Nvidia renames, formally launches new GeForce Now game streaming service

For the past year, Nvidia’s GeForce Grid service has provided Shield owners with the ability to stream games from remote servers. The service has now gone live as GeForce Now, an $8 per month streaming service. Nvidia claims to offer a 1080p-quality service at 60 FPS at that $8 rate, with the first three months included free (the service launches on October 1 for North America, the EU, and Japan.
Right now, the service offers more than 50 titles, including the first three Batman Arkham titles, multiple Lego-themed games, Orcs Must Die (a personal favorite), Darksiders, and The Walking Dead. Multiple Grid titles are also available, as is the original Borderlands and The Witcher 2.

Nvidia is talking a good game with its promises of speed and latency, but it’s important to remember that much of GeForce Now’s performance will depend on your ISP, not Nvidia itself. While Nvidia’s PR talks up the fact that it has “optimized every piece of the technology behind GeForce NOW for gaming,” it can’t optimize the quality of your Internet connection or the consistency with which you receive content. In order to maintain a 60 FPS frame rate, new frames need to be delivered extremely quickly. Nvidia’s previous latency slides have implied that GeForce Grid could match console play, but that’s going to depend on your Internet connection.

One other note about Nvidia and the Shield ecosystem. If you buy an Nvidia controller and plan to take it back and forth across multiple devices, bear in mind that the controller requires GeForce Experience to be installed on a PC in order to function — and GeForce Experience doesn’t work with AMD or Intel GPUs. If you need a controller that can play on multiple devices and you aren’t willing to buy 100% into the NV ecosystem (something that’s increasingly hard to do, since an increasing number of laptops don’t contain discrete GPUs), you’ll need to buy a second controller.
Nvidia has talked about wanting to become the Netflix of gaming, but it’s lock-ins like this that will make ubiquitous market domination difficult. Netflix is Netflix precisely because you can stream it to practically every device manufactured in the past five years. TVs, consoles, PCs, smartphones — Netflix runs on all of them. Nvidia’s GeForce Now service, in contrast, runs only on Nvidia’s Shield. Even the company’s controllers are only compatible with PCs if you have an Nvidia card installed — and, of course, Nvidia locks out customers from using GameWorks or PhysX on hybrid systems with an AMD GPU installed.
If Nvidia is serious about becoming a dominant force in game streaming that can compete with Sony’s PlayStation Now, it’s going to have to eventually open its ecosystem and begin attracting a wider range of customers. Still, GeForce Now is a first step, not an endgame — we’ll have to see if the company’s service can match its promised performance.

IBM breakthrough improves carbon nanotube scaling below 10nm

Over the past few years, IBM has poured a great deal of time and effort into researching carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The existence of single-walled carbon nanotubes and their marvelous semiconductor properties occurred independently at both NEC and IBM, and Big Blue has been interested in capitalizing on that discovery for well over a decade. IBM researchers have now published a paper in which they claim to have demonstrated highly beneficial scaling capabilities in carbon nanotubes.
We’ve discussed the difficulties of scaling semiconductors as the distance between features shrinks with every passing generation, but the specific breakthrough IBM is claiming is in an area of chip design we haven’t discussed much. In conventional silicon (or conventional carbon nanotubes, for that matter), there’s been a known problem — as semiconductors continue to shrink, the contact area between the metal and semiconductor hasn’t been scaling. Generally speaking, smaller contact areas lead to increased resistance, and increased resistance means higher heat. Manufacturers have fought back against these trends with a variety of methods, but the lack of contact scaling is one of the fundamental barriers to pushing silicon to ever-smaller sizes.

Image by IBM Research

IBM thinks its carbon nanotube technology could solve that problem. EETimes has an excellent write-up of the technology, though it hilariously refers to EUV lithography as “already in place,” — a declaration that I’m certain would surprise both Intel and TSMC. With our recent breakthrough, “Shu-Jen Han, IBM manager of nanoscale science and technology at its T.J. Watson Research Center (Yorktown, Heights) told EE Times, “we now know how to scale [the contact] so it is no longer the limiting factor for carbon nanotube transistors. Our new contacts are measured in angstroms and have just 36 k-ohms of resistance, including both ends.”
The new approach involves welding — nanowelding — a nanotube with molybdenum before they are self-aligned as transistor channels. The final step is to heat the assembly to 850C, melting the molybdenum off and creating carbide. According to Richard Doherty, of Envision Engineering, this solution gives IBM a unique advantage in scaling all the way down to 1.8nm. According to EETimes, IBM may be prepping this technology to be ready at the 5nm node, for introduction at 3nm and below. With the method already proven in theory at 9nm, there seems to be little barrier to further scaling.

A nanotube future?

There are, however, some pointed caveats to these findings. First, there’s the fact that IBM is only currently capable of building p-type transistors using this method. That doesn’t mean that the technology is useless — many of the proposed near-term solutions for improved silicon scaling rely on different materials for the p-channel and n-channel, but it definitely introduces additional complexity.
The International Technical Roadmap for Semiconductors hasn’t issued new reports since 2013; the group is currently evaluating changes to its measuring criteria and formulating new reports, but the 2013 data set is still online. Looking back at it, the roadmap for near-term introduction of carbon nanotubes wasn’t very rosy.

This chart shows the suitability of new materials compared to current methods, as well as the dates at which they might be introduced. Carbon nanotubes scored particularly badly in property control, contact viarability, and control of formation, location, and direction. IBM has claimed to have made substantial advances in all three areas since this report was written. In a 2014 discussion with The Register, IBM Researcher’s director of Physical Science, Supratik Guha stated: “You have to make carbon nanotubes with purity levels that are six nines. Today we are at four nines and over a year ago [we were] at 98.5 percent.” This aligns with the values listed in the 2013 ITRS reports, which were far too low to use for semiconductor manufacturing. IBM is pouring billions into researching CNTs, including each of these problems.
Keeping in mind that each additional “9” means a full order of magnitude improvement, CNTs still had a very long way to go in 2014. Solving the contact problem, however, would clear a substantial hurdle, possibly allowing for long-term adoption. If the goal is to bring the technology in at the 3nm node, there’s plenty of time to wait — while multiple sources that wrote up this story skipped this minor point, this prediction is a long time out. With nodes now shifting roughly every 30 months, we’re two years from 10nm and 5 years from 5nm. That puts the introduction of CNTs at the 3nm node, ~2023.

Oculus Rift now expected to cost more than $350

Ever since the Oculus Rift debuted on Kickstarter, there have been questions about how much the headset would cost. The first dev kit cost $300 when purchased as part of the Kickstarter and the second dev kit, which improved on the platform in a number of ways, weighs in at $350. Analysts had expected that Oculus would attempt to bring the Oculus headset to market at around that price point, since $350 is already an incredibly steep price for a nascent platform, but CEO Palmer Lucky has shattered that expectation.

World War Toons, one of a number of VR titles in development

According to an new interview published by RoadtoVR, Lucky has now stated that the kits will be more than $350, though he’s not willing to state how much. Lucky explains that the Oculus Rift has added a great deal of additional technology since the days of the DK1 and DK2. According to him, the Rift is designed to be the best VR experience, hands down:

“It would really suck if you put something out there and people were like ‘Ah man… the Rift is good, but it’s not quite there, you know? If only it was a little better, if the lenses were a little better, if the resolution was a little better, if the screens had been a little bit better, then it would be great because you’d you’d say God, we could have just charged a little more and put a little bit more money into custom hardware and actually achieve that.’… I can’t tell you that it’s going to be $350, and I would say I think people are going to be happy with what they get for the price because I really do think it’s going to be that best VR headset you can buy.”

