Apple Says BeatsX Earphones ‘Coming in February’

Apple has updated its website to indicate its all-new BeatsX wireless earphones will be available in February in the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and several other countries.

BeatsX earphones feature the same Apple W1 chip used by AirPods, enabling users to pair them by simply powering them on and holding them near your iPhone.

Tags: Beats, Apple retail
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Pokémon Go is finally coming to India as Reliance Jio teams up with Niantic

Thousands of Reliance Digital stores across the country will serve as PokéStops.

Pokémon Go is finally coming to India. Niantic’s hit AR title will be available for download in the country on Android and iOS starting Wednesday, December 14. Niantic partnered with Reliance Jio to bring the game to the country, with thousands of Reliance Digital turning into PokéStops.

From Niantic’s CEO John Hanke:

We are delighted to partner with Jio to launch Pokémon GO in India. It’s exciting to see Pokémon fans in India step out and explore their neighbourhoods in search of Pokémon and Jio’s disruptive high speed 4G LTE Network will be an excellent way to experience the game.

Jio’s messaging app JioChat will get an exclusive Pokémon Go channel that lets players collaborate and engage with the community. Reliance Jio president Mathew Oommen talked about the partnership, and the potential for further content deals in the future:

With over 500 million downloads globally, we are excited to launch Pokémon GO officially in India on the Reliance Jio network. Our partnership with Niantic not only brings access to the Pokémon GO app but also opens the door to more opportunities for our customers to enjoy content on Jio’s one-of-a-kind mobile broadband network.

With Jio extending its free usage, you’ll be able to play the game and not incur any data fees until March 31, 2017.

Pokémon Go

• Join our Pokémon Go forums!
• How to deal with GPS errors in-game
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Win 4D colouring books for your child’s WHOLE class worth £300!

Want to win a last-minute Christmas present for your child and their school friends?

We’ve teamed up with AliveLab, makers of the Mardles stickers that come to life, to offer one lucky winner 30 discovAR 4D colouring books that come to life – that’s one for your youngster and the rest for their whole class.

The £9.99 discovAR 4D colouring book is amazing. Kids use their own pens and pencils and turn the pictures in the book into their own personal works of art. Then using the free Mardles smartphone and tablet app, available for iOS, Android and Amazon devices, their pictures come alive in 3D and 4D using augmented and virtual reality technology.

Each of the books is filled with fun educational facts and there are four in the range on topics such as the jungle, outer space and the sea. The themed book features 15 interactive pages. 

For added Christmas cheer, there’s also 30 packs of Mardles stickers – worth £4.99 each – thrown in, one with each discovAR 4D colouring book. The reusable stickers can also be used with the free app to bring the characters shown on them to life. These include dinosaurs, rockets and ponies and they can be move away from the sticker on the device’s screen to go around a room, out into the garden or across a child’s hand.

To find out more about the whole Mardles ranges, see http://www.mardleslife.com

To win this incredible prize and be the admiration of your school PTA, you have to answer the simple question below before midnight on the 21 December 2016 (GMT). We will announce the winner before Christmas so you can spread the good news on Christmas Day. 

Good luck!

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The Pocket-lint Christmas Gift Guide: Tech gift ideas for 2016

It’s Christmas. You’ve maybe got a rough idea what your loved one / friend / long lost uncle [delete where appropriate] would like, but you could probably really do with some inspiration to make that gift really stand out. 

We’ve gathered some of the finest gift ideas this side of Christendom to help you get them something, or maybe yourself, a little more exciting, whatever your budget.

Whether it’s a speaker that looks like Darth Vader or a drone that will let you take to the skies, Pocket-lint’s got you covered.

ACW Star Wars speakers 

ACW Star Wars speakers

The perfect speaker for the Star Wars fan (especially as Rogue One is in the cinemas at the moment) these Bluetooth speakers will connect to your phone or tablet allowing you to enjoy your favourite tunes while showing your love for the Force at the same time. Battery powered, you’ll get 2.5-3.5 hours of use on a single charge. You can even take your calls on it. Singing the Star Wars theme tune is optional. Duuh Duuh da da da Duuh…

PRICE: £109.99 – £145.95, Amazon.co.uk

Chord Mojo

Chord

Simply connect the award-winning Mojo DAC/Headphone Amplifier to your iPhone, Android phone, PC, or Mac, plug in your headphones and you can experience crystal clear audio the way you would hear it in the recording studio. Designed and built in England, Mojo brings studio quality sound to your pocket and is the ultimate, truly portable, DAC/Amp.

