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Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Friday, 26 January 2018

January 26, 2018 0
Signing on to all of your favorite networks’ apps on Amazon TV just got a little easier.

The company, which had teased single sign-on for Fire TV in September, is now bringing the service to network apps in the U.S.

Users just need to sign in with their pay TV provider credentials and they can access all the networks they need without entering additional passwords.

The service works with pay TV providers that support single sign-on authentication through Adobe Experience Cloud. That includes Dish, DirecTV, AT&T Uverse, Verizon FiOS, Cox, Cablevision (Altice) and many more.

Networks that support Fire’s new single sign-on feature include Freeform, Syfy, Bravo, Telemundo, The cooking Channel, Turner and BBC.

A full list of providers is below.

The feature should be up for most apps now, and Amazon says that it will work with other app developers and cable providers to integrate the new feature soon.
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Dutch intelligence reportedly hacked Russian election hackers in 2014

January 26, 2018 0
As if the story of the 2016 election and associated cyberattacks wasn’t already complicated enough, new information now suggests that Dutch intelligence has for years been aware of, and sharing, information on the Russian hackers suspected to be behind a number of high-profile hacks.

Dutch broadcaster NOS and newspaper Volkskrant reported the news today.

The Netherlands’ Joint Sigint Cyber Unit, in the summer of 2014, seems to have found the den of “Cozy Bear,” as the state-sponsored group came to be known (also APT29) after the DNC hack in 2016. JSCU infiltrated its network and a nearby security camera, allowing it to see what Cozy Bear was up to, and possibly who was a member.

JSCU shared this data with the CIA and NSA on a continuing basis all the way through the 2016 election, after which their surveillance was discontinued or compromised. A report in the Washington Post months later apparently revealed a bit more than they were comfortable with, and the report says that the Dutch intelligence sources have been more guarded with their information since that time.

The full story is well worth reading; clearly we have a lot to thank our Dutch allies for. No doubt this treasure trove of information will (perhaps already has been) prove extremely useful in our own government’s ongoing investigation in Russian interference in the election.
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Annual smartphone shipments in China declined for the first time in 2017

January 26, 2018 0

Annual smartphone shipments in China declined for the first time in 2017

Image result for China’s
China’s smartphone market is no longer growing after it witnessed its first annual decline in shipments during 2017, according to new figures released today.

The writing was on the wall with a market decline first noted in Q2 but this is the first time a drop has been sustained over a twelve-month period. That’s according to data from analyst firm Canalys which reported that total smartphone shipments dipped four percent year-on-year to reach 459 million units in 2017. In particular, the numbers in Q4 were down 14 percent on one year previous with 113 million units shipped.

Despite evidence of buyer saturation, Huawei continued its impressive growth spurt with 24 million shipments in the final quarter of 2017, growing its numbers nine percent above the market.

Sister companies Oppo and Vivo have exploded on to the global stage with strong sales in emerging markets in Asia, but, in China, their numbers fell 16 percent and 7 percent, respectively, with 19 million and 17 million shipments, according to Canalys.

Finally, the launch of the iPhone X and iPhone 8 helped Apple pip Xiaomi to fourth place with 13 million shipments in Q4 2017.
Slowing growth at home has prompted Chinese phone brands to look overseas, with many turning to India where they have long beaten out the local competition and nascent markets like Indonesia, which could grow significantly.

Xiaomi, in particular, which beat Samsung to the top spot in India in Q4, has also made moves into Spain, Mexico, Russia and parts of Africa, too.

The U.S. has proven a tougher market to crack. Xiaomi has sold accessories there for some time, but it is yet to make the leap of smartphones despite many public declarations of intent.

Those that have been more aggressive have met tough pushback. AT&T, the second-largest U.S. carrier, canceled plans to carry the Huawei Mate 10 Pro following reports of pressure from the government. There are also rumors that Verizon is facing pressure over its plan to stock the device, which has already seen its launch pushed back from an original summer timeline.

Huawei instead plans to sell the Mate 10 Pro unlocked and it recruited Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot to front its campaign as its “Chief Experience Officer.” But carrier deals remain a key way to reach users without an upfront price that can near the quadruple digits. Huawei has distribution with key retailers like Best Buy and Amazon, but the company ultimately won’t penetrate the market the way it hopes without that extra push.
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Thursday, 23 November 2017

Google Still Tracks You Even With Your Location Services Off

November 23, 2017 0

Google Still Tracks You Even With Your Location Services Off


Google has been seized in secret to collect location information about smartphone users behind their backs, even if their Internet is turned off.

