Galaxy S8 breaks cover in blue, white and silver

Some GS8 models may have colored front panels, if latest leak is to be believed.

The most recent Galaxy S8 render leaks may have given us the impression that Samsung’s next major phone will use black front panels, even if the rest of the phone is silver, grey or some other color. However fresh live photos of the phone, scooped up from Chinese social network Weibo by Dutch outlet Techtastic, suggests that at the very least some GS8 models may feature colored front panels as well.

Behold, the Galaxy S8 in blue, white (we think — though it may be gold) and silver:

The shots appear to show legitimate, functioning Galaxy S8 models — though it’s tough to get a feel for which of these might be the larger GS8 Plus. At the very least, it shows that Samsung is considering colored bezels for some GS8s, even as it reduces the screen borders to almost nothing.

So if you’d like a little more color in your, it appears that may well be an option. And if you’d prefer to not be looking at seven very obvious cut-outs in the top bezel (for various cameras and sensors), it seems that’ll be an option too.

Multiple color options for the GS8 would be in line with the past few release cycles for Samsung flagships — even if they don’t reach all regions. A purple hue has also been rumored in recent days.

We’ll know more when the Galaxy S8 officially launches in New York on March 29.

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Tiny liquid battery cools chips while powering them

Scientists from IBM and ETH Zurich university have built a tiny “flow” battery that has the dual benefit of supplying power to chips and cooling them at the same time. Even taking pumping into account, it produces enough energy to power a chip while dissipating much more heat than it generates. The result could be smaller, more efficient chips, solar cells that store their own energy or devices used for remote monitoring that don’t require external power sources.

“Redox flow” batteries that use liquid electrolytes are normally used on a large scale to store energy. For instance, Harvard Researchers recently created one that can last over ten years with very little degradation, making it ideal to store solar or wind energy.

Building them on a scale tiny enough for chips is another matter, however. The team from ETH Zurich and IBM managed to find two liquids that are suitable both as flow-battery electrolytes and cooling agents that can dissipate heat from chips in the same circuit. “We are the first scientists to build such a small flow battery so as to combine energy supply and cooling,” says doctoral student Julian Marschewski.

Using 3D printing, the team developed a wedge-shaped micro-channel system that supplies the system with electrolytes using very little pumping power. The resulting electrodes press liquid into the membrane layer where ions can flow, generating power. The result is a system that generates 1.4 watts per square centimeter, with 1 watt left over to power the battery after taking pumping into account. Moreover, it gets rid of a lot more heat than it makes, pulling off the neat trick of powering and cooling chips at the same time.

The battery needs to generate more electricity than it does right now, so the idea now needs to shift from the research into the engineering stages. However, the team thinks that it has a lot of potential for not just chips, but also lasers that require internal cooling, solar cells that store electricity directly in the battery cell and even large flow batteries optimized with liquid cooling channels.

Source: Eth Zurich

Guess’ Android Wear smartwatch is classically styled

Guess, the fashion brand that’s perfect for annoying people when they ask what you’re wearing, is launching a new smartwatch. This time, however, the company is going all-in on Android Wear 2.0 with the Guess Connect. The timepiece comes packing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor and comes in eight styles, five designed for men and three intended for women.

The company hasn’t released a spec list, but given that Android Wear’s system requirements are fairly set in stone, we can probably guess. In many ways, the common software and hardware platforms mean that any of the new Android Wear watches announced recently are all, pretty much the same. In the end, it’ll come down to which brand you have a particular affinity for, and can afford, that winds up getting your cash.

Of course, Guess has been “making” smartwatches (in partnership with Martian) for longer than many of its rivals. But the first generation of the Guess Connect wasn’t exactly elegant, with a janky letterbox dot matrix display embedded into the dial. It’s worth nothing, however, that the company did slap Amazon Alexa into its most recent range, although the Gc Connect, when it arrives this Fall, will come with Google Instant instead.

iPhone user died from electrocution as he charged his handset while in the bath

Why it matters to you

It’s a sad reminder to think twice before taking electrical items close to water.

Some folks simply can’t resist taking their smartphone into the bathtub to check their social media feeds or play games, and occasional reports of fatal accidents suggest a small percentage may be going one step further and also charging their device while in the tub.

One such person, Briton Richard Bull, died from electrocution recently when his iPhone charger touched the water of the bath he was in. The coroner examining the case, Dr Sean Cummings, last week ruled the death as accidental, but said he intended to ask Apple to take steps to help prevent further such incidents.

Dr Cummings said that while smartphones “seem like innocuous devices … they can be as dangerous as a hairdryer in a bathroom,” adding that handset makers companies “should attach warnings” to the devices to warn of the risks.

The postmortem into the fatal accident, which happened in December 2016, revealed burns on the right arm and right hand of 32-year-old Bull, the coroner said. His wife had called for help but he was already dead when first responders arrived at their London home. Police who investigated the scene said they found an extension cord running between the hallway and the bathroom.

More: Woman dies of electrocution as she used a smartphone that was charging

Sheila Merrill of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents told the BBC that while such incidents are rare, “people need to be aware of taking an electrical appliance into the bathroom.”

