SanDisk SD memory card 'largest ever'

SD card capacity has increased 1,000-fold in just 10 years

Memory specialist SanDisk has created an SD card with 512 gigabytes (GB) of storage space - the highest capacity ever released.

The card, which is the size of a postage stamp, will go on sale for $800 (£490).
The launch comes a decade after the firm released a 512-megabyte (MB) SD card with one-thousandth of the space.
Experts believe SD cards could eventually hold up to 2 terabytes (TB) of data, about 2,000GB.

The new card is aimed at film-makers shooting in the high-quality 4K format.
The 4K format - which is four times the resolution of HD - requires large file storage. Depending on compression, a single minute of 4K shooting will typically take around 5GB of storage space.
"4K Ultra HD is an example of a technology that is pushing us to develop new storage solutions capable of handling massive file sizes," said Dinesh Bahal, vice-president of product marketing at SanDisk.

The SD card format is one of the most widely used standards of flash storage, popular with digital cameras, camcorders and other mobile devices.
While camera types, resolutions and settings vary - a 512GB card could potentially hold around 30 hours of HD video.

Cloud worries
John Delaney, a senior mobile analyst from IDC, said innovation in physical storage was critical to the future of our devices - even if a lot of people are turning to cloud storage instead.
"The thing that is driving cloud storage is multiple devices usage - which solves the, 'Where's my stuff?' problem: if you use cloud storage for everything, whatever device you have with you can be used to access your content."
But he added: "So far there's still a strong preference for local storage.
"People just feel more in control and more able to rely on being able to access the content when they literally know where it is.

"Storing in the cloud means you literally don't know where it is."
Mr Delaney added that recent high-profile security issues around cloud storage - such as the celebrity picture leak last week - would play on the minds of consumers.
BBC




 

Panasonic launches Lumix camera phone with giant sensor

The big lens and sensor make the camera one of the thickest smartphones on the market

Panasonic has unveiled a hybrid smartphone-camera, at the Photokina trade show in Cologne.

More camera than phone, the Android device has a Leica lens and a 1in, 20-megapixel sensor more often found in Panasonic's dedicated cameras.
The 2.5cm sensor will help the camera take snaps in low light conditions and shoot ultra-high definition video.
Panasonic said the Lumix DMC - CM1 would go on sale towards the end of 2014 in Germany and France.

The phone is expected to cost about 900 euros (£720) when it goes on sale.
It is widely seen as a rival to Samsung's Galaxy K Zoom, which also has a built-in large lens.
The lens and its metal ring, to control aperture and shutter settings, make the CM1 21mm thick - considerably more than contemporary smartphones.
The CM1 also has 11.9cm touchscreen and a dedicated switch that instantly flips it into camera-mode.

Reviewing the gadget at tech news site Pocket-lint, Mike Lowe said it was an "interesting experiment" that "impressed" him more than he had expected.
However, Marc Flores, at Tech Radar, was more critical, saying hybrids satisfied no-one.

"We've tried this before, and it didn't work out so well," he wrote, adding that anyone looking for a good camera should buy a dedicated device.
Anyone keen to take better pictures with a smartphone, he added, should just learn how the professionals did it rather than buy a CM1 and hope that would make all the difference to their snaps.
BBC



 

China introduces smartphone lanes to stop pedestrians bumping into each other

PEDESTRIANS glued to their mobiles are becoming a serious hazard to themselves and others on the street.
Now China has come up with an ingenious solution — the smartphone lane.
A footpath divided into two lanes for phone users and non-phone users has sprung up in Chongqing city.



Unfortunately, mobile phone users were most likely to take out their phones for a photo of the sign, or miss them completely, Yahoo reported.
In 2010, a group called Improv Everywhere chalked up separate sidewalk lanes for New Yorkers and tourists — the latter being more likely to walk more slowly.
Philadelphia introduced an “e-Lane” for electronic device users in 2012 — but as an April Fool’s Day prank.

The press release from Mayor Nutter’s office read: “Stand on any sidewalk in Philadelphia you will see fellow citizens with busy lives who can’t take the time to look up from their iPhones, BlackBerries and other electronic devices. The E-Lane is a safe and convenient option for those distracted walkers.”
So is the special lane a good idea, or just one big joke?

More and more of us are using our phones while walking. Source: AFP

News

US Military's New Laser Gun Zaps Drones

 Boeing's High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD).                  

The U.S. military is now one step closer to having a laser gun that can shoot down enemy drones in the blink of an eye.

Boeing recently announced that its mobile laser weapon, dubbed the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD), successfully shot down more than 150 drones, rockets and other mock enemy targets in a third round of tests. The trials prove that the laser weapon is reliable and capable of consistently "acquiring, tracking and engaging a variety of targets in different environments," according to Boeing.

The most recent demonstration of the 10-kilowatt, high-energy laser took place at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The laser was installed on a military vehicle, making it the first mobile, high-energy laser built and demonstrated by the U.S. Army, according to Boeing. [7 Technologies That Transformed Warfare]

Directed-energy technologies like the HEL MD could soon be used by the military to augment what are known as kinetic strike weapons, such as missile interceptors, that don't contain explosives but destroy targets by colliding with them at extreme speeds.
Kinetic strike weapons are expensive, and the HEL MD could offer "a significant reduction in cost per engagement," Dave DeYoung, Boeing's directed-energy systems director, said in a statement.

This push for laser weaponryis part of the U.S. military's Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move (GBAD) program. The goal of the program is to provide what officials from the Office of Naval Research call an "affordable alternative to traditional firepower," to guard against drones and other enemy threats.
The recent demonstration of Boeing's mobile laser weapon is just a prelude of things to come. By 2016, the military plans to have a 30-kilowatt laser gun ready for testing, according to the Office of Naval Research.

And Boeing isn't the only defense contractor working with the military to develop high-powered laser weapons. In August, the Office of Naval Research awarded Raytheon an $11 million contract to build a vehicle-mounted laser device capable of shooting down low-flying enemy targets. The system will reportedly generate at least 25 kilowatts of energy, which will make it more than twice as powerful as the laser recently tested by Boeing.
Live science

  

Entangled 'Photon Triplets' Could Speed Up Telecommunication

One of four chips used in the experiment that act as photon detectors. The chips are made of superconducting nanowires.
Physicists have entangled three particles of light faster than ever, creating triplets that stay connected no matter how far apart they are from one another.
In the bizarre world of quantum mechanics, particles can become entangled so that, even if they are long distances from one another, an action on one will affect the others — a phenomenon that Albert Einstein once called "spooky." In the new study, the researchers were able to record data on so many entangled triplets thanks to a new supersensitive photon detector developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The new detector allowed the researchers to speed up the experiment, because it could detect photon triplets with a much higher efficiency than older detectors.
The new experiment has implications for quantum computers, which use qubits (quantum particles), rather than 1s and 0s, to store information. Because quantum particles can exist in more than one place at once — a phenomenon called superposition — qubits can store more information than the bits in traditional computers. [How Spooky Quantum Entanglement Works (Infographic)]

Such quantum computers would require multientangled particles, because the more entangled particles they use, the more information they can store and the faster that information can be computed, even compared with such particles being in more than one place at a time. Qubits can exist as either a 1 or a 0 in their superposition state. That means that two entangled qubits could compute four values at once, three qubits could compute eight values at once, and so on. And that's where the new experiment, which generated entangled photon triplets, comes in. (Photons are particles of light.)
"The more entangled photons you have, the more quantum resources you have and the more information you can store," Krister Shalm, a researcher at NIST, told Live Science.

