New deal with Nokia may accelerate Xiaomi’s stalled global launch plans
Why it matters to you
Nokia and Xiaomi’s deal may make it easier for us to buy new Xiaomi products in the future.
Popular Chinese smartphone brand Xiaomi has signed a business deal with Nokia, allowing the pair to cross-license patents, and potentially work together on some cutting-edge technology products in the future. While intriguing enough on its own, the deal may assist Xiaomi in breaking into new international markets, which it has slowly been doing over the past few years.
On the surface, the partnership is technical in nature, with the cooperation agreement covering Nokia’s infrastructure equipment, and a plan for the two to work on projects such as IP Routing, network processors, and other telecoms systems. Important, but not something to get overly excited about, unless you’re really into infrastructure tech.
This is where things start to get more interesting. The two companies will start exploring other areas where they can cooperate, ranging from augmented and virtual reality, to AI and the Internet of Things. Xiaomi already produces a wide range of products outside of smartphones, including connected smart home devices, and has its own app ecosystem through the Mi Store. It’s easy to see where both companies may benefit here, and Nokia’s very keen to partner with major brands at the moment, evidenced by the new deal with optics experts Zeiss.
As part of the new deal, Xiaomi gets unnamed patent assets from Nokia, a smartphone brand that happily sells its products all round the world. Xiaomi sells devices in 30 countries, and has yet to sell its smartphones officially in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Europe. Could the deal see the company push further out into the world, and lead to internationally friendly devices being released? We put the question to Xiaomi, and a spokesman told us:
“Xiaomi’s agreement with Nokia will give Xiaomi licenses for more product design freedom in fundamental technologies. This will propel Xiaomi further and faster in their global expansion journey as they build products for customers across the world. Xiaomi believes that sustainable, long-term partnerships with global technology leaders such as Nokia are laying the foundation for their globalization and will help them in terms of brand recognition around the world. In the long term, Xiaomi’s investments in research and development will help to create new and better products, services, and experiences for the benefit of their customers.”
While the statement is noncommittal regarding the type of devices Xiaomi envisages emerging from the Nokia partnership, it’s certainly indicating those that do, have a strong chance of being sold globally. After we’ve been cruelly denied easy access to devices like the innovative Mi Mix, and the new Mi 6, we’ll take this as good news. However, it’s worth remembering the agreement may not lead to smartphones being put on sale in new markets, and instead may apply to the company’s smart home products, or may never actually extend beyond infrastructure. That said, it’s obvious Xiaomi is working to get its products into more hands around the world.
Engineered for fighter pilots, now these AR goggles are built for bikers
Why it matters to you
The Everysight Raptor, a new augmented reality goggle designed for cyclists, are a model for heads-up displays.
“You put them on like a pair of glasses,” Eyal Ovadia, head of user interface design at Everysight, told me. He was referring to the pair of glasses resting on my forehead — the Raptor — as I wheeled a bicycle toward New York City’s Central Park. Ovadia calls them “smartglasses” to distinguish them from run-of-the-mill sports goggles in conversation and not without good reason — their sleek, low-profile design makes them tough to differentiate from the goggles you’re likely to find on a Field & Stream sales rack.
Israel-based Everysight, a spin-off of defense contractor Elbit Systems and the firm behind the Raptor, engineered heads-up displays for fighter jet pilots before pivoting to the consumer market. It wasn’t a walk in the park, Ovadia said — the company invested hundreds of millions of dollars to shrink its augmented reality technology down to goggle size.
“We needed screens that could be applied in the consumer space,” Ovadia said. “We needed to build a pair of smartglasses.”
An idea a decade in the making
Everysight pitched the idea in 2005 and over the course of the next decade, tapped studies, consumer surveys, and analyses of failed competitors to refine the goggle’s design. In 2014, after countless false starts, incremental iterations, and field-ready prototypes, the team settled on a market-ready design: A goggles-inspired headset with a forward-facing display.
“We needed screens that could be applied in the consumer space.”
The secret sauce turned out to be the display technology. Everysight calls it Beam and it uses a tiny projector embedded in the Raptor’s nose rest to shoot light toward the eyepiece’s mirror lenses. The lenses then reflect the light into the back of the wearer’s retina which produces a hovering, see-through image overlayed on line-of-sight scenery.
“It’s a very energy-efficient solution,” Ovadia added. “It produces a bright image without using a lot of battery.”
Beam’s low power draw left headroom for the Raptor’s other components. The headset boasts a quad-core processor paired with 2GB of RAM, a battery that lasts up to eight hours on a single charge, and a high-resolution front-facing camera that shoots still pictures and videos. A bevy of sensors including an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, GPS and GLONASS, and proximity sensor keep tabs on the wearer’s velocity, altitude, and location, and a built-in microphone and speaker power voice recognition.
“We wanted to make something people would be comfortable wearing in public,” Ovadia pointed out. “We wanted to engineer something stylish.”
