Face-tracking tech knows when you skip church services
More than two dozen churches around the world have installed a facial-recognition system that monitors which members of the flock have actually shown up for the Sunday sermon. The system is called Churchix and was developed by Israeli software company, Face-six. It continually scans the religious center’s CCTV feed and matches congregation members to a pre-existing database of their faces — reportedly with 99 percent accuracy.
“Church events are the church way to interact with its members, and naturally the attendance to those events is very important,” Face-Six CEO Moshe Greenshpan told Churchmag. “Event attendance stats help the church to measure the success of each event, see what event types are more popular than others and also track the attendance of specific members.” That way, church officials can monitor everything from the gender ratios of attendees at specific events to ensure that elderly or infirmed church-members haven’t suddenly stopped coming around.
However, not everybody is praising the Churchix. As Emma Carr, director of Big Brother Watch, told the Mirror UK, “This is a clear example of completely over-the-top use of technology. Churches have managed to note who is in their congregation for hundreds of years without resorting to highly intrusive means.”
[Image Credit: David Malan – Getty]
Filed under: Internet
Via: Mirror UK
Source: Seabit Media
Tesla Model S drivers rack up over 1 billion miles
Apparently, Tesla Model S owners like to hit the road quite often. The electric car maker has revealed that Model S drivers have collectively notched up more than 1 billion miles, or enough usage to prevent over 570,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the EV’s three-year history. Is this marketing hype? Absolutely — we’re sure that conventional car brands wouldn’t even blink at that milestone. However, it’s evidence that Tesla is growing up as a company. It’s an established (if small) presence in an industry where electric cars still tend to be treated as side projects, rather than the main attraction.
This is huge: Tesla drivers passed 1 billion electric miles. http://t.co/glRZTtUpai https://t.co/3UDceWjY6M
– Tesla Motors (@TeslaMotors) June 23, 2015
Filed under: Transportation
Source: Tesla
Amazon Echo now available to everyone
Earlier today, Armando Ferreira explained via his Google+ page that the Amazon Echo is now available to the masses. In fact, if you head over to Amazon’s front page at around the time of this post, you should see a letter from Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos confirming this.
The Amazon Echo is a computer controlled entirely by voice commands. It is able “to understand language requests, from many voices, from across a room, even when music is playing.” In order to accomplish this, the device has seven microphones, beam-forming technology, and noise cancellation, which come together to form far-field voice recognition.
Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service powering Echo, provides information, music, news, weather, and so forth. Since its invitation-only program in November, the company has added support for Pandora, Audible audiobooks, calendar access, live sports scores and schedules, traffic reports, Amazon.com re-ordering, and control of connected devices like WeMo and Philips Hue’s lights and switches.
Bezos adds that many of these were the result of feedback and suggestions from customers who were invited to test the device. With that in mind, Amazon could add more now that the Echo can be obtained by anyone.
The post Amazon Echo now available to everyone appeared first on AndroidGuys.
U.S. Cellular begins Android 5.1.1 rollout for Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge
Right off the heels of an international rollout, U.S. Cellular has begun sending Android 5.1.1 out for both the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge.
The update will bring your baseband to G920R4TYU2BOF7. And if you haven’t received the update yet, you can check manually by heading into Settings > About Phone. Unfortunately, there’s no official changelog from U.S. Cellular yet, but you can expect to see some minor notification improvements and Factory Reset Protection.
Anyone get the update yet?
source: U.S. Cellular
Come comment on this article: U.S. Cellular begins Android 5.1.1 rollout for Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge
Myanmar welcomes Android One with the Cherry Mobile One
Google’s initiative to bring affordable, capable devices to emerging markets is not going away any time soon. The company announced on Tuesday that Myanmar would see its first Android One device in the form of the Cherry Mobile One.
Key specifications:
- 4.5-inch display (854×480)
- MediaTek 6582 quad-core processor
- 5MP rear camera, 2MP front camera
- 1GB of RAM
- 8GB of internal storage (microSD card slot included)
- 1700mAh battery
- Android 5.1.1
The Cherry Mobile One will be available throughout the country in retail stores starting June 26 with a price of Ks109,000 (~$98).
This phone marks Myanmar as the eighth country to receive an Android One device. The others are India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Turkey.
Source: Google
Come comment on this article: Myanmar welcomes Android One with the Cherry Mobile One
Pokémon Jukebox is a novel music player to play Pokemon tunes (and take your money)
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style=”display:block”
data-ad-client=”ca-pub-8150504804865896″
data-ad-slot=”8461248232″
data-ad-format=”auto”>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push();
When I imagine an official Pokémon app getting added to the Google Play Store, I always envision an Android-optimized Pokémon game that would literally sell like hotcakes. Today, there is now an official Pokémon app on the Play Store, but it’s not exactly what we were hoping for. Pokémon Jukebox, is the aptly named music player that aims to cash in on your nostalgia by playing all your favourite Pokémon theme music (and medleys) all within the same app – and that’s pretty much it.
