Wondering what is going on in the world of technology?
Jatin Mava is in the studio from NEXA,
digitalnexa.com, to help us navigate what is hot and what is not!
And best of all here are the notes and links to what we spoke about.
MotoZ
Sony XZ
Is it all about camera and battery these days?
Huwawei p9 review coming and the Sony
Apple makes it seem like there are only two different iPhone 7 models -- the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. Beyond that, the only difference that's listed is the storage capacity.
But new tests suggest that the cheaper 32-gigabyte versions have significantly poorer performance than their more expensive counterparts, and that some also display significantly poorer 4G performance.
Testing carried out by GSMArena and Unbox Therapy discovered that the storage performance of the 32-gigabyte iPhone 7 is significantly slower -- about 200 Mbps slower -- than the pricier 128-gigabyte iPhone 7, at 656 Mbps and 856 Mbps respectively.
This difference is quite significant, but it is unlikely that a user would notice the difference. However, when it comes to storage write performance, the difference is far more significant. Write performance for the 32-gigabyte iPhone 7 was only 42 Mbps, while the 128-gigabyte iPhone 7 was over eight times faster, at 341 Mbps
This is something that the user is likely to notice, especially when loading apps and data onto the device.
This difference can possibly be attributed to the different storage chips being used in each model. During a teardown of the iPhone 7 carried out by iFixit and Chipworks, it was discovered that the 256-gigabyte iPhone 7 that was dismantled used Toshiba 3D NAND, while other versions used SK Hynix flash.
But storage performance isn't the only difference, as testing carried out by Cellular Insightsshows that iPhone 7 Plus smartphones with model numbers A1778 and A1784 had a 4G network performance that was 30 to 75 percent worse than handsets with model numbers A1660 and A1661.
That difference is down to the 4G modem chip used. The A1778 and A1784 both use an Intel modem chip, while the A1660 and A1661 models both use a Qualcomm modem chip.
"In all tests, the iPhone 7 Plus with the Qualcomm modem had a significant performance edge over the iPhone 7 Plus with the Intel modem," wrote Milan Milanović from Cellular Insights. "We are not sure what was the main reason behind Apple's decision to source two different modem suppliers for the newest iPhone."
IBM and Apple what is the relationship?
But, with the iPad in a prolonged slump and iPhone sales stagnating, it makes perfect sense that it's time for Apple to shore up the Mac. It also doesn't hurt that IBM is offering a high-profile assist in the corporate market, where the Mac has only single digit market share and enterprise deployments could turn the Mac into a growth business again.
IBM recently reported that it's rolling out Macs to its employees at a rate of 1,300 per week. It's part of a program that IBM started in early 2015 when it began offering Macs as an option to its 400,000 workers. The initial goal was to deploy 50,000 Macs to willing participants. A year and a half later, over 90,000 Macs have been deployed and IBM's Fletcher Previn says the company will cross 100,000 by the end of 2016--making it the world's largest Mac deployment.
At the Jamf conference last week, Previn said 73% of IBM employees now want their next computer to be a Mac. IBM is happy to accommodate because the company has found that Macs cost the company less to maintain. Last year at the conference, IBM said Macs were saving the company $270 per user. This year, they upped that number to $273-$543 (depending on the model) per user over four years. Previn said PCs generate twice as many support calls and cost 3X in total. "And this reflects the best pricing we've ever gotten from Microsoft," he said.
The whole situation is pretty surreal for those who know the history of the technology industry, since it was IBM that outflanked Apple in the personal computer race of the 1980s by stealing away the corporate PC market and leaving Apple with a much smaller niche among creative professionals, schools, and cultural contrarians.
NYT is buying wirecutter a great website on gadgets!
The New York Times will pay more than $30 million to buy the much-loved gadget and technology review site The Wirecutter, Recode reported on Monday (The Times is also getting The Wirecutter’s sibling site focused more on home appliances and goods, The Sweethome).