How the perfect is the enemy of good

There are multiple reasons why this price is unlikely to sit well with the company’s fans. First, the entire point of the Facebook acquisition was supposed to be to give Oculus funds that would allow it to bring products to market that didn’t cost this much money. $400 (the minimum likely price point) is the same as what people would shell out for a PS4 or Xbox One bundle, which would contain multiple games. It’s the cost of a high-end PC video card or a 42-inch 1080p TV. That’s a huge commitment for an utterly unproven technology with few-to-no shipping titles on launch day. I’m certain there’ll be a game or two and some tech demos, but it’s going to take years before VR is widely integrated in games, assuming it achieves critical mass at all.

Eve: Valkyrie

Next, there’s the unflattering comparison against other VR solutions. It’s all well and good to aim for the top of the market, but that tends to only work when you’ve got a track record of delivering premium products. Companies like Apple have pulled this off before, but Oculus isn’t Apple. Perhaps more importantly, committing to a $400 Oculus also means buying a system capable of using that hardware effectively. The Oculus Rift may offer a vastly superior experience to, say, the Gear VR, but you can buy four Gear VR headsets for the price of a single Oculus Rift. That comparison isn’t flattering.
The final problem is this: Oculus wants to deliver the premiere VR experience, but a $400 price tag guarantees that if the mass market adopts VR, it won’t use Oculus hardware — it’ll use equipment from Samsung or another low-cost manufacturer. This, in turn, means that whether VR sinks or fails will depend entirely on the experience of using VR on someone else’s hardware. If consumers buy low-end VR hardware and hate it, they’ll blame VR as a poor use of technology.
I’m torn on this point, because I think high-quality VR experiences are critical to achieving acceptance for the platform — but if those experiences cost $400 or more, it’s unlikely that VR will ever achieve critical mass.

Sensible maneuver or Oculus Grift?

I believe Lucky when he says he wants to build the premiere VR headset experience you can have today, but I’m not at all convinced he’s made the right call on this one. Much will depend on how Sony’s PlayStation VR and the HTC Vive are priced. If Oculus comes in under these solutions, it could still win significant marketshare for itself, even if the high price tag keeps most users on the sidelines.
Right now, it looks as though Oculus has priced itself neatly out of the market. At $400+, users are going to look for other solutions — and companies like HTC could make a killing on selling “good enough” hardware. By staking an early claim to best-in-class, Lucky may have ensured that the Rift becomes irrelevant.

Loophole in 1970 Clean Air Act may prevent criminal prosecution of VW

Ever since the VW scandal broke two weeks ago, there’ve been ongoing questions as to the types of penalties VW might face. Not only did the company deliberately include so-called “defeat devices,” designed to allow their diesel vehicles to spew up to 40x more pollutants than allowed under US law, they lied to investigators and misrepresented the nature of the problem, all while continuing to market these vehicles as “clean diesel” and a practical alternative to hybrids or electric cars. Given that VW has admitted that it lied and defrauded more than 11 million customers (closer to 15 million if you include vehicles from Audi and Skoda), it may not be possible to bring criminal charges against the company.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the section of the Clean Air Act of 1970 specifies criminal penalties for fixed sources of emissions (power plants), but only specifies civil penalties for automakers and other moving sources of air pollution. Our own cursory investigation of the Clean Air Act confirms this — while an omission of this sort does not automatically mean the government cannot bring a criminal charges against a company, the law does not explicitly carve out criminal penalties.

Emissions measured on US vehicles. The left two are made by VW

The WSJ reports that the government is looking to bring charges on different counts, including lying to federal officials, but the government may choose to pursue civil, rather than criminal charges in any case. Civil charges would allow VW’s staff to avoid jail time, but could still carry staggering fines that could bankrupt the company. Pressure on VW has been growing from all sides; the company recently declared that it had a plan in place to bring all vehicles into proper compliance with both European and US law. The only way for VW to have developed that plan so quickly is if it simply intends to update vehicle software to turn the “test” mode feature on full-time. While likely to work, it’s also likely to anger many VW drivers, who will see engine performance, fuel economy, or maintenance costs increase as a result of the changes. The first class action lawsuits against VW, needless to say, are already rolling forward.
At Slate, David Auerbach makes the argument that the man almost certainly responsible for the VW scandal has, thus far, escaped notice. According to Auerbach, Ferdinand Piech, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche and chairman of VW’s board until this past spring, hand-selected the executives that ran the affected businesses and presided over the culture that allowed to him to be installed. VW, unlike most ostensibly public companies, holds the vast majority of its voting power in private hands and operates with a rigid, top-down, hierarchical and dynastic power structure. We don’t know yet which executives knew about the defeat devices or who ordered them installed, but given that problems are now cropping up across VW’s various product families, it seems obvious that this problem went deeper than just the CEO.

EU probes Samsung LCD efficiency claims as real-world testing show huge discrepancies

The EU has announced that it will investigate multiple reports that Samsung’s LCD panels cheat on energy efficiency by detecting when standardized tests are run and adjusting dynamic brightness levels in order to obfuscate their actual panel use. Samsung has denied any wrongdoing — while the company acknowledges that power use can vary significantly by content, it claims that the observed differences are caused by general energy efficiency measures rather than any attempt to obfuscate a test. The EU is unlikely to accept any company’s word on such topics in the near-future, however — not after the recent VW scandal that’s rocked the auto industry.
Samsung’s hardware was tested by the EU’s ComplianTV group, which found that Samsung’s “motion lighting” feature reduced power consumption under internationally accepted test conditions, but not when television sets were deployed in normal use. A second Swedish group found evidence of additional cheating. “The Swedish Energy Agency’s Testlab has come across televisions that clearly recognize the standard film (IEC) used for testing… These displays immediately lower their energy use by adjusting the brightness of the display when the standard film is being run. This is a way of avoiding the market surveillance authorities and should be addressed by the commission.”
Unfortunately, there’s a confounding variable in all of this. Samsung may or may not be cheating on these standardized tests, but power consumption in an LCD panel can absolutely vary depending on what you’re doing with it. In his recent LCD vs. OLED shootout, Dr. Soneira posted power efficiency figures from multiple types of content between Samsung and LG displays:

Click to enlarge

What’s tricky about this situation is that it’s possible for all sets of claims to be true. Samsung claims that its motion lighting feature is meant to reduce power consumption in certain types of content, the EU is investigating claims that Samsung cheats, and it’s obvious that different types of content produce very different levels of energy consumption. What this will come down to is whether Samsung and other TV manufacturers are claiming to hit efficiency targets in specific types of content that they don’t actually deliver, and whether the TVs operate in the same mode when displaying standard content as with test content.
To some extent, this illustrates the problem with trying to create formal metrics for measuring performance. On the one hand, you want to have a unified set of tests that any organization can deploy to test common hardware. Designing custom benchmarks or sequences is extremely time-consuming, and there’s always the chance that you may miss some type of content that ought to have been measured, but wasn’t. As TVs become more sophisticated, however, they have gained the ability to detect and obfuscate certain kinds of tests.
These results also highlight the dangers of allowing companies to self-test and report the efficiency of their own hardware. Allowing the fox to guard the henhouse may save dollars in the short run, but it’s an inevitable recipe for long-term trouble

Amazon will no longer sell Chromecast, Apple TV

For more than 15 years, Amazon has worked to build a reputation as the “everything” store, where virtually any product you might want to (legally) purchase can be found and ordered. The company has now announced that this will no longer be the case. By October 29, no listings for either Google’s Chromecast or Apple’s Apple TV will be accepted at Amazon. The company’s reasoning?
“Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime,” an Amazon representative stated. “It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion. Roku, XBOX, PlayStation and Fire TV are excellent choices.”

The reason Amazon is making this change has nothing to do with the usefulness of Prime Video. By most measurements, less than 20% of Amazon users buy Amazon Prime in the first place. Furthermore, there’s absolutely nothing stopping Amazon from creating an Android application that includes Chromecast support. Granted, Apple’s walled garden is a much tougher nut to crack, but there are already workarounds and options available on the Android side of the equation.
The fact that Amazon is only banning two competitor devices is also quite indicative of the company’s actual end goals. How many TVs, after all, don’t support streaming Amazon Prime video? How many tablets? Why has this suddenly become an issue now that new Chromecast and Apple TV’s have launched, rather than months ago?