Tangled triplets
Shalm and the team of researchers produced triplet entangled photons in a more stable and more technologically useful state than previous methods did.
The researchers first shot a blue photon through a special crystal that transformed it into two red entangled photons, dubbed "daughter photons," with half the intensity of the first photon. The system then sent one of the daughter photons through a second crystal that created a pair of infrared "granddaughter photons" that became entangled with the daughter photon.

However, quantum entanglement is rare, Shalm said. The two daughter photons only become entangled once out of every billion tries. Once that finally happens, the granddaughter photons from the daughter photon only become entangled with a daughter photon once in a million times. This makes it difficult to study quantum entanglement and apply the phenomenon to things like quantum computing and quantum communication.

The new detector recorded data from the photons 100 times faster than older detectors. The experiment pumped out entangled triplets at a rate of 660 per hour — a big improvement over the seven per hour produced in previous experiments.

Faster communication
The resulting triplet photons generated by the researchers with the new system are right around the wavelengths used in telecommunication, Shalm said. Quantum entanglement is useful in telecommunications, because one photon could be sent to New York, for example, while the other photon is sent to the other side of the world, but the two remain intimately connected and can quickly transfer messages.

However, the experiment's potential application to quantum computing is further off. The setup of the experiment is not scalable, so the huge number of entangled particles needed for quantum computing is still a long ways off, Shalm said. In other words, it's not practical to generate more entangled particles by simply sending each daughter photon through another crystal, where the likelihood of quantum entanglement gets smaller and smaller.
Details of the experiment were published Sept. 14 in the journal Nature Photonics.
Live science






 

Failing students saved by stress-detecting app

EARLIER this year, two students at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire who were due to be failed for skipping lectures and not completing assignments were spared the academic axe.

Why the leniency? According to an automated analysis of their smartphone data, both had stress and health-related issues they hadn't told their professors about. So instead of F's and a term's suspension, they were given a chance to complete the coursework over the summer and have now returned to campus.

The students have Andrew Campbell, a computer scientist at Dartmouth, and his colleagues to thank. The students, and 46 others, were enrolled in an experiment to see if data gathered from their phones could be used to guess their state of mind.

Campbell's team set out to discover why, out of a group of students arriving at university with similar qualifications, some excel while others miss lots of classes or even drop out entirely.

The researchers suspected that factors like the amount of sleep students get, their sociability, mood, workload and stress levels all played a role. So they built an app, called StudentLife, that monitors readings from smartphone sensors, and then recruited volunteers to use it over a 10-week term.

The app recorded almost every aspect of life that it was possible to measure, including physical activity levels, frequency and duration of conversations, and GPS location. The camera even watched for when the lights went out each night.

By crunching this data, the app could infer each student's levels of happiness, depression, loneliness and stress. That's possible because "flourishing" students, as the team calls them, are often with other people and have longer conversations, while depressed students interact less with others and have disrupted, or excessive, sleep. Loneliness is marked in part by mainly indoor activity, the team says, and the combination of disturbed sleep and short conversations is a predictor of stress.

The researchers compared these mental states with each student's performance, including grades for assignments and their grade-point average for the term.

"We found for the first time that passive and automatic sensor data, obtained from phones without any action by the user, significantly correlates student depression level, stress and loneliness with academic performance over the term," Campbell says. It also let them see how behaviour like gym usage and sleep times changed when students were faced with assignments or exams.

The results showed that students generally started the term in chipper moods, with most having lots of conversations, healthy sleep levels and busy activity patterns. As the term went on, workload increased, stress shot up – and sleep, chat and physical activity all dropped off. Daily interviews with volunteers confirmed that the automated analyses were accurate. Campbell will present the team's results at UbiComp in Seattle this week.

He believes the results are good evidence that phones will be able to provide continuous mental health assessment – much better than occasional questionnaires filled out when someone feeling depressed visits a doctor. And the app could work for people from all walks of life.

But accessing data on someone's every move will be controversial, even if it saves them their university place or job. "Privacy is the big issue here," says Cecilia Mascolo, who studies mobile sensing at the University of Cambridge. "You need to constrain this to a very specific application that will benefit people, and with the user always in control of their data." Still, she says, with proper protections in place, stress or depression could not only be detected, but also mitigated using information derived from phone sensors.

"People won't be given a prescription," she says. "They will be given an app.
New scientiest

Microsoft acquires Minecraft for $2.5 billion; Notch moves on to greener pastures

Microsoft has announced that it will acquire the Minecraft franchise, and its Swedish developer Mojang, for $2.5 billion. Microsoft asserts that it “plans” to continue distributing Minecraft across PC, Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, and Android, but obviously the game’s cross-platform future is called into question by this acquisition. Markus “Notch” Persson, and Mojang’s other two founders, will not be staying with Mojang/Microsoft and will “move on to start new projects.”

Microsoft’s acquisition of Mojang and Minecraft is savvy for two primary reasons. First, Minecraft makes a lot of money (MSFT says the deal will break-even in fiscal year 2015). Second, Minecraft is the most popular online game on the Xbox 360 and Xbox One — and so having Minecraft in-house guarantees continuing support. I’m sure a big part of this was bringing Minecraft to Windows Phone, too — it’s the most popular paid app on both iOS and Android, and it’s one of the major apps that’s still missing from the Windows Phone ecosystem.

The big question now, of course, is how the acquisition will affect Minecraft in the long term. From a purely financial point of view, I seriously doubt Microsoft will withdraw support for iOS, Android, and PlayStation — Minecraft makes a lot of money, and Microsoft will be keen to recoup some of that $2.5 billion.

 

The other option, of course, is that Microsoft will use Minecraft as a carrot, to lead gamers towards Windows, Windows Phone, and Xbox. This could be as simple as discontinuing the other versions of Minecraft — but more there are “nicer” alternatives, though, such as releasing new content and DLC exclusively for Xbox and Windows Phone. Both Microsoft and Mojang make it clear that things should stay mostly the same, but that there’s certainly space for some maneuvering further down the line. With Windows Phone still struggling to make an impression in the smartphone market, and Xbox One lagging behind the PS4, some top-notch game IP could be exactly what the doctor ordered.

As far as Minecraft’s creator, Notch, is concerned, he decided to sell out to Microsoft because the game and the community simply became too big for him to handle. On his blog (mirrored on Pastebin), Notch laments that, “I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not a CEO. I’m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.” For a long time now he has been overwhelmed by the massive success of Minecraft — and indeed, he hasn’t been actively developing Minecraft for sometime. Moving forward, Notch says: “I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I’ll probably abandon it immediately.”
EXtreme Tech     

DisplayPort 1.3 unveiled: 32.4 Gbps bandwidth, support for 4K @ 60 fps, 5K, 8K

4K monitors are only barely beginning to see adoption but VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) is forging ahead with DisplayPort version 1.3, which will offer up to 32.4Gbps of single-link bandwidth. Even after allowing for bandwidth overhead, the new standard will deliver about 25.92Gbps, or nearly double HDMI 2.0′s best available bandwidth. This will be more than enough for 4K @ 60 fps, and it will also support 5K displays as well.


