Caltech’s ‘lensless camera’ could make our phones truly flat

Even as our phones get thinner, there’s one spot that keeps sticking out: the camera lens. Taking good pictures and being able to focus at multiple distances requires a layer of glass that’s a certain size, but there’s really no getting around it — or is there? Researchers at Caltech have devised (PDF) an “optical phased array” chip that uses math as a substitute for a lens. By adding a time delay — down to a quadrillionth of a second — to the light received at different locations on the chip, it can change focus without a lens.

Caltech

According to Professor Ali Hajimiri, it “can switch from a fish-eye to a telephoto lens instantaneously—with just a simple adjustment in the way the array receives light.” The principle is similar to the way phased communication arrays can focus and steer radio waves in a particular direction, but working in reverse. Back in 2014, the team showed off similar technology turned around to create a projector small enough to fit inside your phone, while another application showed the potential for making your phone into a precise 3D object scanner.

Now, for the first time, it has created a 2D, lensless camera array capable of capturing a low res image of a barcode. The image itself isn’t particularly impressive compared to what your iPhone is capable of, but as a proof of concept, it’s a big deal. Right now the chip consists of an 8×8 grid with 64 sensors, and the team’s next goal is scaling the camera to support larger receivers that are more sensitive and capture a higher-res picture.

Source: Caltech, An 8X8 Heterodyne Lens-less OPA Camera (PDF)

Imagination Technologies Up for Sale Following Apple Dispute

British chip maker Imagination Technologies, which lost 70 percent of its value following a dispute with Apple, has put itself up for sale, it was reported on Thursday (via Reuters).

Apple informed Imagination in April that it plans to stop using the company’s PowerVR graphics technology over the next two years as it begins using its own in-house chips for products like the iPhone and iPad. The news came as a blow to the firm whose contract with Apple accounts for half its revenue.

“Imagination Technologies announces that over the last few weeks it has received interest from a number of parties for a potential acquisition of the whole group,” it said.

“The board of Imagination has therefore decided to initiate a formal sale process for the group and is engaged in preliminary discussions with potential bidders.”

When Apple announced it was ending its supply deal with Imagination the British firm’s shares plunged 70 percent. Imagination said at the time that it doubted Apple could go it alone without violating patents, intellectual property, and confidential information.

In May the group said it had started a “dispute resolution procedure” with the American tech giant. The company said it was also selling MIPS and Ensigma – two of its three major businesses – in an attempt to shore up cash, allowing for a renewed focus on its PowerVR graphics technology. Imagination said on Thursday that it had received proposals for both businesses.

Apple has been a licensee and stakeholder in the company since at least 2008, and became a key investor in mid-2009 after raising its stake in the firm to 10 percent. Apple was reportedly in “advanced talks” to acquire Imagination Tech late last year after the British chip maker announced job cuts.

Despite confirming the talks, Apple later decided not to make a buyout offer, and instead recruited several Imagination employees as part of its efforts to build an in-house graphics team.

Tag: Imagination Technologies
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The OnePlus 5 podcast

This week, Daniel, Andrew, Alex and special guest Michael Fisher (MrMobile) talk about one thing — the OnePlus 5. From design to performance to whether the dual camera lives up to expectations, join them as they run through one of the most anticipated phones of the year.

If you’re on the fence about getting a OnePlus 5, this is a must-listen!

Show notes:

• Don’t be this idiot who knifed a store demo Galaxy S8 to test its durability
• The OnePlus 5 is official: Dual cameras, Snapdragon 835, 3300mAh battery
• OnePlus 5 review
• OnePlus 5: Do you really need 8GB of RAM in a phone?
• OnePlus 5 vs OnePlus 3: Should you upgrade?
• MrMobile’s OnePlus 5 review

This episode of the Android Central Podcast is brought to you by Thrifter, the best place to get great deals in your inbox every day!

Podcast MP3 URL: http://traffic.libsyn.com/androidcentral/androidcentral341.mp3

Xiaomi Redmi 4: Everything you need to know

The Redmi 4 is one of the best smartphones available for under ₹10,000 right now.