From Everything Store to walled garden

Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, has previously boasted that Amazon Prime customers spend an average of $1,500 per year at Amazon, compared to just $625 for regular shoppers. If that’s true, it means that Amazon Prime customers account for a disproportional amount of the site’s overall revenue — and Amazon has every reason to try to lock them into its own ecosystem. This push explains the increased ad presence on the newly designed FireOS, as well as the generally lower-quality experience on these devices — Amazon is stepping up its lock-in.
This has nothing to do with customer confusion. Instead, it’s a push to create an Amazon-like wall around video content, the same way Apple walls basically everything, and Google locks down Android. For a company that often credits its own operating system as the anti-Google when it comes to not gathering personal information about its users, Amazon is all too willing to enact lockouts that ensure customers have choice but to use its own products.
For a company that squawked so loudly about Apple’s illegal collusion with publishers, Amazon has no problems abusing its own dominant market position to ensure customers are guided towards its own products and away from others. Roku ought to be looking over its shoulder. Netflix would almost certainly already be on the chopping block, if Amazon thought it could get away with it.

NASA releases stunning new photo of Pluto’s moon Charon

New Horizons has put Pluto in its rear-view mirror, but NASA still has many gigabytes of data to download from the probe. As the images and readings trickle back, we’re gaining a greater understanding of the former ninth planet, but also of its moons. The latest image to be released by NASA shows Pluto’s largest moon Charon, and it’s much more lumpy and uneven than you probably expected.
During its flyby of the Pluto system, New Horizons got within 17,000 miles (27,000km) of Charon. This object is about 600 miles in diameter and is massive enough that it actually forms a binary system with Pluto — they both orbit around a single barycenter near Pluto. The images we had of Pluto before the New Horizons mission were not great, but Charon was even more mysterious. The newly released photo reveals a plethora of fascinating geological features, though.
Charon’s surface turns out to be very irregular with mountains, craters, and a giant 1000 mile-long canyon stretching across the middle. It’s four times longer than the grand canyon, and that’s just the part of it we can see. New Horizons was just doing a flyby of the Pluto system, so it didn’t get a look at the other side of the moon. NASA researchers have entertained the possibility that the network of canyons stretches all the way around the planet.

The plains south of the canyons are remarkably smooth compared to the craggy, pockmarked surface to the north. Scientists say this indicates significant resurfacing of Charon has occurred in the not-too-distant past. So like Pluto, it might be more geologically active than we thought. The likelihood of seeing so much geological activity on a small moon at the edge of the solar system was seen as very unlikely.
The reason for this radical remodeling of the surface could be due to volcanic activity, but NASA seems more interested in the possibility of cryovolcanism. An internal water ocean may have frozen in the past and resulted in changes in volume and mass distribution could have led to the surface cracking open and the formation of mountainous features.
We might learn more about the nature of Charon in the coming months. There is even higher-resolution Charon data still sitting in New Horizons, but it’s going to take months to get all that data back to Earth. The data link between NASA and the probe only runs at 1-2Kbps. In the meantime, NASA is looking at where to send New Horizons next. It has enough fuel left to take a closer look at another Kuiper Belt object. Maybe we’ll find more evidence out there to help unravel the mysteries of Charon.

How to make money from Neobux $100

Google takes another step into your living room with its Nexus Player (hands-on)

Google's wanted a piece of your living room for ages, and now -- after two attempts that never really went anywhere -- the search giant seems poised to get what it wants. Android TV is coming to, well, a TV near you, and we just spent a few brief moments wrapping our heads around Mountain View's vision of television with its new, ASUS-made Nexus Player.

Gallery | 27 Photos

Google Nexus Player hands-on

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We've already taken a look at what Android TV wants to be, so let's talk a bit about the Nexus Player specifically. You can pre-order one now and it's expected to ship in early November, so feel free to think of it as the vanguard of Google's latest television invasion. Aesthetically, the Nexus Player won't raise any eyebrows -- it's basically a flattened hockey puck with the Nexus logo emblazoned right on top of it. Sure, the thing might not jibe with the rest of your home theater setup, but that's hardly a problem -- Google seems to hope you won't pay attention to the little guy at all.

You see, once everything's hooked up, the Nexus Player basically does what Amazon's Fire TV does -- it acts as a conduit to all the video Google's got in its Play Store coffers. Diving into movie categories and skipping through menus is generally a breeze with the (honestly chintzy) included remote, but what's more reassuring is the fact that the remote's tiny microphone seemed to work well in a room full of clamoring nerds. Why's that so important? Well, chalk it up to the magic of the Knowledge Graph. Holding down the mic button and uttering a query (say, "Oscar nominees from 2012") prompts the Player to tap into Google's vast web of information to highlight just the films that got the Academy Award nod that year.
Of course, the broad expanses of the Google Play Store contains more than just movies -- developers can create (or, you know, modify) apps to run on bigger screens through the Nexus Player, and you can use the remote to power through a few games that don't require much in the way of input. For the trickier fare, you've got the option to bust out ASUS' $39 gamepad. It (like plenty of its contemporaries) completely apes the layout of the Xbox 360's venerable controller, but the shoulder buttons lack resistance and the d-pad is decidedly on the squishy side. Good luck using it to fire off all those hadoukens. Meanwhile, the list of compatible video apps doesn't seem to have swelled much since the last time we saw it (still no HBO Go, alas), but at least there's still Netflix and Hulu to cling to. We'll be exploring what the Nexus Player brings to the table in greater detail as we work on our full review, but just remember this: Even if you don't buy one of these things, there's a still a decent chance Android TV will worm its way into your life. Sony? Sharp? Philips? All three have committed to making Android TV-powered sets come next year, so escaping Google's clutches from the couch may be tougher than you'd think.
Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

Lukup Player Review: An ambitious service marred by avoidable hardware

Lukup

 

 

Abhishek BaxiJul 21, 2015, 05.14 PM IST

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While there have been many attempts to create a Netflix-like service in India, Lukup attempts to bring a hardware piece into the equation as well. India still lacks a quality (in terms of content) video streaming service and Lukup hopes to change that with officially licensed content.

Unlike other streaming service, you'll have to buy the Lukup Player and then pay for whatever you want to watch - choose between a monthly subscription and pay-per-view.



Hardware
The Lukup Player is a colorful, though oddly-shaped, device. It's not very classy choice of color, but if you are a pop-art fan, maybe it will appeal to you better than a boring black. The cheap plastic though strikes on first glance, and honestly, it wouldn't look premium in any color. It looks like a prototype from the lab - unfinished and creaky.

The unit packs in a variety of connectors to string the Lukup Player with your TV and DTH set-top box. There's an Ethernet port, power inlet, HDMI ports, and DIN-style breakouts for component AV in and out. There's also a USB port on the side that lets you plug in a USB drive for media playback.

The remote handheld device, or the player, sits upright on the base attaching itself with a magnet. It's just there to hold the player, with no docking or charging mechanism. The player charges via regular micro-USB and you can utilize the USB port on the base unit. Also, since the charging port is towards the bottom of the player, you can't place it on the base while charging. It's not an issue really, but is an awkward design choice.

The handheld player is even tackier. Cheap plastic, sharp edges and the build quality looks quite appalling. It looks like a beaten down device. The touchscreen is atrocious in form and function. It's grainy and washed out, and the touch response is sluggish and inconsistent. The player has five touch-sensitive buttons, which work randomly, and would sometimes not register a tap or light the button.



Experience
Once you've set up, the user experience is cumbersome and sluggish. In most cases, it took me a lot of trial-and-error to figure out a way to proceed. If any product needs an instruction manual, this one it is, but unfortunately, it comes without one.