PRICE: £399.00, Amazon.co.uk

Astell&Kern AK70

Astell&Kern

The Astell&Kern AK70 is the most sophisticated high-resolution music player in its price class featuring Wi-Fi connectivity and a balanced output option for optimum audio performance with partnering headphones. Like all Astell&Kern players – but unlike many rivals – there’s also a microSD card slot, which in this case allows AK70’s 64GB internal memory to be expanded via 200GB cards. This is for those that really enjoy their music. It’s also available in a limited edition black version for those looking for something really special.

PRICE: £499.99, Amazon.co.uk

Audeze SINE Lightning

Audeze

Pocket-lint Gadget Award nominee, the Audeze SINE Lightning headphones are the next step up for many conventional headphone users. The world’s first on-ear planar magnetic ‘phones are a blend of striking modern industrial design, top-quality build, and leading-edge planar magnetic technology. They work perfectly with the iPhone 7.

PRICE: £449.00, Amazon.co.uk

The Complete Vinyl Collection

The Complete Vinyl Collection

Listen to all the classic hits with this briefcase design-inspired 3-speed record player with built in speakers allowing you to enjoy vinyl records once again. But you don’t have to worry about finding your own, the Complete Vinyl Collection comes with 20 LPs with a selection of the greatest hits from Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Nat “King” Cole, Ray Charles, Dinah Washington and many more included in the box.

PRICE: £149.99, Amazon.co.uk

Vifa Helsinki

Vifa

Small, but with grand sound. A product to go or to stay. Contemporary yet classic. A surprising, organic choice of materials yet a highly resistant product. The contradictions are many and happy in the new Helsinki loudspeaker from Danish manufacturer Vifa. Who said a speaker had to be dull?

PRICE: £299.99, Amazon.co.uk

Canton DM55 2.1 Virtual Surround System

Canton

Canton’s smallest soundbase suits small/medium-sized TVs. This 6-driver design transforms TV and movie sound, plus offers wireless music playback, all in a sleek, glass-topped box. The DM55 continues to offer class-leading sound, plus advanced functionality such as lip-sync adjustment, aptX Bluetooth support, control from existing TV remotes and multiple input support. It comes in a choice of white, black and silver glass-topped finishes.

PRICE: £329, Amazon.co.uk

Heads Up Base Stand

Heads Up

The HeadsUp Base Stand is a high-gloss headphone stand that gives your headphones a smart place to hangout, while keeping them at reach whenever you need them. There’s a cable rest and even an optional phone holder too, meaning you’ll never misplace them again.

PRICE: £14.99, Amazon.co.uk

Flexson

Flexson

Show your SONOS system some love this Christmas by buying it a bespoke accessory. Flexson’s bestselling accessories for SONOS help you make even more of your speakers, in any room. That’s right, now you can take them off that counter, the floor, or wherever you’ve currently got them perched.

PRICE: From £14.97, Amazon.co.uk

Griffin Survivor Case for iPad Mini/2/3

Griffin

The iPad mini is great for kids, but it’s not really designed to be dropped and bashed around the house. Toughen up your iPad mini with this case that has been designed and tested to meet or exceed US Department of Defense Standard 810F. Survivor is built on a shatter-resistant polycarbonate frame clad in rugged, shock absorbing silicone. A built-in screen protector seals your Multi-Touch display from the outside environment, while hinged plugs seal the dock connector, headphone port, hold switch, camera, and volume controls.

PRICE: £26.04, Amazon.co.uk

Griffin Wired Keyboard with Lightning Connector

Griffin

Ideal for aspiring writers, keen emailers and more – this clever keyboard offers full functionality for iOS devices that simply plugs into the Lightning port of your iPhone or iPad.

PRICE: £44.99, Amazon.co.uk

Uprosa Snow Storm / Ice Breaker / Ice Age / Crystal Flake iPhone 7 cases 

Uprosa

These four iPhone 7 cases from Uprosa will give your phone a wintery icy feeling. Each design features a photomicrograph of a snowflake captured by award winning Prof Michael Peres from the Rochester Institute of Science and Technology in New York. Sporting real scientific images, the case promises to protect your iPhone 7 from bumps when you’re out and about.

PRICE: £19.99, Amazon.co.uk (1, 2, 3, 4)  

Nanoleaf Aurora Smarter kit

Nanoleaf

Nanoleaf Aurora is an all-new LED smart lighting product that lets you create shapes and scenes that are limited only by your imagination. The Aurora Smarter kit comes with 9 panels and a controller unit allowing you create an amazing pattern and then spend hours working out what colours you want them to be. You can control via Apple Homekit or Amazon Alexa, and shape to anything you like.