Smartphones without a SIM card, without a location service or even just those that have just been reset to factory mode will still keep track of you and send information to Google.

It's been proven that Google collects data about the locations of Android phones, even if location services are disabled. This resulted in a survey conducted by Google.

Quartz, an online media publication, has observed that Android smartphones work with others to capture the addresses of a nearby mobile mast and send it back to Google.


The collected data will not be linked, even if the service location (GPS) on the phones has been disabled, no application is installed or preinstalled, or there is no SIM card in the phone. It collects data independent of all that and sends it to Google and Google follows you wherever you go.

The result is that Google, the alphabet unit behind Android, has access to data about individuals' locations and their movements that go far beyond a consumer's reasonable expectation of privacy, the journalist wrote. Quartz Keith Collins.

In addition, a Google Quartz spokesperson said that mobile carrier addresses were included in the information sent to the system Google used to process push notifications and messages on Android phones in the last 11 months. They have never been used or stored and the company is taking steps to end the practice.

It's no longer a secret that Google keeps track of your phone's location on every instance. Most of the applications we use on a regular basis would not work without the device tracking services enabled.

In addition, we end users have the right to tell Google through your Android phone, delete your location history from your Google Maps timeline, and stop taking screenshots of your old searches if they're affected in that way. through your private life.

Google did not respond immediately to a request for this topic.






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Sunday, 5 November 2017

iPhone X vs Samsung Galaxy Note 8 – Which Is The Best Device To Buy?

November 05, 2017 0
If you have money for the next update of your phone, but you do not know which side (Android or Apple), the decision will fall on one of the two main devices: iPhone X or the Galaxy Note 8.

While Apple calls its latest mobile phone the "Future of Smartphones" because of its lockable screen face recognition and its frameless screen, it could be argued that Samsung came first, the Galaxy Note 8 benefits from them. Features since its release.

We put the iPhone X and Galaxy Note 8 in the head, to see who earns your money.

DESIGN

iPhone X:- 143.6×70.9×7.7mm, 179g

Galaxy Note 8:- 162.5×74.8×8.6 mm, 195 g

First thing’s first: design. The iPhone X isn’t too dissimilar to the Galaxy S8 when it comes to looks. Both phones feature a premium all-glass design surrounded by a metal frame, and both are dominated by their respective bezel-less displays. Well, sort of. Unlike the Galaxy S8, which sports a curved ‘Infinity display’, the iPhone X features a small ‘notch’ at the top of the display, where you’ll find the front-facing camera and sensors.

The iPhone X is much lighter than the Note 8, however, at 179g compared to 195g, and it’s also more compact so should fit into your skinny jeans pockets a little easier, being 4mm skinnier than Samsung’s flagship.

However, this is because of the Note’s much bigger screen, so it depends what’s more important to you. A bigger display or a smaller, more compact overall design, but both phones are fairly evenly matched when it comes to skinny-jean-pocket-ability.

The iPhone X is also slightly slimmer, measuring 7.7mm thick compared to the 8.6mm thickness of the Note 8.

In terms of colours on offer, the iPhone X will be made available in Space Grey and Silver, while the Galaxy S8 is available in Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver, Coral Blue and Maple Gold.


DISPLAY

iPhone 8:- 5.8in Super Retina (2436×1125, 458ppi) OLED edge-to-edge display

Galaxy Note 8:- 6.3in Super AMOLED (1440×2960, 521ppi) edge-to-edge

The Galaxy Note 8, with its gorgeous 6.3in Super AMOLED, would usually win any iPhone battle with previous iterations. However, it now has some proper competition in the form of the iPhone X, which is the first Apple smartphone to also pack an edge-to-edge display.

Although not curved like that on the Note 8, the iPhone X’s 5.8in OLED panel stretched to fill the front of the phone, albeit for its odd-looking ‘notch’. What’s more, the ‘Super Retina’ display on the iPhone X, at 2436×1125 and 458ppi, is the highest-resolution screen to feature on an iPhone yet, and the first to make use of OLED and Apple’s True Tone tech, which adjusts the white balance to suit your environment.



However, the Galaxy Note 8 comes out on top in terms of sharpness, as its QHD panel serves up an eye-popping 521ppi pixel density.



HARDWARE AND STORAGE

iPhone X:- A11 Bionic CPU, 3GB RAM, 64GB or 256GB storage

Galaxy Note 8:- Exynos 8995 octa0core CPU, 6GB RAM, 64GB storage, microSD up to 256GB

The iPhone X debuts Apple’s new A11 Bionic CPU, coming paired with an Apple-built GPU. This six-core CPU is divided into two low-performance cores and four high-performance cores, with the regular cores being 25 per cent faster than the previous A10 chip, and the high-performance cores being up to 75 per cent faster than the A10 SoC.