The Lukup Player looks awkward initially. The handheld is not a remote, as I assumed it to be, but a player and has its own menu independent from the display on the television. That made me shift focus between the two repeatedly which isn't the best approach for a secondary screen. For a non-geek user, it will be really difficult to figure this out.

Working your way through the player's UI is another challenge. Only after a call with the tech team at Lukup, I figured out that a long press brings up a menu of options where I can purchase content. Yes, it's that unintuitive. Once you've managed to pay for the content, it starts playing on the TV and the player displays limited playback controls - a slider and pause and stop button. You'll have to be very careful to stay on this screen, because if you exit to browse through the menu, there's no way to jump back at it and stop the video! The player's screen stays on all the time. The 650mAh battery runs out within a few hours, sometimes before a longish movie ends.



Content
For somebody like me who has an OCD for arranging digital content properly, Lukup is an axe on the head. Content is poorly labelled, and there isn't a way to sort movies by any attribute or browse your purchased content in one place. It's random and much disorganized.

The catalogue is limited as well at the moment, but we'll hope it improves as we go along. I could find about 50 movies in Bollywood and Hollywood sections - although pretty less, they were a decent selection. The pricing ranged from INR 65-100 which is ideal, and buying a package discounts per movie price even further. There are about 15 TV shows as well. Any pay-per-view content can be watched unlimited times for three days.

Performance
One of the good things of Lukup Player is seamless network connectivity. It connected to my home Wi-Fi in a jiffy, and also easily snugged in with my Tata Sky set-top box.

While Lukup claims 720p streaming, the actual bitrate depends on quality of the internet connection, which is fair. On a basic 2Mbps connection, the movies took only a couple of minutes to buffer, and the playback was seamless. Of course, a faster connection will make things better. On an 8Mbps connection, while the movie played well in 720p, skipping forward to a different point on the timeline led to random freezing. Sometimes, I had to restart the movie to get out of the black hole.

One of the unexpected disappointments is local media playback via USB. Nothing really plays without stuttering or in most cases, wouldn't even play. I thought it was the easier nut to crack.



The Best Part
- Reasonable content pricing
- Works with existing set-top box

The Tragic Flaw
- Terrible build quality
- Unintuitive UI
- Multiple bugs and glitch experience
- Overpriced hardware



Summary
I struggled with the device, and had to find answers with two support calls from the company. Any non-tech savvy person would have a sour experience. It's really surprising that the company would launch such an apparently buggy product with atrocious build quality. The company also could've done better in guiding a user because unlike me as a technology columnist, a regular customer won't have access to the product team.

Interestingly, Lukup has an accompanying Android app, and iOS one was in the works, which works better than the Lukup Player for the service. It's an interesting option if the content catalogue is scaled, although a confusing one since that would make the Lukup Player more or less an expensive redundancy.

While the content pricing is perfect, the ₹12,000 price tag on the device is just pushing off the option from the rather empty table. I hope the company works on the content catalogue and hardware for the next iteration because the market is still wide open in India.

Sony Xperia M4 Aqua Review: A solid mid-range smartphone undone by price

smartphones

 
What is it?
The Sony Xperia M4 Aqua is the latest mid-range smartphone from Sony. The M series has always featured phones that offer great design and feature-set. With a few compromises here and there from the company's flagship devices, making them true mid-range devices Sony concentrates on a segment that has been shaken by the recent onslaught by Chinese brands.

Who is it for?
Any mid-range smartphone, and not just the Xperia M4 Aqua, is for anyone who prefers a superior smartphone experience without spending a bomb. Of course, there are a few corners cut from the flagship Z series, but the Xperia M4 Aqua is a pretty good phone for the most, especially those who prefer a premium design and have faith in the Sony brand.

Design
The Xperia M4 Aqua carries the design identity of the Xperia series of smartphones - the omni-balance design as the company prefers to call. While a tempered glass display protects the 5-inch panel, the phone features a metallic frame with matte silver colour. It not only makes the phone elegant, but the M4 Aqua exudes style. Also, the side panel makes the phone very easy to grip. The glass finish on the front and back panels, and the aluminum power button on the right edge make it stand out to say 'It's a Sony'.

The Xperia M4 Aqua is the first Sony smartphone outside the flagship Z series to be IP65 water-proof (hence the 'Aqua' in the name) and IP68 dust proof - a terrific addition to a mid-range smartphone. It's even more commendable since the M4 Aqua features a cap-less microUSB port (the audio port too does not have a flap) and you wouldn't need to open and close the flap each time you plug your phone to a charger or a cable to transfer files to/from a computer.

There's also a dedicated camera button on the right edge that takes care of one my usual cribs about most Android smartphones. What's also impressive is that Sony manages to pack in all that design elements and functional additions in a 7.3mm thick device that weighs just 136 grams.

Display
The Sony Xperia M4 Aqua sports a 5-inch HD (1280 x 720) IPS display. There's no Corning Gorilla Glass protection, but of course there's the tempered glass. The display offers great colours and is quite vibrant. While the viewing angles are pretty good, the screen is a little reflective. Unfortunately, the display is a fingerprint-magnet. It's not really a problem, but the smudges are very apparent when the display is turned off and gives me a sad face.

Hardware
The Xperia M4 Aqua is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 1.5GHz octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM. There's 16GB of internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via a microSD card. In terms of performance, the M4 Aqua is quite impressive for a mid-range smartphone.

The UI response, launching the camera, and switching between the apps is pretty smooth, and there's no apparent lag in everyday usage, even while playing graphic-intensive games - although the launch and resume in the latter is noticeable but far from annoying.

The M4 Aqua is a dual SIM device, and one of the SIM slots supports 4G LTE. The device packs in 2,400 mAh non-removable battery, but the battery life exceeds the expectations from the rating. On most days with regular use, I could carry the phone through the day, and ended the day with appreciable battery juice still left. Using the Stamina mode extends it even further.

Software
The Xperia M4 Aqua runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with the latest Xperia UI. Sony's customizations have always added vibrancy and ease to the stock Android user interface without overwhelming an average user. There are some handy customizations like the option to arrange the apps in different order.

There's the usual Sony apps like What's New which curates videos, games, and songs from different online sources in a neat UI and TV SideView, the remote and TV guide app.

Camera
One of the highlights of the Xperia M4 Aqua is its camera. There's a 13MP rear camera with Sony ExmorRS sensor and a 5MP front-facing camera. The camera app packs in several features from the more expensive Sony devices like the AR Effects, Style Portraits, et al. There's a Sound Photo mode that allows one to add sound to a photo while the Face Touch mode adds neat touches to the selfies.

While the outdoor images in daylight are crisp and the colour reproduction is brilliant, the low light shots are a little blurry. Sometimes, when I clicked some objects indoors, the captured shots were slightly off-colour. Sony claims that the M4 Aqua excels in low-light photography. The real world performance justifies the claim, although, I would've liked sharper photos.

The front-facing shooter on M4 Aqua packs in an 88-degrees wide-angle lens so that you can accommodate more people in your selfies. Again, pictures taken indoors with the front camera weren't too great, but outdoors, they were pretty good.

The rear camera allows 1080p full HD video recording, while the front-facing camera allows 720p video recording. The recorded videos are decent, and at par with most phones in this segment.

The Best Part
* Premium design
* Water-proof and dust-proof
* 4G support

The Tragic Flaw
* Expensive than other phones in the segment
* Camera performance could have been better

Summary
The Sony Xperia M4 Aqua has a lot going for it. There's decent specifications with 4G support, a pretty good camera, nice display, and a very premium design. For an outdoors person, the waterproofing and dustproofing certifications are handy additions.
However, at ₹24,990, while it matches up with competition from Samsung and HTC, the likes of Xiaomi have spoiled the customers with better priced options on the table. Available in white, black, and an interesting coral colour, the M4 Aqua id a great phone - a mid-range smartphone beefed up with flagship features - which I would love to recommend but you need to find in-store discounts or promotional offers to make it a better value.