Xiaomi saw a lot of success with the Redmi 3S in India — over 4 million units were sold, making it the best-selling phone in the online segment. The Chinese manufacturer is looking to do the same with the Redmi 4, its latest entrant in the budget segment in India. The phone made its debut last month for ₹6,999 ($110), offering enticing specs and excellent value for money.

Here’s what you need to know about Xiaomi’s latest budget phone.

It shares design similarities with the Redmi Note 4

At first glance, it’s easy to mistake the Redmi 4 as a smaller version of the Redmi Note 4. That’s by design. Xiaomi is moving to a unified design language for its phones, and the result is that there’s now a shared aesthetic amongst the manufacturer’s budget offerings. Considering the Redmi Note 4 is one of the best-looking phones in the sub-₹15,000 segment, the design is a point in favor of the Redmi 4. Like its pricier sibling, the Redmi 4 offers an all-metal back, and the black color option in particular looks great.

As is the case with most Xiaomi phones, the Redmi 4 offers a build quality that belies its affordable price tag. While it lacks the accents around the camera sensor and antenna bands at the back, the overall design makes the phone look premium.

The 5-inch display is great for one-handed use

The Redmi 4 has the same 5-inch screen size as its predecessor, and the resolution at 1280×720 is also the same. This time around, however, Xiaomi added 2.5D curved glass at the front, making for a more seamless transition from the screen to the frame. The 5-inch screen and compact form factor makes the Redmi 4 ideal for one-handed usage.

The multitasking, home, and back buttons (in that order) are located underneath the display, and the fingerprint sensor is at the back of the device. The screen itself is great, with accurate colors and excellent viewing angles. You also get a blue light filter, and the screen goes all the way down to 1nit for nighttime viewing. The speaker is now located at the bottom of the phone, and while it’s still a single speaker, it delivers an impressive amount of sound.

There are several configurations available

All variants of the Redmi 4 sold in India are powered by the Snapdragon 435 SoC, which has four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz and an Adreno 505 GPU. The phone is available in three configurations: a base model with 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage for ₹6,999, a variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage for ₹8,999, and a model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage that is available for ₹10,999.

Considering the Redmi 4 has a microSD slot, your best option would be to get the variant with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage. That way, memory and storage won’t be a bottleneck, and you still have a capable device. While it’s great that Xiaomi is offering a model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage, the fact that it costs ₹10,999 doesn’t make it an attractive option as you can pick up the Redmi Note 4 for a smidgen more.

MIUI continues to get better, as do the cameras

The Redmi 4 offers the latest version of MIUI 8.2, which is great. What isn’t so great is the fact that the phone is still running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, and there’s no mention of when the Nougat update will be available. That said, MIUI 8 has a ton of customizations and is one of the best skins out there if you like changing every facet of your phone.

As for the camera, the rear 13-megapixel shooter on the Redmi 4 features a Sony IMX258 imaging sensor, and there’s PDAF along with dual-tone flash. Images taken with the rear camera offer a lot of detail and accurate colors, but the phone struggles with HDR and low-light conditions. That’s par for the course in this segment, but overall, the camera on the Redmi 4 is passable.

The battery life is amazing

If there’s one area where Redmi phones have excelled in recent years, it’s battery life. The Redmi 4 exemplifies this, thanks to a massive 4,100mAh battery that lasts at least two days on a full charge. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the stellar battery life: the 720p display, MIUI’s aggressive memory management, and of course the large battery capacity in a compact chassis.

You’ll easily get six to seven hours of screen-on-time, and that’s with Bluetooth enabled throughout the day and a few hours on cellular data. If you’re in the market for a phone with great battery life, there isn’t an option that’s as good as the Redmi 4 in this segment.

It’s exclusive to Amazon (for now)

The most frustrating part about the Redmi 4 is its availability — you can’t walk into a store and pick one up. The phone is currently exclusive to Amazon and is sold via weekly flash sales. For its part, Xiaomi is making sure that there is adequate stock of the Redmi 4 every week and is putting the phone up for sale every Tuesday.

As an added bonus, Xiaomi is bundling free subscriptions to Hungama Music, and you also get a ₹200 promotional credit toward Kindle e-book purchases. If you’re a Vodafone customer, you can get up to 45GB free for 5 months.

