The Moto Z2 Play is now up for sale on Flipkart for ₹27,999

Moto Z2 Play is available at an attractive price and comes with several launch day offers.

The Moto Z2 Play is now up for sale on Flipkart for ₹27,999 ($435). The phone made its debut in the country last week, and will be available at thousands of retail stores in addition to Flipkart.

The phone itself isn’t all that different from its predecessor in terms of overall size and design, featuring a 5.5-inch Full HD panel and a marginally faster Snapdragon 626 SoC. There’s 4GB of RAM, 64GB storage, microSD slot, a 12MP camera with an f/1.7 lens, 5MP front shooter, 4G with VoLTE, NFC, FM radio, 3.5mm jack, Bluetooth 4.2, USB-C connectivity, and Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box.

The battery size on the Z2 Play at 3000mAh is less than the 3510mAh on the first-gen Z Play, but Motorola claims that the efficient chipset balances out the battery life. For when you do need to top up the device, Motorola’s TurboPower wall charger is included in the box, offering up to 50% charge in just 30 minutes.

Read: Moto Z2 Play review

As always, Flipkart has a slew of launch day offers available for those interested in picking up the Moto Z2 Play right away. Axis Bank Buzz credit card holders will get an instant 5% discount, and there are lucrative no-cost EMI options available from several vendors, including Bajaj Finserv, Axis Bank, ICICI, Kotak, HDFC, and more. The retailer is also throwing in a 55% discount on select Moto Mods.

Who’s interested in picking up the Moto Z2 Play?

See at Flipkart

Honor 9 is the sum of many incremental upgrades, and that’s just fine

The biggest upgrades in this year’s Honor flagship will be software, camera, and audio.

The Honor 9 won’t be announced in Europe for another couple of weeks — a launch event is scheduled for June 27 — but thanks to the standard early Chinese launch, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the handset.

It’s the direct successor to the Honor 8, one of our favorite mid-priced flagships of 2016, and packs much the same internal hardware as the recently launched Honor 8 Pro. To wit:

• Kirin 960 processor
• 4GB or 6GB RAM
• 64 or 128GB storage + SD
• 12MP (color) + 20MP (monochrome) rear cameras, f/2.2 lenses
• Laser AF + PDAF
• 8MP front camera, f/2.0 lens
• 4K video support (main camera only)
• Dual SIM support
• 5.15-inch 1080p IPS LCD with DCI-P3 color space, 2.5D curved glass
• Front-facing fingerprint scanner

Despite similarities, Huawei and Honor aren’t competing so directly anymore.

In other words, similar — but not identical — to the P10 phone released by the Huawei mothership a few months back. But in contrast to last year’s arrangement, where the Huawei P9 and Honor 8 were very closely matched, there are some key spec differences. If you ignore the ongoing oleophobic coating issue, the Huawei P10 mostly comes out ahead on specs.

The Honor 9 has:

• No OIS
• f/2.0 lens for the front camera, down from f/1.9
• 9V/2A quick charging, not the faster Huawei SuperCharge
• And Gorilla Glass 5 isn’t mentioned on the spec sheet, so presumably the Honor 9 will use version 3 or 4 of Corning’s hardened glass.

That’s alongside the obvious external differences, which mostly amount to a matter of personal taste. Once again, Honor’s flagship phone features a glass and metal chassis, with curved “3D glass” on the back, formed of 15 layers of the material. The curved rear panel should give the Honor 9 a more comfortable in-hand fit, while tighter joins between the metal and glass should hopefully eliminate the unfortunate “hovercraft” effect that caused the Honor 8 to slide its way off flat surfaces.

The greater differentiation between the Honor 9 and P10 line are important in that it allows Huawei’s two brands to avoid competing so directly with themselves. Based on the Chinese pricing, the Honor 9 will land at a price tier below the P10, and so the slight spec downgrade is to be expected. That’s in contrast to the situation last year, where the Honor 8 was both ahead on specs and priced below the P9 at many retailers.

Upgrades in important areas across the board — but nothing revolutionary.

