These iPhone 6 hybrid cases are on sale today for only $10.95
This case features a hard polycarbonate outer shell and a shock absorbent TPU underneath for double the protection against impacts. Best part is you’ll be sporting this level of protection with a slim design! The back of the X Series Case has a glossy finish while the sides provide softer edging for a comfortable grip.
This Lumia 822 hybrid case has a built-in kickstand and is 55% off today!
This dual-layer case provides serious protection against drops and scratches while sporting a built-in kickstand that can be used for watching movies and more. The inner-most layer is made of a shock absorbing silicone that sits underneath a thick plastic exterior. Get yours on the cheap today for only $8.95
Cortana going to the Brit Awards with Clean Bandit in latest Microsoft UK ad
The Brit Awards is one of the biggest nights in the UK music industry and Cortana will be going with the Grammy winning act, Clean Bandit. Microsoft UK’s latest ad sees the group putting Cortana to work ahead of the big night, including reminding Grace not to dance on any tables.
Oh, and Cortana will be wearing a phone down the red carpet. Of course.
Hot Tub Time Machine available as a free rental on Xbox Video this weekend (US only)
The unrated version of 2010’s Hot Tub Time Machine is available for free to rent (not own) on Xbox Video. The offer is available through this weekend only, for both the HD and SD versions of the film.
Amazon Echo review
Everything has to be smarter these days. Connected to something. Connected to everything. And these days we have to talk to those things.
Google brought us, well, Google Now. But excellent as it is, you’re taking to a machine. Apple personified things with Siri. And now Amazon has Alexa in its Amazon Echo Bluetooth speaker. Why? Oh, why not. On one hand you’ve got a decent speaker that ties into Amazon music. And lets you make shopping lists for later. On Amazon, of course.
But really that’s just the tip of the iceberg with Alex. And it’s a bit of an odd product, not available for general purchase. You register your interest with Amazon, finally are given the opportunity to buy, and then wait a few weeks until it ships. Maybe available will expand, maybe it won’t. It took about a month for ours to arrive, a few minutes to get it set up, and not much longer to see that this thing has some serious potential. The question is whether that potential leads to anything on down the road.
And if it does, the likes of Google and Apple are going to find themselves with even more of a competitor in Amazon.
Evidence points to a Lumia 635 with 1GB of RAM heading to some carriers
The Lumia 635 is nearly a perfect budget phone. It has an excellent display with ClearBlack, a modern design with replaceable covers, and it even handles Windows 10 with ease. However, it does have a few faults, including the lack of a front-facing camera and 1GB of RAM. Indeed, the 512 MB currently found on the Lumia 635 seems antiquated and too little for modern phones.
An early report cited a Lumia 635 with 1GB of RAM on Telenor’s website in Hungary. However, it does not take long to find carriers mislabeling devices – even with the wrong OS – to cast some skepticism on the hardware change. However, corroborating evidence has now been found to suggest that indeed, Microsoft is set to fix the Lumia 635 that was previously released under Nokia.
Developer MohammadAG gets Android Wear to work with iPhones, sort of
Google has hinted that it could eventually make Android Wear work with iPhones, but as the wearables platform is getting close to its first birthday, we’re yet to see an official integration. The good news is, if you really want to use your Android Wear smartwatch with an iOS device, an unofficial solution may be coming.
Android developer Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh, widely known on XDA as MohammadAG, found a way to push notifications from iOS to AW. MohammadAG, who is known for his work developing Xposed Framework modules, used a feature called Apple Notification Center Service (ANSC) that was first introduced on iOS7. This is the same feature that allows Pebble to receive notifications from iPhones via Bluetooth. Because it’s built into the operating system, making use of ANSC doesn’t require a special app – notifications from any app can be pushed automatically to a connected smartwatch.
To enable the feature, MohammadAG created an .apk that needs to run on the smartwatch, and the developer said he’s considering open-sourcing it. You will still need an Android device to set up the smartwatch and get apps on it, but the good news is you can use any iOS7 or higher Apple device, no jailbreak required.
Now, the Android Wear experience is more than just notifications and MohammadAG admits that this ANSC-based implementation is limited. But if you just want simple notifications, this could do. We’ll keep an eye on this little project and let you know when, if ever, becomes available.
