Samsung Galaxy Note 6, or Note 7 edge, event date leaks

The eagerly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Note 6, likely to be called Galaxy Note 7 edge, has had a release event date leaked for just two months away.

According to serial leakster Evan Blass, the event should take place around 2 August. He tweeted yesterday saying: “Galaxy Note 6/7 launch event is almost exactly two months away.”

Rumours have pointed towards an August launch event despite previous generations being announced at IFA in September. That said, the Samsung Galaxy Note 5 was announced last year on 13 August.

Since Samsung is rumoured to be pitting its next Note device against Apple’s new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, this date makes sense. Apple usually announces its iPhone shortly after IFA in September. Perhaps Samsung wants to get in nice and early this year.

This targeting of Apple is also attributed to the name. Samsung is rumoured to skip the Galaxy Note 6 name and jump straight to Note 7 in order to sound as new as its own Galaxy S7 as well as Apple’s iPhone 7.

Specs rumoured for the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 edge include a 5.8-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, Qualcomm and Exynos chip options, 6GB of RAM, dual-cameras and a fast-charging 4000mAh battery.

READ: Samsung Galaxy Note 6 / Note 7: What’s the story so far?

Night vision in a military tough smartphone, meet the gorgeous Lumigon T3

If a marine soldier were turned into a smartphone it would be the Lumigon T3. This bad boy is tough, well kitted out and can see in the dark.

Lumigon, a Danish company, has created the T3 to be different. The design aesthetics are something to be drooled at in daylight, despite it being quite at home in the dark.

Built from a marine-grade 316 stainless steel and coated in Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4, this handset is tough. It’s also water and dust resistant so should be able to handle anything you throw at it, or wherever it is thrown at, to be more exact.

To get down to the really unique point here, it has dual cameras with night vision. Yup, this beast can capture 4-megapixel night vision stills using a dual infrared flash system. But it’s capable in the day too thanks to a 13-megapixel front camera with phase detection autofocus with dual tone flash, plus a 5-megapixel selfie snapper with front-facing flash. The main camera will record in 4K and can also mange 120FPS slow motion video.

Lumigon

So what’s the catch? It’s not power, thanks to a 2.2GHz octa-core CPU backed by 3GB of RAM and 128GB storage. Nor is it software, thanks to the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS. Audio should be on point too with playback of up to 24-bit/192kHz sound. It even has wireless charging and a “BackTouch display” that can be used to scroll websites or tap to take selfies.

The screen is the issue. The 4.8-inch display offers a resolution of 1280 x 720 for a respectable 308ppi – but still nothing compared to some modern handsets. That said it is a Super AMOLED so colours and blacks should be well rendered. The problem is that, for the price, you’d expect more.

The Lumigon T3 comes in at $925 aka £630, as a starting price. Then there’s a Black Gold edition for $1200 which is £820 and more coming in June including Black Black, White Diamond and White Gold. We dare not imagine their prices.

READ: OnePlus 3 on sale early from 6 June, but there’s only 1,000 up for grabs

Uber comes to Japan to help the aged

Japan doesn’t allow amateur drivers to offer rides, so Uber’s had a rough time establishing itself in the country. But the nation’s aging crisis might just provide the opportunity for the ride-sharing firm to gain a foothold, thanks to a quirk of the law. As Reuters explains, the ban on amateurs doesn’t apply in areas where public transportation isn’t readily available, like in the Tango part of Kyotango city. It’s one of several “depopulated” areas in the city, with a population with around 40 percent of people aged over 65. Taxi services were withdrawn from the area eight years ago, and the only way to get around is by a around-town hopper bus that you have to book a day in advance. This dire transport situation has led regulators to give the thumbs up to Uber so that it can begin offering rides.

Uber’s previously been limited to just acting as a middleman between taxi firms and customers, with the bulk of its services unavailable. But rather than fighting the entrenched players, Uber is now casting itself as a private, market-based alternative to publicly-owned metro systems. In areas where there’s little money (and political will) to create proper infrastructure, Uber makes itself into an easy fix. Of course, the flips side is that it’s having to spend big in order to make itself essential: handing out 50 tablets to residents and charging just half the rate of the local taxi firm. But what happens when the taxi firm goes out of business?

Source: Reuters

MSI’s Backpack PC is an imperfect solution to VR wires

One of the problems with the current crop of non-smartphone VR headsets is that they need to be connected to PCs via thick, heavy cables. These might hamper your movements when you’re busy playing a game, or worse, you could trip over an errant wire and fall face flat on the floor. Well, a few companies have come up with an interesting solution: VR backpacks that carry a full-fledged PC, enabling you to move around unencumbered. MSI’s version is called the Backpack PC, and as it was on display here at Computex 2016, so I had to try it out for myself.

Equipped with an Intel Core i7 processor and a GeForce GTX980 graphics card, the entire rig weighs in at around 10 pounds. That sounds pretty hefty, but to my surprise it actually didn’t feel too heavy when I strapped it on. This particular backpack was attached to a HTC Vive, which the helpers at the MSI booth then fitted to my head. I then played a game demo that had me shooting at flying robots, which shot back tiny red energy balls that I was supposed to avoid. If I didn’t dodge those bullets, my “ship” would be destroyed.