The jump from Honor 8 to Honor 9 doesn’t bring about any revolutionary changes — and that’s fine, because it doesn’t really need to. Externally, the most noticeable shake-up is the relocation of the fingerprint scanner to the front of the phone. (And from what we’ve seen of the software so far, we can expect the P10’s optional swipe input on the fingerprint scanner to carry across as well.) On the inside, the upgraded Kirin 960 CPU and ARM Mali-G71 GPU should bring performance improvements across the board, most notably in gaming, where the older Mali-T880MP4 lagged behind a little.

The camera hardware lands somewhere between the Mate 9 and Honor 8 Pro — so expect good photos, if not the very best. The Honor 8 Pro conjured up impressive pics out of a similar hardware setup, so hopefully the new 12+20MP combo will build on that without sacrificing low-light performance. The new Honor phone also inherits the Mate’s “hybrid zoom” function, which uses the secondary sensor to bring out more fine detail in zoomed photos.

And Honor is plugging its new “HiSten” 3D Surround audio system in its Chinese promotional materials for the phone. The new Hi-Fi audio chip is tuned by Grammy Award winner Rainer Maillard, who makes a cameo on the product page. (And yes, the increasingly rare headphone jack is included.)

What’s far, far more important than any of those hardware changes is the Honor 9’s software. EMUI 5.1 is an enormous upgrade compared to the old, clutzy version 4.1, and having this software at launch is important. In contrast to the relatively low-key, online-only Honor 8 Pro, a lot more attention (and marketing money) will be given to the Honor 9, so it’s important that a great software experience is present from the get-go.

So that’s what we’re expecting from the Honor 9 based on what’s been revealed in the Chinese marketing materials so far. A sharper take on a familiar design, some predictable internal hardware upgrades and a focus on improved camera and audio quality. You still don’t get wireless charging, water resistance, Super Charging or a 2K display, but then you wouldn’t necessarily expect those things in a handset at this price point.

The Honor 9 might still undercut the OnePlus 5 on price.

Incidentally, incremental spec bumps and an improved camera system are also what we’re expecting to see from the Honor 9’s principal rival in the affordable flagship segment, the OnePlus 5.

Price-wise, the base model 4GB + 64GB Honor 9 will sell for the equivalent of $340 in China — but a word of warning that Western prices for Honor phones almost never match the super competitive Chinese pricing. I’d expect something around the $400 mark to be a more realistic target. Nevertheless, with rumors pointing to a $500 price tag for the OnePlus 5, Honor could still bring plenty of fight to its main rival at a lower price.

Keep it locked to Android Central over the next couple of weeks. We’ll be live from the European Honor 9 launch event in Germany to bring you the final details — in English! — as they arrive.

Using Alexa Scenes to control your home like magic

How do I use Alexa Scenes?

Most connected home gadgets have a way to do things automatically or based on specific conditions. That’s the whole appeal after all: being able to automate parts of your life. That might be changing the color temperature in your living room when it’s time to watch a movie or maybe just making sure the cable box is set to a specific channel when you turn on your television. Either way, Amazon collects these little scripted behaviors and puts them in a voice-controlled system called Scenes. Here’s how it works.

• Discovering your Scenes
• How to discover Scenes
• How to use Alexa Scenes

Discovering your Scenes

Amazon’s Scene tab isn’t for creating; it’s for collecting. If you have a Logitech Harmony set up to control you TV, those instructions can be added to a collection. If you have a thermostat and lights working together to change your environment in specific conditions, that gets added to the collection.

It’s basically anything that isn’t automated but still part of the system. Instead of going to those individual apps to activate these scripts, Alexa gathers them up and lets you activate them with your voice.

How to discover Scenes

Open your Alexa App.
Tap on the Menu button.
Tap Smart Home in the Menu.
Tap Scenes.

Tap Discover.

Alexa will now scan your local wireless network for any tech with a Scene to be collected. If you have a Philips Hue set, you’ll need to press the sync button on the Hue Hub to give Alexa access to those scenes.

How to use Alexa Scenes

In your Scene list, you’ll see everything you’ve set up for light bulbs, fans, thermostats, and other smart home things that can be on or off with a simple command. The Scene has a name, and if you say that name to Alexa, it will execute the series of commands in the Scene.

For example, if you have a Philips Hue Scene named “Bedtime” that slowly lowers the brightness when you give the command, you can say “Alexa, turn on Bedtime,” and the Scene will start. If you have scenes that work in multiple rooms, adjust the command to include the name of the room after and it will work.

Questions or comments?

