Float lots of different objects above this magical levitating base

Why it matters to you

If you’re on the lookout for a fun ornament for your home, or simply like the idea of watching your dinner hover above the dining table, then the Levitating X could be for you.

We’ve seen quite a few levitating gadgets and gizmos float through the doors of DT in recent months, but while many feature a single levitating object, this latest offering from Levitating Design Labs lets you choose from a variety of items to suspend in mid-air.

Powered by electromagnetic suspension technology, the Levitating X collection features, for example, several 3D-printed decorative pieces, a drinking glass, a pot for your favorite plant, and a small pillow for your watch, jewelry, or other such diminutive item.

But you could probably have the most fun with the levitating plate, or a set of them if you have the cash to splash. It’d certainly impress any party guests when they walk in and see their first course hovering above the dining table. Or possibly freak them out a bit.

You have two different levitation bases to choose from. The larger one is wireless and incorporates a rechargeable battery, while the second, slimmer offering requires an AC power source.

As the video below shows, it’s easy to set up the Levitating X. Simply slot in the proprietary levitation assist plate. Next, place the object you want to levitate onto the base before gently removing the plate. It’ll then float above the base, at which point you can give it a gentle tap to make it slowly rotate.

The Chicago-based startup behind Levitation X says it opted for a square base rather than a round one because the former can be easily placed side-by-side with multiple bases, “allowing for the future creation of large-surface levitating products.”

More: Levitate your phone while you charge it wirelessly with the OvRcharge

The team is looking for Kickstarter funding to the tune of $35,000 to make Levitation X a reality. Early-bird offers include the base and a plate for $150, which is $100 off the expected retail price. The same deal also applies to the plant pot and pillow.

For $250 you can choose from one of the decorative pieces — that’s $150 off the expected retail cost. There’s also the chance to choose extra objects for between $20 and $130 a piece, and the aim is to add new products every month.

Assuming the team reaches its funding target, the kit will start shipping in June, 2017.

Own a Karma Grip? Then you might want to check out GoPro’s new drone kit

Why it matters to you

Karma Grip owners without a drone may be tempted to spend out on GoPro’s new Flight Kit designed especially for them.

If you bought GoPro’s image-stabilizing Karma Grip and you fancy doing something else with it other than just holding it in your hand, then how about sticking it on a drone?

The company has just launched the Karma Flight Kit offering everything you need to get your silky smooth videos airborne.

As well as the recently relaunched Karma drone, the $600 Flight Kit also includes a smart carrying case, the Karma Controller, a battery, a charger, and six propellers. The case also features a custom inlay for the Grip so you can carry all the gear together.

To get flying, all you have to do is remove the stabilizer, harness, and camera from your Karma Grip and then lock the device into the drone.

GoPro’s Karma drone got off to a dire start last year when, just weeks after launch, the company was forced to recall all units after discovering that the motors in a small number of machines were suddenly cutting out during flight.

The Grip sold together with the drone but didn’t reappear on the market until December when GoPro started offering it as a standalone device. The drone, however, didn’t return until February.

GoPro is presumably banking on some of the Grip owners turning their attention to shooting with drones, and with a Hero5 Black or Hero4 camera already in their possession, they could well be tempted.

More: DT’s pick of the best drones on the market today

Taking a closer look at the costs, we can see that anyone who already has the $300 Grip who goes for the $600 Flight Kit will end up paying $100 more than someone who buys the original Karma kit, which includes the Grip and costs $800. GoPro also offers a drone kit with a Hero5 Black camera as well as a Grip, which costs $1100.

The ability to use the Karma Grip separate from the drone was one of the flying machine’s big selling points, but the quadcopter’s motor issues turned its long-awaited debut into a disaster. Now that its full kit is once again back on the market, the California company is hoping for a 2017 as smooth as the shots that its Grip stabilizer provides.

Alexa, vacuum the rug, and make it snappy — Roomba now responds to your voice

Why it matters to you

The Roomba is already one of the easiest vacuum cleaners to use, what with being autonomous, but now that it has an Amazon Alexa integration, things just got even easier.

If autonomy in and of itself doesn’t make your Roomba the best vacuum cleaner of all time, perhaps voice activation will do the trick. Get excited, friends. Everyone’s favorite self-driving vacuum cleaner just added an Amazon Alexa integration, allowing you to communicate with your cleaning assistant with naught but your voice. Moreover, the Roomba’s associated iRobot Home app now comes with a Clean Map report, which displays information around the dirtiest floor areas and total space cleaned.