The Galaxy Note 8, in the UK at least, ships with Samsung’s homegrown octa-core Exynos 8995 processor, which has two more cores than Apple’s latest chip, packing some major braun.

In terms of memory, the iPhone X packs 3GB RAM, compared to double of that in the Note 8, which boasts a whopping 6GB, and a choice of 64GB or 256GB built-in storage. Although the Galaxy Note 8 is made available with only 64GB, it offers customers the ability to expand via its onboard microSD slot, something the iPhone X doesn’t have.



SOFTWARE

iPhone X:- iOS 11

Galaxy Note 8:- Android 7.0 Nougat

You can never truly compare Android and iOS, mainly because almost everyone has their own preferences when it comes to the operating system they use.

The iPhone X will ship running iOS 11, bringing some pretty neat features along with it which will only be available on the pricey flagship, including animated emoji (or ‘Animoji’), new gestures for navigating home and multitasking, and portrait lighting and selfie modes.

The Galaxy Note 8 runs Android Nougat, and Samsung’s skin, although scaled back compared to previous efforts, equips the device with a handful of custom features (aka bloatware), including Galaxy Apps, Samsung’s own Gallery app and a tool for pairing your Samsung-branded wearable.



Both phones also offer face-scanning tech, with the iPhone X debuting ‘Face ID’, which Apple claims is the most accurate and secure face authentication tech available.

The Note 8’s face-scanning tech isn’t quite on par, but Samsung does offer customers a rear-facing fingerprint scanner, while Apple has binned Touch ID altogether.



CAMERA

iPhone X:- Dual 12MP (f/1.8 and f/2.4) with OIS, 7MP front-facing

Galaxy Note 8:- Dual 12MP (f/1.7 and f/2.4), 8MP front-face

The iPhone X touts a dual camera setup similar to that which debuted on the iPhone 7 Plus. However, the two 12MP sensors have been upgraded, and can now shoot 4K video at up to 60fps and 1080p slo-mo video at 240fps.

The Galaxy Note 8 sports a similar setup, with dual 12MP cameras with 2x optical zoom and simultaneous 4K video and 9MP image recording.



BATTERY
iPhone X:- 21 hours quoted talk-time, fast charging, wireless charging

Galaxy Note 8:- 3,300mAh, fast charging, wireless charging, USB-C

Apple is remaining tight-lipped about the size of the battery inside the iPhone X, but has said that it’ll last two hours longer than the iPhone 7 and will get you 21 hours of talk time.

The Galaxy Note 8 packs a 3,300mAh battery, which for its size, might seem a little underwhelming on paper. However, in For a phone of this size, a 3,330mAh battery seems lacking, especially when compared to the Galaxy S8’s 3,500mAh offering.

According to Samsung, this is because the Note 8 has to fit an S Pen into its chassis, and it’s likely the overheating issues that plagued last year’s Note 7 also had a part to play in the firm’s decision to scale back on the battery.

That being said, in our full Note 8 review, the device breezed through a day and a half before having to re-juice.



PRICE

iPhone X:- From £999

Galaxy Note 8:- From £869

While it has the most promising list of specs ever for an iPhone, Apple’s upcoming flagship is also expected to be Apple’s most expensive to date, with pricing starting at £999 for the 64GB model.

However, the Galaxy Note 8 isn’t far off, and is available from £869, making the iPhone X only £130 more expensive than Samsung’s biggest, bestest smartphone.



OUR VERDICTS

The iPhone X and the Galaxy Note 8 are quite similar in terms of what they offer, for example: high-end glass and metal designs, edge-to-edge displays and a heck of a lot of power with their hexa-core and octa-core processors, respectively.

However, there’s also some important differences. While the iPhone X beats the Galaxy Note 8 with it’s more compact design, the Note 8 has a bigger, more impressive display, slightly better internal specs and built-in microSD slot.





Watch The Video Comparison Of The iPhone X vs Samsung Galaxy S8
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Tuesday, 31 October 2017

This video shows the iPhone X’s crazy app switching swipe

October 31, 2017 0

The iPhone X is about to be released, and somehow, either officially sanctioned or otherwise, a handful of videos have appeared showing different functions of the device. What follows is a short video showing the novel way users will switch apps on the iPhone X.



Since the iPhone X does not have a home button, Apple engineers had to rework several control schemes including switching between apps. On an iPhone with a home button, users would double tap the button, causing iOS to switch to a card-like view of the running apps. Users would then swipe between them. But on the iPhone X, the user interaction is a bit more native.