Do you have an Alexa Scene you rely on every day? Share your favorites in the comments!

Amazon Echo

• Amazon Echo review
• Echo Dot review
• Top Echo Tips & Tricks
• Tap, Echo or Dot: The ultimate Alexa question
• Amazon Echo vs. Google Home
• Get the latest Alexa news

Amazon

Dior Homme x Sennheiser: Fashion hits headphones hard with stunning results

Dior Homme and Sennheiser have announced the latest fusion of fashion and technology in a partnership being called Dior Homme x Sennheiser.

The fusion of Dior Homme’s serious styling for men and Sennheiser’s serious audio skills see some of Sennheiser’s best products given a luscious black and anthracite design with fine red highlights.

The special editions cover the Sennheiser HD 800 S headphones, the HDVD 800 headphone amp, PXC 550 wireless headphones and the IE 800 in-ear headphones. However, the partnership has resulted in more than just the audio products alone, as Dior Homme x Sennheiser offers collections with custom accessories. 

The home solution gives you all the headphones and the headphone amp, but you also get matching storage furniture comprising to units with drawers lined with calfskin leather, so you can store your HD 800 S in style. There are also leather pouches for the smaller headphones, so everything is perfectly protected. The home solution, wait for it, will cost you £7600.

For those on the go, the travel solution is suggested. This pairs the PXC 550 wireless and noise-cancelling headphones with a mini leather backpack to take on your travels and be a home to your headphones when they are not on your head, as well as giving you the space to carry your other essentials. The travel solution is £1750. 

Or there’s a daily solution, with a Dior Homme leather clutch to house your PXC 550 headphones, which is a little cheaper at £880, or the in-ear pocket solution which is also £880.

Yes, it’s a small mark-up over the normal prices you would pay for these high-end audio devices, but what price can you put on looking good?

OnePlus 5 launch: When is it and where can you watch it online?

OnePlus has confirmed the OnePlus 5 will be unveiled on 20 June.

The OnePlus 5 follows the OnePlus 3T, one of the best budget smartphones of 2016. It debuted with top-notch specs and easily rivalled high-end devices like the Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10, and LG G5. But will OnePlus’ next flagship be able to do the same? Can it give the new Galaxy S8 and LG G6 a run for their money, while still maintaining OnePlus’ flagship-killing price strategy?

Pocket-lint has rounded up all the latest rumours on the OnePlus 5 here, but if you want to know more about the phone’s actual launch event, we’ve got you covered there as well. Here’s everything you need to know about when it is and how you can watch it online.

• Dual lens cameras: The history running up to iPhone 7 Plus
• OnePlus 3T review: The best mid-price phone

When is the OnePlus 5 launch event?

The OnePlus 5 launch event will take place at 12pm EST (9am PST/5pm BST) on Tuesday 20 June. You will be able to watch the event online.

In addition, the company will be holding pop-up launch events in many major cities, including London, New York, and Berlin, on 20 June and 21 June. The phone will be shown off to a live audience at each of these events. Check out OnePlus’ website to RSVP your spot.

Can you watch the OnePlus 5 event online?

Yes. Here (the video won’t be live until the day of the event):

Want to know more?

Are you prepared for the OnePlus 5? Focus on what matters and join our keynote live on June 20. https://t.co/uuWc1m3pz1 pic.twitter.com/KfbVfMyh00

— OnePlus (@oneplus) June 6, 2017

You can also visit OnePlus’ website to watch the live stream.

Sky Q now lets you record six programmes, while watching a seventh

Ever felt spoilt for choice? The latest update for Sky Q customers will bring the ability to record six programmes while watching a seventh.

That’s mind boggling news, but means that you really don’t ever, ever, have to miss out on recording something because you’ve run out of tuners and you can really take advantage of the power that Sky Q offers on the 2TB box. 

This update doesn’t happen automatically, however. Instead, you’ll be prompted to make the change if you have set a whole load of things to record and hit that record button on the sixth show. Or, if you fancy turning it on, head into settings > setup > preferences > maximum number of recordings and you can change from five to six. 

Be warned, however, as there are some compromises to be made in using this extra tuner for recording. For example, the mini guide won’t show a live image and you can’t have split screen on Sky Sports.

• Sky Q review: 4K, multi-room support, apps and more
• Now TV vs Now TV Smart Box vs Sky Q: Which Sky package is right for you?

