Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 fitness tracker with heart rate sensor is on sale for just $19

The Mi Band 2 is a great purchase for $19.

Xiaomi’s Mi Band 2 usually retails for $29, but the fitness band is now on sale for $19. The second-generation wearable from Xiaomi adds a lot of interesting features, including an OLED display that shows you the time along with number of steps you’ve taken, distance covered over the course of the day, and much more.

The Mi Band 2 also features a heart rate sensor that can be activated by pressing down on the button on the face of the fitness band. You can configure alerts so that the band will notify you to get moving it if detects you’ve been idle for too long.

There’s also automatic sleep tracking, and you can set the band to vibrate for incoming calls and messages. The fitness band syncs with the Mi Fit app, allowing you to get a quick overview of your daily activity and sleep schedule. The app works on all devices running Android 4.4 KitKat and above.

The band is made out of silicon, and the capsule that houses all the sensors is certified IP67, making it compatible for visits to the pool. Xiaomi sells a variety of interchangeable bands that allow you to customize the look of the Mi Band 2.

The best part about the fitness tracker is the battery life, which lasts for over 20 days on a full charge. When you do need to top up the battery, you’ll have to take out the capsule from the band and charge it via the included cradle.

For $19, you really can’t go wrong with XIaomi’s fitness band. If you’re looking to get started with a wearable that tracks your daily activity reliably, hit up the link below to purchase the Mi Band 2.

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Nest Cam IQ 4K security camera can tell the difference between a burglar or a thing

Nest has announced a new indoor security camera to its portfolio in the Nest Cam IQ. The next-generation indoor security camera is able to differentiate between person and thing, and the company claims it offers best-in-class imaging and intelligent features. 

The Nest Cam IQ features a 4K image sensor at 8-megapixels, 12x digital zoom and enhance, HDR for detail and two 940nm infrared LEDs for Night Vision. There are three microphones on board delivering noise suppression and echo cancellation for clearer audio and Nest claims the IQ’s speakers are seven times more powerful than 2015’s original Nest Cam Indoor.

The Nest Cam IQ has a similar design to the Nest Cam Outdoor in order to blend into most home interiors, with Nest saying it is more of a design object than a camera. It has a polycarbonate white body with the head of the camera built onto a swivel mount for flexibility of movement.

Out-of-the-box features, without the Nest Aware subscription, include person alerts and something called Supersight. Person alerts are where the Nest Cam IQ will identify a person rather than a pet or shadow and send an alert to the user with a zoomed in image, something that was previously only available with the subscription on previous Nest Cam models.

• Nest Cam Indoor review
• Netatmo Welcome review

Supersight is a feature within the Nest app, where the user will see a picture within a picture, showing a full 130-degree view of the room, as well as a close-up tracking view of the person in the home.

With the Nest Aware subscription, the Nest Cam IQ will also offer facial recognition technology to identify, categorise and learn to distinguish familiar and unfamiliar faces, like the Netatmo Welcome does. You will also get intelligent audio alerts for things the camera can’t see, such as a dog barking or person talking.

Additionally, the Nest Aware subscription will offer the existing features comprising 10 or 30-day video history, clip and time-lapse creation and sharing and Activity Zones, such as automatic door detection for more precise notifications.

All features will work in Night Mode too and there will be a software update coming this summer to enable walkie-talkie mode for more fluid conversation through the camera. At launch, the Nest Cam IQ still offers two-way talk however, with a blue LED ring indicating this feature in action, while a green LED light shows the camera is watching.

The Nest Cam IQ will be available for £299 or $299, with pre-orders starting in the US and UK from 31 May. Shipping is expected by the end of June. The Nest Aware subscription costs £8 a month with no contract or £80 a year.

Nest Cam IQ preview: 4K sensor brings facial recognition and more precise alerts

The Nest Cam IQ is the latest indoor security camera from Google-owned smart home company Nest. It joins the Nest Cam Indoor and Nest Cam Outdoor in the portfolio of security products, both of which continue to be available.