There is a possibility that the phone will be available at other e-commerce stores as well as offline stores in the future, but for now, you’ll have to resort to picking up the device in a flash sale. There are resellers that are selling the device at a ₹1,000 to ₹1,500 markup, but it isn’t advisable to go down that route.

See at Amazon India

What do you guys think of the Redmi 4? Are you interested in picking one up? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

ESA throws its weight behind satellite-based 5G internet

The European Space Agency has joined forces with 16 European space companies to demonstrate and champion satellite-based 5G internet. They’re calling their new initiative “Satellite for 5G,” and they signed their agreement at the Paris Air and Space Show. The partners aim to deploy satellites for use in various trials to be performed over the next few years. By doing so, they hope to convince providers that satellite-based 5G can be better than terrestrial-based ones in many situations and to secure support from the European Commission. As Magali Vassiere, ESA’s Director of Telecommunications, said in an interview embedded after the break, satellites can provide high-speed 5G connection even on mountains and islands far from cell towers. They could also ensure that you can reach first responders wherever you are on Earth.

Since the joint agreement is still in its very early stages, the participants haven’t had the chance to iron out the details of the tests they plan to perform just yet. We’ll probably hear more about the project at the “Space and Satcom for 5G: European Transport and Connected Mobility” conference on June 27th to 28th, and we’ll let you know if the group announces anything big.

Vaissiere said in a statement after the agreement was signed:

“5G provides a major opportunity for our space industry, for space and satellites to become integral parts of the future generation of communications networks and services. The joint statement demonstrates that our key industrial stakeholders are ready to join forces in response to this industrial ambition. ESA is going to define a framework supporting industrial action and further strengthening and coordinating institutional support in Europe and in particular with the EC.”

Source: ESA

Todoist team offers a less distracting take on Slack

Slack’s team chat can be extremely helpful for coordinating with your coworkers, but it can also be supremely distracting. Do you really need a constant stream of alerts and unrelated funny GIFs when you’re trying to get work done… or avoiding work on vacation? Doist (the team behind Todoist) doesn’t believe so. Its newly launched Twist service is designed to offer collaboration without the endless pings and digressions of competitors like Slack. Rather than rely on real-time chat, it focuses on specific topics and otherwise does whatever it can to respect your free time. In a sense, it’s a smarter alternative to email.

Twist focuses on topic-specific threads within channels, rather than lumping all activity into a single channel. You won’t risk distracting from an important project by posting about the upcoming company party, and the whole concept avoids the sense of urgency that comes with live discussions. The service still has real-time conversations, but you have to start them as direct messages — they’re not the default.

This might also be your ideal option if you don’t like dealing with pings when you’re off the clock. There’s a “time off” mode (shown above) that silences alerts for a set period and makes it patently clear that you’re on that long-sought vacation. You can also specify your regular schedule to avoid late-night notifications.

As a brand-new offering, it doesn’t have the sheer amount of platform tie-ins as Slack or its counterparts (Todoist and GitHub are two of the larger examples). And this won’t work as well if you absolutely need a large, anything-goes live chat to get things done. The price is right, however: it’s free if you don’t mind losing old messages and documents, and $5 per user per month if you want a permanent record. That’s a good deal compared to the roughly $7 per person an employer pays for standard Slack access. Will it make established rivals quake in fear? Probably not, but it could carve out a niche at companies where always-on chat may do more harm than good.

Via: TechCrunch

Source: Twist

Lung problems? SensiVest will monitor your respiratory system with radar

Why it matters to you

This radar-powered smart vest could help keep heart failure patients healthy and out of the hospital.

Around half of the 5.7 million adults in the U.S. who suffer from heart failure reportedly wind up back in hospital within six months due to a dangerous amount of fluid buildup in their lungs. According to the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, the answer could reside in a high-tech vest that is capable of remotely monitoring a heart patient’s symptoms using radar.

The so-called SensiVest is the creation of Israel company Sensible Medical. Using the same tech the military use for seeing through walls, it looks straight through the chest and into the lungs. It’s meant to be worn by the patient for 90 minutes each day and is designed for outpatient use — meaning that it can be used in their home, rather than the hospital.  Wexner Medical Center is currently carrying out a randomized, clinical trial to test the SensiVest’s efficacy.