The Wirecutter was founded in 2011 by Brian Lam, an editor of the then–Gawker Media site Gizmodo, and has never taken venture funding. Its editorial mandate is meticulous reviewing, offering readers a small selection of only what its staffers deem to be the best stuff, and the site generates e-commerce revenue through affiliate links, getting a cut of the purchase price. The model was working: The site only posts a few dozen articles a month, according to a Bloomberg profile earlier this year, and is profitable. According to Lam, The Wirecutter drove $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015.
“A lot of these new companies, the mission is business: ‘We want to get as many eyeballs as possible,’” Lam had told Recode’s Peter Kafka in a podcast episode this past June. “It’s not, ‘This is what we believe and this is what we’re going to write about and this is how we’re going to help people.’”
Google buys eye tracking startup!
Google want to know everywhere that you’re looking.
Today, Eyefluence announced that it has been acquired by Google. The eye-tracking interface startup founded in 2013 had raised $21.6M in funding from investors including Intel Capital, Jazz Venture Partners, Motorola Solutions Venture Capital and NHN Investment. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
As Google launches its Daydream virtual reality platform next month with its Daydream View headset, there is already attention being directed to its next-gen headset efforts.
Eye-tracking is a very important technology to future virtual reality headsets. Other companies in the space like SMI and Tobii have devoted efforts to using the eye as a method of signaling attention in interfaces but Eyefluence has devoted itself fully to using eye gesture cues for navigating menus and making selections.
Eyefluence enable users wearing head-mounted virtual reality or augmented glasses to use their eyes as a mouse and making selections only with their eye movements. Eye-tracking has other more technical use cases like foveated rendering which allows high-density displays to selectively choose areas of the screen to display images at lower-resolution based on where you’re focus actually is on the display.
How is AI going to be used? Security cameras are a start
San Mateo-based Movidius may still be in the process of getting bought up by Intel, but the company's latest deal will put its low-power AI and computer vision platform into more than just DJI drones and Google VR headsets. The company announced today that the Movidius Myriad 2 Video Processing Unit (VPU) will soon power a new generation of Hikvision smart surveillance cameras capable of recognizing everything from suspicious packages to distracted drivers.
While most deep-learning neural networks require a lot of cloud-based processing power, the same platform found in Movidius' Fathom AI-on-a-stick will allow Hikvision cameras to do more on-board processing. Hikvision's cameras have already been able to achieve around 99 percent accuracy in scenarios like identifying car models, detecting intruders, spotting suspicious baggage and even calling out drivers who don't buckle up. The Myriad 2 VPU basically puts all these capabilities in the camera itself, allowing it to instantly process everything it sees while reducing false alarms at the same time. A presentation from Movidius claims their embedded neural networks use 10,000 times less bandwidth and decrease latency by 1,000 times.
iPod is 15 wow, another word we use for music players
FB Advertising Live!
book Live is a big, important product for the world's biggest social network. But up to now, many users still don't really know what Live is, or how to use it. Or they might be intimidated by live broadcasting, and reluctant to try it out.
A new international ad campaign launching Monday in the U.S. (and Sunday night in the U.K.) aims to address those issues—and get more and more of its user base aware of, and willing to try, a Facebook Live broadcast.
The ads, created by Facebook's in-house creative team The Factory, feature videos that were recorded by real Facebook users, all shot using Facebook Live on a phone, to capture the fun and spontaneity of the format.
Waiting on the Apple Oct 27 event!
Samsung C9 in China we want it!
TakeTen App
TakeTen comprises a visual app and a sensor pulse oximeter, which clips onto your earlobe, converting signals to heart rate variability.
That fluttery feeling you get in your chest when you’re anxious? That’s what TakeTen is capturing. It means your heart is beating irregularly. Getting your nervous system out of the ‘fight or flight’ response mode is key to releasing anxiety. These processes can be measured through relatively low-cost sensor technology.
TakeTen has brought it all together in one ingenious, yet user-friendly solution.
Founder and owner Fintan Connolly said, “Kids watch themselves go from stressed to calm on our app. If they’re in the ‘red’ they need to calm down to get into the ‘green’ zone.
