When Tesla's Autopilot semi-self-driving features came online about week ago, Elon Musk told reporters that the technology would arrive first in North America and roll out in Europe and Asia later, as regulatory approvals came through.
That's now happened, and the Tesla CEO has taken to Twitter to deliver the news.
Just about the only place where your Tesla Model S can't sort of drive itself — Autopilot is a driver-assist technology, not a fully autonomous system — under the right conditions (highways, mostly) is Japan.
Autopilot is still under review there by the government.
Autopilot has enjoyed an impressive debut. Tesla teased it a while back, when the company announced an upcoming Version 7 vehicle-software boost. When the update arrived, many Tesla owners awoke to find that their cars could drive themselves, thanks to over-the-air updates.
And within a week, a team of three drivers had taken an Autopilot across the US in 58 hours, setting the record for an autonomous coast-to-coast run.
Also on Twitter, Musk said that Autopilot will be getting an upgrade to what he called Autopilot 1.01. The improved Autopilot will have "curve speed adaption, controller smoothness, better lane holding on poor roads, improved fleet learning!" Musk tweeted.
Imagine how much better rush hour would be if only you could kick back in the driver's seat and watch TV while your car did the driving. Two corporate giants say they'll make it happen.
In a concept car unveiled Monday, Sweden's Volvo Cars and Ericsson communications technologies exhibited a jointly-produced system for streaming video to dash-mounted screens during a highway drive.Self-driving cars are the way of the future, many tech pundits have declared.
Since 2012, Google has experimented with self-driving cars on closed tracks. German freight liner Daimler tested the first autonomous vehicle on U.S. public roads in 2015 and Google followed soon after. An Audi SUV drove itself cross country, and Tesla released refined autopilot software for its electric cars. Ford plans its first tests for 2016.
But amid all the hubbub of advancement, no developer has stepped in to answer the important question of what ex-drivers will do with all the idle time afforded by their digital chauffer.
"If you want to watch the latest episode of your favorite series, the car will know how long the journey needs to take and can optimize the route and driving control accordingly," said Anders Tylman, general manager of the Volvo Monitoring and Concept Car Center, in a press release. "With autonomous drive it is no longer just a question of getting from A to B quickly—it's about the experience you with to have in the car—how you wish to spend the time you are saving."
A promotional video release in conjunction with the concept unveiling shows a driver switch on the Volvo autopilot. His seat slides back, he crosses his legs in relaxation and a wide screen flips out of the passenger dashboard.
Highway video streaming will require high-bandwidth coverage beyond densely populated areas. Ericsson said it aimed to develop an interruption-free experience with software that would look ahead to network conditions along a chosen route and "intelligently buffer" content along the way.
Of all the forecasts made here at CES, the smart home feels like one of the nearest to coming true. Nearly every big-name technology brand, from Google to Samsung to LG, is in the process of trying to own the way we interact with our appliances and our appliances interact with each other. But the most important name in the smart home is the one you’re least likely to find plastered inside the cavernous halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center: Alexa.
The name corresponds to Amazon’s cloud-based voice assistant, which began as the personal assistant inside the online shopping company’s Echo speaker that went on sale to the public in June. Over the course of a few months, however, Alexa has moved beyond Echo and into a host of third-party devices, in part thanks to Amazon’s $100 million Alexa Fund, which helps other companies incorporate the software into their products.
Now those investments are bearing fruit. At CES 2016, Amazon is a stealth attendee. Without a booth or logo in sight, Alexa is weaving its way into third-party products here as varied as home security cameras, lighting systems, and Ford vehicles. By creating a voice interface for asking about the weather, playing music, and the mundane resupplying of paper towels and snacks, Amazon has emerged as the go-to partner for industries in need of powerful natural language processing and fast access to information from the internet. The benefit for Amazon is obvious: voice software tied directly to the Everything Store is a great way to keep people spending money on Amazon. But for an industry bedeviled by interface and compatibility issues, Alexa is an attractive way forward.
"We thought, ‘Okay, this is now a best-in-class product,’" says Jeremy Warren, the chief technology officer for home security company Vivint, which announced at CES that it has integrated the Echo and Alexa into its entire smart appliance lineup. Owners of an Echo speaker can now ask Alexa to lock their doors, turn off their lights, or adjust their Nest thermostat. Because Vivint has brokered a partnership with the Google-owned appliance maker, Amazon’s Alexa gets access to Nest products by proxy.
Gaining access to Amazon’s powerful cloud computing capabilities has its perks. But the true appeal of Alexa is a simple one: it’s voice control and nothing more. "The default way to interact with devices so far has been apps," says Sebastien de la Bastie, the managing director of French startup Invoxia. "But we believe the voice is the best interface."