Nest claims the Nest Cam IQ is a new product, rather than a camera that competes in the current space where numerous companies operate including Withings, Netatmo, Panasonic and Samsung. Here are our first impressions.

Nest Cam IQ: Design

• White, polycarbonate body
• Patented hinge for fluid movement 
• Three microphones

The Nest Cam IQ features a newer and more aesthetically pleasing design to the Nest Cam Indoor. It features a white polycarbonate body rather than a black one, allowing it to blend into a wider range of interiors.

Pocket-lint

Following similar design traits to the Nest Cam Outdoor, though on a stand rather than mount, the white body rounds off towards the rear where you will find a speaker and there are also three microphones present on the main body, with two at the front and one underneath.

At the front of this main body is the camera sensor, surrounded by a black glossy ring and a small and discreet Nest logo underneath. Although we didn’t see a working model, a blue LED ring will light up on the outer edge of the black ring to indicate the two-way talking feature, while a small green light is present in the centre at the top to indicate the camera is on and watching. These elements make up the main bulk of the Nest Cam IQ, which is positioned on a cleverly-weighted stem and base, resulting in a sturdy and solid design.

Pocket-lint

A patented hinge connects the main bulk section of the camera to the stem and base, allowing you to move the camera head around smoothly. The movement is slick and the camera is able to point in various positions, offering a good degree of flexibility. Cables are hidden within the stem, offering a clean and seamless finish, while the base has a USB Type-C port hidden on the back for power. The Nest Cam IQ, like others in the field, requires a constant connection to power.

• Nest Cam Indoor review 

Nest Cam IQ: Quality and hardware

• 4K sensor (8MP) with HDR, streaming in 1080p
• 12x digital zoom and enhance
• Six-core processor

The Nest Cam IQ has a 4K sensor with HDR, along with 12x digital zoom and enhance, the latter of which is done in the cloud. It’s worth noting that while the 8-megapixel sensor uses its 4K capabilities for capturing detail, it will not stream or record in 4K.

Instead, the detail is compressed and users will get 1080p streaming instead, saving your bandwidth. We weren’t able to use the new Nest Cam IQ during our briefing, but we will let you know what the quality is like when we have it in for review.

Pocket-lint

There are two 940nm infrared LEDs for night vision on board, said to be higher power than the Nest Cam Indoor for better visibility, while the speaker we mentioned previously in the design section is claimed to offer seven times more power than the 2015 model.

A six-core processor runs the IQ show and there is Bluetooth LE as well as 2×2 MIMO 802.11ac Wi-Fi on board too.

Nest Cam IQ: Features

• Facial recognition with Nest Aware subscription 
• Supersight feature without subscription 
• Distinguishes between person and thing

The Nest Cam IQ has been designed with the purpose of being able to distinguish between a person and a thing. There are a couple of features that will be available out of the box, while others require you to sign up to the Nest Aware subscription, as was the case with the Nest Cam Indoor.

Pocket-lint

Without the subscription, users will receive an alert when the Nest Cam IQ detects a person rather than a pet or a shadow. Users will also have access to a feature called Supersight which offers a picture-within-a-picture view in the app. The first picture shows the 130-degree view of the camera, while the second automatically zooms in to follow the person and movement.

Signing up to the subscription will offer familiar face and unfamiliar face alerts, with the camera using facial recognition technology to identify, categorise and learn the difference between family and strangers. You’ll also be able to grant access to specific people once they have been tagged, allowing them to disable recording when they return home, for example.

The Nest Aware subscription will also alert users when a person is talking or a dog is barking, as well offer 10-day or 30-day video history rather than just three hours without the subscription.