A Central Park field test
I certainly felt dapper wearing the Raptor on a two-mile bike ride through Central Park. The adjustable head strap fit snugly around my forehead, and the front-facing display rested comfortably on the upper bridge of my nose like a pair of oversized sunglasses. Getting the Raptor’s menu in focus required some finagling but the goggles did a remarkable job of staying in place during a ride through one of Central Park’s bumpiest commuter routes.
By default, the Raptor shows basic stats like speed, distance, and cadence — a training mode also highlights optimal speed and velocity compared to your current rate. But for the purposes of my demo, Everysight provided a Polar heart rate monitor that reported real-time heart rate on the Raptor’s display via Bluetooth ANT+.
All of the accumulated data syncs to a forthcoming companion app for Android and iOS devices, which beams it to Everysight’s cloud storage service. Session stats can be viewed on the web or third-party fitness and cycling apps or shared via social media.
But some of the goggles’ most useful interactions happen on the Raptor itself. Say, “Hey Everysight,” and you’ll see a list of hands-free voice commands like, “record a video,” or, “take a picture.”
Everysight, which is developing a slimmer, sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses intended for a broader audience.
The Raptor’s turn-by-turn navigation feature pulls up a map of your location, replete with terrain markers, roads, trails, and nearby points of interest — if you’re cycling with a Raptor-sporting buddy, he or she appears on the map as a blinking colored dot, too. You can also stream tunes from a paired smartphone using the Raptor’s built-in microphone and speaker, or answer an incoming call.
The goggles’ camera is nothing to scoff at, either. Capable of shooting clear, sharp footage in high definition, the Raptor stores these photos on its own internal memory — of which is transferrable to a PC via microUSB cable. I was especially impressed by how vibrantly the Raptor rendered the tops of Manhattan’s off-color skyscrapers, which tend to be difficult to capture on bright sunny days.
Customer criticism paves the road to the future
Everysight has taken pains to address the concerns of cyclists who’ve been given early access to the Raptor’s features. The goggles’ Grilamid TR-90 frame is IP55 certified against exposure to dust and water, ships with swappable prescription lenses, and illuminates a front-facing LED to indicate when it’s recording — Everysight even offers a bundled model which comes with a Bluetooth remote controller and heart rate monitor.
But Everysight sees the Raptor as just the beginning.
In a hotel suite a few blocks away from our breezy (but slightly sweaty) bike tour, Ovadia walked me through an interface the company’s been working on: An Android-based menu of apps, widgets, and animated icons that a wearer navigates by moving their head to the left or right. A dot-shaped pointer expanded when I rested my gaze on an app icon — Ovadia had me look straight ahead at a mock-up Facebook app that expanded into a timeline of status updates.
Everysight’s testing third-party apps on the new interface, too. I tried a version of Sky Map, a digital planetarium optimized for Everysight’s new software. As I looked upward toward the sky, I could see a star chart overlay of labeled constellations, planets, and other solar points of interest.
“We see it as a concept that will evolve over time,” Ovadia added. “We’re thinking about apps that overlay data on top of the real world. You can imagine digital arrows in the distance over recommended restaurants, or makers that show what parking spots are available.”
Everysight, which is developing a slimmer, sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses intended for a broader audience, plans to release a software development kit later this year. It does have its work cut out for it, however — weak sales and controversies forced the uber-massive Google to can Glass, its take on an everyday AR display.
Everysight’s intent on avoiding its forebear’s pitfalls, with Ovadia ending our conversation by saying, “We’re hard at work on it and we’ll take all of the feedback under careful consideration.”
Engineered for fighter pilots, now these AR goggles are built for bikers
Why it matters to you
The Everysight Raptor, a new augmented reality goggle designed for cyclists, are a model for heads-up displays.
“You put them on like a pair of glasses,” Eyal Ovadia, head of user interface design at Everysight, told me. He was referring to the pair of glasses resting on my forehead — the Raptor — as I wheeled a bicycle toward New York City’s Central Park. Ovadia calls them “smartglasses” to distinguish them from run-of-the-mill sports goggles in conversation and not without good reason — their sleek, low-profile design makes them tough to differentiate from the goggles you’re likely to find on a Field & Stream sales rack.
Israel-based Everysight, a spin-off of defense contractor Elbit Systems and the firm behind the Raptor, engineered heads-up displays for fighter jet pilots before pivoting to the consumer market. It wasn’t a walk in the park, Ovadia said — the company invested hundreds of millions of dollars to shrink its augmented reality technology down to goggle size.
“We needed screens that could be applied in the consumer space,” Ovadia said. “We needed to build a pair of smartglasses.”
An idea a decade in the making
Everysight pitched the idea in 2005 and over the course of the next decade, tapped studies, consumer surveys, and analyses of failed competitors to refine the goggle’s design. In 2014, after countless false starts, incremental iterations, and field-ready prototypes, the team settled on a market-ready design: A goggles-inspired headset with a forward-facing display.
“We needed screens that could be applied in the consumer space.”