So far, things are looking good.

“The vest is based on radar technology,” Dr. Rami Kahwash, a principal researcher involved in the study, told Digital Trends. “It uses sensors that emit electromagnetic waves which let it calculate the fluid content of the wearer’s lungs. That number is then transmitted to a secure website, where it can be accessed by physicians. If the patient is recording these numbers daily, then by the end of the week or month we’ll have a set of numbers that give us a good idea of the amount of fluid in their lungs.”

The SensiVest clinical trial is still underway, but a previous investigation suggested that use of the SensiVest can mean 87 percent fewer hospital readmissions.

That is not just about giving physicians an easier day, though. According to Kahwash, by the time patients present in the hospital, it can be too late to act. Studies have shown that the buildup of fluid in the lungs can actually start two weeks before patients seek help, which opens up a potentially lifesaving use for this technology.

“The hope is that if we can track this trend of fluid in the lungs, we can intervene early on as soon as we see that the numbers are going up,” Kahwash said.

At present, patients do not see the numbers that the device gathers. That could change in the future, though. Kahwash hypothesized that, should the numbers be made available to the patient, doctors could also provide them with a manual algorithm — letting them adjust their medication dosage according to the numbers gathered by the SensiVest.

“Perhaps that way we may eliminate the physician out of the cycle, which could result in more prompt interventions on a day-by-day basis,” Kahwash said.

The cream of the 3D printed crop: Here’s the 10 best 3D printers money can buy

Slowly but surely, 3D printers are getting cheaper, better, and drastically more accessible. In the early days, there were only a few models on the market, and most of them were clunky, tricky to use, and prohibitively expensive — but that’s no longer the case. Today, there are 3D printers available in every size, shape, and printing style you could ever want — and they’re getting more affordable all the time. But with so many 3D printers on the market, finding a good one can be a daunting task. So to help you make the right decision, we put together this no-nonsense rundown of the best 3D printers available right now. Enjoy!

Our pick

Why you should buy it: It makes incredibly accurate parts and it’s a breeze to operate.

Our Score

The best

FormLabs Form 2

The Form 2 is the most accurate 3D printer we’ve ever used, and it’s ridiculously easy to operate.

$3,499.00 from FormLabs

Who it’s for: Product designers, engineers, anyone who wants high-quality printed parts

What you’ll pay for it: $3,500

Why we picked Formlabs Form 2:

Yes, it is very expensive, but using the Form 2 is like moving from an old tube TV to 4K UHD. The quality of its prints dwarf other printers on this list.

At the end of the day, you wont find a consumer-level 3D printer that makes more detailed, dimensionally accurate, structurally robust models than this one does. But that’s not the only reason we picked it. It’s also far more user friendly than other printers in its class, and despite being extremely advanced, its interface is so simple that even beginners should have no trouble using it.

It’s worth noting that the Form 2 isn’t cut from the same cloth as your average FDM printer. It’s a different breed entirely. Instead of heating up plastic filament and squirting it through a nozzle to build objects layer by layer, the Form 2 uses a laser projection system to “grow” objects out of a pool of UV-curable resin. As the laser flashes over the resin tray, it causes a thin layer to solidify on the build plate, which is slowly drawn upward as each new layer is made.

Now to be clear, the Form 2 isn’t the only 3D printer that uses this method — but it’s definitely the easiest to use of the bunch. Formlabs stuffed it with a boatload of great features that make resin-based printing less of a hassle — like an auto-filling resin tray, and an ingenious print feature that makes objects easier to remove from the build plate. There’s even a web app that lets you check the status of your print when you’re nowhere near the machine.

Our full review

New 27-inch iMac 2017 benchmarks show it can play with the big Mac Pro boys

Why it matters to you

With the latest family of iMacs, Apple has beefed up its all-in-one PCs to outperform the previous generation — and even the Mac Pro in some tests.

Benchmarks of Apple’s latest 27-inch all-in-one iMacs have appeared on Geekbench, and there are some interesting numbers to chew on. The iMac 2017 benchmarks were conducted by Primate Labs founder John Poole, and compare the new units against the batch released in late 2015 and late 2014, as well as Mac Pro models sold in late 2013. Based on Geekbench 4, the benchmarks measure single-core performance, multiple-core performance, and the compute tasks of the installed graphics cards.

