Huawei’s Honor 7i has just one flipping camera

Even though Huawei is just two weeks away from its IFA launch event, it couldn’t help but push out another eccentric device beforehand. In Beijing today, the company unveiled the Honor 7i which, like the Oppo N series, has a camera that can flip around for some quality selfies. The imager in question has a 13-megapixel resolution, an f/2.0 aperture, a 28mm wide-angle lens and dual-tone LED flash, so not bad on paper. Better yet, the Honor 7i can utilize the screen to brighten your selfies in the dark. There’s also a fingerprint reader located on the left side of the mid-frame, and it doubles as a camera button for some easy left-handed selfies.

With the exception of the Honor 7i’s octa-core Snapdragon 616 chipset (4 x 1.5GHz + 4 x 1.2GHz), its internal specs are almost identical to those on the Honor 7: a 5.2-inch 1080p IPS display, up to 3GB of RAM, up to 32GB of internal storage, a 3,100 mAh fixed battery, dual-Nano SIM slots (one of which can take a microSD card) and a color option of either silver or gold.

There’s no word on global availability just yet, but the base model in China (2GB RAM, 16GB of internal storage, for China Mobile) costs 1,599 yuan or about $250, whereas the top model (3GB RAM, 32GB of internal storage) goes for 1,899 yuan or about $300.

Filed under:
Cellphones, Mobile

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Via:
Engadget Chinese

Source:
Huawei

Tags: android, china, emui, honor, honor7i, huawei, mobilepostcross, phone, selfie

NASA lists ‘The Martian’ tech that already exists

A lot of sci-fi films feature technologies we still only dream of, such as time traveling or warp drives — Ridley Scott’s and Andy Weir’s The Martian, however, makes use of more realistic ones. In fact, NASA’s already developing a number of technologies used in the film, including a Martian habitat and a spacesuit suited for the planet’s environment. The agency has listed nine technologies shown in the film that already exists in some form — not really surprising, seeing as NASA served as its consultant. Some of them are actually in use aboard the ISS right now, and who knows: the others might be ready in 20 years, when the events in the movie take place.

The agency enumerated these nine on its The Martian portal:

• Habitat: The movie’s protagonist, Mark Watney, stayed in the crew’s habitat when he was left and presumed dead on Mars. NASA’s astronauts train for deep-space missions by staying in a habitat called Human Exploration Research Analog or HERA at the Johnson Space Center.
• Plant farm: The movie shows Watney growing plants so he can have something to eat while waiting to be rescued. In real life, astronauts aboard the ISS ate the veggies they grew in space for the first time earlier this August.
• Water Recovery: Just like Watney, the ISS crew recycles every drop of urine, sweat and water used for washing.
• Oxygen Generation: The ISS astronauts have an Oxygen Generation System that continuously provides air they can breathe.
• Mars Spacesuit: NASA has begun working on the Z-2 spacesuit, which might look rather odd, but will allow humans to explore the red planet.
• Rover: Several rovers had already roamed Mars in the past, but NASA is developing its next-gen deep-space ground vehicle for the planet and for near-earth asteroids.
• Ion Propulsion: The crew in the movie used ion propulsion to reach the planet faster, while in reality, the Dawn spacecraft used ion thrusters to minimize fuel consumption when it made its way to the dwarf planet Ceres. The agency is also working on its next-gen “Hall effect thrusters.”
• Solar Panels: Many of NASA’s spacecraft already have solar panels to absorb sunlight and generate power they can use.
• Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs): These generators convert heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into energy. The Curiosity rover has one, which can produce 110 Watts of power, enough to light up one bulb.

Some of these technologies were shown in The Martian’s latest trailer, which we’ve embedded below:

Filed under:
Science

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Source:
NASA

Tags: movie, nasa, themartian

Researchers pluck carbon from the sky, turn it into diamonds

Carbon’s the perfect material to build strong yet lightweight materials, but it’s also the reason we’re running head-first into an ecological apocalypse. Wouldn’t it be great if we could snatch the excess CO2 from the air and use it to cheaply build aircraft fuselages, modern cars and artificial diamonds? That’s what a group of researchers from George Washington University claim to have achieved at a recent meeting of the American Chemical Society. Not only would it mean that future engineering projects would have an abundant source of cheap materials, but it also has planet-saving consequences.

