HTC Desire 816 starts selling in India at INR 25,000
The HTC Desire 816 finally went on sale in India this week at a price tag of INR 24,000. HTC Desire 816, a mid-range phablet was announced during MWC earlier this year. It comes with a large 5.5 inch HD screen, quad-core processor, 1.5 GB of RAM, dual SIM card slots and a 13 MP camera at the back.
HTC Desire 816
The Desire 816 competes with Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 and Sony’s Xperia T2 Ultra in its price range. The Xperia T2 Ultra comes with a relatively larger 6 inch screen with HD resolution, similar quad-core processor, Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, dual SIM card slots and a 13 MP camera. Although it gets a bigger 3000 mAh battery, which is higher than the 2600 mAh one on the HTC Desire 816.
Source: MySmartPrice
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Microsoft Demos Skype Translation Tool Coming Later This Year
At today’s Re/code Code Conference in Ranchos Palos Verdes, California, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Skype chief Gurdeep Singh Pall demoed an real-time language translation tool) that has been built into Skype.
During the demonstration, Pall conducted a conversation with a German-speaking colleague, with Skype providing real-time translation from German to English and vice versa. According to German speaking audience members at the conference, the translation software performed “pretty good” but not perfectly.
Nadella and Pall demo Skype Translator at the Code Conference
Skype Translator results from decades of work by the industry, years of work by our researchers, and now is being developed jointly by the Skype and Microsoft Translator teams. The demo showed near real-time audio translation from English to German and vice versa, combining Skype voice and IM technologies with Microsoft Translator, and neural network-based speech recognition.
Microsoft hopes to use the huge number of conversations that take place on Skype to improve its translation tools with real language and speech patterns, which could lead to much better back and forth translations. Pall says the company is “working through” potential privacy issues that surround the use of customer calls.
While Microsoft plans to debut Skype Translate on the Windows platform later this year in a beta capacity, the company says that it will expand to other platforms, including OS X and iOS, shortly after the Windows version launches.
Microsoft will start with a handful of languages and only for the Windows version of Skype, though Microsoft hopes to quickly add more languages as well as support for the many types of computers and mobile devices that Skype customers use.
At launch, the Skype translator will only work with a small number of languages, those that “it can do well” but Microsoft has plans to continually add additional languages to the app as development progresses.
Apple to Announce Beats Acquisition This Week, Drops Price to $3 Billion
Apple’s rumored acquisition of Beats will indeed happen, just for a slightly reduced fee, according to a report from the New York Post this evening. The acquisition, which was originally reported to be roughly $3.2 billion for both Beats companies — the headphone and consumer electronics division as well as the streaming music service — will now happen at $3 billion.
Since the acquisition was originally reported on May 8, Spotify — the leading player in the subscription music field — announced that it had 10 million paying subscribers, and this could have given Apple additional negotiating leverage.
Still, the company is understood to place a high value on the profitable Beats audio business which retails headphones — costing up to $450 — and speakers around the globe.
That business recorded sales of $1.3 billion in 2013.
“Apple hadn’t even begun its due diligence process when news of the number came out,” one source close to the talks said Tuesday.
The paper notes that both Jimmy Iovine and fellow Beats co-founder Dr. Dre are expected to attend Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference next week. Dre is expected to net somewhere around $750 million from the sale as he currently owns approximately 25 percent of the company.
The US military wants brain implants to treat combat trauma
For soldiers coping with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress, coming home may be tougher than the actual fighting; their conditions can last a lifetime. Long-term relief may be on the horizon for US veterans, though. DARPA is supporting the White House’s brain mapping initiative by funding the development of implants (conceptualized below) that alleviate the symptoms of warriors’ mental problems, ranging from PTSD to extreme depression. The technology, built by Massachusetts General Hospital, Draper Laboratory and UC San Francisco, will use sensors to watch for unusual neural activity at multiple parts of the brain. If something’s wrong, the implants will use deep electrical stimulation to restore healthy activity — permanently, if possible.
Affected veterans will have to wait a while to see results. Clinical trials for the implants aren’t expected until five years from now, and it’ll take longer still for a wide-scale deployment; researchers want to be cautious and avoid the ethical problems inherent to altering someone’s mind. Eventually, though, returning troops may get to leave most of their stress on the battlefield.