The video above shows that to switch apps on the iPhone X users need to create an arch while swiping on the home screen. This causes the running app to be pushed aside and the previous running app to take it’s place. It’s a carousel of apps.

This isn’t the only way to switch between apps though. If a user swipes up on the home screen, it pulls a screen similar to that found on Home Button-equipped iPhones (and the Palm Pre). 
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U.S. iPhone users will spend an average of $88 per year on apps by 2020

October 31, 2017 0

U.S. iPhone users will spend an average of $88 per year on paid apps and in-app purchases by 2020, according to a new forecast out this week from Sensor Tower. The firm found that the dollar amount spent on apps and in-app purchases is continuing to increase, year-over-year. iPhone users spent an average of $63 this year, up 33 percent over 2016. And by 2019, the increase over 2016 will have grown to 86 percent.

Next year, Sensor Tower estimates the average spending per active U.S. device will grow to $77, before reaching $88 by 2020.


As you may expect, much of this revenue comes from games.

The majority of spending — almost 70 percent — will come from games. As much as $60 of that $88 will be on paid game downloads and in-game purchases.

But games are not the only category helping grow these figures, the report notes.

Other categories that we’ll see contribute to this revenue growth include entertainment and music. Because of the rise of over-the-top and streaming services, like HBO NOW and Netflix, the entertainment category will overtake music this year, to become the second largest contributor to per-device spending.

Says Sensor Tower, it will grow its share of the projected $88 in 2019 to over 9 percent, or at least $8, up from just $2.80 in 2016.

The new forecast follows a report from App Annie released earlier this week, which indicates a similar trend in app revenue.

According to App Annie’s estimates, global app revenue and downloads hit record levels last quarter, and those numbers are continuing to rise. But App Annie pegged much of this growth on the rise of emerging markets, like China and India. Sensor Tower’s forecast indicates that app revenue growth is still taking place stateside, as well.

Image credits: SensorTower
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Instagram injects 2X bigger Stories previews mid-feed

October 31, 2017 0

Instagram Stories are doing so well, the app wants to make sure they do not scroll through their Snapchat clone. Instagram confirms TechCrunch has redesigned its Stories mid-stream re-engagement box to display slideshow preview thumbnails of people twice the size of the stories bar at the top of the stream. The box appears halfway between the traditional fixed posts.

For now, Instagram says it's not intended to replace those smaller bars that you see above the stream with the larger design. But the interruption of the river for people to look at stories shows how short-lived and full-screen sharing is crucial to the future of Instagram.


Social media pioneer Chris Messina discovered the new design of the weekend and asked us to ask Instagram what's going on. A company spokesperson said, "We've recently updated the story bar theme by flipping through the feed, which makes it easier to preview the stories of people and accounts that interest you."

The design resembles the original layout of Facebook's Facebook own Messenger Day product before moving to a less obtrusive version that uses round bubbles with smaller previews like Facebook Stories.

Instagram now has two different changes so you can view a story. First, it shows the profile pictures of friends in small circles above when you open the app. This leaves enough space for the application to simultaneously display the Stories bar and a square square below it before you start scrolling. Then, in the middle, he uses preview thumbnails to open up the stories you missed, in case people who recorded them are more flashy than their faces.

Instagram Stories has 250 million daily users, more than the entire Snapchat app. Fast feature launches, sleek design quality, fast loading and a combination with the already addictive Instagram feed have made Stories a massive win for an app with over 800 million monthly users.


Snapchat has refused to offer some kind of algorithmic sorting like Instagram Stories, instead showing it the recently added stories instead of those of your best friends. And with cloned stories selling slowly as users grow as augmented reality filters turn into table problems, Snapchat will need serious innovation to keep the competition against Instagram.

SnapMap, AR art, and 3D characters like his hot dog dancing may not be enough. Snapchat will require a radically new function or a fundamental redefinition of some of its key product philosophies, such as chronological sorting to gain ground. And even then, Instagram will wait to copy and refine what pioneers Evan Spiegel.
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No, iPhones don’t have a special folder for your sexy pics

October 31, 2017 0

It's understandable that when things change as fast as they do today, we need a little bit of our ideas on how things work to compensate them. A misunderstanding deserves to be resolved because it's so sensitive, it's the suggestion that Apple (or Google or someone else) maintains somewhere a special folder where all your naughty pictures are kept. You're right to be suspicious, but fortunately that does not work.

What are these companies scanning in one way or another? They use sophisticated image recognition algorithms that can easily detect everything from dogs and boats to faces and actions.

