Tuesday, March 25, 2014

drag2share: The new HTC One review: a great phone, but no longer a game-changer

source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/htc-one-2014-review/?utm_source=Feed_Classic_Full&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Engadget&?ncid=rss_full

The first one is UFocus. Devices made by Nokia and LG (and soon to be Samsung) have a way to let you change the point of focus after the pic is taken, Lytro-style. With it, you can change depth of field and add bokeh, but there's a catch: You have to be in a separate mode just to make it do what you want. This is typically because the camera needs to take several pictures over the course of five seconds to achieve the desired effect. When your child is having a cute moment, you rarely have time to figure out the best mode to use for the best picture; you have a split second to pull your camera out, point it and snap the shot before it's too late. HTC's Duo Camera, however, eliminates the need for these separate modes because it takes just one image and uses the image's depth information to determine which part of the photo to keep in focus.

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drag2share: HTC explains how the 'Duo Camera' brings depth-sensing to the new One

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/htc-explains-duo-camera-on-htc-one-m8/

Finally, we have an official explanation for the two round holes in the back of the new HTC One. The main camera, which sits in the regular spot, houses a 4MP "UltraPixel" camera much like on last year's handset. The smaller lens, which is positioned directly above -- or to the side when you hold the phone in landscape mode to grab a shot -- contains half the resolution (i.e., 2MP), but it doesn't actually capture images. It merely offers a level of depth perception, allowing the camera to "understand objects in physical space." A key benefit of this, according to HTC, is a quicker autofocus time of around 300ms, because the camera can use actual depth measurements to focus on objects. Other benefits come when you edit a photo, thanks to a range of effects (such as blurring) that can be selectively applied to foreground or backgrounds subjects. HTC has also just announced an SDK that will allow third-party app makers to make use of the Duo Camera's depth map, which is stored as metadata within JPEG files. For more, including sample images, check out our full review of the HTC One.

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drag2share: NVIDIA announces Titan Z: a $3,000 graphics computing powerhouse

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/nvidia-titan-z-gpu/

Thought that NVIDIA's Titan Black was as good as it gets in the GPU world? You were mistaken. Meet the GeForce GTX Titan Z (seen in all its glory after the break), NVIDIA's latest graphical behemoth announced by CEO Jen-Hsun Huang today at NVIDIA's 2014 GPU Technology Conference. The Z packs dual Kepler GPUs specifically designed to operate in perfect power and performance harmony. It also keeps cutting-edge games (like those using Unreal Engine 4) running smoothly at up to 5K resolution and on multiple monitors thanks to 12GB of dedicated memory. For now, other Titan Z details are scarce, but we know it costs $3,000, and Huang likens its performance to that of a supercomputer -- what more do you really need to know?

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Source: NVIDIA

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drag2share: NVIDIA announces the Jetson TK1 dev-kit, calls it the world's first mobile supercomputer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/nvidia-announces-the-jetson-tk1-dev-kit-calls-it-the-world-s-fi/

Wish you had your own personal supercomputer? Soon, you'll be able to buy one -- well, sort of. At its GPU Technology conference today, NVIDIA announced the Jetson TK1, a $192 Tegra K1-based development kit built on the same architecture that powers the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratories. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Haung describes it as "the world's tiniest little supercomputer," noting that it's capable of running anything the Titan can run, but at a much slower pace.

The kit is designed for use in advanced robotics, autonomous cars and computers attempting to simulate human recognition of physical objects, but during a post-announcement briefing, NVIDIA beamed at the suggestion that builders might use it in quirky maker projects. Joking aside, however, they clarified that Jetson is a higher-grade board than you'll find in Arduinos or the Raspberry Pi -- it can push 326 gigaflops, and is far better suited to driving drones, ultrasound machines and self-driving vehicles. Still, at $192, we wouldn't be surprised to see a few Jetson-based projects pop up at the next MakerFaire.

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Article: The MicrobeScope Uses Your iPhone As A Microscopic Sidekick To Capture Views Of Bacteria In Real-Time

There are countless cool ways to extend the abilities of your smartphone by plugging in or linking up additional hardware. But here’s a Kickstarter project that wants to use your smartphone to extend the powers of something else: a basic microscope — allowing for real-time videos of microbes doin...

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/25/microbescope/

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Article: Panasonic 4K wearable camera arriving in May

Shooting video in 4K is quickly becoming more and more accessible, and Panasonic is about to begin offering another option to get shooters started. In May, it will release the HX-A500, a wearable camera that can shoot 4K video at 25 frames per second — a feat that Panasonic claims its camera is t...

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/24/5541828/4k-wearable-camera-hx-a500-panasonic-price-release-date

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Article: Disconnect unveils private search Android app and web interface

Disconnect Search, a tool that lets people use popular search engines without having their queries logged or tracked, just got easier to use. On Monday, the outfit took the wraps off a new version that’s accessible through a webpage, an Android app that should come out of beta today, and browser ...

