iPhone 6 killer arrives early: HTC One (M8)

The all new HTC One officially unveiled.

HTC finally officially unveiled the new HTC One (M8) at an event in New York this evening and, guess what, the phone is already ready to hit the shelf, weeks ahead of the launch of the Samsung S5.

But for fans here in the UAE, it would make no such difference as the Samsung S5 is expected to be launched during the second week of April. The HTC One could also hit the stores around the same time. Sony’s Xperia Z2 with the 20 MP camera is also expected to retail in the UAE around the third week of April, creating a very competitive atmosphere.

With an increased screen size, better battery and an immaculate metallic body, the new One is sure to give Samsung a run for its money. Although HTC has not officially announced the pricing here it is expected to be priced at around Dh2500.

While most of the specs of the phone were already available before the launch, thanks to innumerable leaks, HTC has introduced Motion View, whereby you can open apps just by making a gesture imitating a swipe. With the new Dot View case, that’s available at an additional $50, you need not even open the screen to see the time and other notifications.

EARLIER REPORT

  “We're in #NYC, ready to show the world how we're going "One Up" the industry. See you tomorrow,” read a tweet from @HTC, the company’s official twitter handle.

Multiple leaks on social media have revealed most of the details of the new phone, even as HTC itself has released the Glimpse Feed launcher and the service pack on Google Play.

The new phone hasa  5 inch display and is expected to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and a 2.3GHz quad-core CPU, 2 GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage and a micro SD slot which enables you to expand the storage upto 128GB.

The phone will come with an ultrapixel duo camera – which according to reports will have two different sensors - a 4MP sensor and a 16MP sensor – for low light imaging, a 5Mp front facing camera, 28mm lens with F2.0m wide angle lens with HDR capability, 1080p video recording and HTC Zoe.

Apart from the processor the new phone will also have an improved 2,600mAh battery.

A Facebook user from Russia has already uploaded the pictures of unboxing the new HTC One M8.

Links for the pics uploaded onto Facebook.

Meanwhile, another website that even published 12 minute hands on review of the new phone has been forced to remove the video from YouTube.

Whether the all metallic body and sleek design of the new phone will help the company in terms of sales has to be seen.

The HTC One of 2013 too won several awards and was rated better than Samsung but failed to gain the same numbers as Samsung S4 did.

Dialling UAE: Lumia 520 + Asha = Nokia X @ Dh439

Latest Nokia brings Android apps to device that has look and feel of Windows phone.

Nokia’s first Android phone, the Nokia X, hit retail stores across the UAE this weekend.

The smartphone that looks and feels like a mix of Windows on the Lumia 520 and Nokia’s Asha phones, runs on Android 4.1.

Nokia launched three Android phones during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Ajey Mehta, Vice-President Nokia Middle East told Emirates 24|7 that the remaining two models, the Nokia X+ and Nokia XL will be available in UAE stores by end of April or the first week of May.

Nokia priced the Nokia X phone here in the UAE at Dh439 in an effort to attract entry level users.

The device comes with a 4" capacitive display, Qualcomm Snapdragon dual core processor 3MP camera and is a dual Sim phone.

What makes the phone interesting is its ability to bring in Android apps to a device that looks and feels like a Windows phone.

There are ‘live’ tiles that you can customise and Nokia directly connects you to their favorite apps, Here Maps, Mix Radio, One Drive for cloud storage and Skype. Nokia is also giving away one free month of Skype calls to customers – the use of which will be limited here in the UAE due to blockage by local telecom operators.

With the introduction of this Android phone and coupled with its flagship Windows-based Lumia series and a multitude of Asha phones, Nokia is hoping to regain its lost glory and market share.

“We were a very strong brand not very long ago and we want to leverage that strength of the Nokia brand,” said Reddy.

According to him Lumia 520 continues to be a top seller compared to any other phone in the smartphone segment.

“The Lumia 1520 is also doing well, but the 520 continues to do the best,” he said.