Pocket-lint

Thanks to the microphones, two-way talking is supported on the Nest Cam IQ and a software update will be arriving this summer that will offer a walkie-talkie feature for more fluid conversation using the camera. We didn’t get a chance to see the features in action, despite a demo of Supersight and familiar faces, but we will test all the features and functions of the Nest Cam IQ in our review.

First Impressions

The Nest Cam IQ offers a lovely, solid design that should blend in with most interiors more than its predecessor. There are some exciting new features on board too, including facial recognition and the ability to grant access to specific people so not everyone is recorded when they are home.

Although we don’t know how the Nest Cam IQ performs as yet, we have high expectations and we’re very much looking forward to trying it out to see how it compares to others in the market.

The Nest Cam IQ goes on preorder from 31 May for £299 or $299.

Watch out Apple! Qualcomm-powered Windows 10 laptops are aiming at the MacBook

Qualcomm has announced that it is entering the laptop market, with manufacturing partners soon to release superthin, fanless MacBook competitors powered by the Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset.

This allows them to take on Apple’s hugely successful, light MacBook, offering “all-day” battery life.

They will even take the concept of thin, instant-on notebook further with LTE connectivity – something Apple doesn’t currently offer in its 12-inch MacBook range.

The Snapdragon 835 System-on-Chip (SoC) comprises the Qualcomm Kryo 280 CPU, Adreno 540 GPU and Hexagon 682 DSP.

The mobile laptops will be powered by Windows 10. They won’t exactly be gaming powerhouses, but should run quickly and provide plenty of usability options on the fly.

Qualcomm has also revealed which companies have signed up to produce machines sporting the same processor as current flagship Android phones.

Asus, HP and Lenovo are all committed to making Qualcomm-powered laptops.

We don’t know yet which devices will be appearing and when. We’re also yet to find out pricing, but we’d be surprised if the cost of a Snapdragon notebook is as high as a 12-inch MacBook.

It certainly opens up an all-new option for those looking for a thin, light device with excellent battery life.

“Today’s consumers experience mobility in nearly every aspect of their lives and they’ve come to expect more from their PCs than legacy computing models are able to provide,” said Qualcomm Technologies’ executive vice president, Cristiano Amon.

HP’s Cortana speaker is a connected companion for your Windows PC

Following the lead of Amazon and then Google, Microsoft is getting in on the connected AI speaker action with its own Cortana-powered devices.

First revealed by Harman Kardon with the Invoke, HP revealed that it was also looking at a Cortana device. It appears that unlike the Harman Kardon approach, this HP device will be a connected accessory for your PC. And by “connected” we mean plugged in.

Although the device hasn’t been fully revealed, Microsoft showed off the HP device at Computex, according to a report from The Verge and details from CNET. In this demonstration, it’s referred to as a “digital assistant” that connects to your PC and looking like Amazon’s Echo Dot, although these are only “artist renders” according to CNET.

It looks as though HP’s approach is to give you separate accessory just for Cortana interaction, but the need for it to be connected to a PC still baffles us a little. Microsoft’s plan is to march into all areas with Cortana, much as Amazon is doing with Alexa and Google with Assistant. However, this vision of an HP device currently looks a lot less practical than the standalone offering from Harman Kardon and the existing Google Home and Echo rivals.

It feels like there’s a lot more to be revealed in this story.

• Harman Kardon Invoke speaker has Microsoft Cortana for brains

Nikon’s Coolpix W300 is a 4K shooting, underwater loving compact camera

Nikon has taken the wraps off its latest compact camera creation, the Coolpix W300. It’s built to survive anything you can throw at it, even the odd swim on your summer holiday at the beach. 

Its primary reason for existing is written in bold lettering across the front of the camera. It’s waterproof up to 30 metres, meaning you can take some of those cool underwater shots without tempting fate and getting your water resistant smartphone wet. 

In real terms, that means those of you with a recreational diver’s license will be able to take your camera with you underwater without needing to fork out for some bespoke underwater housing. 

