Technology

Nokia winding down its high-end virtual reality camera division The Ozo and its follow-up the Ozo +, have been marketed to professionals as being able to capture the “highest quality” 360-degree footage possible, and have been used by Disney among others. Even though after price cuts, the company indicated that sales have been weaker than expected.    According to a report Nokia stated that it now planned to dedicate its efforts to developing smart health products instead, and would leave it to others to build on its work in VR. Due to the outcome of the market, Nokia Technologies plans to reduce investment and focus more on technology licensing opportunities. As Ben Wood from the CCS insight tech consultancy commented, ”The Ozo has clearly been a much smaller niche product than Nokia anticipated.” This technology was on early stage and users found that to process the content takes long time, and became challenging. Also 360-degree con...

Google is not far from Apple's heels and is constantly evolving. The Internet and the tech giant have just announced a new family-enabled device and it comes with pretty interesting features.  Google Pixel Buds is similar to Apple's AirPod listeners with several notable exceptions, including the excellent ability to translate 40 languages with just one keystroke or phrase phrase, such as "help me speak Spanish". This option is only possible when the headset is merged with the Google Pixel 2 phone, which shows how Google directly tries to compete with Apple in the smartphone area. The headphones can be used by Google's Google Artificial Intelligence Assistant. According to Google CEO Sunder Pichai: "We have improved the ability to translate more in this one year from all of our improvements over the last 10 years." Mobile technologies are increasingly being developed to integr...

The Boeing giant bought the Aurora Flight Sciences company, focused on the development of autonomous electric aircraft. The move confirms Boeing's commitment to realizing his first unmanned commercial passenger vehicle in reality. Aurora received a significant number of awards in 2016, when the Agency for Advanced Research Projects awarded a contract for the construction of a landing and take-off aircraft (VTOL) X-Plane. Uber also hired the firm to help build their flying fees. This merger will allow to combine the expertise of a proven autonomous manufacturer of electric aircraft that has built and driven more than 30 vehicles without pilots in their 20 years of existence and the Boeing giant that has invested in aeronautics for more than a century. Such a combination can lead to the first fully autonomous electric aircraft. The development of flying vehicles is likely to continue to move up, especially now that Boeing is annou...

The power of computers grows daily. The technology develops at an incredible speed, and sometimes we even fear the extent to which it will not transmit. Computers today can do amazing things, such as even simulating the human brain. These supercomputers are considered the most powerful computers in the world.    1. Sunway TaihuLight Currently ranked as the world's fastest supercomputer, Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer measures 125 petaFLOPS (theoretical peak) - five times faster than the supercomputer in second place.  It is located in the National Supercomputer Center in Wuxi, it consists of 10.6 million cores and is used for climate research, modeling of ground systems and data analysis. In addition to being the fastest supercomputer in the world, Sunway TaihuLight is currently ranked as the fourth most efficient energy supercomputer because it requires significantly less megawatts per megaFLOPS.    2.  Piz Daint (2017) ...

The new technology, described as "revolutionary", promises to turn every object into a remote control. With this technology you could change channels with your finger, reduce the tone with the lamp, and even change the settings with the guitar. Researchers at Lancaster University will present their paper "Matchpoint": spontaneous spatial merging of the body's body for infinite pointing, this month at the UIST2017 conference in Quebec. This paper describes the technique that is being innovated to allow interaction between the movement (whether it is a human movement of an object's movement) and screens, making this technology possible. Matchpoint technology is relatively easy to operate. Like its predecessors, it requires a webcam. To work, the user connects to a screen that will display a circular widget with menu items around the circle. This interaction between the movement and the screen is described as a ...

Another year, another chance to improve lives around the world.  This year’s Social Good Summit, held at the historic 92nd Street Y in New York, was a whirlwind of inspiration. A full roster of panelists included changemakers, global citizens, and progressive thought leaders from around the world. Collectively, they inspired a packed audience with ideas on some of the tangible changes we can make to the world around us in our lifetime.  Held during the United Nations General Assembly week, Social Good Summit attendees met to discuss the state of the world today and how it could look by the year 2030.  Among the many companies in attendance was health technology company Philips, who discussed the work it does with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). While there, Philips also unveiled a new consumer initiative called Better Me, Better World . Better Me, Better World provides consumers with personal ben...