When a dog is detected, a "dog" tag is added to the metadata that the service is tracking relative to that photo - in addition to things like the time the photo was taken, the exposure settings, the location, and so on. It's a very low level process - the system does not really know what a dog is, only that photos with some associated numbers (corresponding to different visual characteristics) get this label. But now you can search for these things, and he can easily find them.

This analysis usually takes place within a sandbox, and very little of what systems determine makes it outside of that sandbox. Of course, there are special exceptions for things like child pornography that have very special classifiers that are explicitly allowed out of this sandbox.

The sandbox needs to be big enough to host a web service. You will receive your photos with their content when you download the Google Photos, iCloud or other. That is no longer the case.

Due to the improvements in the world of machine learning and processing power, the same algorithms that were previously run on batteries of huge servers are now strong enough to run directly on the phone. So now your photos get the "dog" day without having to send them to Apple or Google for analysis.
This is probably a much better system in terms of security and privacy - no longer using someone else's device to check your privacy and trusting them to keep it private. You should always trust them, but there are fewer parts and steps to trust - a simplification and shortening of the "chain of trust".

But express that user can be a challenge. What they see is that their private photos - perhaps very private - were assigned to categories and sorted without their permission. It's hard to believe that this is possible without a company not putting its nose there.

Part of it is the user interface error. When you browse the Photos app on iPhone, it will display what you have searched for (if available) as a category. This indicates that the photos are somewhere in a "folder", probably as a "car" or "swimsuit" or whatever. What we have here is a failure to communicate how the research actually works.

The limitation of these photo classification algorithms is that they are not very flexible. You can train one to spot the 500 most common objects in the photos. However, if your photo does not contain one, it will not be marked. The "categories" displayed in the search are the common objects by which the systems are trained. As mentioned above, this is a pretty rough process - in fact, just a threshold of trust that some objects are in the picture. (In the picture above, for example, the picture of me in a soundproof room was called "cardboard", I suppose because the walls look like milk cartons?)

The whole "file" thing and most ideas about how files are stored in computer systems today are anachronistic. But those of us who grew up with the desktop nested folder system often think so, and it's hard to think of a photo container as something other than a folder - but the folders have certain connotations of creation, access and administration this does not apply here.

Your photos are not placed in a container labeled "swimsuit" - it only compares the text you wrote in the box with the text in the photo's metadata, and when the swimsuits are recognized, it lists those photos.

This does not mean that the companies concerned are completely exempt from any questioning. Which objects and categories are looking for these services, what is excluded and why? How have their classifiers been trained and are they, for example, effective in people with different skin colors or genders? How to control or disable this feature or why not?

Fortunately, I've contacted several of the largest technology companies to ask them some of these questions and explain their answers in a future article.
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Samsung posts another record profit thanks to its chips business

October 31, 2017 0

Samsung posted another record quarter, and it again has its components business to thank for more stellar results.

The Korea tech giant shrugged off scandals, which include a jail sentence for its de facto leader and last year’s Note 7 saga, to record a 14.53 trillion won ($12.92 billion) profit for the recent Q3 2017 period.

Revenue came in at 62.05 trillion won ($55.18 billion), up 30 percent year-on-year and a record for a third quarter, in no small part due to Samsung’s components business, which supplies chips for a range of consumer electronics including smartphones from other firms.

Samsung sells more phones each year than any other company on the planet, but its semiconductor business has traditionally been its best performer and that was once the case in Q3. Overall revenue from the unit was up 51 percent to reach 19.9 trillion won ($17.7 billion), with its profit up close to three-fold to reach 9.96 trillion won, $8.86 billion.

The Samsung mobile business got an increase in overall sales and revenue year-on-year, mainly because of the disastrous Note 7 recall, but it was down on the previous quarter’s metrics. The company put that down to customers favoring mid- and low-end devices with smaller margins.

Looking forward, it said it intends to increase the focus on higher-end devices as we enter the holiday season when demand increases, but “intensifying competition” — i.e. the iPhone X launch — and the rising cost of materials stand out as key challenges.

The company said it expects its financial performance to continue to grow in 2018 “primarily from the component businesses, as conditions in the memory market are likely to remain favorable and the company expects increased sales of flexible OLED panels.”

Samsung also announced three new leaders. The company uses a co-CEO structure that sees the heads of its three core divisions — consumer electronics, IT and mobile communications and device solutions — lead the business and that’s where the new hires, who are all Samsung veterans who have been promoted, will sit.
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Why Snapchat Spectacles failed

October 31, 2017 0

ow come only 0.08% of Snapchat’s users bought its camera sunglasses? Hundreds of thousands of pairs of Spectacles sit rotting in warehouses after the company bungled the launch. Initial hype and lines for its roving, limited time only Snapbot vending machines led Snap to overestimate demand but underdeliver on quality and content.