PRICE: £179.99, Amazon.co.uk

Caeden Linea Nº1 On Ear Headphone

Caeden

Designed with clean lines, refined metal finishes and a beautifully balanced acoustic profile, the Linea Nº1 delivers impeccable sound in a truly classic headphone. Designed in Caeden’s New York City studio, the Linea Collection builds its foundation on the linear geometry and architecture of the city with its clean lines and simple forms. The Collection draws inspiration from faceted precious metals, smooth shapes and classic, neutral tones.

PRICE: £99.99, Amazon.co.uk

Twelve South PlugBug World

Twelve South

Ideal gift for MacBook-toting travellers – powers your laptop around the world and gives you an extra USB charging port for good measure. This unique accessory includes five international snap-on plugs and doubles as an international, stand-alone USB charger for iPhone and iPad. Who says you can’t work anywhere?

PRICE: £39.95, Amazon.co.uk

Kaiser Baas X360 Degrees Dual Lens Virtual Reality Action Camera

Kaiser Baas

Featuring dual lenses, the X360 is the ultimate user friendly 360-degree camera. Use the smartphone app to control the X360 remotely and preview your shots to always get the perfect footage. The X360 videos are watchable trough the VR-X Headset (available separately).

PRICE: £249.99, Amazon.co.uk

Kaiser Baas X150

Kaiser Baas

Capture all the action with the Kaiser Baas X150 Action Camera that is rated up to 30m depth, compatible with all GoPro and Kaiser Baas Action Camera accessories and comes with a smart WIFi enabled remote control that can be worn on the wrist. Caputring 2.7K HD Video this is sure to help you relive your action-packed lifestyle.

PRICE: £149.20, Amazon.co.uk

Kaiser Baas Delta Drone

Kaiser Baas

The Delta Drone has been designed to get your GoPro or other Action Camera, like the Kaiser Baas X150, up in the air.

Fully stabilised with GPS satellite control and with an impressive 17-minute flight time and a 400m range, The Delta can hover and even has a Return to Home function that means it will come back to you at the touch of a button.

PRICE: £349.99, Amazon.co.uk

Grace – Deluxe Sleeve for Macbook/Notebook/iPad Pro 13″

STM

Computer bags can be boring and dull, but not Grace. Slim things down a bit and carry your laptop with just a few daily essentials. The Grace collection strikes the balance between simplicity and style, bringing harmony to your digital day. Available in a range of colours, this makes carrying your laptop a stylish thing once more. 

PRICE: £34.99, Amazon.co.uk

STM Dux Plus Sleeve for 9.7-Inch iPad Pro

STM

The Dux Plus provides best-in-class protection for your iPad Pro 9.7-inch. Along with integrated Apple Pencil storage so you don’t lose it, the Dux Plus features a patented magnetic closure, reinforced corners and transparent back panel to protect your iPad from inadvertent drops. The case has also been tested to exceed U.S. Department of Defence Standard 810F/G durability tests so it’s pretty tough. 

PRICE: £42.15, Amazon.co.uk

Jarre AeroSkull XS+

Jarre

The AeroSkull XS+ updates the XS power to 60W of musical power. Its enhanced, 2.1 performance ensures more than its looks set it apart from the average portable speaker and you can stream music wirelessly from smartphones or tablets via aptX Bluetooth (with NFC connectivity), or connect to a range of devices via its 3.5mm input. Oh, and it has a rechargeable battery that lasts up to 10 hours. Available in a range of colours, we love the silver offering. 

PRICE: £199

Kaiser Baas Gamma Drone

Kaiser Baas

Take to the skies like never before with the feature packed Gamma Drone. Control your Gamma Drone using the smartphone app and fly with the live First Person View function as if you are a bird, while recording your flight (in 720p HD) to show your friends afterwards. The Gamma Drone is able to perform amazing aerial acrobatics with ease using the intuitive transmitter making this great for beginners.

PRICE: £199 

Jarre AeroSkull Nano

Jarre

Available in a range of colours, the Nano is smallest skull speaker yet from Jarre Technologies – brainchild of French electronic music pioneer, Jean-Michel Jarre. The tiny, 8cm tall Bluetooth speaker can be easily clipped to a bag or belt, yet is capable of an impressive sound. Its rechargeable battery lasts 6–8 hours. Head banging optional. 

