Purported Galaxy S7 leaks in first hands-on picture
Curious to see how the Galaxy S7 looks in the flesh? After a series of CAD drawings and renders, an image published by Vietnamese website ReviewDao purports to show an actual Galaxy S7 in the wild.
The image confirms a couple of details we’ve been hearing about the Galaxy S7. First its camera, a 12MP unit that is said to be much better than the Galaxy S6’s, doesn’t protrude as much as on Samsung’s 2015 flagship. We can see from the picture that the camera is very close to being flush with the body of the alleged S7, while its shape seems a little rounder. This is something we first reported on in our exclusive Galaxy S7 CAD diagram leak, and Korean media later confirmed it.
See also: Samsung Galaxy S7 rumor roundup: release date, price, specs, features
Second, we can see from the picture that the Galaxy S7 will feature a glass back that curves gently into its metallic frame. This is another subtle change compared to the Galaxy S6, which had a flat glass back.
The image appears to be showing the rumored all-black Galaxy S7, which leaked in press renders last week. The paintjob combines a black glass back with what looks to be black anodized metal. Note that ReviewDao claims this is a prototype, so the commercial version could differ to a certain extent.
The report includes some information on the Galaxy S7, most of it being stuff we’ve heard before. It’s not clear where these details come from, but a couple of bits that stand out are the magnesium alloy frame (allegedly replacing aluminum) and the incredibly fast charging time of 0 to 80% in just 30 minutes.
We’ll see if these details pan out on February 21, when Samsung will introduce the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge at its Barcelona event. Let us know your thoughts!
Doze Mode and app permissions may soon come to Android Wear devices
Google just recently announced a big update to the Android Wear platform that would bring a number of useful features to all current Wear watches. Among those changes are official speaker support for placing and receiving calls on your wrist, as well as a handful of new gestures that should come in handy. As of now, we’ve only seen the second-generation Moto 360 receive the update to Marshmallow. In the release notes for that update, we can see that Google actually left out a few notable features that would eventually be making their way to Android Wear devices.
Alongside a few of the features we knew would be coming to the watch, Motorola also explains that the Moto 360 would be getting Doze Mode and app permissions with this new update.
It makes perfect sense for Doze Mode and app permissions to be available on Android Wear. As explained in the release notes, if you’re not using your Wear device, Doze Mode will kick in and help save some precious battery life. This is also bolstered by a better screen dimming implementation that will help reduce battery drain when always-on screen is turned on. Also, with the addition of app permissions, now you’ll be able to have more control over what you share with your installed apps.
The company also mentions that the Moto Body Running app will come to standard Moto 360 (2nd Gen.) devices.
It’s worth noting that Google hasn’t commented on Doze Mode or app permissions coming to Android Wear, so we aren’t entirely sure if these features will make their way to all devices. It would make sense that all smartwatches will get these new features, but we’ll unfortunately have to wait to know for sure. Google says the big update will be rolled out to devices over the next few weeks, and we’ll let you know if these new features are present on other devices.
Fuel-cell maker claims smartphones with 7-day battery life just 2 years away
For all our fast processors, QHD displays, and other bleeding edge jumps in tech, the holy grail of mobile innovation remains a way to meaningfully improve battery life in today’s devices. It’s something we’ve been promised time and time again with no real progress, so forgive us if we aren’t at least a little skeptical by Intelligent Energy Holdings, a British fuel-cell developer, claim that they are working to finally crack the battery life code in the near future.
This particular fuel-cell developer is best known for its work on a hydrogen-powered black cab in London (seen below) and on creating a fuel-cell-powered aircraft with Boeing. With more than 25 years research and a patent arsenal of over a thousand, it’s clear that Intelligent Energy Holdings is an established player in the emerging fuel-cell game. Translating that research into the mobile landscape isn’t going to be easy though, regardless of the company’s experience, but they apparently are already pretty far along.
From cars to phones?