The secret sauce turned out to be the display technology. Everysight calls it Beam and it uses a tiny projector embedded in the Raptor’s nose rest to shoot light toward the eyepiece’s mirror lenses. The lenses then reflect the light into the back of the wearer’s retina which produces a hovering, see-through image overlayed on line-of-sight scenery.
“It’s a very energy-efficient solution,” Ovadia added. “It produces a bright image without using a lot of battery.”
Beam’s low power draw left headroom for the Raptor’s other components. The headset boasts a quad-core processor paired with 2GB of RAM, a battery that lasts up to eight hours on a single charge, and a high-resolution front-facing camera that shoots still pictures and videos. A bevy of sensors including an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, GPS and GLONASS, and proximity sensor keep tabs on the wearer’s velocity, altitude, and location, and a built-in microphone and speaker power voice recognition.
“We wanted to make something people would be comfortable wearing in public,” Ovadia pointed out. “We wanted to engineer something stylish.”
A Central Park field test
I certainly felt dapper wearing the Raptor on a two-mile bike ride through Central Park. The adjustable head strap fit snugly around my forehead, and the front-facing display rested comfortably on the upper bridge of my nose like a pair of oversized sunglasses. Getting the Raptor’s menu in focus required some finagling but the goggles did a remarkable job of staying in place during a ride through one of Central Park’s bumpiest commuter routes.
By default, the Raptor shows basic stats like speed, distance, and cadence — a training mode also highlights optimal speed and velocity compared to your current rate. But for the purposes of my demo, Everysight provided a Polar heart rate monitor that reported real-time heart rate on the Raptor’s display via Bluetooth ANT+.
All of the accumulated data syncs to a forthcoming companion app for Android and iOS devices, which beams it to Everysight’s cloud storage service. Session stats can be viewed on the web or third-party fitness and cycling apps or shared via social media.
But some of the goggles’ most useful interactions happen on the Raptor itself. Say, “Hey Everysight,” and you’ll see a list of hands-free voice commands like, “record a video,” or, “take a picture.”
Everysight, which is developing a slimmer, sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses intended for a broader audience.
The Raptor’s turn-by-turn navigation feature pulls up a map of your location, replete with terrain markers, roads, trails, and nearby points of interest — if you’re cycling with a Raptor-sporting buddy, he or she appears on the map as a blinking colored dot, too. You can also stream tunes from a paired smartphone using the Raptor’s built-in microphone and speaker, or answer an incoming call.
The goggles’ camera is nothing to scoff at, either. Capable of shooting clear, sharp footage in high definition, the Raptor stores these photos on its own internal memory — of which is transferrable to a PC via microUSB cable. I was especially impressed by how vibrantly the Raptor rendered the tops of Manhattan’s off-color skyscrapers, which tend to be difficult to capture on bright sunny days.
Customer criticism paves the road to the future
Everysight has taken pains to address the concerns of cyclists who’ve been given early access to the Raptor’s features. The goggles’ Grilamid TR-90 frame is IP55 certified against exposure to dust and water, ships with swappable prescription lenses, and illuminates a front-facing LED to indicate when it’s recording — Everysight even offers a bundled model which comes with a Bluetooth remote controller and heart rate monitor.
But Everysight sees the Raptor as just the beginning.
In a hotel suite a few blocks away from our breezy (but slightly sweaty) bike tour, Ovadia walked me through an interface the company’s been working on: An Android-based menu of apps, widgets, and animated icons that a wearer navigates by moving their head to the left or right. A dot-shaped pointer expanded when I rested my gaze on an app icon — Ovadia had me look straight ahead at a mock-up Facebook app that expanded into a timeline of status updates.
Everysight’s testing third-party apps on the new interface, too. I tried a version of Sky Map, a digital planetarium optimized for Everysight’s new software. As I looked upward toward the sky, I could see a star chart overlay of labeled constellations, planets, and other solar points of interest.
“We see it as a concept that will evolve over time,” Ovadia added. “We’re thinking about apps that overlay data on top of the real world. You can imagine digital arrows in the distance over recommended restaurants, or makers that show what parking spots are available.”
Everysight, which is developing a slimmer, sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses intended for a broader audience, plans to release a software development kit later this year. It does have its work cut out for it, however — weak sales and controversies forced the uber-massive Google to can Glass, its take on an everyday AR display.
Everysight’s intent on avoiding its forebear’s pitfalls, with Ovadia ending our conversation by saying, “We’re hard at work on it and we’ll take all of the feedback under careful consideration.”
Engineered for fighter pilots, now these AR goggles are built for bikers
Why it matters to you
The Everysight Raptor, a new augmented reality goggle designed for cyclists, are a model for heads-up displays.
“You put them on like a pair of glasses,” Eyal Ovadia, head of user interface design at Everysight, told me. He was referring to the pair of glasses resting on my forehead — the Raptor — as I wheeled a bicycle toward New York City’s Central Park. Ovadia calls them “smartglasses” to distinguish them from run-of-the-mill sports goggles in conversation and not without good reason — their sleek, low-profile design makes them tough to differentiate from the goggles you’re likely to find on a Field & Stream sales rack.
