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lundi 11 mai 2020

This Is Your Last Chance to Save 60% on a Lifetime of Babbel Language Learning

Most of us have a little more spare time than usual right now. While Netflix and games provide a good distraction, you might also want to use this period to learn something new. Babbel is a highly-rated app that helps you master 14 different languages through bite-size lessons that take only 10 minutes each day. Sound good? Now is your last chance to get lifetime access to all 14 languages for just $159 at the XDA Developers Depot.

Whether you want to make business connections or experience a different culture, learning a new language can unlock many opportunities. However, it’s easy to become unmotivated by dry textbooks.

Babbel makes the language learning process more fun. Available on mobile and the web, the app teaches you everyday vocabulary through picture quizzes and simulated conversations. In addition, Babbel utilizes speech-recognition technology to provide instant feedback on your accent. This means you can start holding conversations faster. 

Babbel lessons take between 10 and 15 minutes each, and you can download them for offline study. The app tracks your progress, with lessons taking you through beginner to advanced levels. 

With a rating of 4.6 stars on the Play Store, it’s easy to see why Babbel was named “most innovative company in education” by Fast Company.

Lifetime access is worth $399, but you can get your lifetime subscription to all 14 languages now for just $159 (ends 5/16).

 
Babbel Language Learning: Lifetime Subscription (All Languages) – $159

See Deal

Prices subject to change 

More from the XDA Developers Depot

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Join the NEXT-IMAGE 2020 in HUAWEI Community! Win $10K USD

Share your photos on the Huawei Community Gallery to win!

Share your photos on the Huawei Community Gallery to win!

Participation on Huawei Community Sub-arena

  1. The Huawei Community (including its local sites) will be one of the official platforms for participants to submit entries. The submissions on the community are equally effective as they are on the Next-Image official website, so please avoid repeated submissions.
  2. The entries can only be captured with a Huawei or Honor device, and may only have been graphically edited using a Huawei or Honor phone (editing on third-party applications is accepted).
  3. No more than 30 entries are accepted from one participant. If one participant submits more than 30 entries, the earliest 30 entries will be counted as contestant entries, while the rest will not compete in the contest.
  4. The community (global site) will select 20 entries*3 (4 for each category) to submit to the contest committee for the next round of evaluation. Once you are selected, the community admin will contact you through the community’s private messages.
  5. The final evaluation will be done by the NEXT-IMAGE Awards 2020 committee, and the result will be announced on NEXT-IMAGE Awards 2020 official site*4.
  6. The 20 global community sub-arena champions will be given exclusive community prizes, regardless of the final evaluation results. The rest of the contest prizes will be sent out by the committee. 7. For more contest rules and FAQs, please refer to the Terms and Conditions of the contest and the FAQ at the end of this

Category details:

  1. Near Far: Discovering new places and new experiences by using the new features of your phone’s camera, for instance, telephoto, super-wide-angle or macro-shooting lens. Good Night: Capturing fun moments in low light. Hello, Life!: Sharing the emotion or inspiration in everyday experiences. Faces: Experimenting with identity and the power of portraiture of you yourself, her/him/it, or them. Storyteller: Sequencing 3 to 9 photos to tell a story, to express the emotion, to record the changes, or to find a trend.
  2. The final contest prize winners will be determined and rewarded by the Next-Image contest committee. The community will decide and give out community championship prize only.
  3. The selection of the 20 next-round candidates will be done by the community team including the admins and official designers and the evaluation will be based on the entries’ aesthetic feeling, creativity, social value, and relevance to the Contest theme. The Huawei Community adnub team reserves the right of explanation on the champion selections.
  4. The official website of the NEXT-IMAGE Awards 2020: gallery.consumer.huawei.com

Click here to visit the Gallery to share your best work and see all participants’ great submissions!

When submitting your work, make sure you read carefully the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement on the submit page to avoid confusion. During the contest, if you have new questions, you can check the FAQs, or read the Terms & Conditions again for the contest.