You’ll be able to play three Pokémon songs as much as you want everyday, and if three isn’t enough for you, you can always purchase songs – note that you’ll only be able to play the purchased songs through Pokémon Jukebox. It includes theme songs from pretty well every Pokémon that anyone cares to remember, including:
- Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue
- Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire
- Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen
- Pokémon Emerald
- Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl
- Pokémon Platinum
- Pokémon HeartGold and Pokémon SoulSilver
- Pokémon Black and Pokémon White
- Pokémon Black 2 and Pokémon White 2
- Pokémon X and Pokémon Y
- Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire
Yes, there are that many Pokémon games. We’re not a huge fan of the app, mostly because of the money-grabbing nature of it, but no doubt it will be a hit among avid fans of the series. If that’s you, hit the link below to catch them all:
What do you think of Pokémon Jukebox? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Phandroid
The post Pokémon Jukebox is a novel music player to play Pokemon tunes (and take your money) appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Low LG G4 sales have resulted in lowered Q2 estimates
The LG G4 was supposed to be the company’s best selling flagship to date, and while that still may be the case, it appears the phone is not selling as well as anticipated. Reports are stating that securities firms are drastically reducing their Q2 estimates for LG, blaming the cuts on G4 sales.
At the low end of the spectrum, Daishin Securities lowered their estimates from $92.3 million to $50.7 million. Brighter, but still lowered, estimates from Korea Investment & Securities dropped their figure to $61 million from $104 million. Do these lowered estimates mean that LG will miss its goal of 8 million G4’s sold by the end of the year? Possibly, but it will not be by much.
To reach their goal, LG needed to sell 2.6 million G4’s each quarter, and shipments for Q2 are coming in right under 2.5 million. While sales may not equal shipments, it seems that the LG G4 is doing fairly well, even though it is falling short of estimates. LG’s increase in marketing to compete with larger companies might also be to blame for the lower profits.
Via: Phandroid Source: Business Korea
The post Low LG G4 sales have resulted in lowered Q2 estimates appeared first on AndroidGuys.
MediaTek 10-core CPU may debut on the Elephone P9000
If you’ve been feeling like your octa-core CPU hasn’t really been keeping up and brute-forcing more cores in there would be excellent, you’ll be glad to hear that MediaTek has you covered. Back in May we saw MediaTek let out the wraps on their upcoming deca-core Helio X20 processor. A recent leak has shone a light on its debut, with what may be the first device to carry the computing-monster SoC, the Elephone P9000.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Elephone, they’re Chinese smartphone manufacturer, but sell their devices internationally. The leak came via the Chinese site MyDrivers, which gave us some other tidbits about feature-packed phone.
The Helix X20 is made up of groups of CPUs at different levels, two Cortex-A72 processors (2.5 GHz) at the top-end, four Cortex-A53 (2.0 GHz) medium performers, and four more Cortex-A53 (1.4 GHz) for power efficiency. The on-board GPU is the Mali-T800.
It is said in the leak that the phone will go for 3104 CNY (~$500 USD), and is slated for a October 20th release. Are you excited to see the CPU-cores boundary pushed even further or do you think it’s frivolous at this point?
The post MediaTek 10-core CPU may debut on the Elephone P9000 appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Gmail’s “Undo Send” feature now available for everyone to use on the web
If you’ve ever sent the wrong email to one of your contacts, you’d know that, depending on the content of the email, it can make for an extremely embarrassing and stressful situation. That’s why today, Google has brought the convenient “Undo Send” feature to Gmail on the web for those situations. The feature has actually been available for some time as part of the Gmail “Labs”, but now it’s available for all to use.
To enable it, go to mail.google.com, click on the settings cog on the top right of your screen, then choose Settings. Scroll down in the General tab until you see the “Undo Send” option, and check the box to enable the feature. Oddly enough, Google has given users an option to choose between 5, 10, 20 or 30 seconds for the cancellation period. I don’t really know why one would choose to only undo emails within the first 5 seconds when there’s a longer 30-second option available, but it’s there if you want to live on the edge.
The “Undo Send” functionality isn’t currently available in the Gmail mobile application, though perhaps it will make its way to the app sometime soon now that the feature is baked in to the web experience. Right now, the only way you can use “Undo Send” on mobile is through the Inbox by Gmail application.
Netflix announces a 7-for-1 stock split
We’ve come a long way from Qwikster. Netflix’s stock price has more than doubled since last December, and with prices of shares nearing $700 today it announced plans (PDF) for a 7-for-1 stock split. The price closed today at $681, and the Board of Directors approved a plan to distribute six additional shares for each one held as of the close of business on July 2nd. In terms of how often we see something like that, this comes about a year after Apple announced its own 7-for-1 split. On a melancholy note, the split will come almost five years to the day after Blockbuster’s attempt at a reverse stock split to avoid delisting fell through. Ouch.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Netflix Investor Relations (PDF)
AIVAnet 