Lenovo shows off dual-screen Magic View concept smartwatch
At its Tech World event in Beijing today, Lenovo has showcased a new concept smartwatch that aims to address some of the main concerns with current wearable devices. Alongside the circular display, which is synonymous with the Moto 360 smartwatch, the Magic View concept has a second screen which is located between the watch face and the wrist strap.
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The display uses a “Virtual Interactive Display” and according to Lenovo, this can help overcome small smartwatch displays by letting you viewing larger maps or photos through the secondary screen. Lenovo claims the VID can allow you to view images up to 20 times the normal size of the watch face and can also be used to display private information that you would rather not show on your main watch face.
Talking at the TechWorld keynote, Lenovo CTO Peter Hortensius said that the company had to develop more than 120 patents in order to make the Magic View concept a reality, including the world’s thinnest touch displays. Hortensius says that Magic View is still a concept product but did point out that the company’s Yoga tablet range started out as a concept before becoming one of the company’s major product lines.
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When will Magic View be introduced in a consumer product and will it ship under the Lenovo or Motorola brands? Will it be used in the Moto 360 (2015) edition? We’ll be keeping a close eye on Lenovo in the months ahead and we’ll bring you more info when we have it.
Lenovo unveils concept smartphone with laser projector
At its TechWorld event in Beijing today, Lenovo has unveiled more than just a concept smartwatch as the company’s latest smartphone concept is unique and impressive. The company has already released a handheld pico projector and the Smart Cast concept smartphone aims to bring projectors to the main stream as it has the world’s first laser projector in a smartphone, as well as the world’s smallest pico projector.
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Smart Cast comes with a unique rotating projector system – which appears similar to the Lenovo Pocket Projector – which allows you to project movies, TV shows or video games onto a wall. The projector can also be used to project keyboard and other controls onto nearby surfaces, allowing you to expand your keyboard rather than rely on a small on-screen keyboard. Lenovo then uses its gesture recognition software to recognise gestures such as clicking and sliding and presumably, this gesture recognition could also be used in other non-projector Lenovo and Motorola smartphones.
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At its keynote, Lenovo showed off the projector with a keyboard demo from Chinese pianist Lang Lang and the demo definitely showed that the technology has a lot of real-world applications. From being used as a piano keyboard to a multi-touch keyboard as a teaching aid and a lot more, the Smart Cast may not be a consumer device but given the company’s past record, we’ll see a consumer release at some point in the future. Maybe in the Moto X 2015?
Lenovo announces Lenovo Cast streaming device
Google introduced its Chromecast nearly two years ago and since then, we’ve seen a myriad of competitors also launched. Today, at its TechWorld keynote in Beijing, Lenovo has announced the Lenovo Cast, a competitor to Google’s streaming device with a difference as it also supports the DLNA and Miracast standards.
The puck-shaped Lenovo Cast is compatible with just about any Miracast or DLNA device and can be connected to any display that supports HDMI. The Lenovo Cast features a microUSB and a micro HDMI port along with dual-band Wi-Fi support (unlike Google’s Chromecast, which is limited to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi only), support for broadcasting in full HD and a range of 20 metres, including streaming through walls.
The Lenovo Cast comes measures 70mm diameter by 15mm thick and weighs just 50 grams; unlike the Chromecast, which just sticks out of your TV’s HDMI port, you can mount the Lenovo Cast to the back of your TV if you so wish. The Lenovo Cast is compatible with iOS, Android 4.3 and higher and selected Windows 8.1 devices.
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The Cast will launch at the beginning of August at a cost of $49, which – although higher than the $35 Chromecast – is cheap enough to still be an impulse-buy item that offers value for money.
Microsoft’s new Windows Store policy will combat junk apps
It’s no secret that Windows Store has serious issues not just with scammy apps, but also with spammy ones. Now, Microsoft is finally addressing that problem by introducing a stricter certification policy for new and existing apps that could clean its catalog enough to make browsing the store less painful. The new policy has four main points starting with eliminating apps with almost identical names and icons, those whose titles don’t match up with their content, and those that aren’t very useful or unique. Microsoft will also prune away applications considerably more expensive than similar ones in its category.
The company now requires informational apps to be clearly labeled as a “guide” or as a “tutorial,” as well, else they risk being purged. Finally, an app’s title, description, tags and keywords should all be relevant to what it does, otherwise Microsoft might delete it. These rules sound like they could demolish most clone and junk apps from Windows Store if properly enforced — let’s hope Microsoft makes sure that they do.