If you are shooting underwater, part of the camera’s Active Guide feature set lets you show location data and altitude information on the screen. For the outdoor adventurers, you can also show your altitude. 

Nikon

Everything about the design has been purposefully made to make the camera easy to use in your outdoor and underwater activities. This includes the redesigned grip and shutter-release button that make it easy to use, even if you happen to be wearing gloves. There’s also an LED light button for activating a constant LED beam for darker scenes. 

What’s more, it’s shock-proof and can handle drops up to 2.4 metres (8 feet). This is an improvement from its predecesor, the Coolpix AW130. As a welcome bonus, it’ll also survive temperatures as low as -10 degrees C. 

As for the all important optics, the W300 has a 5x optical zoom 24-100mm (equivalent) Nikkor lens and a maximum f/2.8 aperture. It can also zoom up to around 10x using Dynamic Fine Zoom, which combines the maximum optical zoom and digital zooming. 

All of this is captured by a 16-megapixel backside illuminated CMOS sensor with a vibration reduction function. This should mean there’s very little blur, if any at all, depending on how steady your hands are. 

For those wanting to shoot glorious 4K UHD video, you’ll be pleased to know it comes equipped with the ability to shoot 3840 x 2160 video at 30 frames per second. You can also lock the exposure, which is especially useful when shooting underwater and the light coming from the surface is constantly changing. 

Nikon

The Nikon Coolpix W300 can also shoot Superlapse movies, which is essentially Nikon’s own take on timelapse. You’ll be able to shoot scenes where changes happen slowly over time, and then play them back with the changes compressed in to much quicker snippets. 

When it launches, it will be available for £389, and will come in a number of different colours and designs. 

President’s confusing ‘covfefe’ tweet remains live for hours

Rambling late night tweets from the President of the United States have been a part of our reality for several months now, but the latest one has gone to a new level. At 12:06AM ET the @RealDonaldTrump account posted a message saying that “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” — and that was it. Covfefe is already a meme with a Twitter Moment, however so far there’s no word from the White House about what it was supposed to say, or if the president just got an important call from Justin Trudeau on his iPhone in mid-tweet.

Despite the constant negative press covfefe

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017

Whatever the intended meaning behind the tweet, it comes at an interesting time, within a day of White House communications director Mike Dubke announcing his resignation. It’s also closely trailing a report by the Wall Street Journal indicating the White House is considering a plan to have a team of lawyers vet Trump’s social media posts before they go out.

Wakes up.
Checks Twitter.
.
.
.
Uh…
.
.
.
📈 Lookups fo…
.
.
.
Regrets checking Twitter.
Goes back to bed.

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) May 31, 2017

Two hours after the covfefe tweet went out it’s still up (judging by a letter from the National Archives (PDF), it is legal for the President to delete tweets, however it has advised the White House to “capture and preserve all tweets” including deleted ones), and even the dictionary doesn’t know quite what to say about it. Of course, covfefe might really mean “Twitter finally adds an editing feature,” but that seems like a long shot.

The mystery of Trump’s ‘covfefe’

Source: Covfefe Twitter Moment, Donald Trump (Twitter)

Nest’s new camera is smart enough to know who’s who

After acquiring Dropcam back in 2014, Nest waited another year to launch its own home monitoring camera. It wasn’t much of an improvement over the old Dropcam Pro, and aside from releasing an outdoor version with weatherproof body, Nest has focused on improving its software ever since. But now the smart home company is back with a second-gen connected camera — the Nest Cam IQ — which features serious upgrades in the hardware department and an inflated price tag to match.

The $299/£299 Nest Cam IQ looks a lot like last year’s Nest Cam Outdoor. In contrast to the very first camera, it has cute and curvy, all-white polycarbonate shell and a fancy, patented hinge that allows you to orientate the lens any way you want it. An LED notification ring now encircles the camera’s eye, glowing green when anyone is viewing the live stream and flashing blue if the watcher begins talking through it. Behind the glass-covered front is one of the biggest upgrades: A new, 8-megapixel sensor capable of capturing 4K, HDR video in a 130-degree field of view.

