Another week has come and gone, meaning that it is now time for a news round-up. Right on top of our list is a story that you shouldn't have missed, namely the announcement that Motorola Mobility will have a new owner soon. Google has agreed to sell the company to Lenovo in exchange for $2.91 billion.
In other news, Apple made over $13 billion dollars over the last quarter. Part of that money came from the 51 million iPhones and 26 million iPads that were sold. Samsung, however, sold an even greater number of smartphones over the same period of time. The Korean company managed to move 86 billion smartphones out of its warehouses. Unsurprisingly, Samsung now holds a significant chunk of the global smartphone market.
Speaking of Samsung, the company added another phone to its portfolio – the Galaxy Note 3 Neo. That's a phablet, as you can probably tell, sporting a spacious 5.5-inch display and an S Pen digital stylus. It will be available later this month for a price that has yet to be revealed.
The upcoming HTC M8 will look ‘strikingly like’ its predecessor, the HTC One, according to the web’s most prominent leakster @evleaks. The rumored information claims that the similarity is so striking that HTC could easily name the upcoming flagship the ‘HTC One S’, if the company hadn’t already used that name.
What does ‘strikingly’ similar mean? Chances are, the HTC M8 will allegedly inherit the excellent, sturdy unibody construction of the HTC One with its dual front speaker setup. Those two key features were universally praised, and the overall HTC One design has won it multiple awards.
With all this in mind, keeping the HTC One visuals in the M8 is probably a good decision for HTC, despite the fact that some people might have wanted to see something slightly improved.
Most recently, we’ve heard whispers that the HTC M8 will launch in late March at an event in New York City.
It is said to come with a slightly larger-size 1080 x 1920-pixel display, more powerful silicon, and - most interestingly - a dual camera setup on its back suggesting new photographic experiences.
source: @evleaks
Samsung GT-I9515 is a new and unannounced smartphone that’s been discovered in a benchmark test, as well as in the database of Zauba (which lists imports and exports to and from India).
The new handset’s model number, GT-I9515, is closely related to the model number of the original Samsung Galaxy S4 from last year (GT-I9500). Its features also seem to match the features of the old S4: 5-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixels, and a 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 processor with Adreno 320 GPU.
However, unlike the Galaxy S4, the GT-I9515 appears to run Android 4.4.2 KitKat. Dutch website GalaxyClub speculates that this could be a Galaxy S4 Neo. Samsung has already introduced a Galaxy Grand Neo and a Galaxy Note 3 Neo, so maybe it’s also readying an S4 Neo.
Unfortunately,
only Samsung knows for sure what the GT-I9515 is, and if it’s going to launch it anytime soon - or ever. In case you’re wondering, no, this is certainly not the Galaxy S4 Black Edition revealed last week (this one has the model number GT-I9505 and runs Jelly Bean).
Perhaps the GT-I9515 will be announced by Samsung later this month at MWC 2014. We’ll let you know if it happens.
A 13-year-old girl from Maine has suffered first and second degree burns after her iPhonecaught fire in her pocket. The smartphone allegedly caught fire last Friday while the girl was in class. Some reports indicate that the device in this case was an iPhone 5C, but that is unconfirmed.
The girl reportedly had the iPhone in her back pocket when she sat down. She reportedly heard a popping sound from her back pocket where the phone was and saw smoke. The boys in class were reportedly asked to leave the room while the girl removed her pants.
The teacher covered her with a blanket and she was taken to the hospital where she was treated and released. Officials investigating the fire say that they think the smartphone shorted out when she sat down.
The principal of the school says that the girl did the stop, drop, and roll procedure taught in school. The officials say that people need to be cautious when putting smartphones in their back pocket out of fear of causing an electrical short. There have been no official comments from Apple on the case.
SOURCE: USA Today
The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 was announced late last year but only now we find out that the mid-range 5.25" Android phone has an LTE version. That version carries the model number SM-G7105 (model numbers for LTE-enabled devices end in 5).
The device is not official yet, but its user manual (PDF) and its SAR information have been uploaded to the Samsung site. The SAR search tool returns two devices – G7105 and G7105L – but the L model hasn’t been tested yet (it's probably a carrier-specific version).
Skimming through the user manual, nothing seems to have changed in terms of specs but then there's no info on the chipset (which likely has changed). We're waiting for the official specs to go up to confirm if there have been changes to the quad-core chipset.
The Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 also comes in the G7102 version, which is a dual-SIM model, but that's a 3G-only device.
Source 1 (PDF) • Source 2
A £90.89 solar smartphone charger called Beta.ey features a ball lens and minuscule multi-junction solar cell that can charge a smartphone one and a half times per dayRawLemon
Solar panels might be the solution to climate change, but they sure are ugly. RawLemon, a startup founded by architect André Broessel, wants to change the way we perceive solar power. Instead of covering roofs and building façades with nasty photovoltaic cells, he believes we can harness the power of the sun using giant, water-filled glass spheres embedded in the curtain walls of skyscrapers and desktop power stations.