Filed under: Mobile, Microsoft
Source: Windows
This telescope is really just 10 Canon lenses strapped together
Hunting for extremely dim galaxies is especially difficult with single-lens telescopes. That’s because, no matter how technologically advanced, the device’s design cannot fully eliminate detail-obscuring scattered light from the resulting images. The University of Toronto’s Dragonfly Telephoto Array, however, deftly avoids that issue. This array — one of the smallest multi-lens astronomy telescopes in use today — is comprised of 10 Canon 400mm f/2.8 L IS II USM telephoto lenses, each costing $10,000. What’s more, each lens is coated in a unique subwavelength nanomaterial that drastically reduces light reflection within the optic. And, like its insect inspiration, the Dragonfly’s ten eyes can work in concert with one another to further reduce unwanted illumination in the resulting image, bringing out otherwise unseen detail in cosmic structures. According to the University of Toronto spokesman Roberto Abraham, this $100,000 system is ten times as accurate as its nearest rival.
[Image Credit: U of Toronto]
Filed under: Science
Via: DIY Photography, PetaPixel
Source: University of Toronto
Canada’s response to Netflix is available nationwide this summer
Canadian cable firms Rogers and Shaw have hogged the Shomi video service all to themselves during its testing phase, but they’re loosening up now that they’re nearly ready for prime time. The two have revealed that their answer to Netflix will be available to all Canadians this summer, not just the companies’ internet and TV subscribers. As during the beta, you’ll plunk down $9 CAD ($7 US) per month to get a mix of shows and (mostly older) movies, including Transparent and other series that are Amazon exclusives in the US. The service already works through Android, Apple TV, Chromecast and iOS devices, so you won’t be hurting for places to watch.
The expansion isn’t just about giving domestic cablecos a shot at money that would otherwise go to Netflix and other American providers. It’s partly a foil to CraveTV, a service meant only for Bell customers. Also, Rogers and Shaw are under pressure from Canada’s telecom regulator, the CRTC, to open up. The agency has ruled that any video-on-demand exclusives must be available to every Canuck online — if companies want sole access to a hot series, they can’t force you to sign up for other services in order to start streaming. This probably won’t get you to drop your existing US subscriptions, but you at least won’t have to jump through hoops to check out options from the Great White North.
[Thanks, Kristy]
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Via: Huffington Post
Source: Canada Newswire
Project Tango is now available without an invitation, priced at $512
Google is certainly no stranger to thinking outside of the box, and has fathered many projects over the years that shows the company’s ability to think differently, with a few examples being Google Glass, Project Ara, and Project Tango. All three of these products have yet to reach true commercial status, though Google Glass had its explorer program, Ara is coming to Puerto Rico later this year, and Project Tango has been on sale for a while, though aimed squarely at developers.
Focusing on the latter of these projects, the Project Tango tablet was first released as an invitation-only product and was priced at $1024, making it far outside the realm of even the highest-end Android tablets. But in April, Google decided to cut the price in half, to just $512. Now they are taking things another step forward by opening up sales to any interested buyer, no invite required. This is an important step in Google’s continued expansion of the new tech, and will likely see many new developers, and general enthusiasts alike, who are just as curious as Google to explore the fantastic new possibilities brought to the table by Project Tango.
If the price cut made you more inclined to try Tango for yourself, then be sure to carefully follow this year’s Google I/O, taking place on the 28th and 29th of May, as it will contain useful sessions concerning Project Tango. For those interested in picking one up, you’ll want to head on over to the Google Store.
‘Nano-paper’ chips end up in compost heaps, not landfills
Today’s cast-off gadgets are far more likely to end up in a landfill than they are being responsibly disposed of. In fact, 41.8 million tons of e-waste were scrapped last year alone. To combat this, a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has invented a radically new kind of ecologically-friendly semiconductor chip made from wood. No, seriously.
The University of Wisconsin team, led by professor Zhenqiang “Jack” Ma and working in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), published their findings on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Their research centers around using a uniquely flexible (and biodegradable, natch) material known as cellulose nanofibril (CNF) as a semiconductor substrate. “If you take a big tree and cut it down to the individual fiber, the most common product is paper. The dimension of the fiber is in the micron stage,” Zhiyong Cai, a project leader at the FPL explained in a statement. “But what if we could break it down further to the nano-scale? At that scale you can make this material, very strong and transparent CNF paper.” Plus, it’s flexible which means that chips built on a CNF substrate can easily be incorporated into bendable electronics.
