing more light into a lens in order to create a shallow depth-of-field.

A shallow depth-of-field can create striking photographs of a subject with a blurry background.
Photography enthusiasts often spend considerable sums on digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) and large lenses to create the look.

Unlike these larger cameras, the P9 also allows users to alter the part of the image they want to be in sharp focus after they have pressed the shutter button.

This is made possible by the fact that the phone's two lenses capture slightly different views, and built-in software can analyse the differences to deduce depth information. Alternatively, the files can be exported in the RAW file format for editing on a PC.


The facility is only available in stills mode, however, and cannot be used to refocus captured videos.
Lytro previously tried to sell specialist cameras that offered a similar refocusing ability, however it recently gave up on the consumer market after acknowledging that the rise of smartphone photography had restricted its appeal.

Nokia and HTC have also offered refocusing functions on some of their handsets, although they achieved the effect in a different manner.

Strong brand

One industry-watcher said that the tie-up with Leica should encourage potential buyers not to dismiss Huawei's dual-camera facility as being a gimmick.

"Leica is one of the strongest brands in photography, so having an association with them should make users believe that the quality of the pictures should be good," said Francisco Jeronimo, research director for European mobile devices at IDC.

"Of course, the quality of the image won't be the same as is possible from one of Leica's own cameras, but it does tell people that a company that really understands photography has been involved in engineering the device."

However, Mr Fogg added that Huawei would need to get its marketing right to make the most of the partnership.

"Leica isn't massively well known outside of serious camera enthusiasts," he explained.
"So, Huawei's challenge is how to communicate the benefit of the Leica brand to the general public as it is pushing the P9 as a mass-market flagship and not a niche device aimed at just the camera-centric few."

Higher prices

Other features of the P9 include:

◾A 5.2in (13.2cm) display that provides 1080p high definition resolution, which is less than some rivals including Samsung's Galaxy S7 phones

◾A microSD slot to provide extra storage, which may be useful as the dual-camera photos take up more space

◾A fingerprint sensor on the rear of the device

◾Huawei's new ARM-based Kirin 955 computer processor
It will cost between 599 euros ($682; £485) and 649 euros when it goes on sale on 16 April, depending on how much RAM and built-in storage is desired.

The firm is also offering a larger P9 Plus model, which has a 5.5in screen and a bigger battery. It will cost 749 euros.

These mark a jump in cost over last year's P8 family, which ranged from 499 to 649 euros.

Source By: BBC

Tesla blames

Tesla blames 'hubris' for Model X part delays

Tesla Motors has revealed that supplies of its Model X electric car have been impacted by a shortage of parts meaning delays for some who have ordered them.

It blamed its own "hubris" for overloading the Model X with technology.
It revealed that it delivered 14,820 cars in the first quarter, falling short of the expected 16,000.
It comes after the firm revealed that its new Model 3 car already has 276,000 pre-orders.
The carmaker said that it had delivered 12,420 Model S sedans and 2,400 Model X SUVs in the first quarter of 2016.


In a statement, Tesla added that its Q1 delivery count was "impacted by severe Model X supplier parts shortages in January and February that lasted much longer than initially expected".
It said that once "issues were resolved", production and delivery rates "improved dramatically".
"By the last full week of March, the build rate rose to 750 Model X vehicles per week, however many of these vehicles were built too late to be delivered to their owners before end of the quarter."
It was frank about the reasons for the delay: "The root causes of the parts shortages were: Tesla's hubris in adding far too much technology to the Model X in version one, insufficient supplier capability validation and Tesla not having broad enough capability to manufacture the parts in-house."

Back in February, Elon Musk admitted that the car had been "over-engineered".
The shortage involved about six out of the 8,000 parts that go into the Model X but Tesla did not specify which ones.

It has raised doubts about how prepared Tesla will be to deliver its new Model 3 car which was announced to much fanfare last week.