Israel-based Everysight, a spin-off of defense contractor Elbit Systems and the firm behind the Raptor, engineered heads-up displays for fighter jet pilots before pivoting to the consumer market. It wasn’t a walk in the park, Ovadia said — the company invested hundreds of millions of dollars to shrink its augmented reality technology down to goggle size.
“We needed screens that could be applied in the consumer space,” Ovadia said. “We needed to build a pair of smartglasses.”
An idea a decade in the making
Everysight pitched the idea in 2005 and over the course of the next decade, tapped studies, consumer surveys, and analyses of failed competitors to refine the goggle’s design. In 2014, after countless false starts, incremental iterations, and field-ready prototypes, the team settled on a market-ready design: A goggles-inspired headset with a forward-facing display.
“We needed screens that could be applied in the consumer space.”
The secret sauce turned out to be the display technology. Everysight calls it Beam and it uses a tiny projector embedded in the Raptor’s nose rest to shoot light toward the eyepiece’s mirror lenses. The lenses then reflect the light into the back of the wearer’s retina which produces a hovering, see-through image overlayed on line-of-sight scenery.
“It’s a very energy-efficient solution,” Ovadia added. “It produces a bright image without using a lot of battery.”
Beam’s low power draw left headroom for the Raptor’s other components. The headset boasts a quad-core processor paired with 2GB of RAM, a battery that lasts up to eight hours on a single charge, and a high-resolution front-facing camera that shoots still pictures and videos. A bevy of sensors including an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, GPS and GLONASS, and proximity sensor keep tabs on the wearer’s velocity, altitude, and location, and a built-in microphone and speaker power voice recognition.
“We wanted to make something people would be comfortable wearing in public,” Ovadia pointed out. “We wanted to engineer something stylish.”
A Central Park field test
I certainly felt dapper wearing the Raptor on a two-mile bike ride through Central Park. The adjustable head strap fit snugly around my forehead, and the front-facing display rested comfortably on the upper bridge of my nose like a pair of oversized sunglasses. Getting the Raptor’s menu in focus required some finagling but the goggles did a remarkable job of staying in place during a ride through one of Central Park’s bumpiest commuter routes.
By default, the Raptor shows basic stats like speed, distance, and cadence — a training mode also highlights optimal speed and velocity compared to your current rate. But for the purposes of my demo, Everysight provided a Polar heart rate monitor that reported real-time heart rate on the Raptor’s display via Bluetooth ANT+.
All of the accumulated data syncs to a forthcoming companion app for Android and iOS devices, which beams it to Everysight’s cloud storage service. Session stats can be viewed on the web or third-party fitness and cycling apps or shared via social media.
But some of the goggles’ most useful interactions happen on the Raptor itself. Say, “Hey Everysight,” and you’ll see a list of hands-free voice commands like, “record a video,” or, “take a picture.”
Everysight, which is developing a slimmer, sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses intended for a broader audience.
The Raptor’s turn-by-turn navigation feature pulls up a map of your location, replete with terrain markers, roads, trails, and nearby points of interest — if you’re cycling with a Raptor-sporting buddy, he or she appears on the map as a blinking colored dot, too. You can also stream tunes from a paired smartphone using the Raptor’s built-in microphone and speaker, or answer an incoming call.
The goggles’ camera is nothing to scoff at, either. Capable of shooting clear, sharp footage in high definition, the Raptor stores these photos on its own internal memory — of which is transferrable to a PC via microUSB cable. I was especially impressed by how vibrantly the Raptor rendered the tops of Manhattan’s off-color skyscrapers, which tend to be difficult to capture on bright sunny days.
Customer criticism paves the road to the future
Everysight has taken pains to address the concerns of cyclists who’ve been given early access to the Raptor’s features. The goggles’ Grilamid TR-90 frame is IP55 certified against exposure to dust and water, ships with swappable prescription lenses, and illuminates a front-facing LED to indicate when it’s recording — Everysight even offers a bundled model which comes with a Bluetooth remote controller and heart rate monitor.
But Everysight sees the Raptor as just the beginning.
In a hotel suite a few blocks away from our breezy (but slightly sweaty) bike tour, Ovadia walked me through an interface the company’s been working on: An Android-based menu of apps, widgets, and animated icons that a wearer navigates by moving their head to the left or right. A dot-shaped pointer expanded when I rested my gaze on an app icon — Ovadia had me look straight ahead at a mock-up Facebook app that expanded into a timeline of status updates.
Everysight’s testing third-party apps on the new interface, too. I tried a version of Sky Map, a digital planetarium optimized for Everysight’s new software. As I looked upward toward the sky, I could see a star chart overlay of labeled constellations, planets, and other solar points of interest.