Invoxia, one of the recipients of an Alexa Fund investment from Amazon last September, announced this week at CES that it’s the first third-party hardware maker to incorporate all the power of Alexa into a product other than the Echo. The company’s Triby, as it’s called, is a colorful, magnet-backed Bluetooth speaker resembling an old-school radio. It’s designed to let family members, including young children, make internet-based phone calls with one another, draw doodles and leave messages, and play music in the kitchen.
Prior to the Alexa integration, which goes out as a software update to Triby owners this spring, the company’s speaker could only be controlled with a smartphone app and its physical buttons. Soon you’ll talk to it — to Alexa, to be more precise. Invoxia is currently working on a software feature that, when combined with Alexa, will let the Triby identify every member of a household and prevent certain users, like an eight-year-old child, from ordering a truckload of candy on Amazon.
Amazon’s success in the smart home can also be attributed to its disinterest in becoming a holistic ecosystem. Google is currently trying to pioneer a platform for the Internet of Things called Brillo, with a common language for low-power connected devices called Weave. Samsung now owns SmartThings, which makes a hub for routing gadgets from multiple different manufacturers, including Samsung of course, through a single app. Walk around here at CES, and you’ll find countless companies hawking the next great smart home ecosystem, with no solution providing any more clarity of vision than the next.
Alexa is not designed to rule the smart home. But it’s becoming the easiest and most accessible way to talk to everything in your home with a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth chip — and for aspiring smart appliance makers to get a voice interface. All the while, Amazon remains a silent but powerful force, building a presence in the home with seemingly open arms. "For the next few years, your enemies are not the other folk [companies]," says Vivint’s Warren. "It’s ignorance and indifference."
That creates what Warren calls "coopetition" — or "frenemies" if you prefer — among startups like Vivint and tech giants like Google, Samsung, and Amazon. But at this point, partnering with Amazon is a logical choice, part of an inevitability. "Vivint not working with Amazon is not going to stop them from succeeding."
Building in pioneer internet ecosystem across content, devices, applications and platforms, Letv, a leading internet conglomerate and technology company, today launched its innovative Le 3D Helmet, LeMe Bluetooth Headphones and Super Cycle, which unfolded a new era of innovation here today.
Introducing the Letv comprehensive ecosystem, the company launched the Le 3D Helmet and Super Cycle along with the LeMe Bluetooth Headphones, offering consumers a breakthrough technology at sustainable pricing.
Offering great designs and strong ecosystem, the products are intended to enhance users’ entertainment experience. The Le 3D Helmet and LeMe Bluetooth Headphones will offer a unique video and audio experience to consumers. The Super Cycle is not just a cycle, it’s an Internet-enabled self-powered transport system, which will take fitness to newer levels. Re-defining the cycling experience and creating dynamic visual effect, the Super Cycle will be a game changer, making life easier and more fun.
The devices were launched by Dickson Lee, General Manager, APAC Smart Device of Letv. Addressing the media during the brief, he said, “Letv is committed to providing end-users with devices which have superior performance at disruptive pricing.”
“At Letv, it is our constant endeavor to provide our consumers with the most innovative products and best in class experiences. With the new devices, we aim to offer a unique combination of amazing features, and top performance supported with good battery life packed in a sleek design,” added Lee.
Letv is likely to launch its globally successful flagship Superphones in India soon. It entered the smartphone industry in April 2015, having sold one million Le Superphones in November alone, making it the best-selling new product across the Internet.
Dedicated to offering Indian customers lifestyle enabling products, Letv launched Le 3D Helmet, which offers a sharp and customized user experience. The helmet is equipped with a 5.5″ SHARP 2K LCD screen and a resolution of 2560*1440 with 70° field of view. The 3D Helmet is the optimal device for viewing videos and playing enhanced games, anytime, anywhere.
Also, it showcased, LeMe Bluetooth Headphones, which feature a dimension of 180*176.8*62.8MM, and a speaker frequency response of 20Hz- 20,000Hz, for the ultimate wireless audio experience. The device also sports a powerful 195 mAH Li-ion polymer battery for on the go usage enabling music playback time and talking time of 10 hours and standby time of 26.5 days with charging time of 2 hours.
Redefining the cycling experience with an extra effort of dynamic visual effect, it introduced the Super Cycle, which is the first of its kind smart urban Cycle with an Internet-enabled self-powered transport system.
The keyless and chain-less anti-theft technology installed Super cycle will enable fingerprint identification for a smarter and cooler youth. Via mobile App controls, real-time positioning and remote locking and unlocking is possible on the Super Cycle.
It will also offer a built-in digital PTT walkie-talkie, Bluetooth technology and a 3G WCDMA telecommunication module, that makes the Super Cycle more fun as it allows users to share cycling experience with friends in real time. It has miraculous cross-device interconnectivity, automatic power generation and precise positioning with real-time navigation.
