Rayz Plus Lightning Earphones Gain ‘Smart Mute’ Feature and Exclusive Colors at Apple Stores

Announced earlier in February, Pioneer’s Rayz Plus Lightning earphones allow Apple users to simultaneously listen to music or make a phone call while also charging their iPhone, thanks to the inclusion of an inline charging node. Today, the company announced a new feature called “Smart Mute” coming to the earphones as well as two new Rayz Plus colors launching exclusively on Apple.com and in Apple retail stores.

Rayz Plus and the basic Rayz earphones (the latter do not include an inline Lightning port) are both getting the new Smart Mute ability, which automatically mutes the microphone when a user is not speaking and unmutes it when they begin talking. Pioneer said that this will be perfect for any Rayz wearers who often find themselves taking calls on the earphones in noisy environments.

The update will be available through the Rayz app on the iOS App Store [Direct Link]. Pioneer worked with Avnera Corporation in developing Smart Mute, and Avnera CEO Manpreet Khaira said that it is “one of several smart technologies” being developed by the company.

“Rayz appcessories were launched with a commitment to deliver new compelling experiences for our customers through future software updates using the Rayz companion iOS app” said Munenori Otsuki, CEO of Pioneer and Onkyo Corporation. “In keeping with this commitment, we are pleased to announce Smart Mute today, a feature that will enable truly compelling call experiences.”

Customers are also now able to buy Rayz Plus earphones in new Black and Rose Gold color options only on Apple.com and in Apple retail locations around the world. Currently, the Rayz earphones are available in Onyx Black and Ice White, while the Rayz Plus are available in Graphite and Bronze.

Existing features of the Rayz and Rayz Plus earphones include AutoPause technology so music starts and stops automatically when the buds are placed in or removed from the user’s ear, HearThru noise cancelling, Smart Button controls, and dynamic audio adjustment via the iOS app.

The pricing on the earphones remains unchanged, with the Rayz available for $99.95 and the Rayz Plus available for $149.95. Those interested can purchase Rayz Plus in Black and Rose Gold exclusively on Apple.com beginning today.

Tags: Pioneer, Pioneer Rayz
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Today’s Google Doodle lets you compose your own music

If you’re looking to lose half an hour in service of making your own music, head on over to Google and click on today’s doodle. The company is celebrating the 117th birthday of Oskar Fischinger, the German-born artist and filmmaker who created geometric animations using paper and card. As Google’s Leon Hong explains, Fischinger’s work left him “awed and puzzled,” making him wonder “how could he make such magic without computers?”

Since much of Fischinger’s work involved putting music to geometric animations, Google builds a basic synth / sequencer for you to play with. Simply select one of the instruments and begin clicking to create a pattern that’ll produce a sound that’s unique to you. As each note plays, geometric animations will jump out, although it’s worth watching one of Fischinger’s originals just to see the scope of his achievement. An Optical Poem, for instance, was produced in 1938 by hand, which makes you really appreciate the scope of human ingenuity.

Source: Google

LG’s latest OLED display is flexible, transparent and gargantuan

Here at Engadget, we’ve covered our fair share of flexible and transparent displays. Small ones, slightly larger ones. But never one that measured 77 inches corner to corner. That particular milestone has now been broken by LG, with a new OLED panel that boasts an Ultra HD resolution of 3840×2160. It should be plenty sharp then, but also portable, given you can scrunch it up to a radius of 80mm without compromising any of its functionality. Neat. With a transparency level of 40 percent, it could also be used to replace windows and screens in a vehicle, storefront or home.

That’s the idea, anyway. As The Korea Herald reports, LG thinks the display has a future in digital signage, desks and in-car infotainment systems. Flexible screens could also be used in augmented reality applications and public spaces, such as aquariums and museums. For now, however, this enormous display is strictly a research project. Bendy panels have been used in smartphones and wearables before, but larger applications are still fairly uncommon. Price is likely the biggest issue — LG made this display, for instance, after beating Samsung to a government contract in 2012.