Review: Xiaomi Mi3

Xiaomi

What is it?

Xiaomi (pronounced as shao-me), the latest Chinese brand on the horizon, is often called the 'Apple of the East' and has garnered quite a fan following in the little time that they've started selling outside of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Xiaomi sells premium hardware at mid-range prices, at almost the cost price of the bill of materials, and makes money over the life cycle of the product and by selling accessories with higher margins and add-ons like themes. For consumers, Xiaomi phones pack in top-of-the-line specifications and user experience at a fraction of the cost of phones with similar specifications from other tier one OEMs.

Who is it for?

Xiaomi Mi3 is the company's first flagship smartphone in India, and offers terrific specifications at an affordable price. If you are a looking for an Android smartphone without spending a lot, the Mi3 is a great option to consider.

Design

Xiaomi Mi3 looks and feels premium, and the matte finish plastic on the back panel could almost be mistaken for metal. In India, Xiaomi has launched the phone in only metallic grey color.

The phone's built from an aluminum-magnesium alloy frame that gives it a kind of sturdiness that should translate to durability. At 8.1mm, the Mi3 is not slim by any measure, and the long frame has sharp corners. That makes it different, but not awkward, and the phone is pretty comfortable to use and hold in one hand.

In an aberration from the latest trend, the Mi3 features a regular-sized, mini SIM card, and not a micro-SIM.

Hardware

The Xiaomi Mi3 sports a 5 inch Full HD IPS LCD display which offers crisp text and pictures with pretty good viewing angles. The color rendering of the 1080 p display with 441ppi density is impressive and quite vivid. However, the screen is very reflective, and has sub-par legibility outdoors in sunlight.

The phone offers three modes for color temperature - Warm, Standard, and Cool - and two for saturation - Brilliant and Standard.
Powered by a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB RAM, the phone packs quite a punch and the performance is snappy. The phone breezes through the UI or with HD videos and even while playing graphic-intensive games.

The 16GB internal storage with the absence of a memory card slot would disappoint most. There's about 12GB of memory available to the user, and while that should work for a majority of average users, content hoarders would find it tough.

The phone packs in a 3,050 mAh non-removable battery which lasts the day on average use, but pushing it a little doesn't augur too well for the battery life. While this could be just me, but for the big battery the phone boasts of, the mileage could be better.

Software

Xiaomi smartphones are powered by MIUI, a heavily customized Android fork based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project). The MIUI version in Mi3 runs on the latest Android 4.4.2 KitKat but mimics iOS a lot. Unlike in China, the MIUI includes Google suite of apps and services as well as the Play store in India.

MIUI is not just a UI customization skin, but adds many nifty features to enhance the functionality and experience. MIUI, like Gionee's AmigoOS, does not feature an app drawer and all your app icons and widgets stay on the home screen panorama. For a traditional Android smartphone user, this is an awkward shift, but it's well thought and should only take a few days of getting used to.

Xiaomi provides users with a number of downloadable themes that doesn't just change the basic look-and-feel of the phone, but completely transforms the user interface. Since the company hasn't set up their payment channels in India as yet, all the themes are free to download.

MIUI allows uninstalling pre-loaded apps, and is a welcome feature. In most Android smartphones, most of the bundled bloatware apps continue to take a lot of space and be an eye-sore since there's no way to remove them. If I had to give star ratings in my reviews, just this feature would get the phone an extra half star maybe!

Few security features included in MIUI are pretty good and take care of the usual Android annoyances. There's a built-in virus scan and an innovative permission manager for apps through which you can allow or deny an app access to a certain feature or functionality. The MIUI app switcher also includes the ability to free up memory by killing background tasks and clearing the cache.

Camera

The Xiaomi Mi3 features a 13-megapixel camera that works pretty well in good lighting conditions. The photos are sharp with good level of detail, and the color reproduction is great. A little noise in some photos could be ignored.

In low light conditions though, the photos turn out to be a little grainy and washed out. It isn't too bad, and mostly happens with photos where you zoom in, and still is one of the best cameras at the price point.

The camera app offers a Simple as well as an Advanced mode, apart from the useful HDR, Panorama, and Burst modes as well as filters. The camera packs in an anti-shake feature to stabilize photos, although it's a poor sibling of optical image stabilization (OIS), a feature missing on the Mi3.

Should you buy it?

If you are looking for a mid-range Android smartphone, at Rs 13,999, the Xiaomi Mi3 is an automatic choice. In fact, even if your budget is higher, you'd want to consider the Mi3 since it packs quite a punch to rival higher-priced smartphones in the market. The Mi3 doesn't come with headset or a case though, clearly to cut costs.

The exclusive partnership with Flipkart to sell the phones in India and the limited stocks available though would turn off a lot of potential customers. To zero in on the device, and still not manage to get your hands on one is frustrating. It's a crowded market, and you might want to move on.

The best part

• Checks all the boxes on the specifications sheet
• Enhanced functionality over stock Android as part of MIUI
• Great value for money

The tragic flaw

• Lack of microSD slot for expandable storage
• Hard to purchase

Xiaomi looking to enter the PC business soon

Xiaomi

Xiaomi has launched a variety of products ranging from water purifiers to air conditioners, and the company is now seemingly gearing up to release a PC. It is believed that the company has already signed off on a display contract from Samsung, which could be a big boost to Samsung's bottom line given the popularity of Xiaomi in the world markets.

We first came across rumors of a Xiaomi laptop being revealed sometime last year, but that didn't materialize. So it is hoped that the company will take it through this time. In any case, there hasn't been any confirmation yet, so we suggest you take this report with a grain of salt until there's more evidence to prove otherwise.

The report from Bloomberg further suggests that the first laptop in this range will hit the markets sometime in early 2016, so there's still some time till we see this idea coming to fruition.

Given the nature of Xiaomi's business model, expect a new product such as this to be exclusive to China for the first few months while an Indian launch should follow shortly after.

Titans of the PC industry like Lenovo, Dell etc have a lot to be worried about if Xiaomi's laptop business takes off. Right after this news was broken, Samsung's shares saw a slight increase in its home region of South Korea, while PC industry titan Lenovo saw its shares shrink by about 4.3%. So it's clear that the market wants this partnership between Xiaomi and Samsung to bear fruit.

Source

WhatsApp now has 900 million monthly active users

WhatsApp

It's no surprise that WhatsApp is a global phenomenon. Even despite its massive popularity, the service is yet to catch on in some key markets like the U.S. But with that being said, the global population accounts for a large chunk of WhatsApp's user base and that's evident from the company's latest user figures.

According to a new announcement made by WhatsApp founder Jan Koum on Facebook, the service now has over 900 million active users on a monthly basis. The company breached the 800 million barrier in April, so it has been growing at a rapid pace since then.

While WhatsApp has been growing since it was acquired by Facebook, the revenues are still quite slim for the company. The paid model for its app didn't quite work out as most of its users originate from developing countries, where free apps are preferred.

Not to mention the number of rivals messaging apps out there that have been growing steadily. Bharti-Softbank owned Hike Messenger is a very good example of this.

WhatsApp has nearly 1 billion installs on the Android platform alone, which speaks volumes about the growth seen by the company. The app has a decent number of users on the iOS and Windows Phone platform as well.

Oppo R7 Lite and R7 Plus: First Impressions

The Chinese smartphone maker Oppo launched two new smartphone in the Indian market yesterday-- the Oppo R7 Lite and the Oppo R7 Plus.

Here are our first impressions about the Oppo R7 Lite.

Even in the past, Oppo has managed to keep its smartphone high on design and the latest additions are no exception. The phone comes with a uni-body metal design. The corners of it are well rounded and the build-quality looks good. Also, the smartphone feels nice to hold and oozes style.