“The process distracts the mind away from the original anxious thoughts. Once they are calm, the app offers games to play, but the games don’t start until they regulate themselves. It’s important that they make the correlation between being calm and being able to learn efficiently.”
TakeTen app. Image: TakeTen/TechWatch
Connolly draws on his experience as a father to tap into the mind of a child. “I know, from parenting two small children, that getting kids to recognise emotions (anger versus sadness, for instance) is critical to self-regulation,” he said.
“Right now, 88pc of 12-18 year olds report feeling stressed out. Educators are very worried about this trend. This is why our app has been in demand by schools, and we are getting lots of requests for in-home use.”
From a schoolteacher’s perspective, having this technology at the ready can help them manage busy classrooms. But selling to schools isn’t easy.
-ever wonder the optimal number of Hashtags for Twitter, instagram and Facebook? Well there is research!
The commonly stated best practice for hashtags on Twitter has been two, with research showing that engagementdrops significantly once any more than two hashtags are used, on average.
TrackMaven’s data differs from this, with their research showing that tweets with only one hashtag generated the most engagement, averaging 90 interactions per post.
In terms of hashtag length, TrackMaven found that hashtags with 18 characters perform best on Twitter, followed by tags with three characters.
Instagram
Hashtags are a crucial part of the Instagram eco-system. You can add in up to 30 hashtags per post, and general advice has been that more is better, with 11 being the optimal number.
TrackMaven found that nine hashtags is the optimal amount for boosting engagement on the platform.
In terms of length, TrackMaven found that longer hashtags – between 21 and 24 characters – perform best.
Facebook
TrackMaven’s data shows that one is the optimal hashtag use on Facebook, with engagement falling dramatically after six are included.
In terms of hashtag length, six is the magic number on The Social Network, with the performance of longer tags (10+ characters) performing fairly well up to around 20.
-The BotNet is a problem!
The latest attack using the Mirai botnet attack shows just how vulnerable we are in the IoT world.
Millions of US internet users lost access to popular online sites like Twitter, Spotify, Reddit and CNN because of a the Mirai botnet that recruited unsecure IoT devices and marshalled them into a massive DDoS attack.
Across much of the US from LA to New York, the internet on Friday was just not working. While users could not understand why their favourite online services from Twitter to Amazon were inaccessible, the security world has quickly come to the conclusion that the attack was the work of a new class of botnet.
This new class of botnet – in this case known as Mirai – effectively targets vulnerable internet-connected devices from CCTV cameras to internet of things (IoT) devices in the home to unleash havoc on businesses anywhere in the world.
Effectively, there is no website on the planet that can withstand a targeted DDoS attack where millions of devices are – often unknown to their owners – crowding the front door of websites, making them inaccessible.
Just when you thought the Kodak name was dead, another company revives it by licensing its name. This year's rebirth comes in the form of a smartphone from Bullit group, a company behind the Ministery of Sound and Ted Baker audio gear, as well as CAT's recent smartphone offerings.
It's called the Ektra, after the famous 1941 Kodak Extra, and obviously, the main focus here is photography.
The Bullit Group are aware that this is a niche proposition - not everyone wants a chunky smartphone with a large protrusion - but this isn't for them, it's for the photography enthusiast who wants to take amazing images on their phone.
Microsoft wants to be a cloud company!
Microsoft's commercial cloud services business continued to grow during its first quarter of fiscal 2017, reaching a $13 billion annual run rate, officials said today, the day the company reported its latest earnings.
-Nintendo Switch a multi function tablet
-Amazon patents personal mini drones
Plays all your music from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more using just your voice
Fills the room with immersive, 360º omni-directional audio
Allows hands-free convenience with voice-control
Hears you from across the room with far-field voice recognition, even while music is playing
Answers questions, reads audiobooks and the news, reports traffic and weather, gives info on local businesses, provides sports scores and schedules, and more using the Alexa Voice Service
Controls lights, switches, and thermostats with compatible WeMo, Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, Wink, Insteon, Nest, and ecobee smart home devices
Always getting smarter and adding new features, plus thousands of skills like Uber, Domino's, and more
