Google’s own interpretation of Amazon’s Echo is coming soon
All of a sudden, it’s as if everyone is working on voice-controlled personal assistants, and reports suggest that Google’s version of something similar to Amazon’s Echo could land as soon as the Google I/O event next week — which would make sense. According to sources at Recode, it’s currently being developed under the codename, Chirp.
Interestingly, Nest (now a part of the same company) shied away from the idea of an Echo like device, citing privacy concerns about talking to Google, its search engine, algorithms and other internet magicks. Recode’s sources suggest voice search and intelligent responses from your Google devices will be the centerpiece of Google’s showcase, alongside virtual reality developments. Okay, Google. Show us what you’ve got.
Source: Recode
Apple Unable to Restore Data From iPhone of Florida Teen Lost at Sea
Apple has been unsuccessful in its attempts to retrieve data from a waterlogged iPhone that belonged to one of two Florida teens who were lost at sea last summer, reports ABC News affiliate WPBF 25.
14-year-old Austin Stephanos’ iPhone 6 was found in an abandoned boat off the Bermuda coast in March, eight months after he and friend Perry Cohen, also 14, went missing during a fishing expedition that began at Palm Beach County, Florida, in June 2015.
The two boys’ parents, who had been locked in a court battle over the iPhone’s fate, recently agreed to hand it over to Apple after the company said it would do everything it could to recover information from it in the hope that it would shed light on the circumstances of the teens’ disappearance.
With the iPhone in Apple’s possession, a dedicated forensics team disassembled the damaged device, cleaned its components and performed a chemical report as part of an exhaustive diagnostics and repair process. But despite the team of engineers working “around the clock”, Apple has been unable to glean any data from it.
The news was released by Austin’s father, Blu Stephanos, via a statement read by the family’s attorney, Michael Pike. “Although they were unable to restore the phone to a functional state, I want to thank Apple, Inc. for their hard work and generous assistance,” Stephanos said.
“If the FBI turned to Apple when they needed help, I see no reason to doubt that every possible means was employed to get Austin’s phone working again. It’s our understanding that Apple had a team assigned to the iPhone around the clock, and for that we are truly grateful.”
Stephanos’ statement went on to suggest he would keep the iPhone as a memento of his son, but the parents of Perry Cohen seem intent on exploring other options.
Pam Cohen, Perry’s mother, issued a subsequent statement which likewise thanked Apple for its efforts, but she also claimed that Apple had offered to hand the phone to other experts in the field who may be able to pick up where Apple left off and continue the work.
“We look forward to working cooperatively with Austin’s family toward this transition,” said Cohen. “We are not giving up on the iPhone’s potential for evidence until all viable efforts have been exhausted.”
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Garmin Forerunner 735XT hands-on preview: Beating the bulk
When it comes to proper sports watches Garmin is the primary brand that springs to mind. But with so many fitness-tracking devices out there exploring different designs, Garmin’s bulky devices have arguably slipped down the ranks.
The Garmin Forerunner 735XT cuts the bulk; this GPS multi-sports watch is akin to a slimmed-down 920XT minus the altimeter, or similar to the Fenix3 but with a built-in optical heart-rate monitor included.
And that heart-rate monitor is a key feature of the 735XT. Almost the moment we put the watch on those trio of green lights to the rear picked up our pulse (a rather excessive 78bpm in all the excitement!) and kept monitoring it in real-time. We really don’t like wearing a chest strap, so this feature is great to find – or you can use an optional chest strap instead if you prefer.
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We’re not sure this Forerunner’s pink and blue finish is exactly to our tastes (don’t believe this finish will make it to the UK), but it’s certainly a standout design for a sports watch. The main unit is rather plasticky, though, but that’s in-keeping with resistance to those sweat-fulled workouts. Plus it’s waterproof to 50-metres, should you want to go for a swim.
That’s another benefit of the Forerunner 735XT: it’s designed for triathletes, so running, cycling and swimming are well catered for. Well, mostly: the lack of an altimeter is an oddity here, because there’s no accurate elevation recording. Shame.
To wear the Forerunner 735XT’s band is really comfy and it has lots of adjustment holes to ensure a snug fit whatever size your wrist. It needs to be snug to ensure that heart-rate monitor works, but that rubberised quality ensures it doesn’t feel tight.
The five buttons to the outer edge are large enough to make easy adjustments, although we find the “back” button’s position to the lower right feels like you’re reaching overthe watch face a lot. Instinctively we kept using this button to attempt selections, when it does the very opposite of that.
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Dig into the 735XT’s menus and there are stacks of measurement options, well displayed on that mono screen. Heart rate, steps, calories, time, distance, pace, including graph views of the last week’s workouts, IQ apps and “Stress Score” (just like the Forerunner 630 model).