“We see it as a concept that will evolve over time,” Ovadia added. “We’re thinking about apps that overlay data on top of the real world. You can imagine digital arrows in the distance over recommended restaurants, or makers that show what parking spots are available.”
Everysight, which is developing a slimmer, sleeker pair of augmented reality glasses intended for a broader audience, plans to release a software development kit later this year. It does have its work cut out for it, however — weak sales and controversies forced the uber-massive Google to can Glass, its take on an everyday AR display.
Everysight’s intent on avoiding its forebear’s pitfalls, with Ovadia ending our conversation by saying, “We’re hard at work on it and we’ll take all of the feedback under careful consideration.”
Tronsmart Encore S2 and Encore S4 review: Inexpensive Bluetooth headphones with some compromise
If you’re looking for some inexpensive Bluetooth headphones that actually sound pretty good, Tronsmart might have the solution.
Tronsmart is usually known for chargers and other power delivery products, but it also has a small line of Bluetooth headphones, made for a variety of activities. I was sent two pairs of the five options available: the Encore S2 and Encore S4. Here’s how they measure up to what’s out there.
Tronsmart Encore S2
The Encore S2 is one of Tronsmart’s two “sport” headphone models. This one features a neckband that sits loosely around your neck, with two earbuds attached to cords. I used these every day for about a week and a half in the gym to see if they lived up to the “sport” headphone moniker. Here’s what I found.
Sound quality
Despite the size of the earbuds, the Encore S2 has surprisingly great sound. The bass is low and much warmer than I expected. It’s also incredibly present, which is unusual for “entry-level” headphones like these. The bass is so present in fact, however, that it sometimes muddies up the midrange, which can be a little distracting if you’re actually trying to listen to your music. If you just need a pump-up jam in the gym, though, it’s great.
The high end is where these ‘buds falter for me. The high end just isn’t as crisp as it could be, and if you listen to a lot of rock, much of the more treble-y tracks can get lost in the mix. That being said, for the $24 price tag, the Encore S2’s sound is more than passable and even downright enjoyable.
Fit and design
If don’t love bass — a lot of bass — you may want to give these a pass.
I took this heavily into account, since these are billed as “sport” headphones and came up with mixed feelings. If you’re a runner, you probably won’t like these headphones. I had never worn headphones with a neckband before, so I was skeptical at best, and after a couple cardio sessions, was less than impressed.
I have a fairly slender neck, and the constant jostle of the loose neck band is distracting. It would also twist around my neck sometimes while running, which meant I had to constantly adjust it, and it was just a pain in the ol’ hindquarters. You can tighten the restraints on the earbud cords, but then it all just feels constricting.
With that said, the earbuds themselves fit quite nicely in your ears. They’re the variety that sit in your ears, with the speaker shoved into your ear, which I prefer over the classic, all-speaker design. If you have smaller or larger ears, there are differently sized tips in the box.
The back of each earbuds is magnetic, which helps prevent tangling, but the cords are already connecting to the neckband, so it’s kind of unnecessary, and the magnet is quite weak anyway.
Somewhat peculiarly, the volume controls/pairing button/call controls are on the left side of the neckband, which isn’t a huge deal, but annoying when you’re used to what most headphones are like. And you can’t flip them around, since each earbud is designed to fit in a specific ear.
Battery life
In a word: excellent. From such a compact set of Bluetooth headphones, you should expect nothing less, but, again, for the $24 price tag, the battery life on the Encore S2 is great. I used these in my hour-long workouts for over a week without having to charge them, so the billed 12-hour battery life is legit.
Should you buy them? Maybe
If you’re looking for an inexpensive pair of Bluetooth headphones that sounds great for its class and can likely last you a week on a single charge, then absolutely snatch these up. If you’re looking for them as workout headphones, I’d keep looking. While the earbuds themselves stay securely in your ears, the neckband is a nuisance, and the lack of discernable controls on the headphones themselves makes it difficult to change volume or answer a call on the fly.
See at Amazon
Tronsmart Encore S4
The Encore S4 is Tronsmart’s noise-cancelling Bluetooth offering, which features a thicker neckband with earbuds attached to cords. I used them every day for about a week while working from home.
Sound quality
With a sophisticated sheen and a $50 price tag, I expected these headphones to sound a bit better than the Encore S2 model, and I was right. The low end is rich, the mids are present, and the high end is discernable, though only just so. It appears that Tronsmart has sacrificed treble for bass in its earbuds, which is probably fine for most folks, but if you’re trying to pick out a hi-hat pattern in a rock tune or some other treble-y elements, you’re rather hard-pressed.
I found the bass dropped out quite a bit when the active noise-canceling was turned off, which was a little annoying, since noise-canceling uses quite a bit more battery, but for the sake of audio quality, I left it on. Like the Encore S2, these ‘buds likely won’t please audiophiles, but for most people and for that price tag, they do sound quite good.
Active noise cancellation
These earbuds are fantastic value, and sound surprisingly good.