As a result, I found myself moving around a lot, bobbing and weaving as much as I could. Compared to the normal Vive experience, I have to admit the lack of wires feels pretty freeing. Instead of worrying on whether I was about to wrap myself around in cables, I could just enjoy the game. Still, having to wear a backpack does feel pretty silly, plus its battery life is only around an hour before you have to charge it again.

MSI hasn’t announced pricing or availability for its Backpack PC just yet, but the company says it should be out later this year. I don’t imagine this to be too popular for normal home use, but I could see it being useful for perhaps in-store demonstrations or amusement parks where wires lying around could be a real hazard. Or, you know, if you want to feel like you’re one of the Ghostbusters.

Stay on top of all the latest news from Computex 2016 right here.

ICYMI: Pennyfarthing reboot, ice box fridge and more

Today on In Case You Missed It: SnikkyBike wants to get folks on its electrified pennyfarthing of a bike, except that it doesn’t even have pedals, only a place for people to stand. Surechill Technologies made a refrigerator that takes the best parts of old school, pre-electricity ice boxes and reimagines it to use low amounts of energy.

The game Surgeon Simulator has a re-skinned version that lets users practice operating on Donald Trump, which looks just as uncomfortable as any presidential candidate being laid out an operating table should, party affiliations notwithstanding. As always, please share any great tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.

Hubble shows the universe is expanding faster than we thought

New measurements from the Hubble telescope suggest the universe is expanding between five and nine percent faster than scientists initially thought. NASA and the ESA measured the distance to stars in 19 galaxies outside of our own and compared the data to the cosmic microwave measurements taken by the Planck and WMAP probes — and they didn’t tally quite like they should. This potentially puts a question mark above at least a part of science’s most enduring tenet — Einstein’s theory of relativity.

The discovery came after NASA’s team pioneered new measurement techniques that they claim give the findings an “unprecedented” level of accuracy. Cosmologists typically measure astronomic distances using light, specifically changes in redshift. These measurements (and those before it) are used to estimate the rate of the universe’s expansion, known as the Hubble constant. NASA and the ESA’s new data put this rate of expansion at 45.5 miles per second per megaparsec — a few percent faster than the two most recent missions.

Adam Reiss, the study leader and Nobel Laureate, explains that not only does this suggest the universe is expanding more rapidly, but the new findings could provide clues about what makes up the parts of the universe we currently struggle to understand — the elusive dark matter, dark energy and dark radiation.

The current theories as to why the universe is expanding faster are that dark energy or dark matter’s role in the universe is misunderstood, there’s another subatomic particle we don’t yet know about or that Einstein’s theory of gravity is incomplete.

Via: The Guardian

Source: NASA

Food Delivery Services GrubHub and Seamless Now Support Apple Pay

Food delivery company GrubHub has added Apple Pay as a payment option in the latest update to its GrubHub and Seamless apps (via TechCrunch).

The company follows in the footsteps of rivals Caviar, Door Dash, and Postmates in supporting Apple’s mobile payment platform, and means that users of its two apps can now pay for their food using cards registered in the native iOS Wallet app.

Originally founded in 2004, GrubHub began as a website where users could order from local restaurants offering home delivery services. It later merged with rival company Seamless and expanded to offer its own service for restaurants that don’t otherwise usually deliver. Last year GrubHub processed $2.4 billion in sales, 60 percent of which was generated through its mobile apps.

The move signals another domestic win for Apple’s mobile payment platform, and appears to confirm that the company’s recently stated aim to aggressively expand the service both at home and abroad is making progress.

Speaking to Fortune yesterday, Apple said its mobile payment platform is gaining a million new users each week, but the company stopped short of revealing the overall number of Apple Pay users. It also said that transaction volume through the service is five times what it was a year ago, and that payment volume within apps more than doubled in the second half of 2015.

In related news, The Verge reported today that Walmart has announced its intention to partner with ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft in order to trial a new grocery delivery service, in a move that will put it in direct competition with Amazon’s recently expanded AmazonFresh service.

Customers will soon be able to place their food orders online, for Walmart staff to prepare their groceries and then call local Uber and Lyft drivers to deliver the items, at a delivery charge of between $7 to $10, which is paid to Walmart. According to the company, the pilot program will begin within the next two weeks and initially operate in Denver and Phoenix.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
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Bollywood Star Shah Rukh Khan to be Apple’s Indian Ambassador

Apple is set to make Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan its brand ambassador for India, according to a local report yesterday.

Indian tech website PC Tablet cited sources familiar with the matter, claiming that the announcement will be made when Apple launches its latest iPhone models in India later this year.

Tim Cook with stars Shah Rukh Khan (left) and Sania Mirza. (Source: Instagram)
Apple CEO Tim Cook attended a private dinner at Khan’s home during his recent weeklong visit to the country. Before the Bollywood star-studded dinner, Cook was also escorted around movie sets by the president of India’s Film and TV Producers Guild, Mukesh Bhatt, who said Cook was “keen to see how Apple could partner with the Indian film industry”.

Apple has a number of brand ambassadors around the world, including Brazilian-born FC Barcelona soccer player Neymar and NBA player Steph Curry.

Last month it was reported that Apple is close to signing England international soccer player Raheem Sterling as its figurehead of Apple’s promotional work around the European Championship this summer.

Tag: India
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