Here’s a quick rundown of DisplayPort 1.3′s capabilities:

• Dual 4K monitors on a single DP 1.3 cable
• One 8K monitor
• One 4K monitor @ 60 fps with simultaneous support for full-speed USB 3.0  

 Theoretically, DisplayPort also offers better support for high color applications at high resolutions. This would be a non-standard operating mode, and getting a Windows desktop into 10-bit color mode or higher requires specialized video cards and software support — but HDMI 2.0 tops out at 48 bits per pixel (16 bits of color per channel) at 4096×2160 @ 60 fps. This is the sort of feature that would only matter for video editing professionals, but could be of interest to that group.  

DisplayPort 1.3 will continue to support the variable refresh rate concept AMD refers to as FreeSync, but no word on when we’ll see that feature debuting in AMD GPUs. The company announced with the Tonga launch that not all Radeon cards would be FreeSync-capable when the feature launches.

Finally, VESA is also pushing the idea of DisplayPort 1.3 as a solution for 5K video (5120×2880), despite the fact that 5K is anything but standardized right now.

When will GPUs support it?

 We don’t expect to see DP 1.3 support baked in to any GPUs in the near future. HDMI 2.0 has been out for over a year, and neither AMD or Nvidia supports it yet — though that could change in the very near future. Even so, we expect some lag — AMD has historically been more aggressive than Nvidia with DisplayPort, but has yet to announce plans for DP 1.3 — the company’s just-launched Tonga GPU sticks with DP 1.2.

 

 

 

AMD might refresh its products more quickly depending on what Apple intends to do with the Mac Pro — that system relies heavily on Thunderbolt for connectivity, and DisplayPort 1.3 offers more options for transferring high speed data across the Thunderbolt bus. It’s not impossible that GCN 2.0 could add DisplayPort 1.3 early in the cycle — but without any monitors to support the standard and no word on when GCN 2.0 might actually ship, don’t expect near-term support. 

Extreme Tech  

   

Google Must Make Android Safer (Op-Ed)

Over the past few months, the Android platform developed by Google and based on the Linux operating system has been having a difficult time. Hackers, with malicious intent and those without, have been investing time in finding out how weak this operating system is.

Android runs on more than four out of five mobile devices. It is popular because it is free and its terms do not dictate to device manufacturers what hardware it must be used on. 

The hacking seen so far is partly a result of this popularity. But there also seem to be inherent problems, which experts and hackers have discovered don’t exist on other mobile platforms.

What are the issues?

Android is getting the most attention from malware creators, because it has more than 40,000 different malware compromises. This is worrying especially as the same systems for Windows and Apple phones seem to have only handful such issues (on non-jailbroken devices).

 In June concerns arose about an SMS worm that could propagate via Android devices. One of the primary issues is the version control system these devices uses. As new and better versions of Android have been released, manufacturers having committed their development efforts to one version cannot always allow for upgrades. This is commonplace among the lower-priced devices, which tend to be fixed to a specific version of Android. Currently new devices are using the KitKat version of Android, but previous versions, such as JellyBean and IceCreamSandwich, remain in use.

In July researchers published their analysis of Android devices purchased on eBay. Even though these devices had had the information on them deleted, they could recover and analyse it. Naked Selfies among other confidential data were found, exposing a serious flaw in the encryption used by Android. The factory reset option, which should be able to permanently wipe any historical data from the device, seemed not to work well either. (This is the same issue, which was reported earlier in August, regarding the Tesco Hudl tablet, which uses Android as the operating system.)

Now researchers have found a flaw in the Gmail application on Android devices. The flaw makes it easy to create malware to obtain personal information, effectively using the email application as a route to extract all kinds of data from your phones. The researchers have claimed that this is also possible on iPhones and Windows phones. What they neglect to share is that Microsoft and Apple have app stores that undergo a range of stringent security checks before any app is allowed on their devices. This is unlike the Google Play environment, which is not the only source for apps on Android device.

There are many non-Google Android app stores – some legitimate but many not. Worse still, the security community has also exposed issues with the official Google Play store. We can trust almost all applications downloaded on Apple and Microsoft phones, but for any on the Android platform the risk is considerably higher. Unless you have up-to-date anti-malware software and are extremely cautious, chances are that your Android phone may eventually be compromised.

Should I be concerned?

Sadly, I think all Android users should be concerned. It is an excellent mobile operating system and has enabled low-cost smartphones and tablet computers to exist in the market place. But Google needs to tighten controls on how applications can enter this device as well as some of its underlying features.

Whenever I meet someone with an Android device, the first question I ask them is if they have any anti-malware installed. They often give me a quizzical look. The reality is that, if they don’t have such security apps installed, the data on their Android is not safe.
LIVESCIENCE

Atom-Sized Construction Could Shrink Future Gadgets

The U.S. military doesn't just build big, scary tanks and giant warplanes; it's also interested in teeny, tiny stuff. The Pentagon's latest research project aims to improve today's technologies by shrinking them down to microscopic size.

The recently launched Atoms to Product (A2P) program aims to develop atom-size materials to build state-of-the-art military and consumer products. These tiny manufacturing methods would work at scales 100,000 times smaller than those currently being used to build new technologies, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

The tiny, high-tech materials of the future could be used to build things like hummingbird-size drones and super-accurate (and super-small) atomic clocks — two projects already spearheaded by DARPA. [Humanoid Robots to Flying Cars: 10 Coolest DARPA Projects] 

"If successful, A2P could help enable [the] creation of entirely new classes of materials that exhibit nanoscale properties at all scales," John Main, a program manager in DARPA's defense sciences office, said in a statement.

When materials are created with dimensions of about 1 to 100 nanometers (that's between one and 100 billionths of a meter), the materials' properties change significantly. At nanoscales, materials may have different melting points, electric conductivity, magnetic properties and different reactions with certain chemicals, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a U.S. government program.
Those nanoscale properties also offer advantages for larger materials, according to DARPA researchers.

And these atomic-scale properties can lead to certain advantages when it comes to building both military and civilian technology, DARPA said. The agency said it believes it can use tiny materials to make products whose parts stick together without glue or other adhesion methods. These materials could be used to build armorthat can withstand rapid changes in temperature.

DARPA also wants to explore what it calls "tunable" light absorption and scattering. "Tunability" refers to another quality of nanomaterials: By changing the size of the particles in a material, scientists can literally fine-tune certain properties of that material to better suit the researchers' purposes, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative. DARPA has shown interest in using tunability to create technology, perhaps sensors or microchips,that only absorb or reflect certain wavelengths of light.
Tunability could also help researchers miniaturize materials, processes and devices that can't be miniaturized with current technology, Main said.

IDF: Intel Dives Into Wearables, IoT

SAN FRANCISCO—Intel is here once again to regale the world with its ambitious plans to install its computer chips in devices and systems of every shape and size, from the mightiest servers to the humblest connected switches in smart homes and wearables. 

 "We'll keep taking billions of transistors and placing them on processors. ... It's Intel end-to-end, going from the data center to the Internet of Things," CEO Brian Krzanich said Tuesday to kick off the Intel Developer Forum at Moscone West. "With our diverse product portfolio and developer tools that span key growth segments, operating systems, and form factors, Intel offers hardware and software developers new ways to grow, as well as design flexibility. If it's smart and connected, it's best with Intel."