PRICE: £75

Fossil expands smartwatch portfolio with Diesel, Armani and Kate Spade models

Fossil announced at Baselworld 2016 that it would bring its smartwatch technology to numerous brands. We saw the launch of the Michael Kors Access in September and a preview of the Skagen Connected at IFA 2016, but now the company has shown off its Diesel, Kate Spade and Emporio Armani models. 

There are several models for each brand, all of which are hybrid smartwatches, meaning they all look like standard watches with the smart technology hidden within. They are all compatible with Android and iOS devices and they all have three buttons to the right of the face that will allow you to perform certain functions, such as check your activity progress, view a second time zone or remotely control your smartphone camera, for example. 

Each brand has its own specific app, where notifications coming to each watch can be filtered and preferences set. All the models also feature coin cell batteries that should last around six months, meaning you won’t need to charge them every night as you do with the likes of Apple Watch or Android Wear.

The Kate Spade hybrid smartwatch takes its design cues from the brand’s Grand Metro watch and will be available in three models, comprising rose gold with a black leather strap, silver with a grey leather strap and gold with a pale pink leather strap.

The DieselOn Time hybrid smartwatch comes in five models, all of which feature a stainless steel casing and a chunky leather strap with colours options including black, brown and dark brown.

The Emporio Armani Connected hybrid smartwatch comes in five models comprising a stainless steel bracelet, black lip bracelet, rose gold and brown leather strap, stainless steel and blue leather strap and gun metal and black leather strap.

The Kate Spade hybrid smartwatch will cost £199 or $250 and it will be available on katespade.com and select retailers between the end of 2016 and early 2017. The DieselOn Time will be available in select retailers starting at the end of 2016, as will the Emporio Armani Connected. Pricing for the DieselOn Time and Emporio Armani Connected pricing have yet to be detailed.

Google is moving away from its self-driving bubble cars

Alphabet’s Larry Page has decided to tweak Google’s ambitious driverless car strategy and make it a lot more feasible, according to The Information. The tech giant has reportedly decided to scrap its plans to manufacture autonomous vehicles with no steering wheels and pedals, like its bubble-shaped prototypes called “koala,” at least for now. It’s new and more realistic approach involves giving its self-driving tech the Android treatment: it has apparently chosen to collaborate with automakers to create driverless cars with pedals and steering wheels that use Google’s technology.

Google has been having a hard time launching a business out of its autonomous car efforts, and Larry Page wants to change that. The big G even hired an Airbnb and a Hyundai exec to spin the self-driving car unit out of Google’s experimental X labs and to turn the project into a business. Now, The Information says Google’s parent corporation Alphabet is expected to announce a new company soon, thanks to this new plan.

By pairing up with automakers, the tech giant can realistically launch a ridesharing service composed of autonomous vehicles as soon as 2017. However, it still depends on how its Chrysler prototype performs. If you’ll recall, Google joined forces with Chrysler to load Pacifica vans with its driverless tech, and they’ve begun testing out the prototypes a few months ago.

Source: The Information

Neil Young’s Pono will launch an adaptive bitrate streaming service

Neil Young could be about to launch the most interesting streaming service to come along in a long while. No, really.

Young recently spoke at length with Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast. While mostly discussing music, he also divulged his future plans for Pono. Launched in 2014 on Kickstarter as a high-resolution music player and download service, Pono captured the imagination of select audiophiles and not many others. Its total sales were in the tens of thousands as of last year, and its download service is in hiatus after the company running it was acquired.

Now, Young’s company is planning a streaming service. What’s interesting about it is not the fact that it’s promising to stream 192kHz, 24-bit resolution audio. Although it totally is. No, what’s interesting is that it’s promising high-quality adaptive bitrate streaming, which would be a first for a streaming service.

See, when you load up your music app of choice, you typically pick a bitrate for downloads, and a bitrate for streaming. In Spotify, for example, you can choose from anywhere between 96kbps and 320kbps bitrates for streaming and downloads. What Pono is proposing is to do away with those designations.

Spotify’s streaming maxes out at 320Kbps.

The service will offer the highest quality the artist and label offers. Sometimes that’ll be 192kHz, 24-bit, sometimes it’ll be 44.1kHz, 16-bit (aka CD-quality, or what Tidal offers). That’ll be the default. If you don’t have the bandwidth required to support that bitrate — 192kHz, 24-bit can be as high as 9Mbps — six times that of Tidal and around 30-100 times more than Spotify — then the stream will seamlessly step down in quality, down to CD, through FLAC and all the way down to something like OGG or ACC at 128Kbps.