“If you have got any appliance attached to the mains electricity circuit, you have to be aware there is a danger there,” Merrill said. “Electricity and water don’t mix, but particularly with phones, people don’t … always think about it. It’s not advisable to use them while they’re plugged in, particularly in a bathroom situation.”

Richard Bull’s mother, Carole, told The Sun, “I worry so many people, and especially teenagers who can’t be separated from their phones, don’t know how dangerous it is.”

Rogers and Telus now rolling out Nougat update to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge

Nougat update is now live for most Galaxy S7 and S7 edge variants in Canada.

The Android 7.0 Nougat update for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge made its way to Canadian carriers SaskTell, Bell, Virgin Mobile, Eastlink, Videotron and Freedom Mobile last week, and the 1.2GB OTA update is now rolling out to Rogers and Telus subscribers.

The update brings a slew of new features, including a redesigned UI, display scaling options, multi-window mode, in-line notification replies, and much more. If you’re rocking either an S7 or S7 edge from Rogers or Telus, head into your phone’s settings to see if an update is available for your device.

Already picked up the Nougat update? How are you liking the changes?

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SXSW’s gaming awards celebrate ‘Uncharted 4’ and indie hits

South by Southwest isn’t just about cool tech, movies and music… gaming is a big deal, too. The Austin festival has unveiled its fourth annual gaming award winners, and the top picks definitely reflect SXSW’s emphases on storytelling and out-of-the-ordinary concepts. The leader, by far, was Uncharted 4. Naughty Dog’s swashbuckling action game took home five prizes, including video game of the year as well as excellence awards for a memorable character, narrative, animation and visuals. It’s not surprising, to be honest — U4 has been an awards darling for months, and its combination of sophisticated characterization with breathtaking vistas was bound to be appealing to SXSW’s panel.

Other big multi-award winners include Overwatch (eSports, most promising new property, multiplayer and trending), Battlefield 1 (sound effects and technical achievement) and Doom (gameplay and music). Dishonored 2 also claimed a design award, while the seemingly inescapable Pokémon Go was the mobile game of the year. Telltale’s Batman series, meanwhile, won an award for converging the famous comic book hero with the studio’s distinctive take on adventure gaming.

However, the SXSW awards were as much about indies and fan-driven efforts as the mainstream. The Gamer’s Voice awards went to the cult multiplayer favorite Arena Gods as well as the solo-oriented Owlboy, while the short-but-sweet Firewatch was the SXSW panel’s art winner. The build-and-survive title Starbound was the most “fulfilling” community-backed game, and the special Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award went to the heartrending That Dragon, Cancer. Even a user mod got its due recognition, as the over-the-top Brutal Doom was the fan creation of the year. No, these titles didn’t have much luck getting into SXSW’s regular award categories, but they do illustrate that there’s plenty of innovation outside of the mainstream.

Source: SXSW

This Valkyrie R5 humanoid robot is put to the test with Mars colonization on the horizon

Why it matters to you

These Valkyrie R5 robots will help pave the way for future Mars colonization.

NASA’s Space Robotics Challenge awarded Northeastern University with a $2-million Valkyrie Robonaut 5 (R5) robot, which is now undergoing tests in a Massachusetts warehouse to prepare for the finalist round this June in a virtual simulation of a red-planet landing.

The robot arrived at Northeastern in 2015 as part of a proposal that Engineering Professor Taskin Padir sent to NASA for the Space Robotics Challenge software testing, reports Tech Crunch.

More: Surprise! Biofuels reduce jet engine pollution in the atmosphere, NASA says

“They’ve done all of the hardware and we’re developing these high-level capabilities so Valkyrie does more than just move limbs,” Northeastern PhD student, Murphy Wonsick told Tech Crunch. “She can autonomously make decisions, move around, and accomplish tasks.”

Researchers moved the R5 to “NERVE (New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation) Center, a large warehouse space operated by UMass Lowell that houses large obstacle courses designed to put test robots and drones through their paces,” just outside of Boston.

On-board vision systems, bipedal locomotion, and navigation in tight spaces are some the criteria being tested at the NERVE research site, according to the same report.

NASA reportedly produced three other R5 models. One was held in-house, and  NASA “awarded two as research loans to Northeastern University and nearby MIT, while a fourth was acquired by Scotland’s University of Edinburgh.”

According to NASA, in the finalist round, “each team’s R5 will be challenged with resolving the aftermath of a dust storm that has damaged a Martian habitat. This involves three objectives: aligning a communications dish, repairing a solar array, and fixing a habitat leak.”

The Space Robotics Challenge is part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges program set to award $1 million to the team that can “develop capabilities of humanoid robot dexterity to better enable them to work alongside and independent of astronauts in preparation for future space exploration.”

NASA announced the 20 finalists in February.