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/24/disconnect-unveils-private-search-android-app-and-web-interface/

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drag2share: IBM researchers' algorithm explores tweets for home location cues

Source: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-ibm-algorithm-explores-tweets-home.html

(Phys.org) —By drawing on the content of users' tweets and their tweeting behavior, a team of three IBM researchers said they have a new algorithm to infer the home location of Twitter users at different granularities, including city, state, time zone or geographic region. The algorithm makes use of the person's last 200 tweets for tracking. The scientists described their approach as an "ensemble of statistical and heuristic classifiers" and with this approach they said they could predict locations and make use of a geographic gazetteer dictionary (USGS [United States Geological Survey] gazetteer) to identify place-name entities. They analyzed movement variations of Twitter users, built a classifier to predict whether a user was travelling in a certain period of time and used that to further improve their detection accuracy.

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drag2share: Quantum Research Shows D-Wave's Computers Are (Probably) the Real Deal

Source: http://gizmodo.com/quantum-research-shows-d-waves-computers-are-probably-1550992502

Quantum Research Shows D-Wave's Computers Are (Probably) the Real Deal

D-Wave's quantum computers have certainly demonstrated that they're capable , but they've also received much criticism from scientists. Now, new results show that their technology could be even more solid than they'd claimed in the past.

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Monday, March 24, 2014

drag2share: Android Smartphones Can Finally Get Predator Vision Too

Source: http://gizmodo.com/android-smartphones-can-finally-get-predator-vision-too-1550525260

Android Smartphones Can Finally Get Predator Vision Too

Earlier in the year, FLIR got us all hot and bothered by revealing a thermal vision smartphone case that could actually see our excitement. Unfortunately it's only for iPhone users, and won't be available until the early summer. But Android fans will have the last laugh with their own thermal imaging add-on—the Therm-App—that's already available.

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drag2share: New Light-Emitting Solar Cells Could Be Used as Smartphone Displays

Source: http://gizmodo.com/new-light-emitting-solar-cells-could-be-used-as-smartph-1550586553

New Light-Emitting Solar Cells Could Be Used as Smartphone Displays

In the future, the glass that coats our skyscrapers could also serve as the power plant that keeps the lights on. This is not news . However, with an amazing new material being developed in Singapore, that same glass could also turn your city's windows into skyscraper-sized displays.

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drag2share: CHART OF THE DAY: Android Fragmentation Is Still A Thing (GOOG, AAPL)

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/hsuEDFbCzcc/chart-of-the-day-android-fragmentation-is-still-a-thing-2014-3

This isn't exactly killing Android, but it's still fun to look at. Apple's latest iteration of iPhone software is on 85% of iPhones, according to Mixpanel data. The latest version of Android, on the other hand, is only on 8.24% of Android phones. Chart via Statista

chart Fragmentation

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drag2share: Google Now officially lands in Chrome

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/24/google-now-officially-lands-in-chrome/

If you're the adventurous type, you've probably been enjoying Now notifications in Chrome for a little while now. But starting today, those running the stable version of Google's browser will be able to enjoy the benefits of Now's preemptive search and virtual assistant. The desktop version works more or less the same as it does on mobile, except that the cards pop up from the system tray or notification area in your OS. You'll get access to voice search, reminders for events flights etc... and you'll even get some location-based cards like commute times. Interestingly, some of those alerts are based on the location of your phone, not your laptop or desktop. All you need to do to start using Google Now on your computer is make sure you're signed into Chrome with the same account you use on your mobile phone. If you're not seeing it just yet, don't panic. As is the case with most of Mountain View's products, it'll be rolling out gradually over the next several weeks.

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Source: Google Chrome (Google+), Google

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drag2share: The Massive Credit And Debit Security Overhaul In The US Is Coming รข Here Are The Costs And Opportunities

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/Km5hmrGes-E/the-massive-credit-and-debit-security-overhaul-in-the-us-is-coming--here-are-the-costs-and-benefits-2014-3

Global Cost Of Payment Card FraudThe massive Target data breach compromised the credit and debit card information of 40 million consumers and spotlighted the enormous payment card fraud problem in the U.S.

It's also drawn attention to the looming payment card security overhaul that's coming to the U.S. over the next five years, called EMV, or the "chip card" standard. For consumers, EMV will be most recognizable as a chip on credit and debit cards that works as an embedded microprocessor. 

Created by Europay, Visa, and MasterCard, the payments security standard has already been implemented in most of the developed world and contributed to overall reductions in fraud. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence we look at what the EMV standard is, how much it will cost to implement, how much it could save in terms of mitigated fraud, and whether or not the upgrade will ultimately be worth its cost.

For the U.S. to adopt the standard, banks, processors, and merchants will have to upgrade their systems to accept and process chip card transactions. It's not a small task and could end up being an enormous financial burden. 

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drag2share: Blackmail DDOS Attack Takes Out Major Online Chat Service Campfire

Source: http://gizmodo.com/blackmail-ddos-attack-takes-out-major-online-chat-servi-1550323656

Blackmail DDOS Attack Takes Out Major Online Chat Service Campfire

The popular group chat system Campfire is currently being nailed with a DDoS attack. Turns out some blackmailing hackers are trying to extort money from the provider. They're refusing to negotiate.

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