Now that iOS 11 is out, augmented reality apps are becoming some of the most entertaining apps in the App Store, thanks to Apple's ARKit.  While we've seen AR apps meant to help you buy furniture or bring children's books to life,Holo's take on the new feature will be more familiar to fans of Snapchat.  The app allows you to record videos with 3D "holograms" (which is how 3D animations are referred to in the app) of animals, movie characters, and celebrities overlaid onto your surroundings. Similar to Snapchat's dancing Bitmoji lenses, you can reposition and resize Holo's animations as you're recording. Unlike Snapchat, which only has a handful of animated lenses available at any given time, Holo has a large collection of "holograms" you can you can tap into, from high-fiving tigers to a facepalming Spider-Man. The company says it's working to keep its selection updated with new characters regularly.  On...

There’s Hero 6 Black, a refreshed version of its flagship product, and Fusion, a 360-degree spherical camera GoPro  Inc  is betting on two new devices to differentiate itself from the fast-advancing camera technology found in smartphones, and to help it reclaim profitability. At a product unveiling Thursday, the action-camera company announced the Hero 6 Black, a refreshed version of its flagship camera aimed at adventure seekers. The Hero 6 Black is packed for the first time with a custom processor created specifically for GoPro. The company said the camera includes digital zoom, improved voice control, simpler editing software and the ability to transport footage at three times the speed than its predecessor. It sells for $499, about $100 more than its previous version. The camera, though, also highlights the challenges GoPro faces as it competes for consumers who increasingly shoot their lives on the smartphones readily available in the...

Sirin Labs company behind the funny expensive Android phone, now has another smartphone to share with the world and unlike the predecessor of 14,000 dollars, this one is expected to cost only 999 dollars. Named after scientist Hal Fini, the recipient of the world's first bitcoin transaction, Fini's smartphone is an open-source, ultra-reliable phone built on an independent, free block network. It is expected to have an internal memory of 256 GB, a 16 megapixel camera and a powerful package of security measures, powered by Tangle's IOTA technology. Sirin Labs founder and CEO, Moshe Hogegh, told The Business Insider that the line of Finney devices, which includes an all-in-one computer, will be able to share data, battery power and wireless processing power - although a cable will be needed at certain times. "The Finite family of devices will be the first of its kind to be specially designed for the Blocklock generation, combining an ultra-secure block...

Ford Motor Company on Thursday unveiled details about its use of Microsoft's HoloLens augmented reality technology in the automotive design process. Ford's design teams have swapped out their clay-sculpting tools -- a staple of the automotive world since the 1930s, when Harley Earl introduced them at General Motors -- for mixed reality headsets and visualization software. Unlike with the clay models, which can weigh 5,000 or more pounds, designers with HoloLens can make instant changes to side mirrors, grilles, interiors and other vehicle elements. And they can do so without even getting their hands dirty. Ford has been working with Microsoft's HoloLens technology at its Dearborn, Michigan, studios for the past year. The mixed reality tech has allowed designers to consider proposed virtual design elements as if the additions were part of a physical vehicle. It has allowed engineers to see different shapes, sizes and even textures on vehicles. These displays c...

NEW DELHI: Amid all the discounts going around during this Diwali season, Taiwanese  smartphone  manufacturer Asus has announced a  price cut  for its Zenfone 3 Max 5.5 smartphone. The smartphone was launched at Rs 14,999 in December 2016.  Post a price cut of Rs 2,000,  Asus Zenfone 3 Max 5.5  is now available at Rs 12,999. The smartphone will be available at its new price across online websites, which includes  Flipkart , Amazon and  Snapdeal . The smartphone can also be bought at its new price from offline retail stores including the company's official stores across India. Asus Zenfone 3 Max comes in two variants -- based on screen size, resolution, processor, RAM and camera. The smartphone's variant with the model number ZC553KL is more powerful among the two. It features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) resolution display with an inbuilt Bluelight filter. The smartphone is powered by an octa-core Qu...

Google is becoming Apple faster than Apple can become Google Of the three most influential companies in smartphone design, Nokia fragmented into a million pieces after being bought out by Microsoft, Apple is still going strong, and Google just bought the third with its $1.1 billion deal with HTC. The reason why Google acquired what looks to be the majority of HTC’s phone design and engineering team is simple, and it’s been obvious for over a year: Google is serious about becoming a hardware company. Early in 2016, Google created a new hardware division and re-hired Motorola chief Rick Osterloh to run that group. A brief few months after that, the company was plastering the streets of Europe and the US with billboards trumpeting the arrival of the first “Made by Google” Pixel devices. Why do we refuse to acknowledge what’s right in front of our eyes? Google is going to war against the iPhone. It sounds preposterous given the number and quality of ...