The fuel-cell maker says that an “emerging smartphone maker” will provide them with $7.6 million to develop a fuel cell small enough for the use in mobile phones in the near future. Reportedly such a system would reduce the need to charge significantly, meaning that once a week plug-ins might become reality. So how exactly would such a battery work? In the simplest terms, a fuel-cell battery would convert hydrogen into electricity, leaving water vapor as a byproduct.
Mobile fuel cell batteries could reportedly see market availability in around two years.
As for when we supposedly might see a phone using fuel cell power hit the market? Unlike many similar battery innovations we’ve wrote about that had no timeline for release in sight, Intelligent Energy is supposedly much closer to actually making the dream a reality.
The Chief Executive of Intelligent Energy, Henri Winand, says that if the partnership with the undisclosed handset maker goes well, it could see market availability in around two years. Of course, there’s still a lot of unknowns here – costs, rechargeable or replaceable, etc. This timeline is also hinging on “things going well”, and new tech breakthroughs often run into big hurdles. We wouldn’t get our hopes up too much at this point, but the idea of one week charging is certainly an intriguing one. For now, the closest we get to that with mobile phones is the 2-3 day battery life found on devices like the Huawei Mate 8.
What do you think, excited by the prospect of one-week charging?
Pagaré Smartstrap Plans to Bring Contactless Payments to Pebble Time
Financial tech startup Fit Pay recently launched a new Kickstarter for its third-party Pebble Time “smartstrap” called the Pagaré. The new accessory will bring NFC payment capabilities to the smartwatch, using the power of the Pebble’s smart accessory port, giving Pebble Time the same mobile wallet opportunities allowed to Apple Watch customers thanks to Apple Pay.
The Pagaré smartstrap will come in all of the same colors and finishes that Pebble creates for the Pebble Time, so that “you won’t have to sacrifice your style to receive the benefits of Pagaré,” according to Fit Pay co-founder and CEO Mike Orlando. The strap runs on its own battery, so with a small USB connector on one end, users will be able to charge the Pagaré smartstrap and the Pebble Time simultaneously.
Fit Pay said that its new smartstrap will be able to be used “at over 9 million point of sale terminals worldwide,” including places like GameStop, Panera Bread, and Whole Foods. Similar to the Apple Watch, when the Pagaré is removed from a user’s wrist it locks access to any of the payment features of the band. A four-digit passcode reactivates those features when the Pebble Time is reattached.
Pagaré has multiple layers of security to protect sensitive data. In addition to secure hardware, we leverage the same card network service as Apple Pay to replace your card number with a surrogate value called a token. This means we never need to store your credit card.
Notably, once the Pagaré app is installed on a user’s phone and credit cards are scanned in, the new accessory is “a completely phone-free solution.” Users will be able to pay at compatible NFC terminals using Pagaré without having their smartphone nearby. The company is looking to the future, as well, with plans to introduce transit and entertainment ticket options into the Pagaré suite of tools if the Kickstarter gets funded.
As of writing, the campaign sits at just over a $26,000 funded level with a goal of $120,000 over the next 29 days. Users interested can get in on an early bird discount of the Pagaré for $49, and once those are gone the band will cost $69 at retail price. Higher early bird reward tiers bundle in the Pebble Time ($199), Pebble Time Steel ($249), and Pebble Time Round ($249) alongside a Pagaré smartstrap.
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You can now buy MSI’s eye-tracking laptop
MSI has revealed that people can now pick up the flagship GT72S laptop for the princely sum of $2,599.99. Unlike other high-end gaming devices, this one has a trick up its sleeve: Tobii’s eye-tracking sensor technology. We’ve previously showed you prototypes of the kit, but after six months in the labs, it’s now ready for prime time. As before, the device’s extra sensors will let your eyes interact with the game as long as there’s support for it. So far, titles like Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Assassin’s Creed: Rogue and Elite: Dangerous are all able to take advantage of the GT72S’ extra hardware.
There’s also a new feature that the pair are talking up — the ability to share the position of your eyes as an overlay onto any streams that you share online. If you use a platform like XSplit Gamecaster, then you’d better just be careful not to spend too much time staring at something you shouldn’t since other people will be watching. In addition, Tobii is boasting that its technology will be able to see what you’re peeping at in “any room under any lighting conditions,” making it perfect for that late-night deathmatch. Oh, and you can use eye tracking-based passwords and use other Windows utilities, should that take your fancy.