Last year was a big one for Fitbit. In April, Apple threw down
the gantlet to wearables and fitness- tracker makers with the Apple Watch, and
in June Fitbit went public in a larger-than-expected initial public offering.
With its first major release since these milestones, Fitbit has come out
swinging by introducing the Blaze, the company's
first smartwatch with some fashion sense.
Strictly
speaking, the Blaze isn't Fitbit's first smartwatch. That honor goes to the
Surge, famously worn by President Obama when cruising around with Jerry
Seinfeld or walking the First Dogs. Still, the Blaze is Fitbit's first watch
that doesn't look like something you might use for help in scaling Everest. The
silver and black watch definitely looks a little like its fruit-branded
competitor, but it sports an open lug design that makes it appear a little
lighter on the wrist. The face still looks like a screen, but at least it's one
that wants to make a good impression.
A
bunch of band options let you customize the Blaze. It comes with one of the
textured rubber bands familiar to Fitbit customers, in black, plum,
or blue, and you can purchase additional rubber straps, real leather bands, and
a metal bracelet to swap in if those are more your speed. The tracker itself (the
black square unit) swaps in and out, and the bands are integrated on the
silvery frame around it. At least at launch, you won't be able to buy the Blaze
in its native state on any band other than the active rubber, emphasizing that,
at its core, this is a smartwatch meant for fitness.
This
brings us to an important point: The Blaze isn't a smartwatch that you can
weight down with apps or customize to organize your entire digital life. It is
primarily meant to be a detailed fitness tracker that can be worn all the time,
offering a few additional features for convenience. Apart from interacting with
Fitbit's own fitness app, the Blaze can push calendar appointments, calls, and
texts, but it doesn't get into the weeds with such things as e-mail or Twitter
notifications.
The
screen is a full-color display, with a soft (but not dull) appearance. You can
navigate menus with the push buttons on the frame or use the touchscreen
itself. Workouts and sleep are automatically detected and the heart rate
monitor functions continuously, minimizing the number of times you have to
fiddle with it when you're merely doing daily activities. The Blaze does need
your phone to get GPS data, but this helps with the multi-day battery life that
Fitbit believes is crucial for a product like this.
The
Fitbit Blaze will set you back $200 (roughly Rs. 13,350) for the tracker and
the rubber strap that's included. Additional rubber straps will cost $30
(roughly Rs. 2,000), leather options are $100 (roughly Rs. 6,680), and the
steel bracelet is the most expensive, at $130 (roughly Rs. 8,676). Fitbit plans
in the coming months to offer additional options made with fashion partners
such as Tory Burch.
While
the base model is less expensive than Fitbit's Surge, adding the leather or
metal band places it squarely in price competition with the likes of
the Apple Watch Sport and the Moto 360.
"It's
important to understand that Fitbit has a singular focus on health and
fitness," said Fitbit CEO and Co-Founder James Park in an email when asked
about competing with other smartwatches. "With the introduction of the
Fitbit Blaze, we have developed a smart fitness watch that is fitness first,
has the most relevant smart features that won't overwhelm users ... This focus
is our competitive advantage."
The
Fitbit Blaze goes on sale Wednesday via Fitbit's larger retailers such at
Amazon, Best Buy, and Target in the United States.
Taiwanese tech giant Asus has launched launched two variants of its ZenWatch 2 in India. Both the watches are available on Flipkart.
The ZenWatch 2 is available in two sizes -- 1.63 (WI501Q) and 1.45 (WI502Q) and has been priced at Rs 14,999 and Rs 11,999 respectively.
The device comes with an option to mute an incoming call on the smartphone by covering it with your hand. It also features "Find My Phone" for identifying your phone`s location.
Ideal for businesspersons, it has "Business Helper" to quickly access upcoming agendas, mails, and call log right from your wrist. It also doubles up as the user`s health companion by tracking fitness activities with industry-leading accuracy.
The ZenWatch 2 works on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor with a 512MB RAM and has a 4 GB internal memory.
Available in interesting colours -- Silver and Gunmetal for WI501Q and Silver for W1502Q -- the watches come in two strap variants - rubber and leather.
Another rumour is pointing to the demise of 3.5mm headphone jack on the iPhone 7.
A report coming out of iPhone supply chain with allegedly "confirmed" information added
that Apple will release wireless earphones alongside.
Citing people in the iPhone supply chain, Andrews Forum reports that the iPhone 7 will not
have a 3.5mm jack. This, however, doesn't mean that your existing EarPods won't be
compatible with the iPhone 7. The report adds that Apple will make available a
Lightning "convert up" to allow headphones with a 3.5mm outlet to be used with
the Lightning connector.
Last year, a report claimed that Apple was planning to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack in
an attempt to make the iPhone thinner by 1mm. The new report has corroborated he
reasoning, adding that Apple also plans to promote its wireless headset. The previous
report also claimed that the Lightning connector will retain the same size, and will also
come with a digital-to-analogue converter for backwards compatibility with wired headphones.