When asked if the introduction of Android and especially the Nokia X at a 439 price point would affect sales of Lumia 520, he said: “Both have their own strong points. Our aim is to provide the customers with all available options. Finally we leave the choice to our customers.”

The smartphone is available in different colors such as bright green, bright red, cyan, yellow, black and white. 

New Apple phone launch today? Cheaper 8GB iPhone 5C

iPad 4 prices to be slashed: Report

We all know that iPhone 5C sales have been down and the phone will simply not sell unless Apple drops its pricing strategy for the so-called budget iPhone.

Well, now Apple could just be doing that.
It plans to introduce an 8GB iPhone 5C and the price could be reasonably lower compared to the $549 (around Dh2,199 in the UAE), it is charging now for the 16GB model.

If reports are to be believed Apple has already moved stocks of an all new model into select retail stores.
Pundits are claiming that the launch could be as early as today.

The move comes amidst rising stock of unsold iPhone 5C models.
Retailers in the UAE too have been complaining of unsold stock although iPhone 5S has been doing exceptionally well in terms of sales.

Pricing seem to be the crucial issue as the difference between the two models is just around Dh500.
A 16GB iPhone 5C can be purchased for around Dh2,000 while the iPhone 5S is priced at Dh2,500.
“Pay another Dh500 and you will get a much advanced phone. We have quite a few stocks of 5C remaining,” a retailer had recently .

End of the line for Apple iPhone 5C; price crash?

Tech blog 9to5Mac is also reporting that Apple could slash the pricing of the iPad 4.
Apple is currently selling the iPad 2 for $399 (or Dh1549 here in the UAE).

Apple could replace the iPad 2 with the iPad 4 for $449. The blog has also posted pictures of the iPad 4 stocks that have been moved into retail stores in the US. Currently the iPad 4 is not available for sale on the Apple store.

Technology redefining UAE classrooms

New classroom technology on show at the GESS exhibition; Traditional boards would soon be history.

Traditional boards with teachers using a chalk piece could soon be a practise of the past. Classrooms in most developed markets have already made the shift and Dubai and the UAE could already be on the verge of reaching there.

According to one leading supplier of digital panels, almost all classrooms in Dubai and most of the UAE would be rid of traditional boards within this year or during the next academic year.

“Technology is fast catching up with schools as well.
We already have the technology where teachers can sit on their desk and still use the large screen to explain lessons, draw tables and diagrams and transmit the same wirelessly to individual mini screens placed on a student’s table,” said Manish Bakshi, Managing Director, BenQ Middle East and Africa, who was participating at the three-day Gulf Education Supplies and Solutions (GESS) exhibition at Dubai.

BenQ itself is showcasing three new display solutions, which according to him can transform the classroom experience.

The BenQ Classroom IQ includes Interactive Flat Panels, a complete classroom interactive projector solution and cloud monitors.

The company says its latest 70-inch interactive flat panels with optical touch technology and more advanced anti-glare features is expected to be rolled out into the market next month. “Since students and researchers spend several hours of the day in front of the screen, we are trying to incorporate features that are friendly to the eyes,” added Bakshi.

“The education sector in the region is pioneering new ways to integrate technology in classroom activities that aims to provide better interactivity between teachers and students,” he added.

Many schools in the country are already allowing students to use Tablets.

Educational gadgets to replace textbooks in 5-10 years, says UAE's biggest school group.

Among the range of products that BenQ is showcasing include interactive projectors. Called the short-throw projectors these devices are connected wirelessly to a PointWrite device that works through an 80FPS sensor attached to the lens of the projector to detect IR beams emitted from the PointWrite pen.

In addition, the BenQ Classroom IQ concept allows up to four students to collaborate simultaneously with PointWrite pens.

Samsung Electronics too was showcasing many of its new classroom technology at the GESS exhibition.

Samsung’s Classroom Interactive Management Solution is the e-board that comes with embedded touch technology and full HD resolution.

Samsung MagicIMS (Interactive Management Solution) and Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) software technologies, enables students and teachers to participate in interactive lessons, intuitively access range of contents, take digital notes and save class work for later use.