And the chip giant certainly has a lot of balls in the air these days, the result of a multi-year strategy to salt computing systems up and down the stack with its x86 processor architecture. Intel chips now dominate the data center—new server chips codenamed Grantley were released earlier this week—as well as the PC market. Meanwhile, the company's belated efforts to challenge ARM in mobile devices appears to be picking up steam, especially with the release of its first 14-nanometer, 4.5-watt chips in the new Core M line, which enable fanless tablet and 2-in-1 PC designs.

  We've already seen a handful of new ultra-thin 2-in-1s powered by Core M chips from the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Dell. Here at IDF, Michael Dell joined Intel to unveil a new Atom Z3500-based tablet line, the Dell Venue 8 7000 Series, pictured at right. These new 22nm "Moorfield" slates feature Intel's RealSense 3D photography technology and will be the "world's thinnest tablets" when they're released later this year, according to the two companies.



Intel also launched a new reference design program for makers of Android tablets using Intel chips, which will "help scale the deployment process of Android for tablet manufacturers by providing software engineering work [and] streamlined access to Google Mobile Services, as well as support for updates and upgrades to future Android releases," the company said.

  Sticking with the theme of an expanding mobile portfolio, Intel announced that its second-generation LTE platform, the XMM 7260 modem is now commercially available and shipping in Samsung's Galaxy Alpha smartphones sold in Europe and elsewhere. Building on its acquisition of Infineon Technologies, Intel has been pouring significant resources into RF in an attempt to take on ARM licensees like Qualcomm for positioning in smartphones and tablets.

 The Next Big Thing

 But in a sense, all of that PC and mobile device stuff is already old hat for Intel. Krzanich and his colleagues clearly have their eyes trained on another burgeoning market with tremendous opportunities for growth—namely, the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables.

There are currently about 2.2 billion x86-based devices out in the wild in 2014, according to the Intel chief, but there could be 50 billion by 2020. That's how explosive the growth of demand may be for connected computing systems in our homes, our cars, and even in the clothes and jewelry we wear. 

Krzanich spoke of what he called the "maker's world," Intel's burgeoning ecosystem of developers building creative new IoT devices and wearables. About a year ago, the company released a tiny, very low power, single-core, 32-bit x86 System-on-a-Chip (SoC) called Quark to address this market. The first Quark board for Krzanich's makers was dubbed Galileo, offering developers a platform for building simple, connected IoT devices.


On Tuesday, Intel announced that the follow-up to Galileo, Edison, is now available. Edison, pictured below, features a dual-core SoC, Wi-Fi and other comms capabilities, memory, support for expansion boards to bring in USB and more, in a package "only slightly larger than a postage stamp," the company said.
Edison is priced at $50, down from Galileo's $70, Krzanich noted.



Of course, Intel already has some goodies to show in the wearables department, namely the MICA smart bracelet it unveiled at Fashion Week in New York.

Short for "My Intelligent Communication Accessory," MICA is both bejeweled and digitally enhanced, the product of a "landmark" collaboration between Intel and fashion house Opening Ceremony, the company said. 

"This is something you want to wear independent of the technology inside and when you realize what the technology inside is, you've got to have one," Krzanich said.

Intel hasn't revealed a ton of information about the technological functionality of the smart bracelet, but the company has said it will allow wearers "to stay connected via SMS messages, meeting alerts, and general notifications delivered directly to the wrist, with additional features and functionalities to be revealed at a later date."

MICA, which features a curved sapphire glass touchscreen display, per Intel, will come in two versions—one with a strap of black watersnake skin and adorned with Chinese freshwater pearls and Malagasy lapis, while the other sports a band made of white watersnake skin and is accented by tiger's eye gems sourced from South Africa and Russian obsidian.

Starting later this year, MICA will be sold in the United States exclusively through AT&T, Intel said.

The chip giant demoed a number of wearable reference designs at CES earlier this year. Krzanich highlighted some of the real-life products that have emerged in the nine months since that Las Vegas showcase, including MICA and SMS Audio's battery-free BioSport heart rate-tracking, smartphone-syncing earbuds.

And as it is doing for Android tablet makers, Intel is throwing some cash and expertise at makers of wearables with its new Analytics for Wearables (A-Wear) developer program. The A-Wear program, which is free to access for all developers of Intel-based wearables, "will accelerate development and deployment of new wearable applications with data-driven intelligence" leveraging Cloudera CDH software and Intel's cloud infrastructure, the company said.
PC MAG      

The first human brain-to-brain interface has been created. In the future, will we all be linked telepathically?

International researchers are reporting that they have built the first human-to-human brain-to-brain interface, allowing two humans — separated by the internet — to consciously communicate with each other, with no additional sensory cues. One researcher, attached to a brain-computer interface (BCI) in India, successfully sent words into the brain of another researcher in France, who was wearing a computer-to-brain interface (CBI). In short, the researchers have created a device that enables telepathy. In the future, rather than vocalizing speech — or vainly attempting to vocalize your emotions — your friend/lover/family member might just pluck those words and thoughts right out of your head.

Over the last few years, researchers have started to get quite good at reading your brain activity — your thoughts. Commercial brain-computer interfaces that you can plug into your computer’s USB port have been around for a good four or five years now, and in the last couple of years we’ve seen advanced BCIs that can be implanted directly into your brain. To create a brain-to-brain connection (i.e. telepathy) you also need the other side of the equation, however: You need to be able to take some data and input it into someone else’s brain — and that, as you can imagine, is proving to be a bit harder

 
USB-connected BCIs, like the one here by Emotiv, have been around for years.

Now, however, a team of international researchers have cracked it. On the BCI side of things, the researchers used a fairly standard EEG (electroencephalogram) from Neuroelectrics. For the CBI, which requires a more involved setup, a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) rig was used. TMS is somewhat similar to TDCS, in that it can stimulate regions of neurons in your brain — but instead of electrical current, it uses magnetism. The important thing is that TMS is non-invasive — it can stimulate your brain (and thus cause you to think or feel a certain way) without having to actually cut into your brain and use some electrodes (see: deep brain stimulation).

    

This is how the brain-to-brain system works. The BCI reads the sender’s thoughts — in this case, the sender thinks about moving his or her hands or feet. Thinking about feet is equivalent to binary 0, while hands is binary 1. With a little time/effort, whole words can be encoded as a stream of ones and zeroes. These encoded words are then transmitted (via the internet or some other network) to the recipient, who is wearing a TMS. The TMS is focused on on the recipient’s visual cortex. When the TMS receives a “1″ from the sender, it stimulates a region in the visual cortex that produces a phosphene — the phenomenon whereby you see flashes of light, without light actually hitting your retina (when you rub your eyes, for example). The recipient “sees” these phosphenes at the bottom of their visual field. By decoding the flashes — phosphene flash = 1, no phosphene = 0 — the recipient can “read” the word being sent.