Sky is preparing itself for a bumper summer of sport and entertainment with test cricket, the British and Irish Lions tour, Formula 1 and the Open, as well as the forthcoming Premier League season.

You also have the start of Game of Thrones season 7 to look forward to. Now there’s no excuse for not recording everything you could possibly want to watch.

LG V30 could get August launch, LG G7 to move to earlier January 2018 launch

News coming out of Korea suggests that LG is preparing to turn up the heat on its rival by launching its next generation devices earlier in the year than the phones they replace.

Reporting the information, Aju News suggests that the LG V30 – expected to be a content creators’ flagship with a focus on video and audio capture – will be on sale in August 2017, rather than September, the launch month of the LG V20. 

The LG V models have been creeping forward through the calendar: the LG V10 launched in October 2015. As previously, we’d expect the LG V30 to have a limited release, most likely focusing on Asia and the US.

The shift in timescale is reported to give LG more time to sell devices before competitor launched, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 or the iPhone 8. We know the LG V30 is coming, because Google confirmed it at Google I/O, saying it would be Daydream compatible. 

• LG V30: What’s the story so far?

But that’s not all. There’s news about the forthcoming flagship replacement LG G7 too. The LG G6 was announced at MWC 2017 at the end of February, but it wasn’t actually available for a while after that. 

The LG G7 is said to be in development already, focusing on launching a device with the latest hardware from Qualcomm, reported to be 7nm Snapdragon 845. The LG G6 launched early with Snapdragon 821, a platform that’s not as sophisticated as the 835 that’s now in a number of flagships.

Again, we could see LG launching at CES 2018 to beat the likes of Samsung to market. 

Of course, we’re a long way from these dates at the moment and there’s plenty that could change in the meantime. 

• Best smartphone: The best phones to buy today

Researchers are using VR to make dentist visits less painful

Like airlines, dentists understand that the more they can distract you from what they’re doing, the better off everyone will be. UK researchers wanted see if virtual reality can ease patient pain and anxiety, so they enlisted 79 people who needed a tooth pulled or cavity filled. Patients were divided into three groups: One that viewed a VR coastal scene, one a VR city, and the other, no virtual reality at all.

The result? Folks that viewed the ocean VR experienced “significantly less pain” than the other two groups, showing its therapeutic potential for stressful events. Furthermore, follow ups showed that the coastal VR patients experienced less “recalled pain” memories after the fact.

Notably, the city VR was no more effective at reducing patient pain and stress than no VR, so the trick seems to depend on using calming scenes. While that seems incredibly obvious, the psychologists thought VR could just be distracting patients from all the drilling and poking, much as a TV does, but that proved not to be the case. “Our findings are in line with literature, showing that contact with nature, even indirect contact through windows, can influence physical and mental well-being,” the paper explains.

The researchers note that in previous studies, VR has been shown to reduce patient dependence on pain medication. “Our research supports the previous positive findings of VR distraction in acute pain management, and suggests that VR nature can be used in combination with traditional [medication].” The next step, they suggest, would be to vary the content of natural environments (using a forest instead of a coastal scene, for instance) to see if the can determine exactly how it reduces pain. We’d recommend they check out the zen content out there, and avoid any games.

Via: The Register

Source: Sage Journals

The Morning After: Thursday, June 15th 2017

Hey, good morning! You look fabulous.

A beautiful Minecraft? The return of Beyond Good and Evil? A Firefox browser that can challenge the speed of Chrome? What’s happening?! Thursday’s Morning After still has a lot of important E3 news to deliver, but Facebook also made a bot that can lie for the sake of a bargain.

That water, though.‘Minecraft’ looks like a completely different game in 4K

The best demonstration of the Xbox One X’s 4K capabilities comes from an unlikely, blocky source: Minecraft. Behind closed doors at E3 2017, Microsoft showed off a handful of games it upgraded to 4K just for the Xbox One X, including Gears of War 4, but Mojang’s cube-based crafting game clearly gets the most drastic upgrade.