Massive piles of assembled and unassembled video-recording sunglasses sit unsold, contributing to Snap’s enormous costs and losses, says The Information. Internal Snap data shows less than 50 percent of buyers kept using Spectacles a month after purchase, Business Insider’s Alex Heath reports. A “sizeable” percentage stopped after just a week, with a source calling the retention rate “shockingly low”.

What was the problem? Snap generated huge hype for Spectacles, but then waited 5 months to openly sell them. Once people actually tried Spectacles, few kept wearing them, and word of mouth about their disuse spread. Snap never got visionary video markers onboard. And as Snapchat’s popularity waned in the face of competitors, the fact that Spectacles only interfaced with its app rather than a phone’s camera roll became a burden.

Snap did some things right with Spectacles. The fashion photo spread announcement felt classy and surprising despite clues and photos of CEO Evan Spiegel trickling out ahead. The initial launch was a marketing extravaganza, with multi-hour lines of cool kids waiting on the Venice Beach boardwalk to buy them. And the Snapbots being dropped in random locations was exciting and made people feel special if they got ahold of them. But once people put them on their face, the excitement died off.

Here’s a breakdown of the major flaws that emerged with Spectacles in the year since their debut, with a focus on the stilted launch strategy:

Botched Roll Out

Snap first announced Spectacles with some Karl Lagerfeld photos of Spiegel wearing them on September 24th 2016. Hype was high despite the beachey color options that turned some people off. It took until November 10th for the first Snapbot vending machines to launch. While the hype had cooled slightly, demand was huge as people wanted to be the first on the block with Spectacles, and lines stretched down streets.

But Snap whether it was because Snap wanted to milk the Snapbot promotion, couldn’t tell if Spectacles should be exclusive or widely available, or it had supply chain problems, it took until February 20th for Snap to start openly selling Specs online.

Waiting five months after the initial announcement was an eternity in the fast-moving teenage fad cycle. They weren’t cool by the time they were buyable. Everyone had already seen the sunglasses and circular video all over the Internet, most owners had long since stopped using them, the holiday season had passed, and few people wanted to buy so late. It took until June, 8 months after their debut, for Spectacles to become available in Europe.

If Snap had instead made its announcement, quickly outfitted some lucky normal users and celebrities with Spectacles, then launched a giant Black Friday sale at the peak of its hype, all those people fascinated with the gadget might have bought immediately. Everyone would have paid before word got out that people weren’t going to wear camera glasses all that much.

Alternatively, Snap could have gone the path of exclusivity lit by its fashion-focused debut. Rather than ever selling Specs openly, it could have gotten them into runway shows and magazines while sticking with the limited-edition Snapbots. Then after a few months it could have ceased all sales, turned existing pairs into fought-over collector’s items, and saved the mainstream rollout for an eventual v2 launch. Unfortunately, Snap seems to have got stuck between these exclusive and mass-retail strategies.

Where Were The Spectacles Influencers? – To drive demand, Snap needed to demonstrate all the creative things you could do with Spectacles, and the cool people who wore them. Yet at the time, it still had a very hands-off approach to dealing with traditional celebrities and web influencers. Snap didn’t make outfitting creators with Specs and training them to use the camera glasses a priority. Instead of top Snappers constantly posting circular videos and encouraging fans to do the same, Snap effectively left the gadget out to dry. Snap let random Spectacles buyers, often over-enthusiastic social media amateurs, define the image of the product, similar to how Google’s core mistake was allowing geeky developers to become the face of Glass.


Few Examples Of Great Content – Stemming from Snap’s failure to foster a Spectacles creator scene, it did a terrible job of showing off how Spectacles could be used beyond the initial commercial. Neither Snap’s in-house team or independent social stars were recruited to make videos exposing the creative opportunities of the device. It did little through event marketing or in-app promotion to encourage Spectacle content creation. Karen X. Cheng was perhaps the only Spectacles influencer lighting the path, with her first-person mirror dancing video and Spectacles-on-babies ad she helped Brawny make. But Snap should have ensured the Internet was flooded with these videos proving what you can’t do with your phone’s camera, and why you should buy Spectacles.



People Are Still Freaked Out By Camera Glasses – Google Glass tainted the market with its “not sure if you’re recording me” design. Even though Snap put more obvious recording signal lights on Spectacles, people would still question you about whether they were on camera. That not only made people uncomfortable being around Spectacles, but made you feel like a bit of a creep just wearing them even if you never tapped the shutter button. Their appeal was further limited by their polarizing “fashion-forward” design (some would call ugly), while the only non-black colors were aggressively bright teal and coral.


