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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