OpenCL performance

Shown below, the lowest-performing graphics chip in the new batch of iMacs provides better performance than the best graphics chip offered in the most recent group shipped in late 2015. This benchmark doesn’t test the chips for their gaming capabilities, but on how well they can handle simulating physics, processing images, and other tasks offloaded by the main CPU.

What’s important to note is that the Radeon Pro 580 and Radeon Pro 575 outperformed the AMD FirePro D700 graphics chip (93,028) in the 2013 Mac Pro. However, Poole notes that Geekbench 4 only measures the performance of one graphics chip at a time. Apple’s Mac Pro includes two FirePro D700 graphics chips with 6GB of dedicated video memory each.

That said, the Mac Pro’s FirePro D500 and D300 graphics chips reside toward the bottom of the benchmark chart, falling between the iMac 2015’s Radeon R9 M395 and the iMac 2015’s Radeon R9 M390 graphics chips. Two iMac 2014 models are also listed, with the Radeon R9 M295X scoring an 86,494 and the Radeon R9 M290X scoring a 76,507.

Here are the iMac 2017 benchmarks vs. the 2015 models:

Mid 2017
AMD Radeon Pro 580
116,989
Mid 2017
AMD Radeon Pro 575
99,759
Mid 2017
AMD Radeon Pro 570
89,475

Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M395X
86,632
Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M395
76,997
Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M390
67,734
Late 2015
AMD Radeon R9 M380
50,030

Single-core CPU performance

Here, the listed 2017, 2015, and 2014 iMac models outperformed the four Xeon processors installed in Apple’s Mac Pro models sold in 2013. The latest “Kaby Lake” units provide a nice little 9 percent bump up from the previous “Skylake” generation, and a 20-percent single-core increase from the 2014 ”Haswell” generation.

Here are the iMac 2017 benchmarks vs. the 2015 models:

Mid 2017
Core i7-7700K
5,610
Late 2015
Core i7-6700K
5,263

Mid 2017
Core i5-7500
5,041
Late 2015
Core i5-6500
4,362

Mid 2017
Core i5-7600
5,041
Late 2015
Core i5-6600
4,671

Multi-core CPU performance

Although not shown below, it’s here where the 2013 batch of Mac Pros put a hurting on the iMacs. At the top of the performance totem pole is the Mac Pro’s 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 chip, with a score of 24,562. Following that is the eight-core Xeon E5-1680 v2 with a score of 21,736. In third place, there’s the four-core Intel Core i7-7700K chip in the latest 27-inch iMac with a score of 18,945. After that is the Mac Pro’s six-core Xeon E5-1650 v2 processor with a score of 17,090.

Here are the iMac 2017 benchmarks vs. the 2015 models:

Mid 2017
Core i7-7700K
18,945
Late 2015
Core i7-6700K
16,986

Mid 2017
Core i5-7500
13,674
Late 2015
Core i5-6500
12,035

Mid 2017
Core i5-7600
14,602
Late 2015
Core i5-6600
12,593

Apple introduced its new lineup of iMacs in June, along with the all-in-one iMac Pro.

Self-driving shuttles are coming to the University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a hotbed for self-driving car research, so it stands to reason that students and faculty should use self-driving vehicles to get around, right? The university clearly thinks so. Mcity (the university’s public-private partnership) is launching a free driverless shuttle service that will see two 15-passenger Navya Arma vehicles transport people between the university’s North Campus Research Complex and the Lurie Engineering Center. This will make the 2-mile trip easier for travelers tired of taking campus buses, as you might guess, but it’ll also serve as an experiment in its own right.

The Mcity team will closely watch how people react to the shuttles — whether or not they’re aboard. Outside cameras will monitor how people behave around the vehicles, while researchers will also measure ridership numbers and patterns. This should influence when and where the shuttles drive (they’re currently limited to that one route and regular business hours), and promises safer, more efficient self-driving vehicles in the future. All told, the university could learn a lot about autonomy just by fulfilling some of its own needs.

Source: University of Michigan News