Source: LG, The Korea Herald

Motorola’s new Moto E4 isn’t exactly thrilling, but it’s cheap

Motorola is as well known for its cheap phones as it is for flagships, so no one was surprised when it revealed the fourth-generation Moto E earlier this month. For those not familiar, Motorola’s E line always felt like a curiosity, as though the company was challenging itself to build a phone for as little as possible without turning it into a smoldering pile of garbage. Its track record speaks for itself: Motorola does fine work on the cheap, and that hasn’t changed. The frills here are few, but after a little hands-on time, the Moto E4 seems to be a strong option for just $130.

Let’s start with the basics, which are, uh, pretty basic indeed. There’s a quad-core Snapdragon 425 in here with 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 308 GPU — that’s solid enough for basic web browsing and productivity, and some light gaming too. You’ll run into issues if you try to run anything too visually intense, though — Mortal Kombat X took quite a while before it started running. (Some games, like Afterpulse, refused to install altogether.) The phone also comes with 16GB of storage, but that’s sort of a technicality. Once you factor in the space Android 7.1.1 takes up, there’s only 9GB of space you can actually use. Fortunately, there’s a microSD card slot you can access by popping off the phone’s back and battery — it’ll take cards as large as 128GB.

Chris Velazco/Engadget

Right up front is a 5-inch, 720p screen that’s tough to complain about considering the asking price. There’s some graininess to be seen if you peer at the display long enough (a result of its modest pixel density), but it’s generally bright enough to easily read even under harsh sunlight. Color reproduction seemed pretty good too, if a just a little washed out. I’d like to see Lenovo make the leap to 1080p at some point, but screens are among the most expensive components in a phone’s bill of materials — getting a decent full HD display in a phone this cheap is going to take some time.

Thankfully, even modest Motos like this one run very clean versions of Android. It’s very, very close to stock, but with some of those handy Motorola experiences built-in. You can set the screen to display notifications while the screen is off and ditch those on-screen buttons in favor of one-button navigation with the built-in fingerprint sensor. It takes a little getting used to, but the option is nice to have if you want to maximize the amount of stuff you can squeeze onto the screen. Unfortunately, more complicated gestures — like twisting your wrist to launch the camera — don’t exist here.

Speaking of cameras, that’s one of the areas we’re looking forward to testing more thoroughly. The Moto E4 sports an 8-megapixel camera on its back, baked into a prominent classic circle above an LED flash. In our limited experience, it manages to take decent photos, but the results are too often hampered by lousy automatic exposure — if you’re taking shots of an area that’s partially bright and partially not, expect the bright bit to be totally blown out. Colors tended to come out on the drab side too, and detail was often sadly lacking. There’s a Pro mode here with more nuanced controls, though, which did help mitigate some minor issues.

This phone came in full retail regalia so this is very likely the camera experience you’re going to get too. Even so, we’re going to play with the camera more before passing a final verdict. The other thing I’m really looking forward to testing more thoroughly is the battery. There’s a removable 2,800mAh cell here, which should go a long away considering the modest power this thing produces. Motorola says it’ll last all day on a single charge, but we’ll be the judges of that.

All told, this is a pretty solid package for the price. Cheap as it is, the biggest knock against the Moto E4 is that it just isn’t that much less expensive than the fifth-generation Moto G series. Motorola and Lenovo have only made the Moto G5 Plus available in the United States and, and an additional $100 ultimately nets you a much, much better device. As I’ve said though, we’re going to keep testing the Moto E4 — maybe it’ll surprise us if given a little more time.

More hotels will let you watch your own Netflix

StayCast, a Google Chromecast-powered service for hotels, could fulfill your dream of being able to watch whatever you want to as a guest — especially now that it’s become much easier to get. AT&T has just announced that hotels can get DirectTV HD systems pre-loaded with StayCast, so make sure to look around or ask if you can stream your own stuff if the property offers the carrier’s satellite TV service. All you have to do is download the service’s Hotel Cast app for iOS and Android and connect to the hotel’s WiFi to start streaming your own Netflix, Hulu and other Cast-enabled apps.