Overall the Garmin Forerunner 735XT looks and feels like a neat GPS multi-sport solution. Shame there’s no altimeter, and that smaller scale means battery life won’t be as long-standing as the 920XT and some competitors.
Its £360 price tag isn’t budget, but there’s plenty on offer. Or drop £450 with the HRM-Tri bundled in, which can measure your heart-rate even when underwater.
Honor V8 hands-on preview: Dual cameras, but no Leica in sight
With Huawei shouting loud about its P9 smartphone with dual Leica cameras, the presence of dual lenses on the Honor V8 (the company’s sister brand) got us thinking it, too, would bear the same fruits.
But it’s not to be, as there’s no Leica glass or monochrome sensor in sight. Having handled the new V8 on the show floor at CES Asia, in Shanghai, the phone’s twin lens arrangement is there only to be used for post-focus and pseudo-aperture control.
READ: Huawei P9 review
In that respect, though, the V8 mimicks the P9, offering pseudo f/0.95 through to f/16 for ultra-blurred backgrounds or front-to-back sharpness, respectively. Shame the software is touch-and-go when making these visual fakeries though. Still, the core 12-megapixel rear snapper works just fine and comes with a huge selection of shooting modes, manual options included.
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If anything the Honor V8 stands-out for other reasons. One, it’s a 5.7-inch panel, which while huge in the hand, is largely similar to the Huawei Mate 8 and comes with a recessed rear fingerprint scanner that’s well positioned.Two, that screen boasts a QHD (2560 X 1440) resolution – something Huawei and Honor have been largely ignoring until now, thus showing the path of progression.
Assuming, that is, you’re looking at the top-end V8 anyway; the phone will come in three configurations with the lower two models sporting Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolutions and lower specs instead. In that regard the Honor V8 is, just like a muscle car engine which its name (unwittingly?) apes, turbocharged in that department.
READ: Huawei Mate 8 review
Under the hood you’ll find an octa-core 2.5GHz Kirin 955 SoC, paired with 4GB of RAM. Speedy indeedy. Although with the phone running the company’s EMUI software reskin in its Chinese guise, we’ve not been able to dig deep into its ins and outs this time around.
But it’s the build quality that really sells this Honor. It’s shed the budget image that many people may have regarding the relatively unknown brand, delivering a metal-clad body with chamfered edges and slender 7.8mm construction. It’s a lot like the Mate 8 in that respect, albeit 0.1mm thinner in the Honor – not that we could tell.
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Powering the V8 is a 3,500mAh battery, which ought to keep the phone chugging along for a good period of time. Why there’s not a larger capacity 4,000mAh cell, as per the Mate 8, we’re not sure, though. Perhaps that dual camera arrangement needs more space within.
In summary, then, the Honor V8 feels like an upgraded Huawei Mate 8 with some added camera software pulled over from the Huawei P9. Yes, its 5.7-inch screen footprint makes it massive. But it also brings massive power and a massive battery for a not-so-massive price: ¥2,999 translates to about £299, if, of course, we ever see the Honor V8 arrive on UK shores in any guise. Wouldn’t mind seeing a “V8 mini” too.
Barclays goes it alone for Android contactless payment, beats Android Pay to the punch
Ahead of a UK launch for Android Pay, Barclays has decided to go it alone by offering Android phone owning customers the chance to make contactless payments through its own app.
Coming in June, Barclays Contactless Mobile works on Android devices with NFC chip technology to allow customers to pay for items up to the value of £30 at any of the 400,000 contactless locations in the UK. It also works with the London transport network – on buses, and in overground and underground train stations.
The feature will be added to the existing Barclays Mobile Banking app as an update next month. Barclays customers will be able to use their debit and credit cards contactlessly through the app. Barclaycard payments will be possible therefore – something still not available on Apple Pay, for example.
Payments over £30 (up to £100) will also be possible through the app, although a PIN will need to be entered on the phone after tapping.
At present Barclays is not on the list of banks that will be covered by Android Pay when it launches in the next few months. Its own dedicated service might be the reason why.
READ: Android Pay UK launch confirmed, but Barclays isn’t on the list
It did launch on Apple Pay in April, however.
The new ‘Ace Attorney’ lands in September
Phoenix Wright and his band of lawyers, circus performers and spirit mediums are making their way to North America and Europe. The newest installment for the courtroom-slash-visual-novel franchise Ace Attorney will be released in the West in September this year. It’s called Spirit of Justice and will (unfortunately) only be available as a digital download from the Nintendo eShop, just like Dual Destinies, for $30 (£25 / €30).