The phone runs on Android 5.1 along with a layer of Color OS version 2.1. In whatever time that we managed to spend with the phone, it looked snazzy and the OS seemed stable. It is a 4G LTE-enabled Dual-SIM smartphone.

There is a 5-inches Super AMOLED display screen with HD resolution. The text, images and video were looking ultra-fine on this screen. The viewing angles also seem to be decent.

It comes with 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage (out of which 13GB is available to the user), which ensured a lag-free performance. We did not encounter any crashes during the initial few minutes that we had with the smartphone.

The other department that Oppo likes to highlight in this smartphone, is the camera. The Opp R7 Lite comes with a 13MP rear camera, which is fast to snap up and manages to take some crisp shots even in the low-light conditions at the launch event.

Now, let's talk about Oppo R7 Plus. This phone is also equally good looking, thanks to the metal uni-body design. At 7.8mm and 192 grams, the Oppo R7 Plus, just like the R7 Lite, is also lightweight and slim.According to us, the back of the Oppo R7 Plus looks very akin to Samsung Galaxy S5. Given that it is a 6-inch device, Oppo R7 plusis also slightly difficult to operate using just one hand.

The Oppo R7 Plus sports a 6-inch Full HD IPS Super AMOLED display with a 1080x1920 pixels resolution and 367 ppi pixel density. There is also Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection on the screen. We really loved the display on the phone. It was truly a treat to watch HD YouTube videos on the same.

There is a 1.5GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor tucked in Oppo R7 Plus. On the storage front, this smartphone carries 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage that can be expanded by up to 128GB via microSD card. From whatever time, we managed to have with the handset, we witnessed no lags or drop.

However, given that it is a phone worth Rs 30,000, many people will not like the fact that it comes a modest 615 processor and not the 808 or 810. Also as we got our hands on this device only for a very brief period, we are not sure whether Oppo R7 Plus has heating issues or not.
On the software front, the Oppo R7 Plus adopts Android 5.1-based ColorOS 2.1, which looked fairly decent and not drastically different to the stock Android. And navigating through the same was breezy.

Coming over to the impressive part, the Oppo R7 Plus comes with 13MP rear camera with laser autofocus. The same manages to do a great job even in low light conditions. The phone was fast to focus and the images clicked looked vibrant on the phone screen.

The Oppo R7 Plus comes with a huge 4,100mAh battery. Just like the other phones from the Oppo stable, this one also supports its proprietary VOOC fast charging technology. The company claims that, the Oppo R7 Plus can go from 0 per cent to 50 per cent in just 30 minutes. We are yet to try this out but this sounds very impressive.

From an overall specifications and usage point of you, there is very little scope to not liking the Oppo R7 Plus. However, we feel that the phone is priced pretty steeply for a mid-range smartphone. However, we shall reserve our complete verdict for the review, which too will be coming out shortly.

We Tried LG's Roll-Up Tablet Keyboard

In the middle of the throng at LG's IFA 2015 booth, one little gadget got a surprisingly large amount of tech geek attention. The compact, portable and aptly named LG Rolly Keyboard is a super-convenient contrivance for tablet and smartphone typists.
We all know that sending long emails, responding to briefs or writing stories can be an absolute pain on a touchscreen-that's why I'm a big fan of portable Bluetooth keyboards like the Logitech BLOK or Pro Tablet Case.


But cases can be annoying and troublesome, especially if you already have a case on your smart device that precludes you using it with an attached keyboard accessory. Standalone keyboards, though, are bulky and cumbersome and rarely useful. The Rolly Keyboard solves all that-as long as you have a bag that's long enough to store it, and the tablet that you're likely pairing it to, you're sweet.
Folding keyboards are nothing new, but this is actually really special. It folds itself after each row of keys, so combined with the controller and built-in stand it effectively forms a cute little rectangular prism you can slide into the bottom of your bag. Once unfurled, you get four rows of QWERTY keys and a function map that gives you additional ones for number input.

The Rolly Keyboard has a couple of magnetic tabs that hold it in place when it's rolled up; those are easy enough to break with one hand, and then a quick flick of the wrist in the air unfurls the Rolly into its flat layout. The key layout is a little unconventional, but that's true of any Android-compatible Bluetooth keyboard out there. The Rolly is made for Android, but it'll work with an iPad too.
I tested it out with LG's new G Pad II 10.1, and it was perfectly responsive and quick to mirror any typing to the onscreen app-that's more rare than you think; I've tried Bluetooth keyboards with nearly a second's lag that make fast typing almost impossible. Key travel is OK, although I'd still prefer my MacBook's keys at an equally shallow travel depth.



It's the two little fold-out prongs that make the Rolly genuinely useful and versatile, though. Leaning out both to stabilize the keyboard against whatever flat surface you're using it on, and relying on the weight of the Rolly's thick top section for support, the prongs will hold a tablet or even a 5-inch-plus phone in landscape mode securely-and that means you can actually see what you're typing.
According to LG, the Rolly Keyboard will come to the United States in September, then Europe, Latin America and Asia by the end of the year. No price yet, and no word on whether it's coming to Australia. At least international shipping will be cheap.

How Could Google's New Logo Be Only 305 Bytes, While Its Old Logo Is 14,000 Bytes?

The old logo uses a complicated serif font which can only be created using bezier curves. All together, it has 100 anchor points, resulting in a 6 KB (6,380 bytes) file. When compressed, the size comes down to 2 KB (2,145 bytes).A simplified version of the new logo, on the other hand, can be constructed almost entirely from circles and rectangles (with the exception of the lower-case g):The entire logo consists of:10 circles (2 each for the capital G and lower case g, 2 for each O, and 2 for the e)5 rectangles (2 for the capital G, 1 for the lower case l, 2 for the e)1 shape made with 7 anchor points (the descender on the lower-case g)While Google hasn't released the optimized 305 byte logo and it doesn't seem to be available online, I believe that they got the size down to 305 bytes as they claim.To verify this, I recreated the first letter (G) in the SVG format, resulting in a file that's 302 bytes uncompressed, and 195 bytes compressed. Here's the entire uncompressed graphic, consisting of two circles and two rectangles:This generates the graphic on the right:As another user pointed out, there is also a way to generate the new logo using strokes rather than fills. This is also something that wasn't possible to do with the old log, and can result in an even smaller file. The code for the entire logo (courtesy of Jaume Sanchez Elias) is 290 bytes:Using this approach, the entire logo can be drawn using 2 circles (for the 2 o's) and 4 paths (for the G, g, l, and e).About the author: Ilya Yakubovich, UI DesignerHow could Google's new logo be only 305 bytes, while its old logo is 14,000 bytes? originally appeared on Quora. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.This answer has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity

8 Tasks You Should Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

Are you feeling like you’re drowning in work? Is your to-do-list not getting done? Is your productivity at an all time low? Well maybe it is time you hired some help.
Usually the smaller, simpler tasks in our to-do list consume all our time and leave us little room to focus on bigger and more important things. These are the routine tasks that can be easily delegated to someone else. If you feel that your productivity and performance is being affected by such tasks, it is time that you hire a full time or on-demand virtual assistant that can take away the burden from your shoulders.
Here are 10 tasks that are perfect for being outsourced to a virtual assistant:

1. Set Up Appointments/Reservations

As a busy professional or entrepreneur, you might not have time to spend on booking appointments or making reservations. Assign this task to a virtual assistant. Provide details of what, where and when; and you are done.

2. Proof Reading & Editing

Self editing is sometimes not very reliable and also time consuming. A virtual assistant can be of great help for proofreading your content, finding errors and suggesting edits.

3. Find a Local Service

Finding a local service can be hectic since you would need to go through reviews and feedback in order to choose the best option. A virtual assistant can take care of this dreaded task for you and provide you the best options to choose from and also set up appointments on your behalf.

4. Personal & Business Research

In order to make important decisions in personal and professional life, time consuming research is required. You can get a virtual assistant to do the initial research for you and provide you with reports and presentations for you to move forward.