First and foremost, we must realize that earbuds with active noise cancellation will never be as good as proper cans. So if you’re thinking you can spend $50 on these and them work just as well as the Bose QC35 headphones, you’re gonna have a bad time.
With that in mind, I set up a fan in my home office to test things out when it was a little cooler outside, and I had the air conditioning going on the hotter days (I’m seated right next to the vent). Even with the fan right next to me, I really had to strain and concentrate to hear it above my music. Turn the noise cancellation off and it was the only thing I could hear, so did these headphones do their job? Absolutely.
They even managed to drown out the TV a little bit, which my wife was watching in the other room. I’ve yet to try these on a plane, but will have to opportunity in a couple months, at which point I’ll update this review.
Fit and Design
The thicker neckband of the Encore S4 is actually more comfortable than that of the Encore S2 because it feels substantial, but when you put it on, you barely feel it, and it stays in place. That’s not to say it stays in place while you run, but it’s perfect for sitting and working or even walking around.
The earbuds are an even better fit than the Encore S2, and you get the various tips in case your ears don’t accommodate the “regular” ones. Again, though, the controls are on the left of the neckband. It’s hard to get used to, but you can at least feel the buttons on this model. The switch for active noise cancellation is a little difficult to move, but that’s a minor annoyance.
Battery life
Just great. Tronsmart bills the Encore S4 with 20 hours of battery time, and I got that and then some. It wasn’t 20 continuous hours of use, of course, but I made it through three days of work (roughly 8 hours a day) without needing to charge them. The larger battery does make for a thicker neckband, but that’s alright.
Should you buy them? Yes
For inexpensive active noise cancellation, Tronsmart does a great job of providing focused listening in a good-looking package, with great battery life and well-fitting earbuds.
See at Amazon
These are all the ways you can save data and monitor your data usage
Check how much data you’re using and control how it’s used with these simple tools.
Most people don’t need an unlimited data plan. With contract data plans offering up to 10GB per month and off-contract plans from carriers both big and small, there is a data plan that works for almost everyone and chances are using one will save you money. Add in free hotspots from your carrier or even your cable TV company and the need for an expensive unlimited plan gets even less.
Don’t pay for data that you aren’t using!
There is a small adjustment you need to make if you go this route: watching how much data you use. Your carrier will either slow your data down to 3G speeds, let you run up large overage fees or just cut you off when you’ve out of data. None of these is a great experience, and neither is buying too much data every month because you’re worried it will happen. Luckily monitoring how much data you use is pretty easy, and so is managing how you use it.
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Monitoring your data usage
Step one is finding a way to check how much data you have used during a billing period. There are several ways and they are all effective. Pick the one that suits you best.
Get the total from your carrier
This is the best solution for knowing how much data the carrier thinks you have used. It’s important to realize that how much data your phone says you used might not match what your carrier says. And they are the ones who decide when you’ve used it all.
You can use the web browser on your phone to log into your account at the carrier’s website and they might have an app you can install that tells you about your usage for the billing period. Not all carriers will have an app for your phone, and even if they do it might not keep track of your data usage, but it’s worth checking for. Take a look at your carrier’s website or in Google Play and see what’s offered.
A word of warning: While great at giving you access to your account, carrier applications can do a lot more. Sometimes they can be a little intrusive, especially if they came pre-installed. Be sure to read everything you’re agreeing to when you install or first use one.
From your phone settings
Android comes with a way to check how much data you’ve used during a billing period. Some features can vary from phone to phone, but every phone will have a way to see how much data has been used during a set time period. You’ll usually find this in your settings menu under Wireless & networks. Look for an entry called Data usage.
For this to be useful you’ll need to tell your phone when a new billing period starts. Since it’s monitoring how much data moves through the phone itself it doesn’t ask your carrier for the numbers. The way Megabytes and Gigabytes can be rounded and calculated mean it can be slightly different from what your carrier says, but usually not by very much. It’s a good way to see if you’re close to using your monthly allotment.
When you open the Data usage setting you’ll see an entry to set up the billing cycle. Tap on it and enter the starting day of the month and it will reset on that day every month. Remember, it can’t go back and check what you might have used before you set it up!
Now all you need to do to check how much data your phone has received is look in the settings.
Third party apps
Google Play has well over a Million apps and there are quite a few that can be used to check your data use. You can see a list of them all here. We’re unable to recommend any particular app over the other but most of them work the same way and will give the same numbers. Remember that these measure data coming into your phone from your carrier and the numbers won’t be exactly the same as what you’ll see on your bill. But they’ll be close, just like the number found in the settings.
As with any app, you need to look at feedback and permissions before you install an application that can look at the data coming in and out of your phone. While we like checking from the Android settings instead of another app, they can offer features like widgets and custom alarms so it’s worth looking.
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Controlling data usage
If you find that you are using more data each month that you would like, there are ways to decide which apps can use data while not on a Wi-Fi connection, as well as settings in most apps that let you control how much data is being used.