An interactive content provider called Sonifi Solutions first launched StayCast as Sonicast in April 2016. The service has only recently become more available, though, thanks to the company’s various partnerships. Back in April, hotel chain titan Hyatt revealed that StayCast now comes integrated with the World of Hyatt mobile app. In fact, 14 Hyatt locations already offer the service, which means you can use the hotel’s app to watch your favorite shows on the in-room TV at any of them, including Hyatt Regency New Orleans.

In May, Samsung began offering hotels its Hospitality TVs that have StayCast integration, as well. You can simply pair your phone with the TV and continue marathoning that series you were watching at home. It’ll probably take a while before most hotels start providing a way for you watch your own stuff instead of forcing you to rent overpriced movies. Going forward, though, you can at least keep an eye out for services like StayCast and for any deals streaming services like Netflix cut with hotel chains.

Source: AT&T

You wouldn’t want to meet these robot sumo wrestlers in a dark alley

Why it matters to you

The robots offer an insight into the kind of ruthless moves we may have to face when the uprising occurs.

While some may be quick to dismiss the sport of sumo as a couple of fat fellas slapping each other about on a sandy floor, watch just a few bouts and you’ll soon come to appreciate the level of skill, strength, and agility that’s required to be a leading wrestler.

Likewise, robot sumo, which in recent years has become a popular pursuit for a dedicated group of Japanese computer geeks, may at first look like nothing more than bits of tech malfunctioning really badly. However, as with the human version, a closer look reveals that actually a good deal of talent is at work (OK, perhaps not with all of them).

To show the sport at its best, Canada-based YouTuber Robert McGregor has edited together multiple robot sumo clashes filmed at contests across Japan over the last few years.

As with regular sumo, a bout in the robotic version finishes when one of the machines succeeds in pushing the other out of the ring. Some of the robot challengers are autonomous while others are controlled remotely by a team member.

As you’ll see, the speed at which these tiny vehicles move is astonishing — and no, the video hasn’t been speeded up.

While most of the contraptions look fairly similar in design, with a ramp at the front and occasionally with attached flaps for sweeping the opponent out of the ring, the clever stuff happens with the software that drives the robots. As with regular sumo, the machines have to be able to move quickly and respond without hesitation to secure victory.

Be sure to check out the particularly amusing fight at 1:00, which ends with an all too easy victory for one of the robots. There’s also the briefest of bouts at 2.58 featuring an unusual yet highly effective design that somehow keeps within the rules, while the poor bot at 4:09 appears to spill its electronic guts into the ring before being unceremoniously shoved out of sight.

Robotic sports have proved a fun way for tech enthusiasts to develop and showcase their skills. Besides robot sumo, we’ve also seen robot soccer events and, just recently, robot volleyball players.

Breakthrough lens-less camera tech may mean the end of the smartphone camera bump

Why it matters to you

No-one like a camera bump ruining a smartphone’s sleek lines, and this lens-less camera technology may make it a thing of the past.

Engineers at Caltech may have solved one of those awkward smartphone problems of the last few years, the camera bump, by creating a super thin chip designed as an alternative to a glass camera lens. It’s called an optical phased array, or OPA, and it digitally replicates the same light-gathering ability of a glass lens to take a picture. Think of it as a lens-less camera, and you’re on the right track.

Ali Hajimiri, a professor at Caltech and principal investigator on the project, explained how it works. “We’ve created a single thin layer of integrated silicon photonics that emulates the lens and sensor of a digital camera, reducing the thickness and cost of digital cameras.”

This is great news. The camera sensor, lens, and other parts are one of the thickest components inside a modern smartphone, and as the quest to make devices thinner accelerated, designers were forced to house them inside raised sections. See everything from the iPhone 7 Plus to the Galaxy S7 for evidence of this unfortunate trend. Caltech’s OPA digital lens may be the answer the industry is looking for, enabling designers to make devices really thin, without compromising with an unsightly hump on the back of the device.