The process works a little like the electrolysis you’d have seen in high school. Rather than dunking a pair of electrodes in a bath of water, however, they’re placed in a mix of molten lithium carbonate and lithium oxide. When this compound reacts, it effectively pulls in CO2 from the surrounding air, and the electrodes cause solid carbon to gather around one terminal. The researchers have been able to tweak this system to create carbon nanofibers of varying shapes and sizes, which could theoretically be used to build pretty much anything. In addition, because the team can use solar power to drive this reaction, it’s believed that the process could actually produce a net reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

CO2 in the air is one of the key causes of climate change and we’re now well beyond the “safe” limit of 350 parts per million that the UN put in place. The increasing rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide is also causing faster acidification of our oceans which, you probably don’t need us to tell you, is a pretty bad thing. This system is, effectively, a super-smart carbon capture and storage system, but rather than dumping the material in chambers underground, would actually create something useful with it.

In a report by MIT Tech Review, it’s claimed that this process could actually return the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere to pre industrial levels in just a decade. That’s an ambitious claim, and it’d require a facility that took up roughly 940,000 square kilometers to make it happen. But let’s be honest, if this process can be proven to work, we could wind up with super-clean air, not to mention cars, planes and computers made out of carbon fiber. Let’s just hope that the team can make good on these promises, and fast.

[Image Credit: Getty]

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Via:
MIT Technology Review

Source:
Nano Letters, George Washington University, American Chemical Society

Tags: AmericanChemicalSociety, Carbon, CarbonFiber, ClimateChange, GeorgeWashingtonUniversity, StuartLicht

ZTE Nubia Z7 for $299.99 on Gearbest

Another phone coming out of Gearbest is the ZTE Nubia Z7. Unlike that other manufacturers, ZTE is one of the more well known Chinese OEMs.

As a matter of fact, ZTE is the official sponsor of different NBA basketball teams. Last I checked, they sponsored the Knicks and the Rockets.

The Nubia Z7 is a high quality device built by ZTE. Not only does it look great, but it also runs great. With a Snapdragon 801 and Adreno 330, the Nubia Z7 doesn’t skimp on much

Sure, it has last year’s processor, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Snapdragon 810 has been said to have serious overheating issues, and the Snapdragon 805 and 808 are more minor updates than a big overhaul.

Other key specs include a 5.5-inch display with an outstanding 2k resolution (1440 x 2560 pixels).

Just everything about this phone is beautiful. You have a beautifully designed phone with a beautiful display.

With that 2k display, you can really see all the detail captured by its 13-megapixel camera. The camera is equipped with a flash and auto-focus just like any other high-end phone out there.

On the front of the phone, you can find a 5-megapixel front facing camera for all the selfies you could want.

Along with all of those beefy specs, the ZTE Nubia Z7 also packs the following array of sensors:

• Light sensor
• G-sensor
• P-sensor
• Proximity sensor
• Gyroscope
• Electronic Compass

In addition to all of those sensors, the Z7 also has a GPS just like any other phone in existence. Then you also get Bluetooth 4.0 along with it.

The only thing that this phone is lacking is a microSD card slot and a removable battery.

You will be stuck with 32gb of internal storage along with 3gb of RAM. The 3100mAh battery should be plenty to last through the day.

With a dual SIM set up for two microSIM cards, the Z7 is a great deal for $299.99.

You will be stuck on a skinned version of Android 4.4.4 for the time being, but I have heard nothing but complaints about battery life and stability issues on Lollipop.

The phone, just like with all other phones sold on Gearbest, is factory unlocked for use on any GSM network that supports the following bands.

2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
3G: WCDMA 850/1900/2100MHz
4G: FDD-LTE 1800/2100/2600MHz

So what are you waiting for? Go check it out on Gearbest right now and pick up one of your own for $299.99!

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