A user will never actually see 4K footage from the camera, as it records and streams at a maximum resolution of 1080p. However, some of the new features exclusive to the Nest Cam IQ do utilize the 4K input before it’s compressed. “Supersight,” for example, uses the feed to digitally zoom in on areas where motion is detected. Say a burglar crawls in through your window. In the Nest app, you’ll see a 4x zoomed, 1080p close-up of them entering, with a picture-in-picture of the main feed in the corner (which you can always switch to). Supersight will also track the thief as he moves across the camera’s field of view.

Facial recognition is another new headline feature, powered by Google’s “best-in-class” FaceNet technology — this is by no means the first home monitoring camera with this functionality, mind. The Cam IQ logs any new faces it spots in the Nest app. You can then flag them as friends or family, and customize alerts so you’re only notified when an unknown mug crosses the camera’s path. But for this, you’ll need a Nest Aware subscription that’ll set you back $10/£8 per month or $100/£80 per year after your free 30-day trial expires.

For that, though, you’ll also get the new “intelligent audio alerts” feature that hits you up if your dog starts barking or people are heard talking off-camera. This feature will also be available to anyone who has one of the older Nest cameras, too, and remember Nest Aware includes rolling ten-day continuous recording and cloud storage.

Thanks to the upgraded sensor and a better, six-core processor, person detection now happens on the device rather than in the cloud. This feature can distinguish between people, pets and objects (like a flapping curtain), but on the previous cameras it’s available only to Nest Aware subscribers.

Better image quality and what that enables is undoubtedly the primary selling point of the new Nest Cam IQ, but there are other improvements to speak of, such as the two 940nm infrared LEDs for better night vision with no red lights. Three microphones promise enhanced noice/echo suppression and audio recognition, while a more powerful speaker (a seven-fold upgrade, apparently) makes remotely shouting at your kids to stop messing up the living room that bit easier. On that note, you can only communicate walkie-talkie style at launch, but new software that’ll make the camera function like a persistent speakerphone will be released a few weeks later.

The new camera also supports the speedy 802.11ac WiFi standard and beyond the existing Alexa and Google Home integrations, things are going to get a little cozier with the latter. Later this year, Nest will switch on additional Home controls such as ‘save this clip’ and ‘cast to my TV’ commands.

All these immediate and future upgrades do come at a price, though. The Nest Cam IQ is $299/£299, or $100/£140 more expensive than the company’s first indoor camera. Throw in a Nest Aware subscription and we’re not talking about an insignificant amount of money (not that it’s outrageously uncompetitive or anything). The new camera is launching in every market Nest is directly present in at the end of June, and is available to preorder online in the US, UK and several other European countries today.

Intel adopts e-SIM to support Microsoft’s connected PC vision

PCs are making a comeback, if the news out of Computex 2017 is any indication, and Microsoft wants to make sure they’re all constantly connected. To support that vision, Intel is making its current and future modems compatible with e-SIMs, so future laptops can connect to LTE networks without physical SIM-card trays. That’s because the technology you’d typically find in a SIM card will be embedded into its modems, so you can connect your machine just by entering a phone number and avoid having to fiddle with a tiny tray.

The chip maker says it is working on validating “e-SIM-enabled always-connected platforms with multiple carriers using the Intel XMMTM 7260 modem and our upcoming Intel XMM 7360 modem.” At its keynote, Microsoft announced a slew of carriers that will support the e-SIM devices, including T-Mobile, AT&T, Vodafone and other international service providers. The always connected PC project is another part of the two brands’ Project Evo collaboration to deliver Windows devices across multiple product categories. So this could mean e-SIM-enabled speakers or VR headsets in future, too.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from Computex 2017!