5. Manage To-Do-List

Your Virtual Assistant can be help you in staying on top of your to-do-list, give you reminders for important tasks and deadlines.

6. Get Quotes

Virtual Assistants can help you find the products and services you are looking for and get price quotes from them. They can also help you in doing price & features comparison.

7. Plan Events

Virtual Assistants can help you in planing your event from start to finish. They can find venue, get menu options and prices, caterers etc., and enable you to have the perfect event with little or no hassle.

8. Prepare Presentations

Your can provide notes and basic outline to a virtual assistant for preparing your power point presentations for you, while you work on other things

Hiring a Virtual Assistant – Is It Worth It?

We’ve talked to a lot of people about their thoughts on hiring an assistant to outsource small tasks and projects, and two of the major points of friction for people are whether it’s worth the trouble to outsource tasks form a to-do list, and also whether the results achieved will be high enough quality and easy to check.
Problem 1: Is it worth the time and trouble to outsource my tasks?
Delegation is a skill that improves with practice. There are some tasks that make more sense to delegate than others. We’ve made our service flexible enough for a 10 minute phone call, or hours of event-planning or research, and we’ve seen users get value from both ends of that spectrum. But some things just take too long to explain to make it worth delegating – it’s a very case-by-case sort of thing that takes getting used to.
A lot of Perssist’s first-time users, especially people that have never used an assistant before, send in tasks that aren’t really the right thing to ask an assistant to do. For example, “find me an apartment, this is what I’m willing to spend.” There are too many taste-based variables involved in that process to come away with a good result. However, “find me all the apartment buildings with an in-house leasing office in these neighborhoods, then make sure they fit my budget and allow dogs” is something that would make a lot more sense to ask an assistant to handle.
Problem 2: Checking and coordinating the results of another person’s work is yet another distraction
We hear you loud and clear that you don’t always trust someone else’s work, and the process of checking it can take as as doing it yourself. We train our Perssist Assistants to present information in a way that tries to answer any initial doubts/questions a user may have when they see the result. For example, providing sources and (briefly) explaining their process to get to the answer. Secondly, it’s important to understand that no one can do a task the exact way you would do it yourself, and figuring out what types of tasks that’s ok for, and what types it’s not, is part of learning to delegate.
Get started learning to delegate with a free trial from Perssist, and remember if you’re new that you should try request a few different things rather than one big thing so you can get a better feel for outsourcing the mundane tasks from your life.

'Halo,' 'Destiny' composer Marty O'Donnell wins lawsuit against Bungie

Developer Bungie's former in-house composer Marty O'Donnell had his day in court and it's time for Bungie to pay the piper. In addition to the initial payout of $142,500 he's owed as a profit-sharing program, O'Donnell also gets to hold onto what VentureBeat describes as a "considerable" amount of stock in the company responsible first for Halo and now Destiny. As part of the terms, apparently unless O'Donnell gets permission he can't publish any music from Destiny as his own without Bungie's blessing. In June, O'Donnell revealed that he was starting a new studio with other game-industry vets, Highwire Games.
[Image credit: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP]
The bad blood between Bungie and O'Donnell started when O'Donnell composed all of the music for the Destiny series up front, and publisher Activision chose to not release it as standalone pieces. Previous Halo soundtracks, music scored by O'Donnell, have all been released for purchase in the past, and have been featured heavily in those games' advertising and marketing. When Activision replaced the music for the game's debut E3 2013 trailer with something other than O'Donnell's, he was understandably miffed -- something that lead to where we are today. There's much, much more to this story and VentureBeat's write-up of the entire situation is incredibly comprehensive; you should definitely go check it out. If anything, this reveal clears up why Bungie's strangely been leaning so heavily on classic Led Zeppelin tracks for its TV spots.

Uber pulls down 'share your ETA' links that went public

Uber has pulled down the searchable database people found at "trip.uber.com," which contained details of trips people unknowingly made public by using the "Share your ETA" feature. That's one of the app's functions that sends a link with all pertinent details to chosen contacts. Since it could very useful, especially for those who need to travel alone through shady locations or at night, the company isn't yanking it from the app. Instead, Uber has decided to tweak the system so that all links get expired after 48 hours.

Apple patent looks at fuel cell system for portable device

A fuel cell battery to last weeks, not days, is the subject of a patent filed by Apple. According to news reports, the patent is about an energy cell powering a portable electronic device. The Telegraph said this was likely a MacBook.

James Titcomb, Telegraph technology news editor, said the patent application suggests a number of different energy sources.
He said that "the energy could come from 'a fuel cartridge which is detachably affixed to the fuel cell system', meaning rather than recharging, one would simply replace the device's cartridge when it had run out."
Ben Lovejoy in 9to5Mac also talked about the replacing aspect. "There is, of course, no such thing as a free lunch, and fuel cell systems require the fuel to be replenished once it is exhausted, which the patent addresses by referencing removable cartridges."
The patent said that "Exemplary fuels that can be used with a hydrolysis reaction can include: Sodium Borohydride, Sodium Silicate, Lithium Hydride, Magnesium Hydride, Lithium Borohydride and Lithium Aluminum Hydride."
The fuel, said the inventors, may also take the form of pure hydrogen (e.g., compressed hydrogen gas or liquid hydrogen). In that case, "the fuel cartridge may contain components such as a metering device (e.g., a valve) and a pressure gauge. Ideally, the fuel has a relatively low life cycle carbon footprint, is not toxic, and generates a waste product that is amenable to being repeatedly re-charged with hydrogen and is not toxic."
The title of the patent is "Fuel Cell System to Power a Portable Computing Device" and it was filed in March this year by Apple. The application lists six California-based inventors.
As part of the patent application, Apple put forward its case in the context of renewable energy:
"Our country's continuing reliance on fossil fuels has forced our government to maintain complicated political and military relationships with unstable governments in the Middle East, and has also exposed our coastlines and our citizens to the associated hazards of offshore drilling. These problems have led to an increasing awareness and desire on the part of consumers to promote and use renewable energy sources."
The awareness has not been lost on electronics manufacturers, who have become "very interested in developing renewable energy sources for their products, and they have been exploring a number of promising renewable energy sources such as hydrogen fuel cells."
Discussing advantages, the patent said that "Such fuel cells and associated fuels can potentially achieve high volumetric and gravimetric energy densities, which can potentially enable continued operation of portable electronic devices for days or even weeks without refueling."
The difficulty, said the patent application, is designing hydrogen fuel cell systems "sufficiently portable and cost-effective to be used with portable electronic devices."
Why did The Telegraph suggest the portable electronic device was likely a MacBook? Titcomb said the patent seemed to relate to MacBooks because it "repeatedly mentions the MagSafe connector used on the laptop computers, and does not namecheck the 'Lightning' connectors used on the iPhone and iPad."
9to5Mac Ben Lovejoy commented: "The most likely implementation would be a mix of conventional batteries and fuel cells, allowing the MacBook to be recharged in the usual way, switching to fuel cell power only when extended wireless use is required."

5 Different Ways to Install Windows 10 on your PC, Laptop

Microsoft has finally launched its new advanced Operating System Windows 10 and people are very eager to install it on their devices. Windows has been one of the most prominent operating system that is being used by millions of people across the globe in smart devices with easygoing user interface and features. Microsoft always surprises its users by rolling out new features for all applications, improving user interface and enhancing software thereby easing the day-to-day chores of its users. People highly anticipated for the launch of latest version of Windows and finally it is out with best features and user interface. You can install this latest version on your PC in 5 different ways. Here, we are presenting you 5 simple ways to install Windows 10 on your PC.