Source: Newegg
The future of military camouflage may be a cute chameleon robot
Researcher Guoping Wang of Wuhan University, China, and a handful of collaborators 3D-printed a chameleon robot that changes colors in response to its environment, as spotted by New Scientist. The little lizard is lined in plasmonic displays created out of gold-infused glass encased in an electrolyte gel containing silver ions. Using a light sensor, the displays read the reflective and absorbing properties of nearby colors. With the application of an electric field, the gold and silver ions interact so the displays take on these light properties, actively changing the chameleon’s color.
So far, the camouflage robot can only detect red, green and blue. Researchers are optimistic that a more advanced chameleon will be able to read any color at all, New Scientist reports. If a similar system can be shrunk down and streamlined, it may be used in military camouflage pursuits, Wang tells the publication.
Scientists have previously taken cues from another animal, the majestic squid, in their hunt for on-demand camouflage.
Via: Motherboard
Source: New Scientist, ACS Nano
Monster Powercard Turbo review
There are a multitude of options out there if you are looking for a smartphone charger — plenty of different types, shapes, colors, bells and whistles. But the bottom line is they all perform the same function – they charge your smartphone.
The key to floating to the top of the sea of charging banks is to simply put out a quality product at a reasonable price; that is exactly what the Powercard Turbo does.
The Powercard Turbo, made by Monster, is just that, a monster, especially in quality of the build. This charger is built to last. Within the first hours of having it in my possession, my son dropped it on the tile floor in my kitchen. Then, I knocked it off my desk and also had it slide off my lap onto the parking lot at work. Not one dent, ding or scratch. All that trauma and it still fully charged my phone in under forty minutes.
If by some miracle you manage to break the Powercard, the charger comes with a one year warranty for products sold in North America and a two year warranty for products sold in Europe.
In terms of capacity, the Powercard Turbo comes with 3350mAh, which is more than you’ll find in most smartphones. Older devices might be able to get up to two charges out of it but today’s devices are inching into this space. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of reserve juice should you run low earlier in the day than you’d like.
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Using the Powercard Turbo is extremely easy; you take the two inch USB charging cable, plug the microUSB connector into the port then plug the standard USB port into the wall plug. After about two hours the Powercard Turbo will be ready to charge your smartphone.
Once ready, simply switch the USB charging cord so the microUSB end is plugged into your smartphone and the standard USB end is hooked into the Powercard Turbo. After that, hit the power button and let it go to work.
When it comes down to it, this is a really great power bank as it’s tough, durable and charges my smartphone quickly. The two inch USB cord is easy to keep track of because I can keep it plugged into the device. Never get caught with your power down again, get a Powercard Turbo and keep your device working for hours.
Where to Buy
You can pick up a Powercard Turbo charger via Monster’s website for approximately $50. Additionally, you’ll find it in a variety of colors at Amazon, too. As of today the champagne gold version is only $20.
The post Monster Powercard Turbo review appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Latest Chromer update lets you preload links in Chat Heads-style bubbles
Chromer is a relatively new app in the Google Play Store that harnesses the power of Google’s Chrome Custom Tabs to make browsing much quicker on mobile devices. Chrome Custom Tabs provide a lighter, faster and safe browsing experience, which is something we can all get behind.
Now, developer Arunkumar has released Chromer version 1.5 to the Play Store that will largely change the way you browse websites and open links.
Instead of opening up every single link in a Chrome Custom Tab, Chromer now has the ability to utilize a new feature called WebHeads – floating bubbles that pre-load websites off to the side of your screen. WebHeads can be turned on in the Settings menu of the app. Once turned on, each link you click on will open up a WebHead. You can stack these floating bubbles atop one another, too. After you click on a WebHead, the bubble will close and the link will open in a Chrome Custom Tab. The top-most bubble in your stack will load considerably faster than the other bubbles, so you shouldn’t have to spend a whole lot of time waiting for links to load. You can also drag and drop bubbles to the trash can at the bottom of the screen if you’d like to get rid of them, though the implementation still isn’t as smooth as something you’d get with Facebook’s Chat Heads or Link Bubble.