You would be right in thinking that this is a rather complex and long-winded way of sending messages from one brain to another — but for now, this is truly the state of the art. As you can see, this method very neatly sidesteps the fact that we really don’t know how the human brain encodes information — and so, for now, instead of importing a “native” message, we have to use our own encoding scheme (binary) and a quirk of the visual cortex. [Research paper: doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105225 - "Conscious Brain-to-Brain Communication in Humans Using Non-Invasive Technologies"]

    
The actual brain-to-brain setup. Sender/EEG on the left, receiver/TMS on the right


Still, even if it does seem a little bit like hard work, there’s no denying that this is a conscious, non-invasive brain-to-brain connection. While the recipient isn’t going anywhere fast (the TMS is bulky), it’s not hard to imagine a small, lightweight EEG that allows the sender to constantly stream thoughts back to the receiver. I’m sure we’re not more than a few years away from a setup that allows the receiver to walk around, too — at which point, assuming we make some progress in decoding the brain’s activity, you basically have a persistent brain-to-brain link that would allow you to always know what your friends/family/loved ones are thinking. You might use such a telepathy system for sending simple thoughts from a distance — I love you — or maybe it could be useful for truly getting inside someone’s head when they’re struggling to voice their emotions.
The future is going to be a fun and/or scary and/or amazing place to live in, friends.
EXTREMETECH
 

Apple unveils Apple Pay, a digital wallet for your iPhone 6 and Apple Watch

Apple has announced its new mobile payments system: Apple Pay. As expected, it will allow you to use your iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, or Apple Watch as a digital wallet, paying at one of the 220,000 contactless payment locations across the US. Furthermore, though, Apple Pay also simplifies online payments, allowing you to buy things with just a single tap of the Touch ID sensor (your fingerprint). Apple Pay will also work with the Apple Watch.

While digital wallets and mobile payments aren’t a new idea, Apple Pay sounds like it will be a very slick, fast, and private solution. Out of the box, it will work with your credit card details stored in iTunes, but you can add more credit cards. (Apple seems to have partnered with most US banks, and the underlying providers: Visa, MasterCard, and AmericanExpress.) All told, Apple says it can now account for 83% of credit card transactions — so not total coverage, but pretty good.

  


Using Apple Pay is as simple as you’d think. Load up a credit card in the Passbook app, approach a contactless payment point, put your finger to the Touch ID fingerprint scanner — and boom, you’ve paid. To make Apple Pay very secure, every transaction actually generates a one-time “payment number.” Rather than using your actual credit card number and security digits (CVV), Apple Pay creates a card number and security digits that only work one time. That way, if your iPhone or Apple Watch gets stolen, you don’t have to cancel your credit cards. Apple says your name or other identifiable data is never revealed to the store clerk, either, which is nice.

  

Along with contactless payment, Apple Pay can also be used to simplify online payments. Details are a little vague, but it looks like third-party app developers will be able to integrate Apple Pay, so that you can pay with your stored credit card details by tapping “Pay with Apple Pay” and scanning your fingerprint on the Touch ID sensor.

Apple has announced lots of big partners for Apple Pay. Disney, Staples, Subway, McDonalds, Walgreens, Macy’s, and many more, all of which are dedicated to rolling out support for Apple Pay in some form or another. By Christmas, you’ll be able to walk around one of Disney’s theme parks and pay for everything with Apple Pay (or, indeed, another contactless credit card if you have one).

Apple Pay will be available in October for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and only in the US to start with. It will also be available for the Apple Watch when it’s released in 2015. Will Apple Pay kill off cash or the real-world leather wallet?
EXTREME TECH
   

Google faces new stand-off in Europe

Google faces a fresh probe into its mobile operating system  

The European Commission is seeking fresh concessions from Google on how it displays search results on web pages. 

 The long-running investigation aims to settle concerns that the search giant has abused its dominant position in the European search market.
Competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia revealed that he could also open a probe into Google's mobile operating system Android

Google said it continued to work with the commission to resolve the matter.
The dispute has been running since 2010, after rivals, including British price-comparison site Foundem, complained that the way Google displayed results was anti-competitive.
In Europe Google has a 90% share of the search market.

 Toll road
 In a deal hammered out in February, Google agreed to reserve space near the top of its European search pages for competitors, which would be open to rivals to bid for via an auction.
This auction could generate an extra income of up more than 300 million euros for Google, said rivals.

"Under the auction system Google would get another massive revenue stream. It's a bit like telling a robber than he can't rob any more but instead can set a toll on the High Street," said David Wood, a lawyer that represents iComp (Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace) of which Foundem and Microsoft are members.

"The real remedy is for Google to use the same algorithm for third-party sites that it applies to its own," he added.
He urged the European Commission to push this solution as part of its powers.


Writing on the Google Europe blog, executive chairman Eric Schmidt quoted Mr Almunia saying that imposing "strict equal treatment could mean returning to the old world of Google displaying only 10 undifferentiated search results".
"We're trying to get you direct answers to your queries because it's quicker and less hassle than the 10 blue links Google used to show," he said.

"Nor is it true that we are promoting our own products at the expense of the competition," he added.
Mr Almunia had previously indicated that he was happy with the changes but had changed his mind in the wake of "very, very negative" feedback from rivals such as Microsoft and Expedia, he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

"Some complainants have introduced new arguments, new data, new considerations. We now need to to analyse this and see if we can find solutions, Google can find solutions, to some of these concerns that we find justified," he told reporters.
This represents the third rejection of Google's solutions and experts think that it is now unlikely that an agreement will be reached during Mr Almunia's term in office, which finishes at the end of October.
If no agreement is reached, Google faces a heavy fine.
BBC

Paypal unit to 'embrace' Bitcoin crypto-currency

 Braintree's work on bitcoins will make it easier for online retailers to take payments made in the virtual currency

Paypal subsidiary Braintree has started working on ways to process payments using the Bitcoin virtual currency.

The work is due to be completed within "the coming months", said Braintree boss Bill Ready in a conference speech.
It means that firms such as Uber and Airbnb, which use Braintree as a payment processor, will also be able to accept bitcoins.
So far, there is no indication that bitcoins will be accepted directly by Paypal and eBay.

 Price crash

During his speech at the Techcrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Mr Ready said Braintree's work should be seen as its "first foray" into using bitcoins.
Braintree processes payments on mobiles and websites and said it would work with Bitcoin payments site Coinbase to process transactions carried out with the crypto-currency.

Bitcoins are a form of money that use unique numbers instead of notes and coins as a store of monetary value. In November 2013, the value of one bitcoin hit $1,000 (£620) but it has fallen sharply and now each one is worth about $470 (£290).
Braintree's work meant that tens of thousands of merchants would soon be able to accept the digital cash too, said Mr Ready.

Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg that Braintree's announcement was a "very substantial development". He added that it might also speed up adoption by Paypal which would mean "millions of retailers will de facto be accepting bitcoin overnight".
Paypal spent about $800m (£500m) in September 2013 to buy Braintree, largely because of its role in mobile payment systems.

Braintree's announcement comes as Wired reports on an attempt to unmask Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto. The tech news site said a hacker has claimed to have take control of an email account known to be used by the reclusive inventor who has never revealed their true identity.
The hacker said they would supply information that would lead to the identification of Mr Nakamoto if they were paid 25 bitcoins (£7,300). Wired was sceptical of the claim to have information about Mr Nakamoto as little evidence was provided by the hacker for his assertion.