Data Saver
Android 7 makes watching how data gets used easily with a super-functional tool called Data Saver.
On the Data Usage screen, you’ll see Data Saver listed. Tapping on it allows you to toggle data saver on and off. When Data Saver is on you’ll see a notification reminding you about it. You need to know it’s on because unless you change the settings it will stop every app and service on your phone from using any data unless you have it open and are using it.
That’s great, but to get the most from Data Saver you need to tell it about apps that are allowed to use data if you want them to. That’s easy, too. Tap the entry that says Unrestricted data access and you’ll get a list of everything on your phone that can use data. You’ll know what some of the things are and others will be things Android does you might not have ever heard about. Beside each entry is a switch: Turning the switch on means that app or service is allowed to use data without you asking for it.
Once done, when Data Saver is turned on only the apps you selected can get data from the internet while they aren’t open on your screen. This can make a dramatic difference when your phone is idle in your pocket. Remember, things like your email or Twitter apps aren’t going to get any notifications if you didn’t whitelist them because they aren’t allowed to refresh and check for them. You’ll still get text messages and phone calls, though.
App settings
Many apps that can use data in the background have a setting that controls how data is used in the background. If you aren’t using a phone with Android 7 this can be a great way to get those data hog apps under control.
Every app will be different, but if an app lets you decide what and when it can refresh you’ll find it in the settings of the app. Look for things like Background refresh or Automatically update and turn things down or off as needed.
If all else fails, you can still tell Android to cut off background data on a phone not yet running Android Nougat. Head back to the Data usage screen and tap on an app that’s been using data. A screen for the app will open and you’ll see an entry labeled Background data with a switch beside it. Turn this switch Off to not allow the app to use data unless you’re on Wi-Fi. You’ll need to do this for each app you want to check.
The kill switch and Airplane mode
In the settings of your phone, you’ll also see a setting to turn off the cellular connection completely. you can do this to actually disable the cellular radios so your phone doesn’t even try to connect.
You also have what’s called Airplane mode. This shuts down your connection to everything, but you are able to turn Bluetooth and Wi-Fi back on after you enable Airplane mode.
While not a great long-term solution, these are easy ways to stop using data altogether with one switch.
Third party apps
Advanced users might want to look at third-party apps that try to restrict how apps can use data. Apps like Greenify can reduce your data usage significantly but aren’t that easy to use. Most of the ones that actually work as advertised require you to root your phone as well.
Root apps can save your data but might be complicated to use.
Any time you manually control how apps can use background data, whether through Android N’s tools or an app like Greenify, you need to remember that any app or service which requires a data connection isn’t going to work if you break that connection. If you don’t know what an app is or what it does, you’re better off leaving the setting for it alone until you find out if it can be safely changed.
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Using these tools you’ll be able to take charge of how much data you use each month. That’s a great way to only pay for the data you’re actually going to use versus paying your carrier for nothing!
Updated June 2017: We made sure all the information was correct for the latest phones.
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Moto Z2 Play goes up for pre-order in the UK for £379
Motorola’s latest smartphone has just been released in the U.S. and Canada, and it’s now up for pre-order in the UK. The Moto Z2 Play, one of my favorite devices of the year so far, has a lot going for it, including an unassailable combination of build quality, performance, battery life and Moto Mods support.
The Lenovo subsidiary has announced that as of July 6 the Moto Z2 Play is now up for pre-order in the UK for £379, though you can get £10 off your order on motorola.co.uk with the code UKWELCOME10.
Available in black-and-gray or white-and-gold, the Moto Z2 Play is also going up for pre-order at various retailers around the country, including John Lewis, Amazon, Argos. It’s not clear when the phone will ship — the announcement just centers on pre-orders — but it shouldn’t be long now.
See at Motorola
Pro ‘Street Fighter’ player immortalized in manga biography
In Japan, Pro gamers can be a bit of a big deal. Yet, despite their celebrity status, there’s only one gamer who’s managed to get their own manga series. Daigo Umehara is the man with that honor. Considered to be one of the best Street Fighter players on the planet, he currently holds a Guinness World Record for being the game’s most successful pro fighter. Now, thanks to his huge popularity, UDON Entertainment has opted to bring that manga series over to the west.
The series chronicles Umehara’s rise to the top of the arcade fighting scene and is entitled Daigo The Beast. Exploring the real-world events that built the fighting game community, the series also looks to shed light on his strategies and the “near psychic ability” that allows Daigo to predict his opponent’s attacks so accurately.
In case you were wondering what makes Daigo so special, you can see a classic clip of him absolutely destroying his opponent below.
The manga is officially released in December priced at $19.99, but early copies of Daigo The Beast Volume 1 will be available at the annual fighting game tournament Evolution Champion Series (or EVO) later this month. EVO takes place in Vegas from July 14th-16th.