Snap, formerly Snapchat Inc, is a privately owned multinational camera company. Snap is behind Snapchat, a photo messaging app that allows users to take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to recipients. In 2016, it released Spectacles, video-sharing sunglasses that free the Snapchat app from smartphone cameras.


Limited Content Portability – When Spectacles debuted, Snapchat clone Instagram Stories had only just launched. But soon reaching over 250 million daily users, Instagram Stories grew bigger than Snapchat’s whole app that now has 173 million. Snap didn’t have the only Stories in town, and lots of people began cross-posting between the two apps. But Spectacles made that difficult. Specs shoot in a proprietary circular video format. On Snapchat, you see the content full screen no matter what orientation you hold your phone in. But when exported, those circular videos get inset within a white square in a locked orientation. That makes them look obviously ported from Snapchat rather than made for these other channels, especially inside a rectangular Instagram Story. Spectacles wouldn’t connect to your phone’s camera roll, only to Snapchat, making exporting a chore. And they didn’t take photos, just videos.

Stuck In The Fuzzy Sun – The shaded lenses in Spectacles made them tough to wear indoors or at night. That disqualified a lot of the parties, concerts, meals, and hang-outs people like to Snap. Beyond music festivals, beaches, back yards, and parks, there fewer opportunities to use them then buyers may have expected. I saw one guy who had popped the lenses out so he could wear them anywhere, but that made their look stick out even more. Snap never struck any official partnerships with companies offering non-shaded or prescription lenses, though some providers of lens replacements cropped up. That led some people with vision problems or who stay out of the sun to write-off the product entirely.


Only unofficial third-parties made clear or prescription replacement lens for Spectacles. Snap didn’t.

Usability Problems Galore – Having to pair Spectacles with Snapchat instead of the standard Bluetooth menu was annoying. Data transfers from the glasses to the phone took forever and would get easily interrupted. They only recorded videos in 720p, not 1080. Videos were clumsily first sent in low-resolution until a higher-res version could be delivered. Spectacles drain your phone battery super fast. The bulky and oddly shaped triangular prism case was tough to fit in bags and impossible to get in your pocket. The battery and recording lights were confusing. Sometimes Spectacles would require a “hold the shutter button for 55-seconds” reset that wasn’t clearly explained on any of Snap’s support pages. And finally, our hands are already an incredibly agile, auto-stabilized, selfie-able conveyance for a camera.



For a v1 product, Spectacles were a valiant effort. But it was the stuttered roll out, lack of promotional support, and rising competition combined with their hardware problems the doomed Spectacles. Hopefully v2 will correct these missteps. Snap already has a patent for an augmented reality version, and it’s shelved other product ideas like a drone.

If Snap wants to truly live up to its name as a camera company, it either needs to nail a single gadget you want to use multiple times per week forever, or release an array of short-lived but fun camera toys. Either way, it must seize on the hype it creates rather than letting it fade, and put the work in to foster an ecosystem of creators to pioneer videography styles everyone else can try. Building a trend-setting camera isn’t just about the tech you put into it, but encouraging the content that comes out.
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Amazon Prime Video launches globally on Xbox consoles

October 31, 2017 0

Today Amazon Prime Video launches worldwide for Xbox One and will be available on the new Xbox One X as soon as it hits stores on November 7th.

The streaming app, the only place to see Amazon Originals as a banner and Mozart in the jungle, will live in Canada, Mexico, France, Italy, Spain and India.

In January 2016, Netflix extended its service to almost every country in the world, making it the only streaming service to do so. But in December of last year, Amazon Prime Video rivaled Netflix and expanded into more than 200 countries and territories around the world.

With the introduction of Amazon Prime Video on Xbox One, Amazon continues with this extension at the platform level.

It also comes at a time when Amazon Studios is evolving and relocating the company to a new location in Culver City, California. The company said it will increase hiring in new creative, technical, marketing and legal roles, with 84 positions available at Amazon Studios.

Premium members who own an Xbox One can instantly download and stream the app for free, while non-Amazon Prime customers can subscribe to Prime Video for $ 9 a month. New Zealanders and Australians can sign up for $ 2.99 / month for the first six months and $ 5.99 / month thereafter, while Brazilians can earn $ 7.90 / month in the first six months. Month and then $ 14.90.
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Tuesday, 3 October 2017

Rolls-Royce to Use Google Machine Learning in Quest for Autonomous Ships

October 03, 2017 0

A conceptual design by Rolls-Royce of an 1,000 TEU unmanned feeder vessel. Image credit: Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce has signed a deal with Google to gain access to the tech giant’s intelligent awareness systems to help make existing vessels safer and eventually leading to the development of autonomous, unmanned ships.