The basic model will sell for $35,000 (£24,423) - less than half the cost of Tesla's previous models - and has a range of at least 215 miles per charge.
The car is due to go on sale in late 2017 and customers must put down a $1,000 (£704) deposit. It can be ordered in advance to dozens of countries, including the UK, Brazil, India, China and New Zealand.

Mr Musk has revealed that the company is focusing on ramping up productions and will eventually need to build a factory in Europe to satisfy demand.
Stephanie Brinley, a senior analyst with research firm IHS, said that it was crucial that it gets production of the new vehicle right.

"Given its history of missed deadlines, this one needs to be met, to earn the faith of consumers and investors alike," she said.
Last year Tesla posted a net loss of $889m (£620m) for 2015, partly because of the large sum it spent on research and development.


Source By: BBC

Cracked iPhone

Cracked iPhone

Should you be worried?

The US government's declaration that it has "successfully accessed the data stored on [San Bernardino gunman] Farook's iPhone and therefore no longer requires" assistance from Apple, ends a six week-long legal clash between the tech firm and the FBI.
But it leaves the issue at the heart of the dispute unresolved: could the FBI have forced Apple to help it unlock the device?
It is unlikely that this will be the last time a law enforcement agency tries to compel a tech company to help bypass security measures.

What are the implications for other cases?

It had been reported that there were about a dozen other cases in which the US Justice Department was pursuing court orders to force Apple to help its investigators.
The highest profile of these was in Brooklyn, New York, where the FBI wanted access to an iPhone belonging to a defendant who had already pleaded guilty to drug dealing.


In that case, a federal judge had rejected the DoJ's effort to invoke the All Writs Act - a three-centuries-old statute that allows court orders to be issued in circumstances where other laws don't apply.
The DoJ had launched an appeal, but it is not yet clear if it will continue or drop it. Its decision may be based on whether the technique used to extract data from Farook's handset can be used in other cases.
The New York case involved an iPhone 5S running the iOS 7 operating system, while the San Bernardino, California case was about an iPhone 5C running the more modern iOS 9. What works against one device might not work against the other.
But assuming the US government will at some point try again to use the All Writs Act to force Apple or some other tech company to circumvent its data protection measures, it may take a Supreme Court ruling to determine whether this is truly within the authorities' power.

Is there any way to find out how Farook's iPhone was cracked?

 At this point, there is nothing to compel the FBI to reveal how it was done, although Apple is likely to be pressing hard to find out.
The tech firm's lawyers have already said they would want details of the technique to be made public if evidence from the cracked iPhone is later used at trial.
But it could remain secret. There is scope within US law for the authorities to withhold the source of information if it was supplied to them on a confidential basis, and to protect sensitive intelligence-gathering methodologies.

Should I assume the US authorities can now easily work out any iPhone's passcode?

Not necessarily.
The court order originally obtained by the FBI had instructed Apple to come up with a special version of its operating system that would have prevented Farook's iPhone from deleting its data or imposing long lockout periods if too many incorrect passcode guesses were made.
However, the latest court filings do not say that someone else has now done this, but merely that some data stored on the device has been obtained.
Researchers at the cybersecurity firm IOActive had proposed that one way of getting data off an iPhone would be to "de-cap" its memory chips.
The process they described involved using acid and lasers to expose and copy ID information about the device so that efforts to crack its passcode could be simulated on another computer without risk of triggering the original iPhone's self-destruct tool.
If indeed this is what happened, it is not easy and there's a high risk of causing so much damage to the phone that the desired data becomes irretrievable.
By contrast, Cellebrite - a data forensics firm that has reportedly helped the FBI with the case - has previously discussed "bypassing" passcode locks rather than trying to deduce the number.
But it is possible that doing this would yield access to only a limited amount of a handset's data.
One other point is that Apple recently updated its iOS software.
Each upgrade adds security fixes. So, if the FBI has indeed been alerted to a flaw in Farook's phone's security settings, that bug may no longer exist in devices that have installed iOS 9.3.

Is there any way to ensure no-one else can read the information held on my handset?

