Apple Watch Revenue Will Likely Be Dominated by Expensive Gold Edition
Earlier this week, in a report about the Apple Watch’s missing health features, The Wall Street Journal claimed that Apple has placed 5 to 6 million Apple Watch orders with overseas suppliers ahead of the wrist-worn device’s launch in April.
The report specified that half of the first-quarter orders will be allocated to the entry-level Apple Watch Sport, while one-third of shipments will be for the mid-tier Apple Watch. The remaining orders will be for the expensive Apple Watch Edition.
While the Apple Watch Edition will have the least amount of orders among the three models, with between 850,000 to 1 million units shipped, well-known Apple pundit John Gruber of Daring Fireball believes that the expensive gold model could account for the majority of Apple Watch revenue. Multiple reports claim that the Apple Watch Edition will cost over $4,000, making it one of the most expensive products the company has ever sold.
“So as a business — if the WSJ’s sources are correct, and if Apple is correctly predicting demand — Apple Watch revenue will be dominated by the gold Edition units, accounting for double or more of the revenue from all the other models combined. The Edition models would thus do to the Apple Watch lineup as a whole what the iPhone, iPad, and Macintosh do to the entire phone, tablet, and PC industries, respectively: achieve a decided majority of the profits with a decided minority of the unit sales.”
Apple Watch will start at $349 for the entry-level Sport model, while pricing information for the other two models has not been confirmed. Apple will reportedly increase production of the Apple Watch Edition to over 1 million units per month in the second quarter, indicating that demand could be strong for the company’s first new product since the iPad in 2010. Early sales predictions for the Apple Watch have been all over the map, ranging from between 8 million to over 26 million units during 2015.
Newly announced BenQ F52 packs a Snapdragon 810 and 3GB RAM
BenQ is not a name that we think of when it comes to smartphones, and honestly the Taiwanese company isn’t even that well known of a brand when it comes to its primary market: monitors and accessories. That said, it seems that BenQ is hoping to change up its reputation a bit with the introduction of the BenQ F52.
This isn’t BenQ’s first rodeo when it comes to smartphones, though the majority of their devices have been pretty much on the low to mid-range side of the game. The F52 takes things much further upscale, offering up a Snapdragon 810 octa-core CPU with 3GB RAM. The display isn’t a QHD monster, but it is still a respectable 5.2-inch display with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 (424 ppi). While the full list of specifications have yet to be revealed, we can say that the phone is said to offer an 8MP front cam and a 13MP rear cam. It is also running Android 5.0 Lollipop, though it seems to have at least some OEM-specific tweaks and a bunch of apps from Cheetah Mobile, due to their partnership with the Chinese app developer.
Judging by BenQ’s past with their limited smartphone offerings, it is likely that the phone will largely be targeted at the Asian market. We expect to learn more about the device (and its price tag) at MWC 2015, where it will be formally outed alongside two new mid-range handsets, the B50 and B502.What do you think, if pricing is right and the phone arrived in your own regional backyard, would you consider giving BenQ’s F52 a chance?
See Russia’s Tesla Tower through the eyes of a drone
Russia’s massive impulse generator that can shoot deadly 500 to 650-foot lightning bolts isn’t exactly off limits, but it is tucked away near a forest, far from the usual tourist traps… for obvious reasons. Thankfully, Russia Today got permission to film the Tesla Tower-inspired complex, giving us a complete view of the whole facility from up high. The Marx generator, also called the “Tesla Tower” like the early 1900s New York facility that inspired it, was built during the 1970s 25 miles west of Moscow. It’s so powerful, it can emit energy equivalent to the electricity produced by all the power plants in Russia for 100 microseconds. The tower’s original purpose was to serve as a testing ground during the USSR’s quest to weaponize electromagnetic pulses, but these days, the country’s using it to test its superjets’ lightning protection. If you’d rather not risk going near a structure that fires out bolts of lightning, you can see the Soviet era Tesla Tower for yourself in the video below the fold.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Russia Today
Nvidia’s Shield Tablet receives Update 2.2 with new GRID games and improved standby times
The Nvidia Shield Tablet received its first taste of Android Lollipop back in December, and here it is getting a second helping with Tablet Software Update 2.2. Both the WiFi and LTE versions of the tablet are eligible to receive this latest update, which is based on Android 5.0.1. The update brings a few new PC games to play via its GRID cloud gaming service such as Grid 2 and PixelJunk Shooter amongst others. There are also compatibility tweaks and bugfixes present, as can be seen from the changelog below.
Changelog
- More great streamed PC games, for free – No PC required – You can now play popular titles such as Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, PixelJunk Shooter, and Grid 2 among many others. New games are added every week on #SHIELDTuesday
- Standby battery life improvements – Improved battery life in standby/idle conditions, especially with WiFi turned ON
- Improved charging performance and compatibility – Broader support for high-performance chargers
- Overall experience enhancements – Additional UI responsiveness and memory optimizations, Graphics corruption resolution
- Support for SHIELD Hub 4.1 – Includes GameStream multi-controller support
Don’t fret if you haven’t received the update notification yet, you can simply go into Settings, select ‘About Device’ and tap ‘Check for Updates’ to manually download and install the latest software.
Source: Nvidia
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Yog is a fun and addictive mathematical game
Yog is a fun, casual game that requires great reflexes along with hand and eye coordination. Yog means union or conjunction in Sanskrit, or addition in mathematical context.
The game isn’t a mathematical quiz, and you don’t have to add numbers. As you go along, additions are displayed, and you have to specify if those are correct or not. As the game progresses, the difficulty level of question increases.