Exactly how this will work isn’t clear. It seems likely that every song will be encoded at many rates and then cut into small segments, each a few seconds long. Then, depending on the speed of the connection and the length of your streaming buffer, the Pono app would choose between the various bitrates on the fly. “You’ll be able to move around and there won’t be any break in the music, but the resolution of the sound will change and you’ll be able to tell what happens when you look at your screen,” Young told Rolling Stone.

“…There won’t be any break in the music, but the resolution of the sound will change.”

Users will have some exposure to adaptive bitrate from YouTube and Netflix — we’ve all experienced a crisp video suddenly turning into a pixelated mess at one point. The effect would be jarring if you were suddenly kicked from a 9Mbps lossless file down to a 128Kbps stream, but in reality it’s more likely you’d jump between 9Mbps, 4Mbps, 2Mbps, et cetera in smaller increments. To me, the difference between all these encoding methods is nigh impossible to hear, which is both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, it’ll make the experience pretty seamless, on the other, it kind of negates the point of a super-high quality streaming service in the first place.

Apple Music’s quality slider.

Young hopes that this adaptive bitrate streaming method will “educate people on the difference between high-resolution music and regular streaming level music, which would be the bottom level for our streaming service.”

Hopefully other streaming services will take note. It’s not like Pono is about to persuade the many, many paying subscribers of Spotify and Apple Music to jump ships. But these services could learn a little here. It’s incredibly annoying to have a song cut off when your data connection can’t support 320Kbps audio, but would probably be fine at 192Kbps. Spotify does offer an “automatic” bitrate option, but it tops out at 96Kbps. As far as I can tell (I’ve reached out to Spotify for clarification) it’s not adaptive in the same way.

One big question left to answer for Pono, though, is what devices the service will work with. Almost every phone lacks the ability to playback 192kHz audio through its headphone jack. Audiophiles typically use an external solution to playback the highest quality files, which would work here too.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel for those not willing to go to those lengths, though: Now that Apple has dropped the headphone jack, and other companies seem to be following suit, the onboard digital-to-analog-converter (DAC) is bypassed in favor of one inside the headphones. That means if your Lightning, USB-C or wireless headphones support 24-bit/192kHz audio you won’t have a problem.

When exactly Pono will launch or even formally reveal the streaming service isn’t clear. (Nor is how much it will cost). Young says Pono is working with a Singaporean company to enable adaptive bitrate streaming, while negotiating the necessary audio rights to fill the service with music. Given the original Pono made an appearance at CES 2015, and the electronics show is just a few weeks away, there’s hope it could come soon, and hopefully push more-conventional streaming services into upping their game a little.

Via: The Verge

Source: Rolling Stone

UK police crack down on people paying for DDoS attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are on the rise, affecting individuals, private businesses and government-funded institutions alike. As part of a large warning to cybercriminals, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has arrested 12 individuals for using a DDoS-for-hire service called Netspoof. “Operation Vulcanialia” targeted 60 citizens in total, and led to 30 cease and desist notices, and the seizure of equipment from 11 suspects. The NCA says it had two focuses: arresting repeat offenders and educating first-time users about the consequences of cybercrime.

The work formed part of Operation Tarpit, a larger effort co-ordinated by Europol. Law enforcement agencies from Australia, Belgium, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US targeted users of DDoS tools together, resulting in 34 arrests and 101 suspects being interviewed and cautioned. The UK’s contribution was spearheaded by intelligence gathered by the West Midlands Regional Cyber Crime Unit, and executed by Regional Organised Crime Units under the watchful eye of the NCA. Some of the arrests were detailed in a press release — all but one was under the age of 30.

Netspoof allowed anyone to initiate potentially devastating DDoS attacks from as little as £4. Packages soared to as much as £380, however, depending on the user’s requirements. It meant almost anyone, regardless of their technical background, could take down sites and services by flooding them with huge amounts of data. The trend is representative of the increase in cybercrime and how easy it is for people to wield such powers. DDoS attacks aren’t comparable to hacking, but they’re still a worrisome tactic for businesses. Knocking a service offline can affect a company’s finances and reputation, angering customers in the process.

Twelve arrests is by no means insignificant, but it almost certainly represents a small number of DDoS users. Still, it’s a warning shot from the NCA — it’s aware of the problem, and officers are putting more resources into tracking those who both use and facilitate such attacks on the internet.

Via: Ars Technica

Source: Europol, NCA