It’s most important physical attribute however, is the fact that when the chip is compostable. “The majority of material in a chip is support. We only use less than a couple of micrometers for everything else,” Ma said in a statement. “Now the chips are so safe you can put them in the forest and fungus will degrade it. They become as safe as fertilizer.” The team has already spent over a decade developing the substrate. Up next, researchers need to prove that CNF can perform on par with current chip materials like the highly-toxic gallium arsenide before marketing the technology to chipmakers.
[Image Credit: Yei Hwan Jung, Wisconsin Nano Engineering Device Laboratory]
Filed under: Science
Via: Science Alert
Source: Science Daily
Galaxy S6 Edge Iron Man Edition going for a truly intergalactic price
There is a certain sense of irony in Samsung making an official website for a product it only produced 1,000 units of, and which is clearly marked as “Sold Out” already.
Earlier this month Samsung announced plans to release a limited edition run of Iron Man-branded Galaxy S6 Edge units, and despite not having formally launched just yet, we’re already seeing the first units hit Ebay at quite extraordinary prices. As of the time of this writing, of the 7 different auctions for Galaxy S6 Edge Iron Man Limited Edition, the highest is sitting pretty at $7,100, with over 2 days remaining before the auction ends. It needs to be clarified that this isn’t a “value proposition” by any means; said auction has 49 bids on it, which means that barring any potential default on payment, someone will be forking over the better part of 10K, if not more.
Yes that’s right. The current highest priced auction for the S6 Edge Iron Man Edition is going for no less than $7,100. WITH bids.
The high pricing is an example of supply and demand at its finest. The “supply” issue is indeed a problematic one, as there are just 1000 units produced for Korea, and unlike some other limited S6 Edge, the physical product itself is serially numbered. A certain sense of irony is also in place, as given the fact the phone hasn’t shipped yet to these sellers, none of these eager capitalists can know which of the thousand they actually will receive. Just imagine if the current top-dollar auction ends at close to $15,000 and winds up being serially numbered 973. At the very least number 1 (0001) or even 1000 would seek to command much higher price tags. Buyer beware, indeed.
Galaxy S6 Edge
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It will be interesting to see what final price these auctions end at, and for that matter, how the pricing scale changes when the device launches next month in additional Asian territories. How much would you be willing to pay for such a limited edition item?
Lenovo launches depth-sensing laptop and Surface 3 rival
If you’re in the market for a mid-range laptop, Lenovo has revealed an interesting option at its Tech World event in Beijing. The 15-inch Z51 laptop has an Intel RealSense 3D camera that can be used for scanning, gaming or gesture control. If you’re not into that gimmick, the Z51 and 14-inch Z41 have pretty decent bang for the buck, however, with 1080p displays, optional discreet AMD graphics, 16GB max memory and up to a Core i7 CPU. Both will arrive next month starting at $499, but on the off-chance you want a depth camera, you’ll pay an extra $100 for the 15-inch model.
Lenovo also revealed the Ideapad 100 (above), a $249 laptop coming next month that could give potential Chromebook buyers pause. It’s available in 14- and 15-inch sizes, with a 1,366 x 768 non-touch screen. Lenovo says it’s aimed at buyers “who need only the most essential features” like web browsing, meaning the max configuration has a mere BayTrail-M N3540 CPU and 500GB of storage. Still, it’ll let you watch a movie with four hours between charges, as long as you don’t mind holding 4-plus pounds of computer on your lap.
Lastly, there’s the 10-inch ThinkPad 10 (2nd generation) tablet pictured above. Lenovo’s pitching that to business pros with features like a ThinkPad Pen Pro stylus, 1,920 x 1,200 IPS touch screen, Intel Atom quad-core CPU, up to 4GB RAM, a 5-megapixel camera, LTE connectivity and 10 hours of battery life. Lenovo says it’ll also bring “a full PC experience,” à la Microsoft’s Surface 3, provided you’re willing to spend up on accessories. You can add, for instance, a folio keyboard for $110, an ultrabook keyboard for $119, a tablet dock for $129 and $70 4-way privacy film. That’s on top of $549 for the tablet itself, which is $50 bucks more than a base Surface 3. Still, it’s good to have options, and hopefully we’ll get a better look to let you know if it’s worth it. The ThinkPad 10 will be available August 2015.
Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
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