The rising popularity of intelligent mobile devices and the daunting computational cost of deep learning-based models call for efficient and accurate on-device inference schemes. We propose a quantization scheme that allows inference to be carried out using integer-only arithmetic, which can be implemented more efficiently than floating point inference on commonly available integer-only hardware. We also co-design a training procedure to preserve end-to-end model accuracy post quantization. As a result, the proposed quantization scheme improves the tradeoff between accuracy and on-device latency. The improvements are significant even on MobileNets, a model family known for run-time efficiency, and are demonstrated in ImageNet classification and COCO detection on popular CPUs.

On Wednesday, Qualcomm revealed its first concrete details of the Snapdragon 845, the next-generation mobile chip that stands a good chance of being in your next smartphone. The 845 will ship in early 2018, and appear in phones sometime after that. Qualcomm calls the Snapdragon 845 a chip to improve both artificial intelligence and immersion, blending the future of smart devices with the past. At its heart lies the Kryo 385, the semi-custom, upgraded CPU. That represents a 25- to 30-percent improvement over the existing Snapdragon 835 in the performance cores, and a 15-percent improvement in the smaller, energy-efficient cores.

The next-generation mobile processor that you'll most likely find in many of next year's major flagships is here. At its second annual tech summit today, Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 845, which is its latest "premium" mobile CPU. The chipset will retain the same 10nm footprint as its predecessor, but feature revamped architecture that brings about new features like 4K HDR video capture on smartphones and improved AI processing. Qualcomm said it's focusing on AI, immersion, security and connectivity with the new chip. Immersion basically means the ability to capture and render the world around you at high resolutions and quality for more realistic results.

Phone makers are trying to outdo one another by racing to add new, advanced features to their flagships, but these tools are not equally useful. Who really needs Face ID, Animoji or eye-sensing authentication? Some of us just want a good, no-frills phone. Plus, not everyone can or wants to spend almost a thousand dollars on something we'll trade in after two years. For these people, there's a range of options from truly basic sub-$250 phones to more powerful mid-range devices that can be had for less than $500. The latter group is better described as aggressively priced flagships that can serve you almost as well as their costlier counterparts -- and there's now a decent selection to consider.

For evidence of that, look no further than Apple's popular line of iPhones. First introduced in 2007, the company recently announced the iPhone 8 and iPhone X – in other words, in just 10 years, there have been nine iterations of the device, not including supplemental models, such as the C and S versions. Such is the march of progress. And there are no signs of a slowdown. What might we see in the future?

What else could there possibly be to unveil after the Surface Laptop, Surface Pro and new Windows versions and updates? Turns out, Microsoft was saving the best for Taiwan. It showed off plans for its vision of "Always Connected PCs", teaming up with Qualcomm and Intel to make future devices work the same way whether you are at home or on the go. These computers will combine the best features of smartphones, like constant connectivity, all-day battery life and portable designs, to deliver a reliable, powerful and always-accessible Windows 10 experience. "The PC is back in a big way," Matt Barlow, vice president of Windows and devices at Microsoft, told Engadget in an interview.

Trekkies used to (and might still) believe that only every other Star Trek movie was actually good, and I'd argue that applies to HTC's flagship releases, too. The M9 was an improvement over its predecessor, but the A9 didn't thrill. HTC hit its stride with 2016's 10 while the subsequent U Ultra... well, it was kind of a mess. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long before the Taiwanese phone maker took another stab at a flagship. Say hello to the $649/£649 HTC U11, a smartphone that blends high-end power with a striking aesthetic, a slew of pressure sensors and a truly awful name.

According to a newly-surfaced rumor, the LeEco Le Pro4 will launch on April 11. This information comes from Weibo (Chinese social network), and in addition to the announcement date of the device, the source also says that the phone will sport a dual camera setup on the back. On top of that, a user who shared this info with us, also said that the phone will ship with some sort of Artificial Intelligence (AI) software installed on the device, probably LeEco's all-new AI assistant, or something of the sort. The source did reveal some info about the device in his post, but he also mentioned that dual camera setups will become a standard moving forward, even though some OEMs still don't use them, like Samsung, for example. Now, the source also shared an image with their post, but that image is not exactly new, so we can't consider it to be a leak of some sort, as it surfaced last year with a number of other shots, and it's probably not the LeEco Le Pro4.

Last year, the Galaxy Note 7 phablet was hailed as one of the best Android phones out there, but all that positive reception was quickly swiped away by one big problem: the phone's batteries were prone to catching on fire. The fiasco ended up hitting the company with about $5 billion in losses. On Wednesday morning, Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 and S8 phones that it's hoping will save its place as the biggest player in mobile. The phone features all the latest and great internal components you'd expect: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor or Samsung's own Exynos 8895 processor based on the market. There's also a cellular modem that supports Category 16 LTE, which is a type of advanced LTE that theoretically supports download speeds of one gigabit per second depending on the carrier network. But instead of going over every feature, which has pretty much already leaked everywhere by this point, below are the three biggest features I think Samsung is bringing to the mobile market.

Samsung's Unpacked 2017 event in New York City is set to kick off tomorrow and it's no mystery at this point that the big unveil will be Samsung's "next Galaxy," the Galaxy S8 and potentially the Galaxy S8 Plus. So much has leaked about the device(s) that much may be already known about Samsung's next flagship Android handset that is poised to take on the iPhone for smartphone domination. We've heard about display sizes, with the Galaxy S8 standard device measuring in at 5.7-inches (or maybe 5.8) and the Galaxy S8 offering gargantuan phablet proportions at 6.2-inches. However, those displays also come with very minimal bezel, as Samsung reportedly is going to take a page from Dell with something called an "Infinity Display" that will surely keep the two new Galaxy's footprints down significantly, similar to what LG delivered with the wonderfully-designed G6. Regardless, even with all these design updates -- and Samsung's new Bixby AI virtual assistant that claims to learn the human, rather than requiring the human to learn it – there's still one more unconfirmed major advancement I expect with Samsung's new pocket super computers and it lies under the hood.