Short of destroying the device, perhaps no.
But you can use encryption-enabled apps to digitally scramble data.
The chat tool Wickr Messenger, for instance, lets you set it so that you have to enter a password each time you log back into the app.
Likewise, PQChat requires typing in a five-digit passcode of its own to get access.
So, even if a cracked iPhone did give up the contents of its text messages, emails and WhatsApp chats, the contents of the apps mentioned above should remain safe.
All this presumes, however, that the authorities do not manage to install spyware on your device. If that happens, all bets are off.

What is the situation in the UK?

As part of her efforts to pass the Investigatory Powers Bill, the home secretary Theresa May has said that tech firms wouldn't have hand over encryption keys or build backdoors into their platforms.
But the law still makes mention of "equipment interference warrants".
Campaigners at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have warned that these could be used to force Apple and others to insert new code into a device in order to help the authorities extract data, in a similar manner to the FBI's earlier order.
The EFF adds that "matching gag orders" would prevent the firms from informing their customers or even their own lawyers about the act.
Equipment interference warrants already exist under the UK's current law.
And for now, the focus of Apple and other tech firms is getting the Investigatory Powers Bill amended to say that in the future the warrants could only be amended with the permission of a judge.
But were there to be a case where the UK police attempted to coerce Apple to override its protective measures, it might still resist - even if the fact never became public.

Source By: BBC

Brussels attacks: Belgium releases terror murder suspect

A man known as Faycal C, the only person arrested and charged with involvement in the Brussels attacks, has been released for lack of evidence.

Belgian media gave his name as Faycal Cheffou and said he was suspected of being the mystery third man seen in CCTV footage of the bombers.
Tuesday's attacks on the airport and the city's metro system killed 35 people and injured more than 300.
The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
Police have blocked off a Brussels square, Place de la Bourse, which saw clashes between police and nationalist protesters on Sunday. Officers told the BBC there was a "security issue".


People were allowed to stay in the square, where mourners have placed candles, wreaths and messages for victims of the bomb attacks.
Of the 35 victims, seven have still to be identified, the country's crisis centre said on Monday (in French).
At least 12 of the victims are foreign nationals from the US, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and China, it said earlier.
The death toll does not include three attackers, two of whom blew themselves up at the airport and one in the metro.
It was the second large-scale attack on an EU capital city claimed by IS, after gunmen and bombers killed 130 people in Paris on 13 November.
IS, an extreme Sunni Muslim group known for its ruthless tactics, has seized large tracts of territory in Syria and Iraq in recent years, attracting hundreds of young Europeans to its ranks, many of them Belgians.

Belgium terror arrests

A man referred to officially as Facyal C was released on 28 March after being arrested on 24 March in Brussels and charged with "participation in the activities of a terrorist group, terrorist murders and attempted terrorist murders".
Others detained on suspicion of terrorist activity include
◾ Salah Abdeslam - arrested on 18 March in the Molenbeek district of Brussels. Key suspect in the Paris attacks last November. Charged with "terrorist murder"
◾ 'Amine Choukri' - arrested on 18 March with Abdeslam, real name not yet known. Also used the alias Monir Ahmed Alaaj. Documented by German police near Ulm in a car with Abdeslam last October. Charged with "terrorist murder" over the Paris attacks
◾ Rabah N - arrested on 25 March and charged with participating in terrorist activities in relation to a foiled plot to attack Paris
◾ Abderamane A - shot in the leg and arrested on 25 March at a tram stop in the Schaerbeek area of Brussels. Charged in relation to the foiled plot to attack Paris. Jailed for seven years in France in 2005 and banned from entering France for life aiding in the assassination of Afghan commander Ahmed Shah Massoud in 2001.
◾ Aboubakar A - arrested on 24 March in a car in Brussels, charged with participating in terrorist activities
◾ Yassine A, Mohamed B and Aboubaker O - arrested during raids on 27 March and charged with belonging to a terrorist group

'Not substantiated'