The 3DS game is set in the Kingdom of Khura’in, where lawyers are persecuted and trials are conducted by spirit séances. Best thing about it is that it’s bringing back beloved characters from the older installments, including Miles Edgeworth, Ema Skye and even Wright’s original ramen burger-loving sidekick Maya Fey. What would make it even better, though, is if its success leads to the North American and European release of The Great Ace Attorney. Because we’re sure a lot of fans would love to play Wright’s ancestor and solve cases with Sherlock Holmes.
Source: Capcom
Some YouTube users now have access to its in-app messenger
YouTube has developed an in-app messenger, and according to Wired, it’s now rolling the feature out to small number of users. The video service’s director of product management, Shimrit Ben-Yair, said they created the feature, because her team believes it would result to even more sharing. Messages remain in a separate tab that can be accessed anytime, giving people a quick way to toss links, say of an amusing music video or a Let’s Play playthrough, to a whole group of people.
If it catches on, it could cut out the middleman (i.e., other chat apps) and make videos trend even faster. It’s also probably a way for YouTube to ensure users are spending more time on its website and apps in an effort to squash current and upcoming rivals. While only a lucky few are getting in-app messaging today, those who do get it can spread the feature further by inviting friends and contacts to chat.
Source: Wired
Opera’s desktop web browser gets a low-power mode
Opera’s bid to claim loads of web browser firsts isn’t stopping any time soon — the company has released what it says is the first major desktop browser with a power-saving mode. Grab the latest developer version of Opera and you’ll have an option to scale back energy use by tweaking page redraw behavior, background tab activity and video playback. In Opera’s tests, that gets you about 3 hours of extra surfing on a Windows 10 laptop when compared to both earlier versions of Opera and Google Chrome.
Your mileage will no doubt vary based on various factors, such as the PC you’re using and the sites you’re visiting. We’d add that browser power optimizations aren’t completely new, for that matter. Some of Apple’s Safari updates (such as the one in OS X Yosemite) have focused on improving battery life in normal use. Still, it’s not often that you can simply flick a switch to get some extra surfing time. And let’s face it: a little improvement in longevity could be crucial when you’re finishing some school research… or just want to stay in the coffee shop for a bit longer.
Source: Opera
Barclays offers its own app as an Android Pay alternative
When Barclays confirmed it wasn’t planning to support Google’s Android Pay service when it launches in the UK, it said it would instead focus on the development of its own platform. Turns out that customers won’t have to wait long to see what the bank has planned, after it confirmed today that it will roll out a new version of its banking app with support for “Contactless Mobile” in June.
Like the Barclaycard app, which has NFC payments since January, Contactless Mobile detects whether a customer’s Android phone supports NFC and has eligible Barclays credit or debit cards associated with it. If it does, customers can make payments of up to £30 by tapping their phone against a retailer terminal, without needing to open the app, enter a PIN or verify with a fingerprint.
The platform will also support payments between £30 and £100, which involves first tapping the phone against the terminal, entering the card’s usual PIN and then tapping again.
Barclays says that when Contactless Mobile arrives next month, the roll out will be “phased over a number of days.” Customers will be notified as soon as the service becomes available. It could come before Google’s own platform, as long as it’s not as drawn out as the bank’s Apple Pay implementation.
Opera Web Browser for OS X Gains New Power Saving Mode
Norway-based company Opera Software today announced the addition of a new power saving mode to its Opera web browser, which is designed to extend battery life when the browser is used on a notebook computer like Apple’s line of MacBooks.
According to Opera, the new power saving mode, which is available today in the developer stream, can extend laptop battery life by up to 50% compared to earlier versions of the Opera browser and to Google Chrome, giving heavy web users up to three hours of additional battery life. Opera’s testing was done on a Lenovo X250 with a Core i7-5600U processor and 16GB RAM running Windows 10, so it is unclear how much battery savings Mac users will see.
The feature works through various optimizations like reducing activity from background tabs, adjusting page-redrawing frequency, and tuning video playback options.
“It’s extremely frustrating to run out of battery on your computer, whether you are out traveling, watching videos, or you have just left your charger behind. Our new power saving mode will nudge you when the laptop starts to consume battery, and, when enabled, it can increase the battery life by up to three hours,” says Krystian Kolondra, SVP of Engineering for Opera.
The power saving mode can be accessed whenever a laptop is using battery power by clicking on the battery icon located next to the address field in the browser. It is also able to detect when a laptop battery is running low, offering up an option to enable the mode. Today’s developer update also includes optimized animated themes and better memory management techniques to improve performance.
The introduction of the power saving mode comes just a few weeks after Opera added a built-in virtual private network (VPN) feature to its web browser. The developer version of the Opera browser with the built-in power saving mode can be downloaded from the Opera website.
Tag: Opera browser
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