The IWB S/W includes a writing-on-the-board function and inter-locked multimedia functions. The Samsung Smart School Solution including the IWB provides a modern dynamic educational experience for superior learning.
  

Virgin Atlantic kicks off its Google Glass experiment

Starting today, Upper Class Wing customers arriving into Heathrow Airport through Virgin Atlantic will be part of a six week experiment with Google Glass and Sony’s second generation smartwatch.

As we enter the second generation of smarter wearables for consumers, it seems like more and more companies are trying to see where this technology can make their employees work smarter. The idea is sound, basically making it possible to deliver information in a way that doesn’t require constantly pulling out a phone or constantly holding a tablet.

Deployed correctly, there’s a good chance that most service environments could benefit from the kind of information delivery offered by wearables.

For the next six weeks, Virgin Atlantic and aviation tech company SITA will team up to determine what works and what doesn’t when incorporating wearables into the Upper Class Wing.

For the uninitiated, Upper Class Wing customers aren’t flying like the rest of us. In fact, the scenario painted by SITA for these customers involves arriving in a chauffeured limousine at Heathrow’s T3 and being handled by a Virgin Atlantic concierge until it is time to board the plane.

These concierges will be equipped with wearable technology to rapidly answer questions about weather or local events at their destination. Those equipped with Glass will be able to translate several languages thanks to the apps on board, and of course use the camera to grab QR codes for check-in. In theory, this means the concierge will never need to be behind the desk and will be able to more adequately assist their customers.

There’s some long term goals in the event that the experiment is successful, including the ability to access dietary and refreshment preferences after someone has checked in. This would be made possible through an app made available only to Virgin Atlantic employees for Glass and the Sony Smartwatch 2, which SITA has been working on.

The app would essentially assign a concierge to a customer, and that concierge would have everything they need in the app to act as a personal assistant. It’s not something many of us are likely to experience for ourselves, but it’s clearly a situation to which wearable technology seems uniquely suited.

Making Your Face Memorable Using Technology? MIT's On It

Kevin Winter/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
Selfie fans of America, you’re going to love this: researchers at MIT are figuring out out how to digitally adjust an image of a person’s face to make it more memorable. How? By making small, specific changes to images of yourself using photo-editing technology — and we’re not talking about Photoshopping your blemishes, enhancing your eyes, or making your hair look smoother. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that.
Yes, some of your face’s ”memorability factor“ has to do with whether it feels familiar to you. But sometimes certain faces just look memorable, as NPR explains.

There are subjective factors affecting how a face sticks in your memory — for example, if you know someone else who looks similar, you might find a new face more familiar. But researchers found that there is also a strong universal component to memorability. Some faces are just consistently more easily remembered.
Researchers found that certain associations help make a face memorable: familiarity, kindness, trustworthiness, uniqueness.

But what does a familiar, kind, trustworthy, and/or unique face even look like? Well, MIT put a computer algorithm on it to find out. From one of MIT’s research articles on the subject:

To overcome the complex combination of factors that determine the memorability of a face, we propose a data-driven approach to modify face memorability. In our method, we combine the representational power of features based on Active Appearance Models (AAMs) with the predictive power of global features such as Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG), to achieve desired effects on face memorability. Our experiment show that our method can accurately modify the memorability of faces with an accuracy of 74%.

OK, time for plain English. Researches used a computer algorithm (the Active Appearance Model) in this experiment, a method often used to match and track types of images in medicine and forensics.
Then, they combined it with another algorithm called Histograms of Oriented Gradients, which tracks images in a slightly different way to AAMS. The point: This combination of methods were pretty darn good at knowing which faces will be memorable, and which weren’t.

It’s interesting that trustworthy and friendly faces are inherently memorable — but in the words of one NPR commenter and a couple of Twitter users: “Hmmm… based on those sample photos, what makes a face more memorable is being thinner.”
Plus, it’s hard to know how reliable those supposedly “attractive” and “friendly” faces really were, since those are such subjective measurements.

Tweaking your Facebook photos so people remember you more: Coming to an app near you. Probably.