However, it’s not only aesthetic advantages that come with using the OPA digital lens. Hajimiri continues, saying that not only does it mimic a regular lens, “but 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 camera and its abilities are a major smartphone selling point, and adding a more capable zoom feature, like Apple and Huawei, sets the device apart from the competition. However, features like optical zooms traditionally require even more space to operate. By manipulating the light using an OPA lens-less system to achieve the zoom effect will be attractive to manufacturers seeking smaller devices. It’s not the first time Caltech has experimented with small camera lenses, and worked with Samsung on a flat lens project earlier this year.

While we’re excited for this technology, it’s still in the early proof-of-concept stage, and the images captured by the lens-less camera so far are low resolution. The next stage is to scale up the camera so it can take higher resolution images. Project co-author Behrooz Abiri doesn’t hold back when talking about the impact this may have on the industry, saying, “Once scaled up, this technology can make lenses and thick cameras obsolete.”

How becoming a TPO subscriber can affect change

Join TPO and put your monthly mobile bill to good use.

TPO (The People’s Operator) is a mobile virtual network operator that leases coverage from Sprint’s fast 4G LTE network.

It offers competitive data plans for folks who don’t want to pay the big carrier rates. In fact, as a promotional rate, you can get 1GB of Sprint’s fast 4G LTE data, unlimited calling, and unlimited texting for $7.35 per month for the first three months. After that, it’s only $21 per month. If you need around 3GB of data (which is roughly the amount most Americans use), you’ll pay only $31.50 for the first three months and $35 a month thereafter.

Great, but how does me saving money affect change?

How TPO is different

TPO isn’t just your average carrier, hell-bent on making a quick buck on no-contract phone plans. It was started by three friends who thought that if people were going to be spending money on their monthly mobile bill anyway, then they might as well put toward a force for good.

Charities and deserving causes often have trouble raising funds, but if you’re already going to be spending money on your phone bill, why not give some of that to the cause of your choice?

Yes, switching to TPO from one of the Big Four (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon) will save you money every month, but 10% of your bill will go to the cause of your choice. You don’t spend more just because a portion of proceeds are donated either.

You can choose from causes like the ASPCA, Action Against Hunger, Habitat for Humanity, the Planet Water Foundation, and many more.

How you can initiate change

In order to get in on affecting change by helping your favorite causes, all you have to do is sign up. That’s it!

Sign up for a monthly, no-contract plan, and 10% will automatically go to the cause of your choice. TPO doesn’t take a cut and you don’t spend any more than the plan you sign up for.

You can give to big causes, like the ASPCA or smaller organizations that means something to you, like Kiva, which is a non-profit that lets people lend money over the internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students.

Chances are, if there’s a cause that’s near and dear to your heart, you’ll be able to support it through TPO.

How do I sign up?

Signing up is easy: Head over to TPO’s website, pick a plan, and away you go. There are no yearly contracts, and you get to help great causes by spending money that you already spend anyway — and if you’re switching from a big carrier, you could actually save.

If you want your monthly phone bill to mean something, then [check out TPO]http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=419691769&iu=/10518929/tmn.thus/events) and help initiate change where it matters to you.

OnePlus 5 now official in India for ₹32,999: Everything you need to know

The OnePlus 5 makes its debut in India, and you can pick one up starting today.

India is a key market for OnePlus, and just two days after unveiled its latest flagship, the company is launching the device in the country. To say that the OnePlus 5 was highly anticipated would be an understatement — the OnePlus 3 and 3T did remarkably well in India, leading to heightened expectations from OnePlus’ 2017 flagship.

At a media event in Mumbai, OnePlus finally dished out all the details regarding the OnePlus 5 in India. Like previous years, the phone will be offered exclusively on Amazon, and there are two variants available — a model with 6GB of RAM and 64GB storage that will be available for ₹32,999, and a version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage for ₹37,999.

Aside from the memory and storage, the two models are identical when it comes to the hardware. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer with the OnePlus 5.

What are the specs?

OnePlus has made spec superiority one of its core tenets — the brand after all caters to enthusiasts primarily, and as such including the latest and greatest hardware available is a minimum requirement. With the OnePlus 5, the brand doesn’t disappoint. The handset is one of the first to offer the Snapdragon 835 in India, and from a hardware standpoint, it gets everything right.

