Netflix announces data-saver feature for mobile apps; coming in May

Netflix said that it will introduce a data-saver feature for mobile apps which will allow users more control over their data usage while streaming on mobile networks.

This feature will be available to users sometime in May, Netflix added.

The dominant online video company also said it had been lowering the quality of its video for customers watching its service on wireless networks such as AT&T and Verizon Communications for more than five years, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The company also said that it does not downgrade videos for T-Mobile US and Sprint Corp users because they had "more consumer friendly policies," the Journal added.

In response to requests for comment, Netflix said it had posted a blog on Thursday. In the blog, it said it had limited its video quality for mobile viewers globally, capping them at 600 kilobits-per-second, to protect consumers from exceeding mobile data caps.

"We're outraged to learn that Netflix is apparently throttling video for their AT&T customers without their knowledge or consent," Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs wrote in an email.

Explained: Camera Improvements in the New HTC 10

With the HTC 10, the Taiwanese company is promising to undo the past wrongs in the cameras of its previous flagship phones. The camera has long a weak point in HTC devices. At first, HTC sacrificed image resolution in the M8 and made the size of individual pixels larger to capture more light (what HTC called Ultrapixel). But the resulting 4 megapixel images were often fuzzy, especially when cropped or enlarged. To fix the issue, in its next flagship - the M9 - HTC went with smaller individual pixels in a 20-megapixel camera last year, but it still underperformed in extreme situations, such as indoors and close-ups. In the HTC 10, the company attempts to strike a balance with larger individual pixels (1.55µm), but not as large as before and a 12 megapixel sensor in its camera coupled with a ƒ/1.8 lens. HTC accepts that in the imaging performance in the M9 was not up to the kind of spec of what they really like to see in a flagship. HTC is giving a slight boost to the selfi...

Flexible Camera Developed That Can Be Wrapped Around Objects

A team led by an Indian-origin professor at Columbia University has created a novel sheet camera that can be wrapped around everyday objects to capture images that cannot be taken with one or more conventional cameras. "Cameras today capture the world from essentially a single point in space. While the camera industry has made remarkable progress in shrinking the camera to a tiny device with ever increasing imaging quality, we are exploring a radically different approach to imaging," said Shree K Nayar, computer science professor at Columbia University. "We believe there are numerous applications for cameras that are large in format but very thin and highly flexible," added Nayar who graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, in 1984. Nayar's team designed and fabricated a flexible lens array that adapts its optical properties when the sheet camera is bent. This optical adaptation enables the device to produce high quality images over a wide ...

Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016) Leaked in Press Images

The anticipated successor to the popular Samsung Galaxy J1, tipped to be called the Galaxy J1 (2016), has once again been leaked in images on the Web. While in the previous leaks we have seen the unannounced smartphone in its Black colour variant, the new leaked image shows the handset in two additional colour variants. The image tweeted by @evleaks on Monday shows the Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016) smartphone in Gold and White colour variants. The design of the handset also fall in line with the models leaked in images previously. It is worth mentioning that the screen bezel seen in the image stay black in all the three colour variants. The smartphone is seen featuring a physical home button, along with a multi-window, and a back capacitive button on either side. At the back, the smartphone sports a camera at the centre with a LED flash and a speaker on either sides. Samsung is yet to announce the smartphone. The Samsung Galaxy J1 (2016)leaked in images last month as well...

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