An earlier attempt to unmask Mr Nakamoto was made by Newsweek which claimed an American called Dorian Prentice Nakamoto was the elusive inventor. He denied being the creator and interest in the claim led to the real Satoshi Nakamoto issuing a short statement refuting any link with Dorian Nakamoto.
BBC

Dyson launches a robot vacuum cleaner, the Dyson 360 Eye

Dyson has announced that it's launching a robot vacuum cleaner, the Dyson 360 Eye.
Somewhat late to the robot party, with Samsung and LG having been through several generations of the autonomous cleaners, Dyson is looking to do things differently.
The camera on the top, for example, scans the room at 30fps so it knows where it is and where objects are. Rather than just using it hit-and-avoid system, it tries to figure out the most efficient route for cleaning the room.

The Dyson 360 Eye packs in the same motor Dyson Digital Slim DC59, so although it might not be as small as some rivals, unable to get under furniture, it should offer plenty of suck.
There's also a different design for the beater brush, extending the full width of the vacuum cleaner, it should be better at gathering dirt right up to the skirting boards.
Launching initially in Japan, the Dyson 360 Eye will be coming to the UK some time in 2015.
Tech uk

Samsung unveils virtual reality headset Gear VR – but it works only with its new phone

Switched on: TV host Rachel Riley tries out Samsung’s Gear VR device at the IFA tech show (Picture: Reuters)

It’s the sci-fi inspired gadget that is set to be the latest must-have item for gamers.

But Samsung’s bold move into the emerging market of virtual reality is likely to cost fans a fortune.
Not only will they need the new Gear VR headset to play games – it will work only with Samsung’s new Note 4 phablet.
Users will slot the new smartphone into the wireless headset to see fantasy worlds come alive, says the tech giant. Developed by Samsung and Facebook-owned software developer Oculus, the devices go on sale next year.

 Samsung unveiled both gadgets at the IFA 2014 electronics show in Berlin yesterday, along with its new Galaxy Edge smartphone – which boasts a screen that curves around the edge of the handset.
But it is keeping the cost of the devices a closely guarded secret, for now.

The firm faces fierce competition in the VR gadget market from Sony’s Project Morpheus and Google Cardboard.
At the same event, Sony unveiled new smartphones – the Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact – and the Z3 Compact Tablet, which allows users to play PlayStation 4 games from mobile devices
Metro uk

We give Panasonic's new 5-inch Toughpad phablets a kicking

At IFA in Berlin , Panasonic put on its own spin of the ice bucket water challenge, but instead of dowsing charitable folk, it dunked its latest diminutive Toughpads. On show were the new rugged 5-inch HD (1280x720) FZ-E1 Windows 8.1 and FZ-X1 Android 4.2.2 tablets, both featuring data and voice capabilities.


Water sports: FZ-EX1 and FZ-E1 Toughpads submerged

The rugged credentials include MIL-STD-810G and IP68 certification, so it can withstand 3m (9.8ft) drops to concrete (El Reg tested the FZ-E1 on granite and it survived) and will stay functional when submerged in water at a depth of 1.5m for up to 30 minutes. A Panasonic staffer said tests of several hours had gone by without a hitch.

Needless to say, it’s fully sealed against dust and humidity and can operate in temperature ranges from -20°C to 60°C. To keep it cosy in extreme cold, there’s even a battery warming element.


Panasonic FZ-X1 Toughpad – ruggedised Android after a soaking

Given the casing reinforcements, these Toughpads measure up at 165 x 87 x 31mm thick. Yet despite the chunky appearance – and packing a 6200mAh battery with a duration of 23 hours talk, 14 hours data and 1,000 hours on standby – in the hand, they don’t feel overly weighty at all at 426g or 432g with a barcode reader.


FZ-E1 battery bay and seals

Panasonic’s thinking is to provide devices with familiar features but to meet exacting requirements in the field and for enterprise. So instead of all the fun stuff getting ripped out, you get an 8Mp snapper with flash and a 1.3Mp front facing camera too which will both prove their worth in the field or logistics.


8Mp camera and flash on the back as standard on both models

Voice isn’t just an afterthought either, as there are three mics on these devices to enable noise cancelling and there’s a pretty robust sounding speaker too – with Panasonic suggesting military and police uses here, with its various cradles and numerous add-ons. Also integrated into these Toughpads is a high accuracy GPS that pinpoints locations to within 2m to 4m.


Panasonic FZ-E1 Toughpad with the optional barcode reader

Inside, the FZ-E1 Windows 8.1 Toughpad relies on a Qualcomm MSM8974AB 2.3 GHz Quad-core processor, whereas the FZ-X1 Android model gets away with a slightly slower Qualcomm APQ8064T 1.7GHz Quad-core chip. Both feature 2GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage with microSD expansion for up to another 64GB.


Adam Ant? No it’s Mark Thorne MD, Panasonic Computer Products Europe

So what are you getting as a phablet here? As Microsoft’s Senior Channel Exec, Goran Mataic, explained on the day, the Toughpad FZ-E1 is simply Windows Phone 8.1 plus industrial and enterprise features – security being top of the list. It all boils down to what Microsoft describes as Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld OS. Yet beyond enterprise grade security and the Toughpad’s rugged accessories, the main area things differ from the standard WinPho or Android OS is in the touchscreen response.
Register uk

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4: 4G Android tablet is easy to swallow

If by the size of its TV ad campaign shall ye know it, then the Galaxy Tab S is clearly a Very Big Deal to Samsung.
I get the impression the Tab S range is Sammy’s most determined effort yet to convince people that its Android tablets are not just better than anyone else’s, but better also than Apple’s iPad alternatives.

Samsung then has put its reputation on the chopping block, but should we wield the meat cleaver?


Your plastic pal that's fun to be with: Samsung's Galaxy Tab S 8.4 4G

Available in 8.4- and 10.1-inch flavours, it is the former I’m fondling today, complete with 4G modem. Samsung has certainly got the shape and size right. At 212.8 x 125.6 x 6.6 mm and weighing a piffling 298g, this Samsung slab is considerably thinner and lighter than the iPad mini 2 Retina or LG’s G Pad 8.3.

For an 8-inch plus device, it’s surprisingly easy to hold in one hand and for a prolonged period of time. In a world stuffed to the gills with tablets ranging from 7 to 12.2 inches, the Tab S 8.4 is the closest to being all things to all people: big enough to fiddle with a spreadsheet or watch a movie on, small enough to be easily packed away or held.


Grippy back but that socket is only USB 2.0

It’s a pretty well-built device too, despite being made entirely of plastic. It features a similar soft-touch faux leather back to those found on the Galaxy Note 3 and Galaxy S5 which, trust me, looks and feels better than it sounds. I can’t say I like the white-and-gold colour scheme of my review device, it’s far too Essex for my taste, so I’d suggest going for the (still rather gaudy) Titanium/Bronze model.

On the front of the Tab S 8.4 you’ll find the usual Samsung control arrangement with a physical home button flanked by task switcher and back buttons. I’m not really a fan of this layout from an aesthetic standpoint, never have been, but at least you don't lose any screen real estate to a virtual button bar. And it's the screen above the buttons that deserves special attention.


Usual Samsung buttons at the bottom, so no loss of screen area

 It’s been a few years since we saw a Super AMOLED display on one of Samsung’s tablets (2012’s Tab 7.7 unless I’m mistaken) and it’s a welcome return, as this display is a rather fine affair. The 2560 x 1600 resolution means it’s a sharp as a tack and the pixel density of 359dpi is a good few pixels per inch higher than the iPad mini 2 Retina's 324dpi.