Where can I read more?

Right here! You should start off with our extensive review:

Once again, OnePlus has delivered a phone that manages to offer a high-end experience, while also feeling like a great value for the money. The OnePlus 5 may have only brought predictable upgrades from its predecessor, but that’s more than enough to make this a great phone and a great buy.

Interested in seeing how the OnePlus 5 differs from its predecessors? Take a look at the specs comparison between the OnePlus 5, OnePlus 3 and 3T. If you’ve settled on the OnePlus 5, there’s the small matter of figuring out what version to get.

Unlike previous generations, the OnePlus 5 is offered as a single global SKU with 34 global LTE bands. That means that the model going up for sale in India is the same variant that is available in the U.S., UK, and other countries. Offering a single SKU makes it easier for OnePlus to roll out updates. A cool feature that’s coming to the Indian unit is built-in integration for Paytm, allowing you to transfer money using the digital wallet with ease.

When and where can I buy one?

The OnePlus 5 will be available exclusively on Amazon India. Sales kick off from later today, June 22, at 4:30 p.m., and if you live in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, or Bangalore, you can walk into a pop-up store and get your hands on the device.

Amazon is also offering a slew of launch-say offers, including ₹1,500 Amazon Pay cashback, device insurance, credit towards Kindle e-books, extra data for Vodafone customers, and more. Hit up the link below to take a look.

What do you guys think of the OnePlus 5?

See at Amazon India

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Android O brings huge improvements for VR

For Google Daydream, software is as important as the hardware.

Mobile VR has come a long way since Google Cardboard. And it’s one area where a lot of different companies have ideas for how it can get even better. We’re nowhere near a “peak VR” situation and expect advances with every generation.

Daydream-ready phones need to perform without overheating or killing the battery in 10 minutes.

A big part of why things can get better is the hardware. Getting a phone Daydream certified isn’t a mystery. You need to have a display with an HD resolution that can process two separate streams at 60 frames per second with latency under 25 milliseconds. And you need to be able to do it while it’s running on battery power and keep it cool while tucked away in a headset. It’s not easy to do, but newer hardware helps a lot. An engineer from Motorola who went through the process for the Moto Z has some specific and interesting things to say about it here.

It is neither required nor sufficient to have [a Snapdragon] 821, nor any other specific chipset. But the requirements to meet from an overall system behavior perspective are not trivial to meet and require some specific platform hooks and code to be added, which involve display, graphics pipeline, security, sensors, scheduler, thermal engine, and significant testing & validation effort – for that you will need to send devices to Google and they will verify whether your device compiles. Then they will whitelist your device, and that will enable Daydream-specific mode of graphics pipeline operation for your production devices, which is required for stutter-free performance of 3rd party apps.

Google is serious about making the Daydream experience the best it can be, and there’s a lot involved. And much of it is in the software. Specifically, Android and how it can use graphics APIs from Vulkan or Open GL. Android O will be better at drawing all the data on your screen and turning it into a VR experience because it’s more efficient and takes better advantage of these 3D graphics APIs. That’s a given — the Daydream team and the Android team certainly work closely to make sure the experience is the best it can be, while always working on making it even better in the future.

Besides Daydream-specific changes in Android, other improvements can also help make a better experience.

But other changes in Android O, like the way background processes are handled and better power management through the operating system itself, can have a major impact. VR is a heavy load for any phone and reducing the way the rest of the system uses resources leaves more CPU time for the various processes at work when you have a Daydream unit strapped to your head. We know a lot of work is being done to optimize Android O for VR even further because Google is working on a major platform update and launching stand-alone Daydream devices from HTC and LG in late 2017. We imagine people working on the project are pretty busy for the rest of the summer.

VR is important. Getting it right is just as important. We’ve seen huge strides from Samsung’s Gear VR platform and Google Daydream, and can’t wait to try Daydream 2.0 on a proper Android 8 device.

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