AMD claims LG and Vizio are violating its graphics patents

AMD is one of the few remaining companies with a big stake in graphics hardware (it’s powering the PS4 and Xbox One in addition to PCs), and it’s determined to hold on to that stake however it can. In the wake of an earlier filing, the US International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate LG, MediaTek, Sigma Designs and Vizio for allegedly violating AMD’s graphics patents. Allegedly, the visual processing in their devices (including phones, mobile CPUs and TVs) treads on AMD’s concepts for unified graphics shaders and parallel graphics pipelines. AMD is hoping for a sales ban on any offending products.

As AnandTech points out, the complaint is really a proxy war against the likes of ARM and Imagination Technologies (think PowerVR), both of which design graphics cores but don’t actually manufacture them. It’s much easier to target the hardware companies, since they’re the ones selling tangible products — AMD can profit from its patent collection (which it planned to do back in 2014) more easily than it can if it sues over fuzzier concepts like chip architecture. Both Samsung and AMD’s former manufacturing wing GlobalFoundries are already licensing the patents, so AMD may already have an advantage here.

We’ve asked AMD for comment on the investigation and will let you know if it has something to add. With that in mind, even a successful ITC campaign might only have a limited effect. While ITC cases tend to move relatively quickly (typically about 15 months), that’s a long time in the tech world. Some of the disputed gadgets could be off store shelves by then. As it is, there are already ARM-based chips using a newer architecture (Bifrost) that might not be affected by AMD’s complaint. Although a victory could easily hurt companies like LG and Vizio, it won’t necessarily be a crippling blow.

Via: Reuters

Source: USITC

Saks Fifth Avenue left customer data exposed to the public

Sometimes, hackers don’t have to lift a finger to swipe valuable shopping data — it can be sitting right out in the open. BuzzFeed News has found that a number of associated major fashion stores, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Gilt and Lord & Taylor, were storing info for tens of thousands of customers in plain text on their servers. There was no payment data, thankfully, but the content revealed email addresses, phone numbers, internet addresses and product IDs. If a malicious visitor wanted to commit identity fraud or scam a customer, they had at least some of what they needed.

The brands’ Canadian parent, Hudson’s Bay Company, has since taken the info down while it works on a solution, and says that only “some email addresses” were affected. HBC maintains that it follows “industry best practices” for security, but that isn’t really the case when anyone snooping around its web code could have found the info. BuzzFeed adds that the sites have an inconsistent approach to web encryption, protecting certain pages (such as the login page) but not others. Someone on the same local network could grab unencrypted web traffic and potentially use it to compromise an account.

While there’s currently no evidence to suggest that someone made off with the data before it was taken down, the discovery isn’t very reassuring. It suggests that online shops are still making basic security mistakes, and don’t always realize that even limited data exposure can be very dangerous. It only takes a nosy intruder to turn a blunder like this into a serious incident.

Source: BuzzFeed News

‘Super Mario Run’ on Android coming March 23 — will the buy rate be higher?

Why it matters to you

Android users will soon finally be able to play Super Mario Run, too.

Considering that Android has a larger install base than iOS, it’s always surprising when companies choose to launch their apps on the Apple operating system first, but that happened once again with Super Mario Run. The incredibly popular game quickly shot to the top of the charts and broke all sorts of download records shortly after its December launch. The automatic runner may well be set to do the same again when it finally launches on Android March 23.

Nintendo initially announced the March release window for the Android version in January, but the official date was revealed just this weekend on Twitter, less than a week out from launch.

Android version of #SuperMarioRun will be available on 3/23 with the Ver.2.0.0 update! Pre-register now: https://t.co/dAxzTlppnG pic.twitter.com/nQ0T4znOBt

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 18, 2017

Android users can pre-register on Google Play to be notified by email when the download becomes available. The “2.0.0” update mentioned includes the game’s easy mode and modifications to Toad Rally, the multiplayer portion of the game, in late-January for iOS.

Although Nintendo resisted the urge to port any of its popular franchises to the mobile sphere for many years, perhaps fearing that it would impact sales in its handheld business, it finally relented in 2016, and that proved to be a smart move. In just days Super Mario Run became the quickest growing app ever and earned the company millions of dollars in no time at all.

When Super Mario Run launches on Android, it will no doubt mirror the success of is iOS counterpart, and could also add onto Nintendo’s already strong year highlighted by the popularity and impressive sales of the Nintendo Switch. The novel piece of hardware has exceeded expectations to the point where Nintendo has reportedly doubled production. The Android version of Super Mario Run will likely send even more eyeballs Nintendo’s way.

More: ‘Super Mario Run’: Our first take

Exactly like its iOS version, the game will be free-to-try, in that you can play the first three levels for free, but have to cough up $10 after that for full access to the game. That means all of the levels, the Kingdom Builder feature, Toad Rally, and Friendly Run mode.

While Nintendo did take some flak for its rather high, $10 price for unlocking the main game, some did like the idea of not being bugged with micro-transactions, as is common on cheaper apps. However, despite making $53 million in revenue on iOS, only approximately five percent of the 78 million downloads translated to full game purchases. That’s certainly nothing to scoff at, but the company had hoped to convert 10 percent of downloads to purchases. Perhaps the 10 percent threshold could be met on Android.

Updated on 3-19-2017 by Steven Petite: Added official Android launch date, update and financial details.