The removal of headphone jack might not sit well with users. Almost every smartphone,
tablet, desktop, laptop currently ships with this audio port. But considering Apple's past
record, removal of the 3.5mm port doesn't seem unlikely. The company ditched the
compact disk drive from its computer lineup with the MacBook Air, and soon many rival
manufacturers were doing the same. Last year, the company launched the MacBook
which has just one USB Type-C port for data transfer and power input.
Besides, the Cupertino-based company has been hinting at its dislike towards the 3.5mm jack for a while now. In 2014, the company introduced the MFi (Made for iPhone) program specifications
to allow third-party manufacturers to make earphones that could be connected to the iPhone
or iPad via a Lightning cable. Philips Fidelio NC1L, which features battery-free active
noise cancelling technology,connects to an iPhone via a Lightning cable.
Oculus has come a long way and on the eve of the pre-order launch, the company has decided to give something back for backers who pledged and supported them at the very beginning. The VR headset maker has decided to give out Kickstarter Edition Oculus Rift VR headsets to initial backers for free.
The same was announced on Kickstarter, which is where it all began, and those who backed the project in its initial days will get receive an email with information regarding how to obtain one for free. As for availability, backers will get their special edition headsets by 1 February.
Also if you belong to a country where Oculus is currently not shipping its consumer edition headsets to, you get special privileges as backer. Details about the same will be conveyed in an email from Kickstarter.
So far the only confusion seems to do with the Touch controllers, to which Oculus founder Palmer Luckey tweeted that pre-ordering the VR headset will also put you in to be eligible to buy the controller. The headset also works well with Xbox controllers.
A couple of hours from now Oculus will be hitting a big milestone with pre-order for its Oculus Rift VR headset going live. The company has come a long way and is now owned by Facebook. While there are plenty of indicators that VR is going to be big this year, things may head south as not all systems will be able to support VR headsets. Oculus even has a webpage and is now branding gaming systems with its ‘Oculus Ready’ standard.
Last we heard just one percent of the currently available PC’s worldwide will be able to run VR headsets and deliver the optimal experience. Another problem is to do with content. For now every pre-order will get owners a copy of Lucky’s Tale and EVE: Valkyrie. Sony on the other hand seems pretty comfortable developing content for its PlayStation VR platform.
Twitter Inc is building a new feature that will allow users to post tweets as long as 10,000 characters, well beyond its current 140-character limit, technology news website Re/code reported on Tuesday.
An expansion of the limit to 10,000 characters would allow a tweet of more than 1,000 words with spaces between words and punctuation. For comparison, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was 272 words, and President John F. Kennedy's inaugural speech was 1,366 words.
Twitter may launch the service towards the end of the first quarter but has not set an official date, Re/code said, citing sources familiar with the plans. They said the character limit could change before the final version of the product is unveiled.
Jack Dorsey, the company's co-founder, who returned as chief executive in October, in a series of tweets did not say whether Twitter would expand the limit. But he did call it "a beautiful constraint."
He added that the company has seen more people sharing screenshots of text, which are a way to get around the 140-character limit.
"We're not going to be shy about building more utility and power into Twitter for people," Dorsey wrote in a screenshot of text that was longer than 140 characters.
"As long as it's consistent with what people want to do, we're going to explore it."
The micro-blogging website, in an attempt to keep the current look for the Twitter timeline, is testing a version of the product that displays 140-character tweets but expands to reveal more content when users click on the tweet, Re/code said.
Twitter has been experimenting under Dorsey to make the service more engaging.
In the few months since Dorsey returned, Twitter introduced the 'Moments' feature, added polls to tweets, rolled out a "buy" button and replaced its star-shaped "favourite" icon with a heart-shaped icon called "like."
Twitter has come under increasing pressure to boost user growth and ad revenue. It had its slowest user growth in 2015 - it now boasts just over 300 million users - and was eclipsed by photo-sharing app Instagram, owned by Facebook Inc, which surpassed 400 million users last year.
On Tuesday, however, some users took to Twitter to express their opposition to the possible longer tweet with the hashtag #beyond140.
"Just say no to #beyond140!," Andrew Wright tweeted. Re/code reported in September that the new feature was in the works.
Twitter declined to comment.
This report clocks in at 407 words and 2,569 characters.
have all heard about the benefits of exercise. In fact, we all aim for a healthy living which means more energy, better mood, weight loss and stronger bones. We often depend on personal trainers in the gym to get in shape, but what if a device helps you in work out.
Yes, you heard it right, Amazon, the American electronic commerce and cloud computing company, has launched Echo personal assistant (powered by Alexa) with new features which will help an individual in the work out. For instance, he or she will be provided with 'a set of exercises designed to increase metabolism, improve energy, lower stress and remove fat'.