Source: The Verge
AR glasses will quench your ride-stat thirst
The bike I was riding to test a new set of AR glasses was probably a bit too small for me. Also, it was a typical San Francisco summer day, so it was cold and windy, and, like an idiot, I left my jacket upstairs. But none of that mattered, because I was peering into the future of biking. The best part was that the Everysight Raptor AR glasses I was wearing didn’t feel bulky and didn’t require me to strain my eye socket to look into a tiny screen — all the information was being projected right in front of me.
The promise of an AR future has stalled a bit. Google Glass appeared with much fanfare, then slowly disappeared from the limelight. But not before so-called glassholes grabbed headlines for being mugged and banned from bars because no one likes the idea of being secretly recorded.
Epson’s Moverio specs continue to be outstanding for industrial uses but not much else, and most everything else feels a bit like a gimmick targeting early adopters. But the Everysight Raptor is ready for folks beyond the super nerds. In my short time with it, I realized that if I rode a bike more than eight times a month, I’d want these.
Essentially, the Raptor AR glasses are a smartphone shoved into a pair of specs with a quad-core CPU, 2GB RAM, 16 to 32 GB of storage, GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer, Bluetooth, WiFi, speaker and a mic for voice commands.
The glasses project information directly onto the lens of your right eye. You’re not looking at a tiny screen. It’s right there in front of you, floating off in the distance. The Raptor I was using was set to show current speed, mapping, and — via a wearable — my heart rate. The information was crisp and easy to read and was set to appear as if about 20 feet in front of me. After a few blocks, I got used to switching focus from the display to the road. Fortunately, the display can be switched off via a button on the left-hand side of the specs in case you really need to pay attention to the road ahead.
The rest of the controls are available on the right-hand side of the glasses. A series of swipes and taps brings up other settings, like access to media, camera and brightness controls. A handlebar-mounted controller is also available, and the whole system can be managed by a companion Android and iOS app.
During my short ride around Fisherman’s Wharf, it never felt like the OLED projection on the display was too dim. It was overcast, though, so the light was diffused. I was assured that the Raptor worked just as well on sunny days.
The Raptor also ships with a camera, so I was able to capture photos and video via the HD sensor placed between the rider’s eyes. It won’t replace your DSLR or even your new smartphone camera, but it’s good enough for a few snapshots of what you’re looking at while riding without having to pull over and dig your phone out of your pocket.
Destination riding was simple enough, and the routing was easy to understand and follow. Although, when we veered off-track, instead of rerouting, it just pointed me back to my original route. If you have a set path for your ride, I’m sure that’s helpful, but if you’re a bit lost, it would be nice to see exactly how to get to your destination from your current location.
Fortunately, the company is launching an SDK for the Android-powered glasses. So if another developer wants to take on that rerouting issue, they can with their own app.
While what Everysight has accomplished is impressive, it’s not too far from what its parent company, Elbit, has done for decades. It provides heads-up displays for military and commercial flight and combat applications. But getting the Raptor down to its current iteration still took a few years (15, to be exact) and about five generations of the glasses.
The result is an AR experience that makes sense and doesn’t feel gimmicky. Everysight says the glasses will have an eight-hour battery life, which is good for those long weekend rides, and the Raptors have an insert for prescription lenses too. The company says the Raptor will be ready for shipping by the end of the year, but there’s no word on pricing yet. So if you’re a hardcore cyclist looking for some new specs that also share real-time information about your ride, you might want to start saving up your nickels, dimes and probably hundred-dollar bills.
Source: Everysight
Recreate the thrills of ’90s PC admin in this browser game
Video games can be hard work. With all the grinding, stat chasing and repetition that defines many modern games, sometimes toiling away in a virtual world can feel like a second job. Well, it seems like for design professor Pippin Barr this hasn’t gone unnoticed, as he’s taken the concept of digital busy work one step further. In his latest game It Is As If You Were Doing Work, players find themselves logging in to a brilliantly realized Windows 95 backdrop as they’re tasked with clicking boxes and doing completely pointless ‘work’.
It’s wonderfully inane, seeing you promoted to positions like ‘Senior Administrator’ simply for clicking boxes and writing gibberish. After a while you’re even rewarded with a little break, allowing you to treat yourself to playing a Pong rip-off or listening to some brilliantly rubbish MIDI tunes.
Speaking to The Verge, Barr explains that the idea for the game came about when he was thinking about a future where automation has eliminated the need for most current jobs. “The game poses as an application that humans who have been put out of work by robots and AI can play as a way to recapture the sense they once had of doing work and being productive,” writes Barr. “It’s a kind of semi-condescending service offered by this new world to those of us who can’t deal with it.”
If that concept sounds at all familiar, that’s because Job Simulator is based on something very similar. Set in a future run by robots, the motion-controlled VR games sees players hilariously try and recreate working life as completely clueless robots.
This bizarre little browser game is free and can be played here. Be careful though, as playing it for too long might put you behind on your very real (and hopefully more meaningful) work. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have fake dialogue boxes to click.
Via: The Verge
Source: Pippin Barr
AIVAnet 