“iRobot is aggressively pursuing opportunities within the connected home to improve our customers’ experience with our cleaning robots,” said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot. “The latest updates for the iRobot Home App make cleaning with an iRobot Roomba vacuuming robot even more user friendly, with voice-activated commands, enhanced mapping features and useful post-cleaning reports. These are exciting next steps towards our vision of an ecosystem of home robots that work collaboratively and further enable the smart home.”

More: Cocorobo: Japan’s emotionally needy answer to the Roomba now plays J-pop

The latest Roombas from iRobot, the 900 Series, promise to combine “adaptive navigation with visual localization,” helping these bots create a map of a home as they do their chores. Clean Map reports then allow you to see these maps. The new app feature also lets you know which areas of your home feature the highest concentrations of dirt or debris, so you might adjust your cleaning (or usage) habits.

As for the new Alexa integration, users will be able to start, stop, and pause Roomba cleaning jobs simply by saying so. For example, by saying “Alexa, ask Roomba to start cleaning,” your vacuuming bot will kick into action. This new skill will be made available to customers in the United States in the second quarter of this year, and will be compatible with any and all Roomba vacuums.

Moto G5 Plus launches in India for ₹16,999

Moto G5 Plus will be up for sale later today in India.

At a media event in New Delhi, Motorola launched the Moto G5 Plus in the Indian market. The Plus variant of the phone is making its debut today, and the standard version is set to launch at a later date in the country.

India is Motorola’s largest global market, and Lenovo is turning to the Moto G series to continue its sales momentum in the country. As such, the Moto G5 Plus features several key upgrades for 2017, including a beefier Snapdragon 625 SoC, metal chassis, and a 12MP camera with f/1.7 lens.

The Moto G5 Plus will be sold in two variants — a model with 3GB of RAM and 16GB storage that will retail for ₹14,999, and a version with 4GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage for ₹16,999. On the software front, the phone comes with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, and an update to the Google app adds Google Assistant.

Other specs include a 5.2-inch Full HD display, microSD slot, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, and a 3000mAh battery. It also has NFC, for when Android Pay goes live in India.

The phone features a front fingerprint sensor that’s much more functional than its predecessor, with Lenovo bringing its gesture-based navigation interface to the G5 Plus. Dubbed One Button Nav, you can swipe left across the fingerprint sensor to access the multitasking pane, swipe right to go back, and set custom gestures for launching apps.

The Moto G5 Plus has an amazing camera tucked into a premium body.

With the likes of Xiaomi, Huawei, and OPPO gaining ground in India, Lenovo has focused on aggressive pricing to turn the tide in its favor. We’ve seen that with the Z2 Plus last year, with the Snapdragon 820-toting device debuting for just ₹19,999.

Following the release of the Redmi Note 4, Lenovo further reduced the price of the Z2 Plus to ₹17,499, making it one of the best bargains in this segment.

The company is sticking to a similar approach with the Moto G5 Plus. The base variant of the device will be available for ₹14,999, while the model with 4GB of RAM and 32GB storage will retail for ₹16,999. The phone will be sold exclusively on Flipkart, with sales kicking off at 11:59 p.m. IST. Motorola is incentivizing the launch with several offers, including a 10% discount for SBI customers.

What do you guys think of the Moto G5 Plus?

Galaxy S8 could have pressure-sensitive on-screen keys

Report from Korea suggests GS8’s virtual home key will be pressure-sensitive — and the Note 8 may take things even further.

Tucked away in an iPhone-related report from Korean outlet The Investor are a few interesting details about how Samsung will handle the transition from physical buttons to virtual keys in its own upcoming flagship. The site reports that, as the sole supplier of OLED panels for the iPhone 8, Samsung Display is working on integrating a sensor for 3D Touch into the panel. That’s not unexpected, nor would pressure sensitivity in an OLED phone screen be a new thing — Huawei has been doing that since 2015’s Mate S.

But the article also lets slip that Samsung’s mobile arm may be implementing a similar technology in a part of the Galaxy S8’s display — specifically the portion around the home screen.

