Google TalkBack Update Brings Significant Improvements to The Accessibility App

Google TalkBack for Android has a new update rolling out that brings some new services and features to the accessibility app.  For those who may not know what TalkBack is, it is designed for the blind or visually impaired to be able to use their Android device as the content on the screen is read back to them.  This new update brings a new Speech Verbosity feature that allows users to choose just how much feedback is spoken to them.  Before this update, TalkBack read everything on the screen.  Now you can be a bit more selective with it which should speed things up a bit.

Another improvement is the ability to hear feedback when screen magnification is turned on as well as hearing character count in password fields.  This feature requires that you have at least Chrome 56 on your device to work.

Samsung Posts Highest Quarterly Profit Since 2013

Bolstered by their memory chip division, Samsung reported an operating profit of $8.75 Billion in the first quarter of 2017.  It is their highest quarterly profit since 2013.  The chip division accounted for $5.58 Billion in profit while overall revenue for the entire company was up 2% according to the report from Reuters.

The trend of profits should continue for Samsung in this quarter and the smartphone division should play a significant role in it.  The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are shipping now and both are doing excellent in sales and pre-sales.  Indeed, pre-sales of the S8 lineup has already outpaced the popular S7 an S7 Edge from last year.

Huawei Claims Top Spot in China Smartphone Sales

With shipments of 21 million phones in the first quarter of 2017, Huawei has claimed the top sales position in China according to a report from Canalys.  The sales and positive response to the new P10, P10 Plus and Mate 9 from the company bolstered them and allowed them to get to the top.  It wasn’t, however, a big margin of victory if you will.  Oppo, who was number one, dropped to second with 20 million units sold while third place went to Vivo.  They shipped 17 million units in the quarter.  The top three therefore shipped 57 million of the 114 million smartphones that were shipped in the quarter, claiming 50% of the market between them.

That 114 million units shipped in Q1 is an increase of 9% over the same period last year.

Gboard for Android Update Brings 22 New Indic Languages

A new update to Google’s Gboard is rolling out in the Play Store that brings a big jump in support of Indic languages.  With this update, 22 new languages are supported and through the use of Machine Learning and working with natural speakers of the languages throughout India, transliteration and keyboard layouts are included for all of the languages.  The update now brings the total number of languages supported up to 185.

The new languages supported include: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo (Devanagari, Bengali), Dogri (Devanagari, Arabic), Gujarati, Hindi (Devanagari, Hinglish), Kannada, Kashmiri (Devanagari, Arabic), Konkani (Devanagari, Latin), Maithili (Devanagari), Malayalam, Manipuri (Bengali), Marathi (Devanagari), Nepali (Devanagari), Odia, Punjabi (Gurmukhi, Arabic), Sanskrit (Devanagari), Santali (Ol chiki, Latin), Sindhi (Devanagari, Arabic), Tamil, Telugu, Urdu (Arabic).

For those who have one of these as their mother language, this update will make it much easier to communicate with others, especially with the transliteration feature.

AT&T Postpaid Subscribers Down in First Quarter Report

AT&T, the second largest mobile carrier in the United States, has released their first quarter financials.  The company reported revenues of $39.4 billion for the quarter, a drop from the $40.5 billion the carrier reported in the same quarter last year.  $17.2 billion of the revenue is contributed to the wireless division, down 4.4% over the previous year.  The company reported that the reduction in revenue was attributed to the low number of equipment upgrades made by subscribers as well as the the lower ARPU (average revenue per user) thanks to recently adopted unlimited plans.

All of this contributed to a drop in net profit for the company.  For the quarter, the company made $3.5 billion, down from the $3.8 billion in the first quarter of 2016.  The carrier has $3.2 billion in free flow cash available.

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