According to The Verge, Amazon said in a statement: "We can't help but wonder how helpful workouts by voice command will be, but maybe we shouldn't judge until we try it out ourselves."
Amazon Echo is a wireless speaker and voice command device from Amazon.com. The device consists of a 9.25-inch (23.5 cm) tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array. The device responds to the name "Alexa"; this "wake word" can be changed by the user (to one other choice at present: "Amazon".)
The device will cost $99 for Amazon Prime members (for a limited time) and $199 for the rest.
Google has continued its association with LG and this year also launched new Nexus 5X made by South Korean giant, which is renowned for its famous range of G series of smartphones. Google has also come out with Nexus 6P made by Huawei, which is very high-end smartphone and is quite expensive compared to LG Nexus 5X because of its high-end features and form factor.
Design
The new LG Nexus 5X design has been borrowed from LG Nexus 5, which is simple piece of soft plastic. In this age of metal and glass covered smartphones, LG has not adopted the metal and glass combination in its new Nexus device and made it with fine and refined plastic, which does not look cheap at all. It is made entirely of high quality plastic with rounded corners and the rear of the device has a matte finish, which gives it good look, prevent fingerprints and also provide easy grip. This device may not look premium but still is attractive and being of high-end plastic used, it is lightweight and weighs just 130 grams. It can be easily tugged in your pockets and you can easily operate it with one hand as it has compact display of 5.2 inches.
The Nexus logo and LG branding, which is painted, has been provided on the back and the rear camera protrudes a little bit but that does not make much difference as we have seen such bulging camera even on high-end Samsung Galaxy S6 also.
The power button and the volume rocker are placed on the right side which are very easy to press. The SIM card slot has been provided on the top left side and a microphone and front camera on the top. The headphone jack and the USB Type-C port is placed at the downside. The USB Type-C port is the new standard adopted by many vendors and LG has followed the new trend in its latest iteration. But the only drawback is that the that the cable coming with the box is USB Type-C on both ends, and you must remembe always to keep handy the supplied charger and cable for charging the device.
The device comes with a single front-facing speaker at the bottom chin, which provides good sound. The call quality of this phone is also fine and we did not face any issue even in basements.
Display
The Nexus 5X sports a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display, with a Full HD resolution having a pixel density of 424 pixels per inch. This size of the display is ideal for your work and watching content provided you are not fan of big size screen. The display is quite sharp and it has very good viewing angles and reproduces natural colors. You will enjoy your streamed content and watching Youtube content on this screen. The text appears crisp on the screen and while browsing various websites, we enjoyed the reading content on the screen as well. Like any other high-end smartphones, which do not provide good reading experience in direct sunlight, this phone also has same issue but you can still manage with the highest level of brightness.
Performance
The LG Nexus 5X is driven by a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor, clocked at 1.82 GHz compared to Snapdragon 800 which powered the earlier Nexus 5. It comes with an Adreno 418 GPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of internal storage, which is not extendable. Since the internal storage is not extendable, we suggest to buy the 32GB variant and 2GB of RAM is quite sufficient for normal usage but had LG provided 3GB then it would have been one more plus points in favour of this device.
Coincidentally, this is the same processsor, which LG has used on its flagship device, LG G4 and performance of new Nexus 5X is very fast and it runs like a breaze. While using the Nexus 5X, we observed that there are no issues as far as running of apps and switching between the apps is concerned. This phone handles multi-tasking smoothly and you can play resourceful games on this phone without any lag or hiccups.
Fingerprint Sensor
One of the highlights of LG Nexus 5X is its fingerprint scanner on the back, which Google calls Nexus Imprint. The scanner is located on the reverse of the smartphone behind the rear camera. This has been placed at very appropriate place where your index finger can reach easily. The fingerprint scanner responds very fast and you can wake up and unlock the device simultaneously by single tap which is very accurate. Moreover, it is very easy process to setup and you are required to complete 5 taps to register a fingerprint.
The other beauty of the fingerprint scanner is that it is very easy to use and faster in recognising compared to premium Samsung Galaxy S6 which I have been using for over six months now. You can touch the scanner from any direction of your finger and it will still recognise it. This fingerprint scanner responds very fast and my experience is that it takes less than half a second to act.
Battery
The LG Nexus 5X gets its juice from 2700mAh (embedded) battery, which is good enough to last full day with an average use. But if you are using the phone heavily like playing too many games, surfing a lot and frequent visitors to your social networking sites and turning to Youtube very often in the day then you are advised to keep a power charger handy. The saving grace for this phone is that it comes with Doze feature introduced in Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS, which detects when your phone is not being used actively and will take it to sleep mode so that the battery consumption could be curtailed. This phone does not come with wireless charging but the provision of fast charging is there and this phone easily gets charged to full from 0 in approximately 90 minutes.