[Top image credit: AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki]
Filed under: Wearables, Science
Via: Boston Globe
Source: Massachusetts General Hospital, DARPA
Skype Translator will let you chat in real-time with people in other languages later this year
Tonight at Code Conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella brought his Skype team onto the stage to prove that his company’s got the next big thing. Taglined “the pre-beta of magic,” the service, called Skype Translator, turns your real-time conversation into a Star Trek-like universal communicator. You can speak to someone who speaks a different language; the service adds the other person’s translations for you in subtitle format at the bottom of the screen. It’s not an immediate translation: You’ll need to wait until the other person is done speaking before the service starts whirring away. We’ve seen similar demonstrations in the past, but the key point here is that the beta service is due out by the end of the year, and will be on all devices that run Skype. The company isn’t committing to specific language support yet, but it likely will be a matter of which ones Skype is able to do the best at launch.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft
Watch Dogs Companion Android App Released
As of Tuesday May 27 2014 12:01am the highly anticipated game Watch Dogs released and along with it the free Watch Dogs companion Android app. Unlike the other companion apps for video games this one you do not need to own the game to experience it. You do however need to log in to play online.
The companion app is mainly played online with other players. You can set up races and challenges as well as take down players while they are in game. Yes that means you can mess up someones play session if of course they allow it. To play online with other players you will need either one of the three choices all of which are free. Either a free Xbox live or PlayStation network account, to play against consoles or a Ubisoft Uplay account for PC players.
With the release of this app I hope this sparks a new way of interacting with other players via console or PC. This I feel will set the bar on how companion apps should be from now on and can not wait to see how this inspires others.
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[Download] Get your LG G3 wallpapers here in all their Quad HD Glory
The LG G3 is finally official, after weeks and weeks of leaks and speculation. It is every bit as good as we expected, from the 5.5-inch Quad HD display to the wonderfully simplistic design. Of course, all eyes are on the Quad HD screen, who’s 2K resolution is the newest craze in the mobile industry. But what use is a beautiful screen without beautiful wallpapers? Luckily, we have these LG G3 wallpapers to gawk at and wonder why our devices don’t already have 2K displays. Check them out:
That’s all 10 of them, with a nice choice of abstract beauty and just beauty; be sure to click through to see them all at the highest resolution. Hell, some of these can be used as desktop wallpapers. While the reviews are still streaming through, it looks like the LG G3 has become the definitive flagship of 2014 so far with hardware prowess and plenty of subtle abilities like battery saving and learning abilities that have only been seen in infancy on other Android devices.
What do you think about the LG G3? Do you like the wallpapers available to it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: XDA
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What’s on your HDTV this week: Watch Dogs, The Life Aquatic, Wil Wheaton, Mario Kart
With Memorial Day come and gone and the temperatures rising, it’s time to get ready for our summer TV schedule. The NBA and NHL are almost ready to enter the championship rounds of the playoffs, and most of the winter TV shows are out of the way. That means we have a few new entrants this week to take their place, including The Wil Wheaton Project, Crossbones and Undateable. HBO’s Silicon Valley is also wrapping up with a season finale, but don’t worry it will be back. For now, it will be replaced by AMC’s new series Halt and Catch Fire, which focuses on a group trying to reverse engineer IBM’s PC in the 80s. Movie and game fans have a lot of good options, lead by Watch Dogs, Mario Kart 8, and Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou on Blu-ray from Criterion. Still, Game of Thrones watchers are probably focused entirely on Sunday night’s episode, and with good reason, while soccer fans can tune in to all of the 30 for 30: Soccer Stories flicks on Netflix, and catch up on the US National team (suddenly without Landon Donovan) with ESPN’s documentary series update on Thursday. Check after the break for a list of what’s new this week plus a few trailers, and drop in the comments if you see any highlights that we’ve missed.
Watch Dogs
After Grand Theft Auto V, the next big open world game is here, and it’s Watch Dogs. Instead of focusing on crime and mayhem however, this one is more about technology and mayhem, with gameplay centered on hacking the environment around you to gain an advantage. Available on both current and yesteryear gaming systems (and PC), Joystiq has a full review if you need an extra push.
Crossbones
Apparently this year’s TV season is all about Pirates. After Michael Bay’s Black Sails showed off its interesting take on Blackbeard for Starz, NBC has its own with the new show Crossbones. John Malkovitch will play the legendary swashbuckler, but we wonder if network TV can handle this environment.