 

We thank Huawei for sponsoring this post. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including server costs, full time developers, news writers, and much more. While you might see sponsored content (which will always be labeled as such) alongside Portal content, the Portal team is in no way responsible for these posts. Sponsored content, advertising and XDA Depot are managed by a separate team entirely. XDA will never compromise its journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company, or alter our opinions or views in any way. Our opinion cannot be bought.

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POCO X2 Development Update 2: AOSP Custom ROMs are flourishing

Xiaomi’s sub-brand POCO made a comeback earlier this year with the launch of a new mid-range device called the POCO X2 (review). Shortly after its launch, POCO sent out a couple of units of the POCO X2 to custom ROM and kernel developers in a bid to kickstart third-party development for the device. Developers on our forums have been hard at work ever since and have already released quite a few custom ROMs, kernels and mods for the device. In our previous development update, we talked about the Paranoid Android, Unofficial LineageOS 17.1, Pixel Experience, and Xiaomi.eu ROMs for the device, along with the Arter97 and Optimus Drunk custom kernels, Google Camera port, and Unofficial TWRP recovery for the POCO X2.

POCO X2 XDA Forums || Buy the POCO X2 from Flipkart

Since then, developers have released twelve more custom ROMs, a new custom kernel, and a notification/charging light mod on our forums. Here’s a list of all the new custom ROMs, kernels and mods that you can download for your device right now:

POCO X2 Custom ROMs

If you wish to try out the aforementioned custom ROMs on your POCO X2, click on the respective links and then carefully follow the instructions in the forum post to install the ROM on your device. Do note that since some of these ROMs are still in testing, you may face some unwanted bugs. In case you do, you can report the bugs in the forum post and help the developers further improve their custom ROMs.

Along with these custom ROMs, developers have also released the Hardrock custom kernel for the POCO X2 that you can download by following the forum link below. Additionally, you can also try out the notification/charging light mod which will allow you to use the hidden notification LED on the device.

Hardrock kernel for the POCO X2 || Notification/Charging light mod

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Motorola starts rolling out the Android 10 stable update for the Moto G7

Back in January, Motorola delivered the stable version of Android 10 to the ‘Plus’ variant of the Moto G7. Later on, the company went another step forward and published Android 10 kernel source code for the same model. Now, the regular Moto G7 is apparently getting the same treatment in Brazil, as the company has announced the arrival of the stable Android 10 update for the device on its regional update tracker.

moto_g7_android_10_info

According to Motorola Brazil, they started pushing out the OTA in batches since May 7. To ensure a smooth transition, the company is going to take a month to complete the rollout process. The Brazilian retail Moto G7 is the only variant currently eligible for the update, which means people with the Google Fi and the US models are out of luck. While it is possible to cross-flash the firmware across regional variants, we don’t recommend to do so due to the possibility of bricking your phone in the process.

Moto G7 XDA Forums

The current Android 10 build for the Moto G7 is tagged as QPU30.52-16-2, albeit the Android security patch level (SPL) is not known at this moment. Motorola often distributes the final soak test build as the stable OTA, and Moto G7’s Android 10 update might be another example of this tradition. The OTA introduces all the new features that Google rolled out with Android 10, including a system-wide dark mode, gesture navigation, smart replies, and more.

moto_g7_android_10_changelog

The Moto G7 is known for being developer-friendly, thus several popular custom ROMs (like LineageOS 17.1) officially support the device. An official build of TWRP is also available for the phone (code-name “river”). Now that the stable Android 10 OTA is live, Motorola will eventually update the existing kernel source which should help developers to expand the custom development scene for this device. An official update definitely helps refresh the custom development scene for some more time to come.


Source: /r/MotoG

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Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition with Qualcomm Snapdragon 768G launched in China

Following the launch of the Snapdragon 768G earlier today, Xiaomi’s sub-brand Redmi has now officially unveiled the Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition in China. The latest device in the Redmi K30 series is nearly identical to the original Redmi K30 5G, which was launched in China late last year. The Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition features the same design and specifications, with the exception of the new Snapdragon 768G chip and a new Mint Ice Blue color variant.

Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition Specifications

Specification Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition
Dimensions and Weight
  • 165.3 x 76.6 x 8.79 mm
  • 208g
Display
  • 6.67″ FHD+ (2400 x 1080) LCD;
  • 120Hz high refresh rate
  • Punch-hole display with dual front cameras
  • Corning Gorilla Glass 5
  • HDR 10 support
SoC
  • Qualcomm Snapdragon 768G:
    • 1x Kryo 475 (ARM Cortex-A76-based) Prime core @ 2.8GHz
    • 1x Kryo 475 (ARM Cortex-A76-based) Performance core @ 2.2GHz
    • 6x (ARM Cortex-A55-based) Efficiency cores @ 1.8GHz
    • 7nm EUV process
  • Adreno 620 (15% performance increase vs Snapdragon 765G)
RAM and Storage
  • 6GB LPDDR4X + 128GB UFS 2.1
  • Supports microSD card expandability
Battery & Charging
  • 4,500 mAh battery
  • Fast charging at 30W
Rear Camera Photo:
  • Primary: 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor, f/1.89, 1/1.7” sensor, 0.8μm pixels
  • Secondary: 8MP 120° Wide-Angle Camera, f/2.2
  • Tertiary: 2MP, f/2.4, Depth Sensor
  • Quaternary: 5MP, Macro, f/2.4

Video:

  • 4K @ 30fps
  • 1080p @ 60fps
  • Ultra wide: 1080p @ 30fps
  • Slow motion: 1080p @ 120fps, 720p @ 960fps
Front Camera
  • Primary: 20MP
  • Secondary: 2MP depth sensor
Other Features
  • 3.5mm headphone jack
  • Multi-function NFC
  • IR Blaster
  • Side fingerprint scanner
  • 5G: SA + NSA 5G network support
  • 5G: Dual-frequency GPS
Android Version MIUI 11 based on Android 10

With the Snapdragon 768G in tow, the new Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition (or Extreme Edition/Speed Edition depending on the service you use to translate from Chinese to English) will offer significantly better performance than its predecessor.

Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition

This is due to the fact that the Kryo 475 CPU “Prime” core has been overclocked to 2.8GHz (up from 2.4GHz on the Snapdragon 765G) and the Adreno 620 GPU offers a 15% performance increase. Additionally, the new chip brings support for Adreno Updateable GPU Drivers and Bluetooth version 5.2 (vs Bluetooth 5.0 on the older chip).

Pricing and Availability

The new Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition will go on sale in China at 10 AM on May 14th via Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com. The device will be available in a single 6GB/128GB RAM/storage variant which has been priced at CNY 1,999 (~$282). Xiaomi is offering four color variants of the device, including the new Mint Ice Blue finish and the older Deep Sea shimmer (Blue), Purple Jade Fantasy, and Time Monologue (White) finishes. As of now, it isn’t clear whether Xiaomi will continue to sell the older Snapdragon 765G variant of the Redmi K30 5G in the country or discontinue it in favor of the new Racing Edition model. We also have no information regarding a global launch for the Redmi K30 5G Racing Edition, but we’ll update this post as soon as we receive more information from Xiaomi.


Source: Weibo (1,2), JD.com

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Easily integrate Huawei Mobile Services into your Unity game with the HMS Unity Plugin!

Huawei Mobile Services, or HMS, is Huawei’s alternative to GMS, consisting of user-facing apps as well as core background services. The idea behind Huawei Mobile Services is to provide an experience that is consistent across devices and independent of the platform update. HMS Ecosystem has seen its monthly average users increase from 420 Million globally in July 2018 to a huge 600 Million by December 2019, while developers registered on this platform grew from 450,000 to 1.3 million in the same time period, and HMS Core app integration grew from 20,000 apps to 55,000 apps. According to additional figures revealed by Huawei as of December 2019, HMS Core has a global reach of 600 Million users in more than 170 countries (including China).