Camera
Google Nexus smartphones were criticised for not equipped with the good quality cameras and this time Google has addressed this issue very carefully. This time both the LG Nexus 5X and Huawei Nexus 6P provide the enhanced and almost the same camera experience.
The Nexus 5X has the same 12.3MP rear camera with 1.55µm sensor and f/2.0 aperture , which has also been provided on the more expensive Huawei Nexus 6P. This camera does not have optical image stabilisation (OIS), which is quite useful feature for clicking images in low-light. But Google has compensated the absence of OIS with 1.55um pixels, which is capable of capturing more lights than those smartphones cameras having OIS. The Sony IMX377 sensor provided on LG Nexus 5X is quite impressive and you can record slow motion video at 120 fps, which is quite interesting feature of this camera.The other high-points of Nexus 5X camera is its IR laser-assisted autofocus and its capability to shoot 4K video at 30fps. It also houses a 5MP front shooter with f/2.2 aperture which is quite good for the selfies.
We clicked few images and found the results looking very good on the phone. The clicked images appeared sharp, crisp and came with detailed contrast. The few samples captured in daylight and in the dark are reproduced below:
Images clicked in the night:
Marshmallow OS
Google Nexus devices are popular for clean, true and latest Android experience. Google has taken this plus points forward by introducing LG Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P with the latest Android Marshmallow 6.0 OS out of the box. Moreover, the owners of the latest Nexus devices will have the advantage to get the latest updates first and this is the reason that many users adopt Nexus devices for pure Android experience and to avoid unnecessary bloatwares. Compared to other vendors, which do not update their phones easily or do not do at all despite their tall claims at the time of launch, Google does not disappoint its users and hence one of the best reasons for grabbing this device.
Although there are not dramatic changes in the Google OS from Lollipop to Marshmallow but still many useful features have been added in the latest 6.0 OS version, which enrich the experience of LG Nexus 5X. And some of these features are Doze, battery saving feature; upgraded Google Now for accessing the feature within applications by holding down the home button; new charging speed indicator, new window animations, improved notifications, faster app search etc.
Verdict
If you are planning to buy no-non sense phone and do not care much about metal and glass and can definitely consider LG Nexus 5X which comes with very improved camera features, provide true Android experience and also with assurance of timely updates. Its Fingerprint scanner is the best among the leagues and its processor does not heat up the way other devices get heated up having Snapdragon processors. The only drawback we can point out for the sake of pointing out is its plastic body, non expandable internal storage and Singel SIM support. We would advise you to opt for 32GB variant.
LG Nexus 5X was launched in India two months ago at Rs. 31,900 for 16GB and Rs. 35,900 for 32GB variants, which we opined that it is on little bit higher side keeping in view of today’s landscape. Similar phones with minor differences in specifications such as Moto X Play and Moto X Style, which also provide almost the pure Android experience are available at less prices. But of late, LG Nexus 5X is now available at reduced price of Rs. 23,000 for 16GB and Rs. 31,000 for 32GB variants, which make them good buy at these prices.
Everybody does not necessarily know what a QR code is. These small black and white squares are among us.
QR (for Quick Response) is a more powerful bar code than the traditional barcode. I can be read by mobile phones (smartphones) equipped with scanner applications of QR codes. It is used mainly to display website addresses (URLs) in Ads.
QR Code can store up to 7089 numeric characters, 4296 alphanumeric characters or 2953 bytes (8-bit binary).
It was invented in Japan in 1994 for tracking parts in a Toyota car factory, and put under open source code in 1999 (free License by Denso-Wave even if they still own the patent rights and the Trademark).
By now, you’re probably pretty familiar with QR codes (a.k.a. 2-D bar codes), whether or not you realize it. They’re the little square symbols that look like this:
The cool part is that anyone can make them. Yes, that includes you. Just Google “QR code generator” and you’ll have a plethora of websites that make it incredibly easy to make your own QR code. But that’s not even the best part. Once you have a QR code, you can mix things up, add color and graphics, and so much more. The key is to know how to keep your code scan-able.
Some people have already cracked this code, like Marc Jacobs. Others, like Yellow Pages, still have some homework to do. So how can you tell which edits will ruin your code and which ones will still allow it to be scanned? The question you should be asking is “what can’t I edit?”
The “No-Zones”
QR codes are made up of black squares and white squares. Each of these squares is called a module. In every QR code, there are certain modules that must not be covered or edited, else the code won’t scan. Here, they are all highlighted in different colors:
The three large squares highlighted in red are the position markers. These tell the scanner where the edges of the code are.
The smaller red square is an alignment marker. This acts as a reference point for the scanner, making sure everything lines up properly. In bigger codes, there are several of these squares.
The red strips of alternating black and white modules are called timing patterns. They define the positioning of the rows and columns.