The theory underlying RawLemon's work is that gleaming crystal globes can concentrate diffused sunlight, or even moonlight, onto a tiny, hyper-efficient photovoltaic cell. Paired with a dual-motion tracking system that keeps the sun's energy focused on the cell throughout the day, the hope is that these efficiency gains will make solar power a practical solution in parts of the world where it's previously been a non-starter.
Ball lenses are a novelty in solar power, but they are commonly used as a coupling tool in laser-based applications, endoscopes, and barcode scanners. Conceptually, the idea is similar to how many modern solar panel manufacturers employ Fresnel lenses, angled sheets of plastic that help reorient light rays that don't fall directly on the panels, to maximise exposure.
The spherical form catches the eye, but according to Broessel, much of the value is provided by the patent-pending motion system that keeps light focused on the solar cell. "The breakthrough for higher efficiencies in solar applications lies in the unique design of our dual-axis tracking," says Broessel. "This really opens up the possibility of having concentrator solar panels on façades."
Broessel's vision is architectural in scale, but in order to prove out the concept and generate investment he has put the principle to work in consumer product form. The result is a $149 (£90.89) solar smartphone charger called Beta.ey that features a minuscule multi-junction solar cell, measuring just a centimetre square, that can charge your phone one and a half times per day -- completely off the grid.
Inspiration Strikes
The unconventional idea to employ ball lenses didn't come to Broessel in a classroom or solar energy symposium, but at his breakfast table. He was working on the design for a new building and became frustrated when preliminary calculations showed there wasn't enough surface area to make green energy work. He noticed his daughter was playing, putting marbles into her egg cup, which to most parents would seem like innocent play, but it reminded him of the Campbell-Stokes Sunlight Recorder.
The Cambell-Stokes Recorder is an obscure astronomical tool that was popular in the 1850s and recorded the amount of sunlight in a given area by focusing it through a ball lens which would then burn a trace into a piece of paper. He realised that if that concentrated energy could be applied to a solar cell, higher gains could be achieved in much smaller spaces.
Broessel believes his innovations could lead to massive, quantifiable gains. "Compared to the maximum theoretical efficiency ceiling of a silicon cell of 33.7 percent, the concentrator multi-junction cell has already reached 43 percent efficiency of its theoretical limit of 86 percent and this is expected to improve through further research."
The big question remains -- does it work? -- and the crystal ball has not provided a definitive response. Bold claims are plentiful, and Broessel is quick to point to diagrams or YouTube videos that demonstrate the concepts, but published scientific data or even rigorous white papers aren't readily available on the RawLemon website.
The science seems sound and the entrepreneur couldn't be more passionate, but be warned. After all, the federal government lost hundreds of millions of dollars backing solar panel makers with flawless credentials and published papers. Risk aside, if you want to try and shock the power industry, Beta.ey is raising funds on IndieGoGo until 8 February.
This story originally appeared on Wired.com
Nokia X or Normandy is getting even closer to release. Аccording to a Senior Executive over at Nokia India, the device will be launched in March as a member of the Asha lineup.
The specs seem to mirror those of the Lumia 520 save for the OS being Android instead of Windows Phone. There will be a 4" WVGA (480 x 800) screen, 5 MP camera, dual-core 1.2 GHz chipset, 512 MB RAM and 4 GB of expandable storage - pretty much what we've known so far.
There would be an optional dual-SIM version as well. Currently we've seen what the device might look like, what it could do in HTML-based benchmark BrowserMark 2 and even got some details of theVietnamese availability.
The latest report on the market share for particular operating systems is in from Net Applications. The new report shows that the Windows operating system is still by far the most popular on the computing market. Windows with all its versions holds 90.72% of the OS market.
Mac OS holds 7.68% of the market with Linux having 1.60%. There are several flavors inside the Windows chunk of the pie. The most popular flavor of Windows is Windows 7 with 47.49% of the market share. The second most popular is Windows XP holding 29.23% of the overall windows market.
The share of the Windows pie that Windows 8.1 holds has grown quickly since the latest version of the OS launched in October. Windows 8.1 has 3.95% of the OS market. That puts Windows 8.1 ahead of the market share that Windows Vista holds with 3.30% of the market.
Windows 8 holds 6.63% of the Windows share. The market share of Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 combined only changed slightly in the latest report gaining 0.09%. Despite Microsoft actively trying to get people off Windows XP, it actually gained a bit of ground in the latest report gaining 0.25% with a climb from 28.98% at the end of 2013 to 29.23% in the latest report.
SOURCE: TheNextWeb
Military defence contractor Lockheed has successfully sent a robot truck convey through urban areas. They didn't crash or hit any unsuspecting pedestrians despite being human-free at the wheel.
The military want the ability to send in truck convoys, to warzones, without the need to risk soldiers sat in the driving seat. This would mean supplies can be sent to the front line without human risk, as well as getting troops out of danger.
The Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System (AMAS) program uses GPS and LIDAR to navigate. The GPS shows the truck where to go but the LIDAR "sees" obstacles using laser radar, so collisions can be avoided. Then other trucks can be added to the lead so they follow it in a convoy.
Lockheed said: "The [successful] test involved driverless tactical vehicles navigating hazards and obstacles such as road intersections, oncoming traffic, stalled and passing vehicles, pedestrians and traffic circles in both urban and rural test areas."
While these smart driverless vehicles have been in development for years, including at Google. We've not seen them used in the real world yet. A battle situation, where lives rely on machines, is the ultimate test. We'll be keeping an eye on Lockheed to lead the driverless revolution.
READ: UK puts plan in place for driverless cars, will pick one city as testing ground
Via: The Register
With each successive generation of smartphones comes more power, more pixels, and more everything. Year after year we're treated to what sometimes feels like a preset 'upgrade' curve, where the processors, cameras, screens and just about everything else gets a bit better with each new model. But wholly new, exciting features emerge every now and then, mostly on the software side, but sometimes we even get something kind of exciting in terms of hardware, too. One such trend-setter is inductive charging, most commonly referred to as wireless charging, and today is going to be all about this new tech that has proved intriguing, tenacious and forward-looking -- or the Holy Grail of qualities that every up and comer in this industry seems to exhibit at a particular point.
So what is this tech wizardry that charges your smartphone's battery as if from thin air? Actually, it's nothing really fancy, and by saying that we're in no way trying to detract from the achievement that it is. That said, it's worth noting that many credit the bizarre and eccentric scientist from Serbian descent, Nikola Tesla, with laying the groundwork for wireless charging all the way back at the turn of the 20th century. Tesla actually filed a patent that described a device that he believed could transmit electricity from one conductor to another with no wiring whatsoever, and though his work never actually bore practical fruits, his idea evidently stuck. Fast-forward to today, and we have a number of 'alliances' rallying up behind different wireless charging standards, the most popular of which is the Qi standard. Despite the hardware incompatibility between those, they all rely on what is basically the same thing: inductive charging using an electromagnetic field to transfer electrical power between a 'charging station' (a pad, if you will) and a compatible smartphone (or an accessory, like a case). More specifically, once the 'station' is connected to the grid, a little coil within it (the transmitter) passes on an alternating current onto a coil in your smartphone (a receiver), generating a magnetic field. This induces voltage into the receiver coil, which, in turn, charges up your phone's battery. This is what is called 'inductive coupling'.
L1, the transmitter coil, passes on an alternating current onto L2, the receiver coil, inducing voltage and charging up your phone.
Unfortunately, there are some limitations of note with the technology, at least at this time. We mentioned the existence of several incompatible standards, of course, but you need to also consider a few other things. For starters, the 'wireless' part is not technically true, as the charging pad still needs to be connected to the grid with a wire. Moreover, the argument over whether wireless charging can be as efficient (and fast) as wired charging does not seem to be completely settled just yet, though the folks behind the Qi standard seem to think that, under what are likely advantageous circumstances, wireless charging could be just as fast and efficient.
On the positive side, the Qi team claims that it has developed a system that will consume just 0.0001 Watts in standby (when nothing is being charged, but its being plugged to the grid), while the typical wall charger is said to consume about as much power when in standby, as when in use. Apart from the 'green' appeal of the tech, wireless charging is inherently compelling for those of us lucky enough to own a smartphone, since battery life is often less than satisfying. More out-of-the-box (read: radical) ideas picture a world where our entire desks, even entire building floors, have millions of those inductive coils transmitting energy throughout the entire surface, allowing you to basically charge your device wherever it is. If the technology does get cheap enough, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that a time might come, when our devices will be continuously charged throughout the day, pretty much wherever we are.
references: WirelessPowerConsortium, Tesla universe, Texas Instruments
One of the big differences between the PS4 and the Xbox One game consoles in the eyes of consumers is price. The Xbox One at $499 is $100 more expensive than the PS4. Rumors have been circulating that Microsoft is working on a cheaper Xbox One.
The rumors claim that the cheaper Xbox One would do without one important bit of hardware to get the $100 price cut compared to the current console. That piece of hardware is its optical drive. That would mean any cheaper Xbox One without the disc drive would be good for digital downloads only.
One Microsoft exec has now stepped up and denied that the company is working on a disc free version of the Xbox One. The denial came in the form of a tweeted response to another tweet talking about the rumored $399 disc free Xbox One.
Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg simply said that you couldn't believe everything you read online. Greenburg is the Chief of Staff for Devices and Studios Group at Microsoft. He would certainly know what was coming from the software giant.
He could also be denying the cheaper Xbox One to save sales of the current console. Tech firms are notorious for denying something is in the works right up until it launches. With broadband speeds not that great in many parts of the world, I can’t see a disc drive free Xbox One being that appealing for many. It's also hard to imagine cutting a disc drive alone saving $100. The rumors this week also claim that a white version of the Xbox One is coming soon.
SOURCE: Escapist Magazine