Watch a robot play the violin better than you can
Wish you hadn’t been so quick to give up violin practice as a kid? You may never get to turn back the clock, but retired engineer Seth Goldstein is showing that there’s still hope of reliving those musical ambitions through technology. He recently showed off Ro-Bow, a kinetic sculpture that uses robotic fingers (specifically, electromagnetic actuators) to play digital music files on a real violin. While the machine won’t have concert performers rethinking their careers, it’s probably better with a bow than you were way back when — it can handle a fast Irish jig as well as a slow, sentimental tune like “Amazing Grace.” The Ro-Bow hardware would have to shrink and get a bit of polish to be useful as more than an art project, of course. All the same, it’s proof that you don’t have to run a giant technology company to build a reasonably adept robotic musician.
Filed under: Robots
Via: New York Times
Source: Seth Goldstein
New Google Now card shows gas stations on your route
Thanks to the relentless work of Google’s engineers and the huge amount of computing power that the company can throw at any problem, Google Now is getting smarter all the time. The latest addition to the personal assistant service is a card that shows gas stations found on and nearby your current route.
The feature was first spotted by Google Plus user Kevin McLaughlin and doesn’t appear to be dependent on navigation. The phone detects that the user is driving down a route that, we assume, the user has used before, and shows nearby gas stations, along with directions, distance, and the detour required to reach each station.
It would be really nice if Google were able to pull in gas prices for each station, but even in this form, the feature can be very useful. With that said, checking gas stations on Google Now isn’t something you’d normally do while driving, but perhaps Google has bigger plans for this feature.
Have you seen this new card? Let us know what seems to trigger it.
Seemingly official One M9 press shots and specs found on German retailer site
Samsung is doing a good job hyping us up, but HTC has a harder time keeping things under wraps. Yesterday, German retailer Cyberport put up product pages showing what appear to be press shots and complete specifications of the HTC One M9.
The pages have been removed, but Mobile Geeks preserved the good stuff for posterity. This close to the March 1 official debut of the M9, the listings could be very well accurate, and the fact that Cyberport took them down adds further credibility to that. With that said, a bit of caution is advised – retailers often put up product pages in advance, and sometimes they do it based on rumors floating around. So take this with salt.
Specs
First up, the specs shared by Cyberport match everything we’ve been hearing through the grapevine about the HTC One M9. The device will feature a 5-inch Full HD screen, a Snapdragon 810 processor clocked at 2 GHz, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage (expandable), a 2,900-mAh battery, a 20MP rear camera, and a 4MP UltraPixel front shooter. The device will be slightly thicker and larger than the One M8, at 144.6 x 69.7 x 9.61 millimeters, though HTC managed to reduce the M9’s weight to 157.5 grams (One M8 was 160 grams). Dolby sound, LTE-A (300Mbps), Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, and GPS complete the picture of HTC’s new flagship.
Design
The alleged press renders show two versions of the M9 – gunmetal and silver-golden. The latter features an interesting combination of silver on the back and golden on the front and sides. Incidentally or not, @upleaks recently tweeted that the M9 would come in three versions at launch – gunmetal, silver-golden, and golden.
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The shots differ from the render shared by @evleaks a few weeks ago; the speaker grilles and the infamous black bar hosting the HTC logo are still present, while @evleaks’ image had concealed speakers and no black bar. We can tell for sure, but Cyberport’s shots seem more “official” than @evleaks’ low quality render, which looks like was made based on a rough description of the device. We’ll need to wait for confirmation.
Render shared by @evleaks
On the back, we see the same squarish camera module found in almost every single image of the M9 that leaked so far. The camera is protruding by a millimeter or so, which seems to be a common place in smartphone design these days. Other than that, the device is very similar to the One M8 and to the M7 before it.
There’s nothing interesting to discern from the screen images, other than to confirm that BlinkFeed will remain a key part of Sense 7. The date in the render, March 1, matches that of HTC’s upcoming event.
Price
Cyberport listed the One M9 for €750 for the 32GB model, which is fairly typical for a 32GB flagship in Europe.
Wrap up
I would say that this “leak,” if we can call it that, looks fairly solid, even if the images contradict what we heard from @evleaks. The shots do match other leaked images, as well as solid reports claiming the M9 will be visually similar to its predecessor.
What do you think of these shots? Do you prefer this design to the @evleaks render?
AIVAnet 