Qualcomm announces four new mid-tier SoCs with high-end performance and features
Qualcomm has just announced four new SoCs in its mid-tier Snapdragon 600 and 400 ranges, which aim to bring high-end performance and functionality to lower cost products.
Cortex-A72 powered Snapdragon 618 & 620
We’ll start with the biggest news. The new Snapdragon 618 and 620 are the first SoC’s to use ARM’s latest Cortex-A72 CPU core. The Cortex-A72 offers up to 3.5 times the peak performance of the last generation Cortex-A15 CPU and a 50 percent performance boost over the Cortex-A53. The Cortex-A72’s performance is comparable to the high-end Cortex-A57, which is powering Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 810, but the real aim is to lower power consumption.
The 618 and 620 will be built on a 28nm manufacturing process, so won’t see all of the performance and battery benefits touted during the announcement of ARM’s Cortex-A72. However, these new Snapdragon 600 series chips should still be able to close the gap on Qualcomm’s top-tier 20nm Snapdragon 810.
The Snapdragon 618 will feature two Cortex-A72 cores paired with four energy efficient Cortex-A53 cores, configured in a big.LITTLE arrangement. The Snapdragon 620 features four Cortex-A72s and four Cortex-A53s, which could rival the Snapdragon 810 for peak performance. Qualcomm has not confirmed which GPUs it will be pairing up with the new SoC designs, other than that it will be using a “next-generation” Adreno GPU.
Qualcomm also announced additional features for these new 600 series Snapdragons. 4K video capture and playback support, including H.265 hardware decode, is taken from the 800 series and the SoCs come with Qualcomm’s X8 LTE modem, which offers up to 300Mbps download and 100Mbps upload speeds.
Octa-core Snapdragon 415 and 425
Moving on, the new 28nm Snapdragon 415 and 425 are Qualcomm’s latest low-end mobile processors, but the technology here is also receiving a major bump over the previous entries in the series. Qualcomm will be moving its new 400 series chips from four to eight cores. Both will come packing eight 64-bit Cortex-A53 CPU cores and Qualcomm’s in-house Adreno 405 GPU, much like the existing Snapdragon 615.
The Snapdragon 415 and 425 will also include features previously reserved for higher-end Snapdragon chips. These include, support for dual image sensors and two ISPs, Quick Charge 2.0 compatibility, and hardware decode support for 1080p H.264 video.
The major difference between these two 400 series chips comes down to LTE speeds. Both feature integrated LTE modems, but the 415 uses the X5 LTE module, which supports download and upload speeds of 150Mbps and 50Mbps respectively, while the Snapdragon 425 features the same X8 modem found in the new Snapdragon 618 and 620.
Qualcomm is also replacing the “Gobi” name on its modems with its more well-known “Snapdragon” branding. The infographic below shows where these renamed chips rank in terms of speed and in which SoCs you can expect to find them.
The Snapdragon 415 is already available for sampling and should arrive in smartphones within the first half of this year, while the 425 should begin to appear in the second half of 2015. The Snapdragon 618 and 620 are also set to arrive in consumer devices sometime in H2 2015.
Accessory of the Day: Pre-order Myo Gesture Control Armband
The future is here! Myo, the gesture control armband from Thalmic Labs, translates your muscles’ electrical activity into mappable gestures that allow you to wirelessly control all of your games, drones, home automation, VR, and more. Compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, and — of course — Android devices, you can be the first to harness the power of tomorrow by preordering Myo, today, for $199. Expect an early March delivery and catch up on some Jetsons reruns in the meantime.
Join Prime and get this deal with FREE two-day shipping!
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Facebook Is Developing VR Apps, Because VR
In a move that should come as little surprise in the wake of last year’s $2 billion acquisition of virtual reality firm Oculus, Facebook head of product Chris Cox admitted that Facebook is “working on apps for VR.” What exactly that will entail is anyone’s guess, as Cox demurred elaborating on the subject, but he does see a world where users can swap environments with other users via an app. And, of course, everyone will do it, including Beyoncé.
Naturally, we shouldn’t expect these apps anytime soon. Cox admits that, “We’re a long way from everyone having [VR] headsets.” Still, Facebook’s initial foray into virtual reality have been impressive, and buying Oculus was clearly not some impulse buy rooted in the tiny VR wave that crested in mid-2014.
So at some point in the next few years, you will likely have the privilege of sitting in your living room, the entire family wearing VR headsets, and enjoying the sense of community and purpose that only comes through VR family time.
Source: The Verge
Come comment on this article: Facebook Is Developing VR Apps, Because VR
SaskTel lowers pricing on the BlackBerry Passport and Classic
SakTel customers looking to get their hands on either a BlackBerry Passport or BlackBerry Classic can now do so for a little bit cheaper. The regional carrier that claims to cover 98% of Saskatchewan’s population has reduced the pricing on both devices.
Farmville 2: Country Escape – life in the boondocks for Windows Phone and Windows 8
Farmville is a popular online game developed by Zynga and has many Facebook users addicted to farm life. Farmville 2: Country Escape brings the Farmville concept to our Windows Phones and Windows 8 devices with a slight twist from the original game.
While the original Farmville was more free-play in nature, Country Escape is more task or quest oriented. You still have a farm to build and manage with crops to grow and livestock to raise, but the game seemed to have more structure.The Farmville gaming genre is a fun way to pass the time and Farmville 2: Country Escape came across as a nice installment.
AIVAnet 