(May 30th, 10PM, NBC)
Mario Kart 8
The Wii U needs to dive deep into Nintendo’s back-catalog of content to compete with the new systems, and it’s finally ready to with Mario Kart 8. The series’ jump to HD also brings tracks that run in every direction (gravity is not an issue here) and enhanced online play. Shells and banana peels have returned, as well as the usual cast of characters, so blow the dust off of that system and charge up the GamePad before this one is released on Friday.
(May 30th, $59.99 on Amazon)
The Wil Wheaton Project
Wil Wheaton has stuck around since his days on Star Trek, and tonight he launches his own show on Syfy. He’ll be hosting a weekly roundup of things he likes from TV and the internet and he describes it as a sort of “Talk Soup for geeks“. This approach has worked well for Aisha Tyler, Joel McHale and others over the years, and it will be interesting to see if The Wil Wheaton Project catches on in this niche.
(May 27th, 10PM, Syfy)
Blu-ray, Streaming movies & Games
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Criterion)
- Sleepaway Camp
- Doctor Who: An Adventure in Space and Time
- Death Spa
- Gambit
- Watch_Dogs (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. PC)
- Ace Combat Infinity (PS3)
- Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
- Worms Battlegrounds (PS4, Xbox One)
Tuesday
- America’s Got Talent (season premiere), NBC, 8PM
- Coming Back with Wes Moore (season finale), PBS, 8PM
- Rangers/Canadiens Game 5, NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- Riot, Fox, 8PM
- Spurs/Thunder Game 4, TNT, 8PM
- I Wanna Marry “Harry”, Fox, 9PM
- Heroes of Cosplay (season finale), Syfy, 9PM
- Deadliest Catch, Discovery, 9PM
- The World Wars, History, 9PM
- Growing Up Fisher, NBC, 9:30PM
- The Wil Wheaton Project (series premiere), Syfy, 10PM
- Comic View, BET, 10PM
- Freakshow, AMC, 10 & 10:30PM
- Fargo, FX, 10PM
- Awkward, MTV, 10PM
- The Listener, ION, 10, 11 & 11:59PM
- Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan, BBC America, 10PM
- Tosh.0 (spring finale), Comedy Central, 10PM
- The Night Shift (series premiere), NBC, 10PM
- Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central, 10:30PM
- Faking It, MTV, 10:30PM
- Small Town Security, AMC, 11PM
Wednesday
- World Music Awards, NBC, 8PM
- Rogue (season premiere), DirecTV 101, 8PM
- Kings/Blackhawks NHL WCF Game 5, NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- Melissa & Joey, ABC Family, 8PM
- So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
- Baby Daddy, ABC Family, 8:30PM
- Heat/Pacers NBA ECF Game 5, ESPN, 8:30PM
- One Night Only: An All-Star Comedy Tribute to Don Rickles, Spike TV, 9PM
- Rake (season premiere), DirecTV 101, 9PM
- Nova, PBS, 9PM
- Dual Survival, Discovery, 9PM
- The 100, CW, 9PM
- NBC News: Inside the Mind of Edward Snowden, NBC, 10PM
- The World Wars (season finale), History, 10PM
- Motive, ABC, 10PM
- Catfish, MTV, 10PM
- The Ultimate Fighter, Fox Sports 1, 10PM
- Deal With It, TBS, 10:30PM
Thursday
- Inside US Soccer’s March to Brazil, ESPN, 8PM
- Hollywood Game Night, NBC, 8PM
- NHL ECF: Canadiens/Rangers Game 6 (if necessary), NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- The Sixties (series premiere), CNN, 9PM
- Undateable (series premiere), NBC, 9 & 9:30PM
- Gang Related, Fox, 9PM
- Anger Management, FX, 9:30PM
- Last Comic Standing, NBC, 10PM
- Maron, IFC, 10PM
- Real World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV, 10PM
- Black Box, ABC, 10PM
- Comedy Bang! Bang!, IFC, 10:30PM
- Loiter Squad, Cartoon Network, 11:59PM
Friday
- Derek (season premiere), Netflix, 12:01AM
- WWE SmackDown, Syfy, 8PM
- NBA ECF: Heat/Pacers Game 6 (if necessary), ESPN, 8:30PM
- NHL WCF: Blackhawks/Kings Game 6 (if necessary), NBC Sports Network, 9PM
- Crossbones (series premiere), NBC, 10PM
- Continuum, Syfy, 10PM
Saturday
- 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, HBO, 8PM
- NHL ECF: Rangers/Canadiens Game 7 (if necessary), NBC Sports Network, 8PM
- NBA WCF: Spurs/Thunder Game 6 (if necessary), TNT, 8:30PM
- Orphan Black, BBC America, 9PM
- Da Vinci’s Demons (season finale), Starz, 9PM
- The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom, Lifetime, 9PM