The Tab S beats the LG G Pad 8.3’s 273dpi by an even wider margin. This being a Samsung device the display uses a diamond-pattern PenTile matrix but you can’t tell with the naked eye so it’s really a technical irrelevancy from the user’s perspective.


TouchWiz home screen (note the toolbox drop-down) and screen settings

Now in these very pages I’ve often vented spleen about the garish, almost cartoon-like quality of Samsung's Super AMOLED screens and the over-egging of the Android pudding that is the TouchWiz launcher-cum-overlay. Have I changed my tune? Yes. Does that make me a hypocrite of Biblical standing? Only up to a point.

To start with you can can set the screen to several alternative display modes including one called Cinema, which dials back the colour intensity inherent in Super AMOLED panels. This makes videos look much, much more natural. And while it may not be the brightest screen I’ve encountered on a tablet – Samsung’s own Galaxy Tab Pro devices, like the Tab Pro 12.2 have it beaten here – contrast and saturation are both tip-top and it is supremely legible in bright sunlight.
Register uk

Heads up, Chromebook: Here come the sub-$200 Windows 8.1 portables

IFA 2014 Microsoft has been promising dirt-cheap Windows 8.1 devices for months now, and as the IFA 2014 consumer electronics conference kicks off in Berlin this week, the first round of penny-pinching Windows kit has finally started to arrive.
Acer, Asus, and Toshiba have each announced sub-$200 Windows tablets or laptops at the show, and other vendors are expected to follow suit.

The new devices, which are priced to compete with the likes of Google's Chromebooks, have been made possible in large part by Redmond's aggressive new Windows licensing initiatives, including a zero-dollar license for devices with screens smaller than nine inches and the subsidized Windows 8.1 with Bing version.

From what we can tell, the cheapest of the new kit is Toshiba's Encore Mini tablet, a seven-inch fondleslab running full Windows 8.1 that launched on Wednesday at a retail price of just $120 – less expensive than many comparably sized, name-brand Android tablets.
The Encore Mini has a 1024-by-600 resolution, multi-touch screen and is based on a quad-core Intel Atom Z3735G processor clocked at 1.33GHz (with a boost speed of up to 1.83GHz). It ships with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage – so it's not exactly a workstation, but it should make for a usable secondary device.


 It runs Windows 8.1 with Bing, which means Bing comes preconfigured as the default search engine in Internet Explorer but not much else, as far as the user's experience is concerned. It also comes with a one-year free subscription to Office 365 Personal – which, we note, is not the same thing as the free Office Home and Student 2013 we were promised earlier this year.







Acer, meanwhile, showed up at IFA with a slightly larger Windows fondleslab that also carries a larger price tag, albeit still squeaking in below the much-muttered-about $200 mark.
The Acer Iconia Tab 8 W has an 8-inch, 1280-by-800 resolution display, but its other specs are similar to the Encore Mini's. It uses the same Atom Z3735G and it also comes with 1GB of RAM, but it doubles the storage to 32GB. Also like the Encore Mini, it runs Windows 8.1 with Bing and bundles a one-year subscription to Office 365 Personal.

 The Iconia Tab 8 W will ship to Europe first in October with a price tag of €149 ($193), but we're told that when it makes its way to the Americas in November it will retail for $150.
Rounding out the offerings shown at IFA so far, Asus – the company that virtually invented the netbook category, years ago – looks to be the first company to take a direct run at Chromebooks with the $199 EeeBook X205 notebook.


Asus has yet to publish detailed specs, describing the unit only as "compact and colorful" – it comes in black, white, gold, and red – but according to media reports it has an 11.6-inch non-touch display at 1366-by-768 resolution, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of solid-state storage, and an unspecified quad-core "Bay Trail" Atom processor (which could be the Z3735G again).
The EeeBook X205 reportedly comes with Windows 8.1 with Bing preinstalled, but we're not sure yet whether it also bundles a one-year Office 365 subscription, like the aforementioned tablets do.


Doubtless these devices are just the first of a slew of cheap Windows kit that should arrive in the run-up to the holiday season, with Dell and HP, among others, expected to launch sub-$200 Windows devices of their own in the coming months.
In fact, if any of it catches your fancy, it might even behoove you to wait awhile before plunking down your hard-earned coin. At the Windows Partner Conference in July, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner to expect a $99 Windows tablet by Christmas – fingers crossed. ®
Register uk

Raspberry Pi B+: PHWOAR, get a load of those pins

Review You might think that as a purveyor of a nifty compact computer selling in the millions, you’d consider two years after the debut of your first offering that it was high time you tempted back the buyers with a go-faster, more capacious and shinier model. Heck, Apple and others don’t even wait that long: they upgrade products year in, year out.



Not so for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, for whom such compressed upgrade cycles are vulgarly short. The very first Raspberry Pi Model B micros slipped out early in 2012, and just over two-and-a-half years later, we have the follow-up, the Model B+ – and it isn’t even an upgrade in the modern sense of the word.
It is a better device, but it has been given an old-style upgrade of the kind made back when the word meant a small incremental improvement and didn’t refer to an almost entirely new product that just happens to sport the same name as its predecessor.

Today, "upgrade" means chuck out your current product and buy a brand new one because it’s more shiny. Because the Pi Model B+ is still only 30 quid, an upgrade *de nos jours* isn’t a big deal, but don’t assume that you’ll be getting a completely new piece of hardware.
The B+ is simply a redesigned version of the original – the Foundation calls it an “evolution” of the original Pi, and dubs it "Revision 3" of the B – rather than an updated version.

So what has changed? From a compute perspective, not a jot. The B+ runs no more quickly and has no extra memory than the B has. Pi eaters looking for a device with more for them to get their teeth into will be disappointed.


Spot the differences: The B and the B+ (left and right)

Instead, the Foundation has taken the opportunity to give the B a makeover in order to address some of the board layout issues and component gripes that users had about the original. It’s as if the B were the beta and the B+ the golden master.


Spring-loaded Micro SD slot? Don't mind if we do

Gone, then, is the flaky, latch-less SD card reader, replaced by a Micro SD slot that is spring-loaded to prevent the inadvertent card removals that fritzed so many Model A and Model B users’ installed operating systems.
I had already converted to Micro SD for my Pi storage, using a three-quarter size SD adaptor, so I was able to take the storage out of my B and pop it straight into the B+ and have it boot without any bother. That’s a sign that, from the perspective of the software, nothing has changed.

Indeed, that’s the point: changing some of the major components would have inevitably required users to start from scratch with a fresh install. Of course, folk who haven’t already migrated to Micro SD will have to anyway. Or not, since the benefits of the B+ are limited.


The B+ sports FOUR USB ports

The Model A Pi’s single USB port was next to useless; the B had two, which was useful but still not enough to connect a mouse, keyboard and Something Else unless you had a USB hub. The B+ has four USB ports, more than my laptop, though my laptop has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, keyboard and mouse built in. None of these are integrated into the Pi, making USB ports a much-treasured resource. The ports aren’t quite flush with the edge of the board, but they don’t poke out as far as they did on the B and they align with each other and the Ethernet port.