These numbers are helpful to both app and game developers, both of which can provide their services to end-users through the Huawei AppGallery on Huawei and Honor devices. Because of the number of Huawei and Honor smartphone users across the globe, there is a lot of incentive for app and game developers alike to jump onto the HMS platform and AppGallery. Further, the platform provides them with features such as cost-effectiveness, a unified portal for one-stop integration, and precise user targeting through multiple promotion channels.

If you are a developer looking to support Huawei and Honor devices, Huawei provides a lot of ready documentation for easy integration of its APIs within the developer’s resources. There are tools available for game developers too, allowing them to incorporate all the necessary features that are needed to build a mobile game that not only functions as a good mobile game but also has the necessary upscaling potential to grow itself into a successful title.

If you are looking for ways to build up your game with HMS support, your job is now made much easier thanks to this HMS Unity Plugin. The plugin helps you integrate all the power of Huawei Mobile Services in your Unity game, allowing you to leverage the power of Huawei’s powerful APIs like Huawei Account Kit, Push Kit, Game Service, Ads Kit, and In-App Purchases.


Brief Overview of some of Huawei Mobile Services API

Huawei Account Kit

Huawei Account Kit allows developers to use an existing Huawei account as a valid sign-in option within their game, letting players have less introduction fatigue and skip steps like email address and mobile number verification. It further helps with the user onboarding process and lowers the user churn during registration and login, thanks to features such as secured login, one-click authorization, support for two-factor authentication, data encryption, and GDPR compliance for privacy.

Push Kit

Push Kit allows developers to send messages from the cloud to your users, serving as a reliable, real-time push message platform with global coverage, spreading over 200+ countries. Game developers can take advantage of the precise targeting features it offers to promote the entertainment quotient of their game. Through intelligent message pushing, developers can also promote interactions and transactions within the game.

Game Service

Game Service provides an easy way for signing-in and tracking achievements in games. Game developers can customize up to 200 achievements for players, so there’s always some target to achieve within the game. You can also get diversified player data statistics that will let you tailor your game experience to match the needs and expectations of your playing audience. The API can also let you configure event reporting and let you customize key game events for reports, letting you analyze reported events from multiple dimensions. Of course, no game API is complete without leaderboards and saved game features, and this API includes those too. You can create multiple leaderboards to rank players in different ways, which combined with achievement tracking, provides a steady incentive for players to keep playing your game. You can also let players save their game progress on Huawei Drive, letting the saved game data be retrieved for returning players on other compatible devices as well.

Ads Kit

Ads Kit within HMS is an important monetization medium, and game developers can take advantage of it to maintain a Free-to-Play game through ad-support. The API provides unique device-level ad identifiers and ad-conversion tracking capabilities. Ads Kit makes use of OAID (Open Advertising ID) solution as a non-permanent ad identifier, allowing developers to balance user privacy and still provide personalized ads and accurately track advertisement effects.

In-App Purchase

As for In-App Purchases, as its name implies, it is the API responsible for integrating a seamless in-app purchase experience within an app or game. It supports subscription services, product management with automatic pricing for products in local currencies, order management, and related promotional activities. The intention behind In-App Purchases is to simplify the payment access process and simplify the access and interaction logic so that developers can focus more on developing and perfecting their game products without worrying too much about the revenue collection process.


HMS Unity Plugin

The HMS Unity Plugin makes it very easy to integrate HMS features into your Unity game, for in-app purchases, for Huawei Login, for push messaging, for game leaderboards, and for ad-based monetization. These features further enable you to incorporate important elements of game design such as unique player identification, in-app purchases for consumables and cosmetics, support for ads, support for push notifications, support for saved games, and game leaderboards and achievements.

IAP Demo

The plugin remains proud of these four features:

  • It has clear documentation, guiding developers with an easy-to-follow guide that contains step-by-step instructions.
  • The plugin comes with ready-to-use Prefabs.
  • The plugin also contains demo scenes to help the developer get acquainted with a live example.
  • The plugin also promises to stay updated regularly with new features, so you can rest assured that your project will not be relying on obsolete tools after some time.

