MediaTek announces an industry first with the Helio X20, a system-on-a-chip (SoC) for smartphone and tablet use packing 10 cores on a single die, all connected with the so-called MediaTek Coherent System Interconnect (MCSI).

The 10 cores are arranged in 3 clusters-- two Cortex-A725 cores clocked at 2.5GHz, four Cortex-A53s clocked at 2GHz and four Cortex-A53s clocked at 1.4GHz. The arrangement is compared to a car with 3 gears allowing for fuel efficiency across different terrains, since the low-power cores can handle non-demanding tasks while the 2.5GHz cluster takes care of bigger jobs.

The company also says the grouping allows for power savings of up to 30% off a standard ARM "big.little" implementation.

Chinese smartphone maker ZTE announces the flagship Nubia Z9-- a 5.5-inch smartphone featuring a "borderless" design (with a bezel less than 1mm thick) and an interesting grip-sensitive frame.

The smartphone features what the company calls "Frame interactive Technology" (FiT) to allow grip- and gesture-based control on the mid-frame. For example, one can turn on the camera by holding the phone horizontally with 4 fingertips, or switch between apps by flicking up or down the frame.

Such functionality is currently limited to pre-installed apps, but ZTE says 3rd party developers will be able to use the technology in their apps.

LG reveals the successor to the flagship G3 smartphone-- the G4, a handset promising to be the company's "most ambitious" yet featuring an IPS Quantum Display, F1.8 aperture lens camera and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor.

The 5.5-inch display handles 2560x1440 resolution, while further specifications include 3GB RAM, 32GB storage (expandable via microSD slot), 3000mAh removable battery and 16MP rear-facing camera. It runs on Android 5.1, as tweaked with LG's "human-centric" UX 4.0.

However what LG really puts emphasis on is the device's looks-- the subtly curved casing is available in "handcrafted, genuine full grain leather" (in 6 different colours) or ceramic.

They say the flap of a butterfly's wings can cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, but the wings of a particular species of butterfly might actually be key to the glare-free displays of the future.

The butterfly in question is the glasswing butterfly, a Central American species famous for having transparent, glass-like (thus the name) wings. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) researchers say these wings have very low reflection (around 2-5%) of visible, infrared and ultraviolet light-- a survival adaptation for the insect, but an inspiration for the creation of low-reflection surfaces.

For the curious, a flat glass plane has a reflection of anything from 8% to 100%.