In a statement, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office said: "The clues that led to the arrest of Faycal C were not substantiated by the ongoing inquiry.
"As a result, the subject has been released by the examining magistrate."
He had been charged only two days before with "taking part in a terrorist group, terrorist murder and attempted terrorist murder".
Belgian public TV and Le Soir daily identified the freed man as Mr Cheffou, a freelance journalist.
CCTV footage released by Belgian police on Monday shows the two airport bombers alongside a third man, who is wearing light-coloured clothing and a dark hat. Each is pushing a loaded luggage trolley.
Twin blasts struck the main terminal of Zaventem Airport, in the north-east of the city. A third, even bigger, bomb was abandoned, prosecutors said at the time. It exploded after the security forces had secured the scene and nobody was hurt, they added.
The man in the hat is believed to have fled the scene.
Tuesday's other attack targeted the Maelbeek metro station in the city centre, close to several EU institutions.

Source By: BBC

Pakistan Taliban faction claims park attack on Lahore Christians

 A Taliban splinter group says it carried out a suicide attack on a park in the Pakistani city of Lahore, which killed more than 70 people, including children.

The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group said the attack had deliberately targeted Christians celebrating Easter Day.
There were scenes of carnage as parents searched for children amid the debris.
Pakistan's president condemned the attack, and the regional government has announced three days of mourning.
At least 300 people were injured, with officials saying they expected the death toll to rise.

All major hospitals in the area were put on an emergency footing after the blast, early on Sunday evening.

Soft target

Lahore is one of Pakistan's most liberal and wealthy cities. It is the political powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and has seen relatively few terror attacks in recent years.
A spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said the group wanted to send a message to Mr Sharif that they "have entered Lahore", and threatened further attacks.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is a breakaway group from Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan. It has carried out several other attacks on Pakistani civilians and security forces in recent months.
Mr Sharif expressed "grief and sorrow over the sad demise of innocent lives". He has postponed a planned trip to the UK.
The explosion, believed to have been carried out by one suicide bomber, hit the main gate to the Gulshan-e-Iqbal park in the early evening, a short distance from the children's playground.
Officials said the device had been packed with ball bearings.

The popular was more crowded than usual, as Lahore's minority Christians were celebrating Easter at its funfair.

 Pakistan's Christians

◾Estimated to make up about 1.6% of the population, they are the second largest minority in Pakistan after Hindus
◾Large population in Karachi but also in the Punjab heartlands and the cities of Lahore and Faisalabad
◾Majority are descendants of low-caste Hindus who converted under the British Raj
◾Most remain poor menial workers, though there are wealthier Christians who came from Goa and are mainly in Karachi
◾Attacks, including church and hospital bomb blasts and mob attacks on Christian villages, have increased in recent years; the deadliest was two bombs at a Peshawar church in 2013 which left around 80 dead

One man, who gave his name as Danish, said the park had been so full when he arrived he had not been able to enter.
"We went to a canteen to have something to eat, when there was suddenly a big blast," he told Reuters.
"Everyone went panic, running to all directions. Many of them were blocked at the gate of the park. Dead bodies can be found everywhere."

Hasan Imran, 30, a local resident, told Reuters: "When the blast occurred, the flames were so high they reached above the trees and I saw bodies flying in the air."

One man told Pakistan's Geo TV station he was heading towards a fairground ride with his wife and two children when he heard a huge bang and all four of them were thrown to the floor.

Another man, who did not give his name, told the Associated Press he had taken 20 children to hospital, saying: "I can't explain to you the tragic situation."

Police chief Haider Ashraf said the park had been a soft target for the militants, saying that while Pakistan is "in a warlike situation" there had been no specific alert issued for the park.

Shebaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, later tweeted: "Words cannot describe agony we are in to see our children's blood spilled by cowards."

He said that those who target civilians "do not deserve to be called humans" and that Pakistan would "make sure that your terror infrastructure is dismantled completely".

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the attack "appalling", saying the perpetrators should "be brought swiftly to justice".

Pakistan has suffered regular incidents of Taliban-related violence, sectarian strife and criminal gang activity.

Source By: BBC