Video ad demo

Integrating the plugin is very easy. All of it takes five broad yet easy steps:

  1. Register your game at Huawei Developer website
  2. Import the Plugin to your Unity project
  3. Configure your manifest
  4. Connect your game with the HMS Manager
  5. Connect the HMS Callback Handler with your game

The first requirement for integrating HMS into your game would be registering with HMS itself. The process is easy and straightforward, starting off from signing into the Developer Console, creating a new app within the AppGallery module, and then applying for the IAP service and configuring it for your game products.

The next step is to import the Unity plugin, which you can download from GitHub. Open the Unity Editor and import the custom package. The Import utility within Unity will show all items as pre-checked, so you simply have to click on Install, and Unity will deploy the plugin into your Assets folder. Next, you need to configure the plugin to work for your game by entering your game’s unique app ID, your developer CPID and the package name of your game in the prompts provided, and the plugin will automatically include all the necessary information inside the Android Manifest.

Configuring the Manifest

Once all of this is done, you need to deploy the HMS Manager prefab inside your scene. In Unity editor, locate the plugins prefab folder and drag and drop the HMS Manager to your scene, and then follow along the configuration prompts.

Huawei Mobile Services HMS Unity Plugin

Ready-to-use Prefabs

Next, call the HMS Manager through the onClick section. The final step is to connect the HMS Callback Handler with your game. The documentation guides you through the process, so you should have no difficulty.

Huawei Mobile Services HMS Unity Plugin

Demo Scenes

As one can see, getting on board HMS is surprisingly easy for a game developer, with access to easy documentation and support in case they face any difficulty. With the large userbase as an incentive, HMS does provide the incentive for budding games to consider it as their platform of choice.

If you would like to integrate Huawei Mobile Services into your game, follow along the link to the GitHub project below:

HMS Unity Plugin


We thank Huawei for sponsoring XDA. Huawei had minimal involvement in the creation of or the content within this article. In particular, they were consulted for fact-checking. Any opinions expressed are those of the author. Our sponsors help us pay for the many costs associated with running XDA, including servers, developers, writers, and more. While you may see sponsored content alongside Portal content, all of it will be clearly labeled as such. The XDA Portal team will not compromise journalistic integrity by accepting money to write favorably about a company. Our opinion cannot be bought. Sponsored content, advertising, and the XDA Depot are managed by our marketing director and not the editorial team.

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Newton Mail is back from the dead (again) under new ownership

While app stores have hundreds of email apps to choose from, there are very few actually good ones. Sadly, a lot of great email apps have shut down over the years, incapable of competing with goliaths like the official Gmail app. Back in February, we lost one such app. Newton Mail, which had just been saved from one shutdown, was set to be shut down again alongside Essential. Now, the app is back with new ownership.

An indie development agency led by Maitrik Kataria and Justin Mitchell decided to take action this time and they now own CloudMagic/Newton Mail. Kataria notes that they are not some well-funded VC backed company, but they love building products. They have years of experience designing software for startups and other companies. First and foremost, though, they were Newton Mail users.

So what’s next for Newton Mail? With all the previous shutdowns in mind, the new team wants to make sure Newton can live forever. That means open-sourcing the project and finding a way for self-hosted servers to support the product indefinitely.

Another big part of keeping Newton Mail alive for the long haul is keeping the business afloat. The new owners say they will be going “back to basics,” but they won’t be raising the prices. Newton costs $50 a month, which is actually cheaper than a lot of professional email clients on the market.

Down the line, Justin and Maitrik want to improve Newton Mail’s customer support, which they say was terrible. Support will be built right into the app and there will be a new open voting platform for feature requests. They also plan to deliver new features within three to six months. Dark Mode is one feature that they mention.

Lastly, they will be offering some deals for existing and past Newton Mail users. During the month of May, current subscribers will get 3 months for free. People who have canceled subscriptions in the past can come back with a 20% discount. You can also refer a friend for 3 free months for yourself and 20% off for them.

Newton Mail - Email App for Gmail, Outlook, IMAP (Free, Google Play) →


Source: Newton

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