And citing sources, The Investor says the Galaxy Note 8 may adopt pressure sensitivity for the entire display. (A phone which may well make it to market before Apple’s next iPhone, if previous years are any indicator.) Samsung has been rumored to introduce pressure sensitivity in its phone screens since the first rumors of 3D Touch emerged, but now the timing may finally be right.

The use of pressure-sensitive software keys on the Galaxy S8 would answer a few major usability questions. Firstly, removing the physical home key would eliminate the one really easy way to power on the phone while it’s lying flat. A combination of Samsung’s existing Always-On Display tech and a pressure-sensitive home key on the screen would fill this gap, allowing GS8 owners to simply press on the screen and get some kind of haptic feedback.

Sure enough, an Always-On Display with a virtual home key has been seen in some of the recently leaked GS8 photos, like the one on the right.

One piece of the puzzle Samsung’s missing is Apple’s legendary haptics.

This setup would be similar to what Apple will have to engineer to translate the iPhone 7’s Taptic Engine-powered non-clicky home button onto the display itself. The key component that Samsung appears to lack, however, is Apple’s advanced haptic system.

The dream solution would be to implement a fingerprint scanner into the display alongside all that stuff, something which was reportedly scrapped in the GS8 at the last minute. But with more advanced pressure-sensing tech tipped for the Note 8, there’s every chance that Samsung will want to get the entire package — virtual keys, pressure sensitivity and fingerprint — into the screen.

Consider that the Note 8 is also rumored to feature Samsung’s first 4K AMOLED panel, and it’s easy to see how the next Note could bring several technological breakthroughs.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus

• Latest Galaxy S8 rumors!
• Galaxy S8 announcement coming March 29 in NYC
• Galaxy S8 release date set for April 28
• Join our Galaxy S8 forums

Nokia 8 said to be mid-ranger, will be joined by Nokia 7 but flagship yet to come

HMD Global is moving on apace with its roll out of Nokia-branded Android phones, with two reportedly to follow the four revealed at the Mobile World Congress trade show last month.

There have been plenty of rumours about a flagship Nokia 8 model (also referred to the Nokia 9 or Nokia P1) but it is now said that the 8 model will actually be a top mid-ranger instead. And it will be joined by another in that area, a Nokia 7.

Nokia Power User claims that its sources say the phones will come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processors, which would certainly put them in the mid rather that high-range. However, while the Nokia 7 is said to come with a 1080p Full HD display, the Nokia 8 is likely to have a QHD (2560 x 1440) equivalent.

They will each come with unibody metallic designs, it is said.

• Nokia 8 flagship Android phone: Release date, rumours and specs
• Nokia 6 preview: A solid start for the new Android Nokia
• This is the new Nokia 3310
• Nokia 3310 vs Nokia 3310: What’s the difference 17 years on?

The camera design will be different to the already announced Nokia 6, bezels will be thinner and there are claims that they will sport fast charging and fingerprint sensors.

All this leaves the possibility that a flagship phone will also be forthcoming, maybe the Nokia 9 or P1 as previously suggested.

Of course, none of the names floating about are definite anyway. We shall see in the coming months as HMD Global will allegedly release six to seven phones in 2017 in total.

Chrome 57 will throttle background tabs to save energy

If you use Chrome as a primary browser, you’ll know that it can be a resource hog that eats up too much battery. The browser’s latest version was designed to solve that issue by throttling background tabs using excessive power. According to the Chromium blog, background tabs are responsible for one-third of Chrome’s power usage on computers, so keeping them in check will minimize the browser’s impact.

Chrome’s Page visibility API checks tabs after 10 seconds in the background. The new feature will leave tabs playing audio or maintaining WebSockets or WebRTC connections alone, since the API considers them to be in the foreground. However, it minimizes all the tabs the API considers to be in the background unless it’s absolutely necessary to run them at full capacity.

The Chrome team says this new mechanism can lead to 25 percent fewer busy background tabs. Since their goal is fully suspend those tabs, though, their work is far from done. Chrome 57 has been out for a few days now. You can download it anytime, especially if you’re always on the go and would like to limit Chrome’s impact on your laptop.

Source: Chromium Blog

Twitter accounts hacked to push #NaziHollanda message

In a near-repeat of a hack last November, large numbers of Twitter users are suddenly pushing a disturbing spam message. This one is written in Turkish and appears to target Holland with a “#NaziHollanda” or “#Nazialmanya” hashtag, but just like last time, the source appears to be a third party service called Twitter Counter.