The agreement, believed to be the first in the marine sector, was signed Tuesday at the Google Cloud Summit in Sweden. It allows Rolls-Royce to use Google’s Cloud Machine Learning Engine to further train the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) based object classification system for detecting, identifying and tracking the objects a vessel can encounter at sea. The Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine uses the same neural net-based machine intelligence software that powers many of Google’s products, including image and voice search.

“While intelligent awareness systems will help to facilitate an autonomous future, they can benefit maritime businesses right now making vessels and their crews safer and more efficient. By working with Google Cloud we can make these systems better faster, saving lives,” said Karno Tenovuo, Rolls-Royce, SVP Ship Intelligence.

Machine Learning is a set of algorithms, tools, and techniques that mimic human learning to solve specific problems. By analyzing existing data sets, machine learning can be used to recognize patterns in data, making predictions from previously unseen data. The bigger the data set, the more complex the patterns the model can recognize and the more accurate the predictions.

“Rolls-Royce will use Google Cloud’s software to create bespoke machine learning models which can interpret large and diverse marine data sets created by Rolls-Royce,” the company said in a statement. “Rolls-Royce’s expertise in the maritime sector will be used to prepare the data to train models, ensuring that it is relevant and in sufficient quantity to create statistical significance. As part of the machine learning process, the models’ predictions are evaluated in practical marine applications, allowing the models to be further refined.”

“By accessing this software through the Cloud, the models can be developed from anywhere in the world and are immediately accessible globally allowing thousands of users. Models can therefore be trained on large quantities (terabytes) of data. This will be essential as autonomous ships become commonplace,” Rolls-Royce said.

In the longer term, Rolls-Royce and Google intend to undertake joint research on unsupervised and multimodal learning. The two companies will also test whether speech recognition and synthesis are viable solutions for human-machine interfaces in marine applications, as well as work on optimizing the performance of local neural network computing on board ships using open source machine intelligence software libraries such as Google’s TensorFlow.

“Intelligent awareness systems will make vessels safer, easier and more efficient to operate by providing crew with an enhanced understanding of their vessel’s surroundings. This will be achieved by fusing data from a range of sensors with information from existing ship systems, such as Automatic Identification System (AIS) and radar. Data from other sources, including global databases, will also have a role,” Rolls-Royce said.
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2017 Review : Terms and conditions you may NOT know about TSTV

October 03, 2017 0
A new pay TV service TVST is in town, after launching yesterday, 1st October. Lots of people are already excited on everything about TSTV.

Meanwhile,there are lots of speculations going on how TSTV services would be delivered and particularly many people out there don’t really understand the nature of services that TSTV promises and hence the wrong information been spread across.

Below are the 6 things you should know about TSTV before making purchases;

1. The N5000 for TSTV initial purchase includes a decoder, a dish and a remote control but excludes any installation service charge.


2. TSTV Pay AS You Go pause service i.e. the ability to pause your subscription when not in use would be available to those that would go for the maximum subscription which is the monthly N3,000 package and you would only be able to pause subscription not more than 7 days, thereby allowing you 37 days at most for your monthly subscription. So don’t expect to use your 1 month subscription from January to December in the name of pausing or expect to user 1 day N200 subscription for 1 month.

3. The first time you buy the decoder is the only time you would be able to enjoy up to 20GB of data as bonus, for subsequent full monthly subscription comes with 10GB of data and not 20GB as some of you might be thinking.

4. TSTV has incorporated its subscription service payments into Quickteller the popular E-payment service in the country and just like DSTV, you would also be able to easily pay for your TSTV subscriptions through Quickteller.

5. You would be able to buy extra 1GB data or above from TSTV at the cost of N300 for 1GB

6. TSTV data allocation has nothing to do with watching of TVST channels but just a separate and additional offer to the entire TSTV concept or better still what you commonly regard as Value Added Service (VAS)
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Saturday, 16 September 2017

GET 1GB FREE ON AIRTEL

September 16, 2017 0

Telecommunications network in Nigeria can't block all loopholes as far as the country is is underdeveloped. However, we present to you another hot brand new airtel cheat or let me call it community service. 

Getting the 1gb is the easiest airtel loopholes ever found.. 
Just follow the below steps and if you didn't get it or lost somewhere don't hesitate to use the reply feature.


Quote:

  1. Dial *317# and then after success result..
  1. Dial *688*1#
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