The green sections determine the format. This tells the scanner whether it’s a website, text message, Chinese symbols, numbers, or any combination of these.
The modules highlighted in blue represent the version number. Basically, the more modules in the code, the higher the version (up to v40, which is 177×177 modules). If the code is version 6 or smaller, the version does not need to be defined here because the scanner can literally count the modules and determine the version on its own.
Everything Else
So now that you know what you can’t edit, that means everything else is free game, right? Almost. All the remaining modules are grouped into sections of 8 modules. These groups (which I will call “bytes” from now on) fit together in the gray area like a jigsaw puzzle:
Now, when a smartphone or scanner reads a QR code, each byte is determined to be either completely readable or completely unreadable. That means that if you change one single module (e.g. turning a black square into a white square), the entire byte containing that module is rendered un-readable. At first, that sounds like a bad thing, but it actually makes things a lot easier. More on that in a second.
The Really Cool Part
In the Marc Jacobs code I linked to earlier, there was a sketch of a small girl covering part of the code. In spite of the fact that some of the code is covered up, it is still fully scan-able. This is because of the Reed Solomon error correction method. Basically, all QR codes are created with built-in error correction algorithms that allow them to be scanned even if a few bytes are missing/covered/replaced by a picture of your cat. The larger the version, the more bytes you can edit.
You can use the Version and Maximum Data Capacity Table on Denso-Wave’s website to determine exactly how many bytes you can turn into awesome graphic art. You need to know the version of your code (also found in the version table), and how many characters the message contains (i.e. if your code is built from the website “http://www.your-awesome-website.com”, that would be 35 characters).
The table will give you a letter that represents the level of error-correction contained in your code. Here’s what these letters mean:
Level L – You can alter up to 7% of the code without ruining its scan-ability. If your code has 154 bytes, you can edit 10 (maybe 11) bytes and it will still scan successfully.
Level M – You can alter up to 15% of the code.
Level Q – You can alter up to 25% of the code.
Level H – You can alter as much as 30% of your code.
So now you should be able to do the following:
– Generate a QR code
– Identify the No-Zones
– Figure out the placement of the bytes
– Figure out how many bytes you can edit
Now that you know just about everything involved in creating and understanding a QR code, let’s dive into how to turn it into a unique piece of graphic (or even hand-drawn) art.
Ready, Set…
At this point, it all comes down to asking yourself “what if,” and then finding the answer to that question. Look at your QR code, figure out which bytes you want to try to change, and then change them. Scan it to see if it still works. If it still works, make another change. If not, go back and figure out why. I’ll show you an example of what this process might look like.
I started out with a regular QR code, isolated which bytes I wanted to play around with, and outlined them in red (top left). First, I just scrambled all the modules within the red border (top right). It still scanned. Then, I took out all the modules completely (bottom left). It still scanned. Lastly, I filled the red border with a portrait of one of the most influential aliens from my childhood.
…Go!
It’s a matter of experimentation. Think of an idea, try it and scan it. Then work from there. Go online and look for other creative QR code graphic art, to see what boundaries other people are pushing.
The Axis Vidius is world’s smallest quadcopter with camera equipped for a first person view drone footage. The drone itself is a square of dimensions not bigger than 1.5 inches that can astonish everyone with its livestream and video recording ability.
The Axis Vidius weighs under 0.55 pounds and its users don’t need to register with Federation Aviation Administration (FAA). Axis Drones calls its Vidius model to be the world’s smallest drone fitted with a video camera.
Axis Vidius can be controlled via smartphone apps but it also comes with a 2.4GHz controller (Source: Axis Drones)
The Axis Vidius has a flight time of around five to seven minutes on a 20-minute USB charge. The pilots of Axis Vidius can stream their live video feed via WiFi. Even though Axis Vidius can be controlled via a smartphone, the Axis Vidius also comes with a 2.4 GHz controller for piloting the drone.
The Axis Vidius comes with a 6-axis gyro stabilisation and can do 360 degree flips and rolls while streaming videos. The world’s smallest drone records video in 420p resolution which may not sound exciting for many.
The Axis Vidius is also equipped with LED lights for night time flying. The drone is available for preorder for $75 before January 7 and is expected to ship on or before January 29.
As long as a system requires technical expertise for operation, it will be relegated to use by a small group of technologists.
If every person who walked onto an elevator was presented with a keyboard and DOS-style command line terminal, most of us would be looking for the stairs. The nerds among us may eagerly seek out the proverbial programmable elevators, but the average person just wants to push a button to get from one floor to the next, not master gravity-defying vehicles.
Bitcoin addresses have long been a point of confusion for new users introduced to the technology. It's difficult explaining a bitcoin address through analogy, because none of the comparisons quite match. They're kind of like email addresses – free to create and unlimited in number – but they're randomly assigned, and difficult to memorize, more like a phone number. But bitcoin addresses are not always bidirectional like a phone number.