Windows on Snapdragon is key to making PCs more connected

Looks like Microsoft isn’t done with its world tour. After a series of events in New York, Seattle and Shanghai, the company has yet another big announcement to make in Taiwan here at Computex 2017. And in keeping with the theme of bringing Windows everywhere, Microsoft is working with Qualcomm and Intel to deliver “Always Connected PCs” that are constantly online, have long-lasting batteries and portable designs.

Today’s announcement sheds more light on the concept of Windows 10 on mobile Qualcomm processors that Microsoft had teased at its WinHEC event last December. Now, we’re learning that the chipset that makes this possible is the Snapdragon 835, which currently powers high-end flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Sony Xperia XZ Premium.

Don’t confuse Windows on Snapdragon with the Windows RT strategy, though. Microsoft says the new devices will run the full desktop version of Windows 10 — not a tweaked interface for mobile, though this may eventually include Windows 10 S. That means you’ll get x86 app compatibility, Cortana, Windows Ink, Hello, among other features. Since no actual machines have been announced yet, it’s not clear if they’ll be laptops, convertibles, tablets, or phones, but Microsoft doesn’t appear to be limiting this concept to a product category. You can at least expect devices from traditional laptop makers ASUS, Lenovo and HP, who have said they’ll be developing products for this new initiative.

In general, Always Connected PCs won’t have to use Qualcomm’s chips (Intel-powered devices can qualify as well), but the ones that do will see several benefits from Snapdragon 835. The most important advantage is gigabit LTE connectivity, which will allow these devices to download videos or webpages at blazing speeds. In fact, during a demo here in Taiwan, a Qualcomm rep downloaded a 1.9GB movie over a custom gigabit LTE network on to a prototype device in less than 30 seconds. The connection speed was tweaked to match anticipated real-world rates of about 300Mbps, not the 1Gbps it can technically achieve, but what’s impressive is Qualcomm anticipates it will be able to sustain that throughput instead of hitting it in bursts.

Speaking of, Windows devices on Snapdragon will come with embedded e-SIM support to make it easier to get online without having to fiddle with a SIM tray or a tiny card. Devices with SIM trays can also get connected with e-SIM adapters. It also enables the idea of snackable data consumption, which lets consumers buy data in bite-sized portions (say, 1GB or 2GB) when they need it from the Windows Store. This could actually encourage more people to use mobile data without having to subscribe to a new data plan.

During our demo, our rep also created PowerPoint slides, scrolled rapidly up and down the Start menu, created a Pivot Table from a large Excel spreadsheet and copied and pasted text between Word and PowerPoint windows — all without lag. He even jumped across three virtual desktops with ease. Sure, these demos sound kind of boring, but they’re important basics to get right if you actually want to get work done on these PCs. The performance we witnessed is similar to that of an Intel Compute Stick, based on our experience, and this responsiveness is key to making Snapdragon PCs feel like they are full Windows devices and not watered down versions.

A 14nm chip versus the 10nm Snapdragon 835 (right)

Another bonus is Snapdragon 835’s smaller physical size compared to its predecessor and competition. That not only lets device makers create slimmer products and experiment with different forms, but also leaves more room for parts like larger batteries. Combined with the chipset’s power efficiency, this could lead to longer-lasting machines that will stick around for more than a day. You’ll also get more endurance in standby mode, and the new devices will feature something called Connected Standby. With this mode, your PCs can wake from sleep faster than before, and remain connected to your WiFi or cellular network to keep syncing your data in the background while idle. It also enables Cortana to actively listen for your commands even when the machine is locked.

These details for Microsoft and Qualcomm’s vision for the Windows on Snapdragon seem well thought-out and feasible, but because we haven’t seen consumer-ready versions yet, we can only be cautiously optimistic. Many of the promises being made around speed and battery life are dependent on external factors like network coverage, gigabit deployment and individual device specs. But based on the demo we saw, Microsoft may have finally found a way to make Windows truly mobile.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from Computex 2017!