Twitter accounts for Forbes and actress Sarah Shahi are among those affected, but so far we’re not seeing any phishing activity. It’s just the same tweet over and over again with a pro-Erdogan (the president of Turkey) message and YouTube video attached. One difference from last time is that instead of solely targeting high profile accounts, the people behind this attack are focusing on numbers, with hundreds of tweets flowing out every few minutes.

As usual, this is a good time to double check your account and any third party apps or services — you can find instructions on how to do that here — you may have connected to it. If they get hacked, then you get hacked, and no one needs that. Once you’re done with that, we’d also recommend making sure you use a unique password and have two-factor authentication enabled, just to be thorough. We have attempted to contact Twitter Counter and The Next Web owner Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten once again and will update this post if there is a response.

Update: van Zanten confirmed Twitter Counter is working to resolve the issue, and as of 4:19AM ET, the tweets have stopped, although they’re still visible on many compromised accounts, including that of Amnesty International and Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure.

卐 #Nazialmanya👌#Nazihollanda
Bu size ufakbir👋#OSMANLITOKADI#16Nisan da görüşmek üzere
Nemi yazdım🇹🇷Türkçe ÖĞREN #RThttps://t.co/1KDZWv6YK6

— Blockchain (@blockchain) March 15, 2017

We’re aware that our service was hacked and have started an investigation into the matter.We’ve already taken measures to contain such abuse

— TheCounter (@thecounter) March 15, 2017

Source: Twitter Search, Twitter Support

Finding the perfect soundtrack with Google Home is a bit easier

Paralysis of choice is a real problem, and to help mitigate it, Google has updated the app formerly known as Chromecast. Next time you open Google Home, you’ll see a new “Listen” tab at top of your device’s screen. A post on The Keyword blog says that the idea is to pull in curated playlists from apps like Google Play Music and Spotify into one place so you always have the perfect soundtrack to beam to your connected speakers. Fewer choices, more freedom. Pandora and the semi-redundant YouTube Music apps are pulled into the fray as well. All told, it’s a minor update, but it shows Google’s ambitions for the app: becoming a hub for all your digital media needs.

Via: 9to5 Google

Source: The Keyword

HomeKit-Enabled Smart Homes For Sale in San Jose, California

With Apple known to be partnering with various building companies to integrate its HomeKit platform into new houses, one journalist yesterday was invited by KB Home to check out the company’s latest HomeKit-enabled development in San Jose, California.

KRON4 tech reporter Gabe Slate’s peek inside one of the smart houses demonstrates the extent of the HomeKit integration, which costs $2500 per house and includes a number of HomeKit-enabled smart devices.

Using just their iPad or iPhone, the homeowner is able to control the Kwikset lock on the front door, adjust room temperature via the Ecobee thermostat, adjust the Philips Hue lighting around the house, and lower and raise Lutron shades in the various rooms.

Meanwhile in the living room, the homeowner is able to control the fans in the rooms upstairs using the Siri Remote on an Apple TV, and activate a movie watching mode that dims the lights and brings down the blinds.

KB Home has offered home automation as an option in its houses for about 10 years, but before Apple’s entry into the smart home space with HomeKit, homeowners typically had to use a different app for each smart product in the houses.

“In some respects, what KB Home is doing makes sense,” said IDC researcher Jonathan Gaw, speaking to The Mercury News. “It’s much easier to have some smart home products like light switches installed by a home builder when a house is constructed. Also, rolling the costs for those products into the home mortgage allows home buyers to more easily afford them upfront — and helps builders sell a higher priced home.”

The convenience of smart home integration could be a big draw for a new generation of tech-savvy homeowners. Some of KB Home’s houses have USB chargers built into the power outlets, for example. However, Gaw warns of the risk of obsolescence hitting a still nascent industry.

“It”s not clear yet exactly what products consumers will really want or use or even what smart home product companies will be around in five or ten years,” he said. “Customers may find in six months or a couple years that they don’t use the products they have or that they’re defunct or no longer supported.”

Last week, German pre-fabricated home company WeberHaus announced plans to support HomeKit in its SmartHomes starting in 2017, making it the first homebuilder in Europe to officially support Apple’s home automation system.

Tag: HomeKit
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