There’s also a 7.1-channel headset for PS4 and Xbox gamers.Razer’s Blade Stealth packs a larger display into a familiar frame

While the Razer Blade Stealth is a solid laptop, that 12.5-inch display isn’t for everyone. The company is setting things right, though. A new version of the Stealth stuffs a 13.3-inch, 3,200 x 1,800 touchscreen into a similar body. Yes, the system is slightly heavier (2.93 pounds versus 2.84), but you’re still getting that half-inch thickness and a claimed nine hours of battery life. The most conspicuous change is the US option for a gunmetal gray color (shown below) with a much subtler logo on the lid. Meaning, you won’t have to explain Razer’s bright green touches at your next business meeting.

Has it really caught up to Chrome?Firefox finally unveils its faster, more memory-efficient browser

Years after its competitors added multiple process tech that sped things up and reduced memory usage, Mozilla has finally implemented the technology in Firefox. That means version 54 is more efficient than its predecessors, and according to VP Nick Nguyen “make better use of the hardware on your computer, so Firefox can deliver you more of the web … with less waiting.” He even claimed that it uses “significantly less RAM than other browsers on Windows 10, macOS and Linux” — is that enough for you to switch back?

The brand is duking it out for last placeEngadget editors prove skill is not necessary to enjoy ‘Gran Turismo Sport;

There’s video evidence.

Mario’s newest adventure is creative, fun and kind of weird.‘Super Mario Odyssey’ may look bizarre, but it feels just right

Super Mario Odyssey is an evolution on the now classic open-exploration platforming of Sunshine and Mario 64. Just like in those games, players have free reign to wander around myriad unique and interesting worlds, choosing if and when they want to continue the game’s story by hunting down collectibles and completing challenges. The difference here, on Mario’s true Switch debut, lies in the worlds Mario explores. They are much, much more vast — and often wildly different in style to one another.

Your very own character and a whole universe to explore.The ambition of ‘Beyond Good and Evil 2’ might exceed the hype

Arguably the biggest surprise of E3 2017 was a minute-long trailer teasing a game that barely seems recognizable to the original Beyond Good and Evil. But even the anticipated return of the cult hit might not match the vision that director Michel Ancel and his team has for the sequel. Ancel himself outlines what we can expect from the return of the quirky game.

Really?Netflix has more US customers than the cable companies

Netflix has more US customers than the cable companies
According to Leichtman Research, Netflix’s 50 million US subscribers make it bigger than all the major cable TV providers combined (estimated at 48 million or so). That doesn’t include the 30 million-plus and growing number who get their TV from satellite (or internet TV, of course), but it’s still an impressive mark.

This is no quick-and-dirty remaster‘Shadow of the Colossus’ was rebuilt from the ground up for PS4

According to Shuhei Yoshida, when SotC comes to your PS4, the only thing that will remain of the original is its core gameplay. Everything else has been revisited and recreated for high-res gaming.

But wait, there’s more…

• (Historic) Pew pew!
• ‘Wolfenstein II’ starts with a wheelchair, Nazis and a machine gun
• Facebook made a bot that can lie for better bargains
• ‘Duck Season’ is equal parts nostalgic and creepy
• Soon Google Drive will be able to continuously back up any file or folder on your PC
• Connected cars are the key to autonomous driving.

Marimba-playing robot crafts its own tunes

Georgia Tech’s Mason Bretan has built a robot that can not only play music, but is now learning how to compose its own tunes. Shimon is a four-armed, marimba-playing droid that draws upon its vast library of songs to help it write the music that it plays. The system was fed around 5,000 songs from composers such as Beethoven and Stefani Germanotta all the way through to acts like Miles Davis and The Beatles.

Those with long memories will recall that Mason Bretan, who is now finishing his PhD, is already a name in the world of musical robots. Back in 2012, he developed Shimi, a robotic smartphone speaker dock that could track the facial expressions and position of its listeners. In addition, if you clapped a beat in front of the ‘bot, Shimi would attempt to find a song that matched the rhythm that you have supplied.

Shimon is an advance upon that, and only requires a seed or the opening four measures of a song, after which it’ll use its knowledge to improvise a tune. As you can see from the clip, the device creates a cheery, pretty inoffensive tune that could easily be mistaken for library music. It’s not the only project around that’s doing this sort of work, with British startup Jukeblox building an AI specifically to compose background music.

Shimon is going to perform its first live gig at the Aspen Ideas Festival at the end of this month, so we’ll soon see if the robot can cut it under the hot lights.

Via: MIT Tech Review

Source: Georgia Tech