I used to use Link Bubble religiously, and just recently switched over to Chromer. My only qualm with the app was that it didn’t have the ability to open links in bubbles, so I’m really happy this feature is now available.
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There are a few other changes in this update too. The dynamic toolbar in the app has been enhanced, and you now even have the ability to add a configurable action item to the Custom Tab toolbar for quickly sharing links to other apps. Here’s the full changelog if you’re interested:
- WEBHEADS: Ability to stack multiple links in floating bubbles and open them later.
- Configurable action item in custom tab. Choose between secondary browser and any sharing app.
- Ability to do text,voice search from main screen.
- Dynamic toolbar enhanced. Now can adapt color based on the launching app’s color.
- Sharing a non url text to Chromer will now do a Google search.
- Fixed default behavior on Cyanogen devices
- Improved warm up and pre-fetch performance on non Chrome browsers
- Bug fixes
Chromer version 1.5 is now available in the Play Store, so follow the link below if you’re interested.
Download Chromer from Google Play
Next: 15 best Android apps of 2016
Apple Close to Approval for Opening Retail Locations in India
Apple is close to gaining clearance to open its first retail store locations in India, according to a source familiar with the matter speaking with Bloomberg. Apple will be re-submitting its retail presence application to the Indian government due to a format problem, but Bloomberg‘s source said that India plans to push the application through without issue.
Due to the fact that Apple is “a provider of cutting-edge technology,” the Cupertino-based company will be exempt from a rule set by the Indian government that states any foreign businesses selling a single brand must acquire 30 percent of its product’s manufacturing inputs locally. Since Apple manufactures most of its products in China, the stipulation has been an issue for the company in trying to make headway into the Indian retail market.
“Most of the growth in India will come from new users coming into the Apple ecosystem, unlike in the West where growth is mainly from existing users upgrading,” said Tarun Pathak, a senior analyst at Counterpoint Technology Market Research, based near New Delhi. “You can expect the stores to focus mostly on iPhones.”
Due to the high-end pricing of the iPhone, Apple has remained a small share of the smartphone market within India for the past few years. With 2 percent of the market, Apple is behind companies like Samsung (26 percent), Intex (10 percent), and Lenovo (9 percent) in terms of smartphone sales.
Last summer, Apple announced the Authorized Mobility Resellers program in India, which was reported to be focused on opening 500 retail store locations across 12 cities in India. With such a small share of the country’s 220 million smartphone users, it seems Apple is finally getting closer to increasing its foothold in the country.
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The Pirate Bay begins testing browser streaming
The Pirate Bay torrent site has blown around so much, you might not even be sure where it is right now (thepiratebay.se, we think). It’s still kicking though, and now has a new trick — streaming directly from your browser. It’s able to do that thanks to a new plugin from Torrents Time, using the same technology as Popcorn Time (the second version, not the original). If you dare, all you have to do is download the plugin for Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome, and when you go to a given Pirate Bay torrent, you’ll get the option to stream.
The plugin is a free beta right now, but there are a few of the usual Pirate Bay caveats. You’ll need to have enough seeders and peers, the quality is suspect and, of course, it’s completely illegal. Once you get it working, there are few nice features like casting support for Chromecast, Airplay and DLNA and a built-in VPN.
Torrents Time pitching it as a valid business idea, complete with buzzwords. “By harnessing the incredible abilities of torrents, you can transform your website … this will result in an immediate, natural drop in your bounce rate and will greatly improve SEO,” it says in a blog. The group also points out that the plugin can be used by any site, and according to Venture Beat, Pirate Bay rival Kick Ass Torrents will eventually integrate it, too. It’s ad-free for now, but the Torrents Time has promised that ad server integration is “coming soon.”
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Torrents Time
AIVAnet 