Suppose you receive money from a friend, and later you want to send some money back to him. The address you received funds from initially may belong to your friend or just the bitcoin service he uses. Funds sent to the address may arrive to your friend – assuming he has backed up his wallet – or they may just line the bitcoin service’s pockets, never to be refunded.
A bitcoin address and QR code
Also, the mere receipt of a payment, unlike a phone call or email, rarely helps identify individual payers or explain why the transfer was made, since there are no area codes or analogues to caller ID, nor invoice numbers. The small number of users who investigate the details of bitcoin’s inner workings will come away with a vague impression that sending funds to the same address multiple times (referred to as "address reuse" by the bitcoin community) is somehow dangerous.
This vague impression, linked to poorly understood privacy implications and the seemingly distant threat of cryptographic attacks on reused private keys, may not ward users off from the very real dangers of address reuse.
When it comes to addresses, bitcoin resembles the Internet before DNS. Today, we visit websites through user-friendly domain names like 'Google.com', but early Internet adopters directed their computers to connect to other networks by referencing inscrutable-looking IP addresses like '209.222.18.222'.
IP addresses remain a core part of the protocols that help devices connect, but system designers and engineers have since succeeded in hiding this from users by tying domain names to IP addresses behind the scenes. In doing so, they’ve allowed users to interact with recognizable identities, like the Google search engine.
Promise and pitfalls:
As bitcoin services mature and seek to include new audiences, they will also need an address resolution system that ties user-unfriendly bitcoin addresses to the identities of individuals and businesses that users have financial relationships with.
However, as we abstract bitcoin addresses away from the user interface, we must take caution.
The goal is to make it easier for users to pay each other, while dealing with the fundamental technical challenges related to address reuse. Tempting as it may be to build traditional third-party lookup systems, this naive approach will turn into a security and privacy quagmire of personal information disclosure and theft. They would be the kind of high-value databases that blackhat hackers seek out as reconnaissance for subsequent attacks on individuals.
Whenever possible, we must not ask users to give up on expectations of security and privacy in order to gain the software usability they require.
While consumer demands for security and privacy vary, businesses are rarely willing to disclose their income and expense data – which may contain trade secrets – to business partners, competitors or the world at large. Likewise, we should not expect individual users to divulge their income and spending habits to their friends, preferred service providers and unfamiliar analytic companies.
Making this disclosure a prerequisite for bitcoin use would have dire implications for adoption. If it all possible, we should seek easy-to-use payment identifiers that meet business and individual expectations of security and privacy without the inherent pitfalls of trusted third parties.
Learning from history:
Bitcoin developers have addressed other user pain points in the past by repurposing old cryptographic research for bitcoin applications.
In 2013, bitcoin developers addressed the headache of wallet backups by applying concepts such as key-derivation functions and hierarchical key management, dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s. Whereas old bitcoin wallets required users to constantly create new wallet backups, a user could backup a hierarchical wallet once when she first created the wallet, while still yielding a virtually unlimited number of bitcoin addresses to cover future transactions.
The most promising path to a user-friendly bitcoin addressing system dates back even further in the annals of cryptography to the 1970s. This decade marked a groundswell of research on crucial technologies that underpin today's Internet.
Many of the cryptographers of this era were ethically motivated, and saw their work as pivotal in creating an Internet that promoted free speech and secure global commerce, rather than one dominated by government surveillance and corporate control.
In the mid-to-late ’70s, three of the era's most prominent cryptographers – Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, and Ralph Merkle – jointly produced one of these key technologies.
Computers that want to communicate securely and privately must first exchange keys used to encrypt and decrypt messages. Diffie, Hellman, and Merkle developed a way for two computers with no prior interaction to create shared keys. The seemingly magical product of this protocol – now known as Diffie-Hellman-Merkle key exchange – is a set of keys known only by the two parties involved, regardless of the presence of any eavesdroppers.
This is like being able to conduct a loud conversation with a friend in a room of spies without any risk of being overheard, a seeming impossibility created through the brilliance of asymmetric cryptography.
Bitcoin developers have been working to create Diffie-Hellman-Merkle-derived addressing schemes for months now, but a mobile-friendly version was recently codified in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 47 by Justus Ranvier, who refers to these new addresses as Reusable Payment Codes.
Major bitcoin wallets, software library authors and exchanges are currently working to deploy Reusable Payment Codes in their businesses in 2016. These will allow businesses to better protect user privacy on the blockchain, while retaining the ability to identify their customers when such identification is required.
Bitcoin users will soon be able to look up their friends through social networks and other familiar identifiers such as email addresses. Businesses that implement Reusable Payment Codes will be smoothing over the bitcoin user experience, and set the peer-to-peer finance ecosystem up to invite its next several million more users.
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3318810/amazon-echo-verge-9711.0.jpg)