The B+ sports improved power regulation circuitry: out goes the old wasteful linear regulator, in comes an much more efficient switching regulator. That helps drive the extra USB ports, but there are still limits. I have an old 2.5-inch laptop hard drive in a bus-powered caddy, but the B+ couldn’t provide it with sufficient power – and I use a 5V, 2A USB AC adaptor. Even removing the keyboard, wireless mouse dongle and a USB stick didn’t help, ditto shifting to a 5V, 2.4A adaptor, so there may well be some instances where you’ll need extra juice.
So if you’re thinking about replacing your Model A or B, make sure you don’t sell your USB hub too.

That said, smaller external hard drives ran without a problem. So much depends on precisely what you want to hook up to the Pi: drives, webcams, wireless network adaptors, whatever. For me, the important thing is having enough ports for day-to-day usage – ie, keyboard, mouse and occasional USB stick – so I pack away the hub. If you do use a hub, the Foundation has eliminated back-powering, an issue that bothered some A and B users.

Gone are the separate RCA composite-video and 3.5mm audio ports, both replaced by a single 3.5mm port that handles both sound and vision. Better circuitry – a dedicated power supply, essentially – means there’s less noise to interfere with the audio signal. It has been relocated to the other side of the board next to the HDMI jack, which now supports bus-powered VGA adaptors, says the Foundation. The board’s display and camera connectors are still present.



Bringing the AV ports together would have made sense even if the Foundation hadn’t chosen to expand the B+’s GPIO pinout, but it has done just that, increasing the count from 26 pins to 40.
Register uk

Report: Apple inhales DRUGSTORE deals on iPhone payment system

That leaking tap at Cupertino refuses to be jammed ahead of Apple's 9 September launch of new products. The latest speculative report says that the fruity company has inked iPhone payment agreements with CVS and Walgreens - the two biggest pharmacies in the US.
According to Re/Code, which cites a source briefed on the plans, details will be revealed on, er, Tuesday.

But then, as we've seen already, it would seem Tim Cook has very few surprises to magic out of his hat on 9 September.

We learned about the proposed iPhone payment system in the summer when it was reported that Visa and Apple were locked in talks.
Last week, other credit and debit card bigwigs, including American Express, were name-dropped by an insider.
By Thursday, the New York Times had reported that Apple's latest product launch would include two versions of the iPhone and - at last - an iWatch.
As for the drugstore deals Apple has reportedly struck with CVS and Walgreen, your correspondent can't help but point readers at Cupertino's HealthKit system.

Apple, in an update to its the latest version of its licence agreement, recently told iOS app developers that they will be locked out from allowing sensitive health data to be slurped by third parties.
Presumably, this will extend to US pharmacies who have a payment deal with Apple. But how smart will the iPhone be in linking data between, say an asthmatics' inhaler purchase and the health apps that individual has on their device? Or will HealthKit be completely walled off from Apple's payment system?
Register uk

Motorola's circular smartwatch puts Android Wear in fashion for the right price

Motorola's Moto 360 smartwatch proves that wearables can be as fashionable as Android Wear is functional, making it the first Google-powered watch worth owning.
Its circular watch face takes cues from stylish designer wristwatches with analog tickers, not square-shaped smartwatches. The very computerized-looking Samsung Gear Live and LG G Watch are no match for what Motorola has up its sleeve.
Moto 360 is appropriately just in time too. While the company originally scheduled to have it ready for a summer release date, this ambitious watch is launching a little later than expected: today in the US and early October in the UK.



That's less than a week before Apple is expected to preview the iWatch along with the iPhone 6, and the same week that LG is expected to put is round LG G Watch R into production.
Wearable early adopters, however, can hardly say no to the long-awaited Moto 360, especially for the asking price. It's $249 in the US and £199 in the UK (about AU$267). That's only a little more expensive than Android Wear's extremely limited smartwatch pickings, all of which can't compare to Moto 360's stylish design.

Display

From day one of Android Wear, Moto 360 has been all about its unique circular display, an enterprising move by the reborn Motorola. Now we finally know the official specs that go along with the once-mysterious round screen.
It clocks in with a 1.56-inch LCD protected by Gorilla Glass 3. That's not the fancy OLED screen or sapphire glass that some people were hoping for, but it's a better trade-off given the on-point price. And the backlit LCD technology looks solid nonetheless.




Filling that circle is 205 pixels per inch with a 320 x 290 resolution. That's roughly the same resolution as the smaller Gear Live but fewer pixels vs the Samsung watch's 278ppi. The difference is noticeable in any side-by-side comparison, but for once it's not about what's inside the watch face that counts as much as it is about what's gives it its outer beauty.

Design

The Moto 360 watch frame is stainless steel, eschewing earlier rumors that is might go the cheaper route of substituting in plastic to reduce the price. Matching that quality is genuine leather straps by the Chicago-based tanner Horween, known for making NFL footballs. It really contrasts with the tacky plastic housing and rubber straps found on the Gear Live and G Watch. 

 

 

Motorola is making the leather straps available with its smartwatch today in the US and at launch in the UK. The first colors being introduced are gray leather and black leather. That doesn't mean you won't be able to upgrade to the metal bands or different colors when Motorola launches those, for a slightly higher price and at a later date.
Even with the premium materials on-board, the Moto 360 weighs 49g (1.7 oz). That's actually lighter than both the Samsung Gear Live 59g (2.1oz) and LG G Watch 64g (2.2oz). Motorola still packs in comparable specs on the inside too.

Specs

There's a Texas Instruments OMAP 3 processor making this digital smartwatch tick, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. It connects to Android smartphones running Android 4.3, Android 4.4 and the Android L beta through the Android Wear app and Bluetooth 4.0.



Moto 360 has one physical button unlike the buttonless LG G Watch, and it turns the display on and off. It's an alternative method of doing the same by tapping the screen to turn it on and palming the entire display to quickly turn it off.
It crosses over from smartwatch to fitness band with health-motivating features like a pedometer inside and an optical heart-rate monitor on back. It can be worn all day, even in wet conditions thanks to its IP67 water resistance rating. It's not completely waterproof, but it can go a depth of 1 meter for about 30 minutes before you run into trouble.

Battery life and wireless charger

The Moto 360 battery life gets about a day per charge thanks to a 320mAh battery. It's slightly bigger than the Samsung Gear Live battery of 300mAh, but smaller than the LG G Watch 400mAh battery, but it gets the job done as long as you charge it nightly. Pebble Steel and the original Pebble remain the smartwatch kings of longevity.



At least there's a novel way to recharge the Moto 360. It comes with a Qi charging dock that is perfect for resting on a nightstand. It dims the display so that you can get to sleep, but also see the time as you sleep away into a dream.
It doesn't have the more practical micro USB port that the newly announced Sony Smartwatch 3 is going to have, but the Moto 360 charging method is much more futuristic and cool. That better fits the stylishing theme that Motorola is going for with its watch.

Early Verdict

We've had about 12 hours time with the final Moto 360 smartwatch and haven't taken it off yet for two reasons. The battery that we wish as longer hasn't fully depleted after using multiple Android Wear apps on it and, more importantly, we fancy the circular design.
The cut-off horizon line at the bottom of the smartwatch, which houses the screen tech, doesn't bother us either as much as we thought. It actually pushes the pixels out to the edges of the smartwatch screen with a nice effect. If you've been holding out on Google new smartwatches, Moto 360 has finally started ticking and the Apple iWatch has some serious competition before its expected unveiling
Techradar