Five Ways to Install Windows 10 on your PC

There are 5 different ways to install Windows 10 on your PC. Here are five various ways that guides you to install Windows 10 on your PC. You can install Windows 10 directly on to your device by purchasing Windows 10 Serial Key and Product Key online, upgrading your existing version of Windows (7, 8, 8.1) to Windows 10, perform a clean install of Windows 10, using VirtualBox and VMware Workstation, dual boot Windows 10 along with your existing version. Here you can find detailed steps for all the above mentioned ways to install Windows 10 on your PC.

1. Upgrade your Existing Versions to Windows 10

You can install Windows 10 on your PC or Laptop just by upgrading your existing version of Windows (7, 8, 8.1) to Windows 10. Microsoft has promised that it offers free version of Windows 10 for all its trustworthy users that can be upgraded very easily. Windows 10 upgrade is not just a free trial or limited version, you can run this new version on your PC or laptop for the supported lifetime of your device till one year. So, you can now Upgrade your Windows 7, 8, 8.1 to Windows 10.

2. Install Windows 10 using Serial Key

After downloading Windows 10 using ISO image, then you can enter the product or serial key then, you can install Windows 10 on your PC by using the Serial Key that depends on the edition of Windows 10. There are various editions like Windows 10 Home edition, Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise edition. Here are few approved serial keys which could assist you in downloading the Windows 10 ISO in your Windows PC/laptop.
Windows 10 Serial Key: NKJFK-GPHP7-G8C3J-P6JXR-HQRJR
Windows 10 Serial Key Technical Preview for Consumer: 334NH-RXG76-64THK-C7CKG-D3VPT
Technical Preview for Enterprise: PBHCJ-Q2NYD-2PX34-T2TD6-233PK
Windows 10 Enterprise: CKFK9-QNGF2-D34FM-99QX2-8XC4K
Windows 10 Home: KTNPV-KTRK4-3RRR8-39X6W-W44T3
Windows 10 Pro: 8N67H-M3CY9-QT7C4-2TR7M-TXYCV
If none of the above product and serial keys doesn’t work, then try VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

3. Clean Install Windows 10 from Scratch

By performing clean install of Windows 10 on your PC, it removes existing versions of operating system and you can directly install Windows 10. Performing a clean install of Windows 10 Operating system is nothing but removing whatever OS is currently running on your device and starting from scratch with a genuine and new install of Windows 10.For that, initially you need to back up your system and then clean install Windows 10 from scratch, wiping their hard disk in the process.

4. Install Windows 10 on Virtual Machine

You can install Windows 10 on your PC or Laptop using Virtual machine such as VirtualBox or VMware Workstation. Virtualization is the best way to test the newly launched Operating system in a virtual machine. There are two different ways to use virtual machine so as to install Windows 10 on your PC or Laptop. One way is to install Windows 10 on VirtualBox and the second possible way is to install it on VMware workstation. You can use either of the two ways that helps you install the new OS on your PC.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs. Galaxy Note 5: Making sacrifices in the name of style

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Samsung was roundly mocked when the original Galaxy note was announced, but what at first seemed like a crazy idea has become one of the most anticipated phones of the year. It’s also pushed the market to adopt larger and larger form factors as consumers decide that, yes, they do want giant phones. The fifth incarnation of the Note has just been announced, and in some ways it’s a major departure from the Note 4, but some specs aren’t changing at all. Let’s see how they compare.

Design

The Note 4 was one of the first Samsung devices to signal a change in direction from the company. After the lackluster performance of the Galaxy S5, Samsung added some metal to the frame of the Note 4. However, the Note 5 is based heavily on the very successful design of the Galaxy S6.
The Note 5 is all metal and glass, but whereas the back of the GS6 is flat, Samsung used a slightly curved glass panel on the rear of the Note 5. This makes it easier to hold in one hand despite its large size. That same shape was used on the plastic back of the Note 4 to make it easier to grasp. Overall, the Note 5 measures 153.2 x 761 x7.6mm. That is slightly thinner and narrower than the Note 4 at 153.5 x 78.6 x 8.5mm. The Note 5 also has wireless charging built-in, and the wireless charging back for the Note 4 added several millimeters of girth.


That glass back panel is not removable by the user, and that means the battery is sealed-in. The Note 5 actually takes a step down in battery capacity compared with the Note 4. It ships with a 3000mAh battery, but the Note 4 had a 3220mAh cell. Some people loved the Note specifically because it had a big removable battery, so there will surely be some complaints here.
Another core component of the Note series is the S Pen inductive stylus. If you need a built-in stylus, the S Pen has always been the best, however it’s always felt pretty cheap and not very comfortable. The Note 5’s S Pen is a bit more sturdy and can be ejected from its slot on the bottom of the phone with a push.

Display and Internals

The Note 4 has the best screen available on a smartphone before the Galaxy S6 launched (QHD at 5.7-inches), and the Note 5 is probably going to reclaim that crown for the Note series. Samsung is still using a 5.7-inch QHD (2560×1440) Super AMOLED panel on the Note 5, but it’s a slightly newer version of the technology.


Samsung is making iterative improvements with each new version of its AMOLED panels, and they really look amazing these days with excellent colors, brightness, and viewing angles. You might not notice a huge difference between the Note 4 and Note 5, but technically it’s there.
The Note 4 ran atop the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 (most SKUs), a very fast 32-bit ARM system-on-a-chip (SoC). This year Qualcomm and Samsung are not on the best of terms. Heat issues with the Snapdragon 810 led Samsung to use its own Exynos chips in all 2015 flagships. The Note 5 has a 64-bit Exynos 7420, an octa-core chip with four fast Cortex-A57 cores at 2.1GHz and four efficient Cortex-A53 cores at 1.5GHz. The manufacturing process has been stepped down to 14nm compared with 28nm in the SD805 in the Note 4.

The Note 5 will blow the Note 4 out of the water when it comes to raw processing power, but the user experience will be more affected by software optimization. You have to wonder how that SoC will handle with the smaller 3000mAh battery, though.
Samsung offered the Note 4 in 16GB and 32GB versions (16GB only in some markets), but the Note 5 comes in either 32GB of 64GB. That’s all you get, though. Samsung has ditched the microSD card slot on the Note 5 just like it did on the GS6 a few months ago. So that’s going to be a bummer for some users, but the built-in storage is UFS 2.0 instead of the eMMC 5.0 used in the Note 4. What does that mean? The storage in the Note 5 is stupidly fast.
The Note 5 steps up to 4GB of RAM compared to the 3GB that shipped with the Note 4. The extra RAM is nice, but not really necessary. The bigger deal is that Samsung is using faster LPDDR4 in the Note 5 instead of LPDDR3.

Software and Everything Else

The Note series always has a few software tweaks to make the S Pen a more useful accessory, but Samsung doesn’t appear to have made many improvements this year. You can still pull up the Air Command menu with a click of the S Pen button. That gives you quick access to several of Samsung’s note taking and search features. S Note can be used in full-screen on the Note 5, which is nice, and you can take notes on the screen from a resting state (i.e. the system UI doesn’t have to start up first).
You’ll get Android 5.1 out of the box with the Note 5, but most versions of the Note 4 have already been updated. Although, Samsung tends not to dramatically alter the UI or features with OS updates. That means the Note 5 will have a more modern Lollipop interface and some extras like the Samsung theme store that you won’t get on the Note 4. The Note 5 will also be on Android M much sooner than the Note 4 (not that either one will be all that quick). 
The fingerprint sensor on the Note 5 is the touch variety used in the Galaxy S6. It will be a vast improvement over the swipe sensor used in the Note 4. The IR blaster from the Note 4 is also gone from the Note 5. 
Samsung has chosen to stick with a 16MP f/1.9 main camera in the Note 5 — the same as the Note 4. The only real differences here are better software processing of HDR and faster launch times.
Another unchanging truth about the Note series is that they’re expensive devices. You’ll pay over $700 for the 32GB version of the Note 5 unsubsidized. Most carriers will probably let it go for $250-300 on-contract or around $30 per month with a payment plan. Pre-orders are live now and it ships August 21st in the US.