- Sing Your Face Off (series premiere), ABC, 9PM
- In the Flesh, BBC America, 10PM
Sunday
- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series @ Dover, Fox, 12:30PM
- Enlisted, Fox, 7PM
- Pirates/Dodgers, ESPN, 8PM
- NBA ECF: Heat/Pacers Game 7 (if necessary), ESPN, 8:30PM
- Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, CNN, 9PM
- Cosmos, Fox, 9PM
- Game of Thrones, HBO, 9PM
- Catching Hell (series premiere), Weather Channel, 9PM
- Believe, NBC, 9PM
- Nurse Jackie, Showtime, 9PM
- The Normal Heart, HBO, 9PM
- Turn, AMC, 9PM
- Californication, Showtime, 9:30PM
- Halt and Catch Fire (series premiere), AMC, 10PM
- Silicon Valley (season finale), HBO, 10PM
- Crisis, NBC, 10PM
- Penny Dreadful, Showtime, 10PM
- Veep, HBO, 10:30PM
- Robot Chicken, Cartoon Network, 11:30PM
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Google cuts off Chrome extensions that don’t come from the Web Store
A while back Google said that it would stop letting Windows users install Chrome extensions that didn’t come directly from the Web Store. The company ended up delaying the plan, but there is no more fighting it. Today users of the stable channel of Chrome on Windows will no longer be able to install extensions from outside the Web Store. That won’t impact too many users thankfully, but it could make it difficult for those that like to run experimental add-ons. If you’ve already sideloaded extensions from outside of the Chrome Web Store, those will be disabled starting today; if you want to re-enable them, you’ll have to make the switch to the dev channel of the browser. The idea is to protect users from malicious extensions that haven’t made it through Google’s screening process. Of course, OS X and Linux users can continue to use all the unapproved extensions they want. Apparently only Windows users need to be protected (perhaps from themselves).
Filed under: Internet, Software, Google
Source: Google
LG G3 Will Have Lasers, Knock Codes, And A Big Beautiful Screen
The LG G3 event took off in London today and for the first time in a long time I was actually excited to watch it. As we all know LG has been leaking details about the LG G3 (for about 3 weeks now) and they still managed to surprise me with their new flagship device. Let me tell you why.
DISPLAY:
I am a sucker for a pretty screen and boy does the LG G3 have a pretty face. The LG G3 is using LG’s Quad Core HD IPS display which gives you a resolution of 2560×1440 along with 538 ppi. The display measures 5.5 inches and takes up 76% of the front face. That’s right 76%. That means less bezel and more screen for you to drool over. The age of QHD is coming and I think LG maybe winning.
LASERS:
Ok not real lasers that will allow you to destroy every iPhone in sight but a Laser that will allow you to Autofocus almost instantly. The LG G3 has been upgraded with Laser Autofocus which allows for faster automatic focusing on your subject. To give you a specific number, the Laser Autofocus focuses in 0.276 milliseconds. To put that in perspective for you, the human eye takes an average of 0.300-0.400 milliseconds to blink, that basically means the Laser Auto focus is pretty damn fast.
Knock Codes:
If you have or have read up on the LG G2 then you know of the knock knock feature. You double tap on the screen and it automatically turns on, simple and useful. This time around LG decided to build on that feature by making it a lock screen, thats right, now you can knock to unlock. The feature will allow you to create your own unique knock code (series of taps) that will unlock your device and take you straight to your homescreen. According to LG this Knock Code lock method will give you more than 80,000 possible combinations.
Aside from the hardware I mentioned above LG the G3 will also have a beefy Quad-Core 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 2GB of RAM (Sucks right?), 2.1 Megapixel front facing camera, 13 Megapixel rear camera, 3000 mAh battery and Micro SD card support. The LG G3 will also launch with Android 4.4 KitKat. So what do you think? Will you be going after the LG G3 this year? Let me know in the comments below.
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