gadgets

Biometrics as a form of technology has been growing rapidly. Biometrics as a form of technology has been growing rapidly. Visa Europe recently conducted a study in UK which suggested that approximately 76 per cent of the population aged between 16 to 24 years are more comfortable making payments using biometric security. Moreover, 69 per cent of this population believes that it will make their lives faster and more convenient. Even in a country like India wherein Aadhaar – a citizen’s Unique Identification Number having registered approximately 750 million users with both their 12-digit number and the individual’s biometrics elements points towards how identity database will slowly be taken over by biometrics in the near future. Payment giants like Mastercard are also looking towards encompassing the biometrics technology with their systems. Ajay Bhalla, president of global enterprise risk and security at Mastercard told Engadget, ‘We want to remove passwords. Passwords are...

Prisma, the popular photo app that turns your plain photos into works of art using sophisticated image processing, has just rolled out support for 15-second video clips on iOS devices. That means the app will now take those short video clips and turn them into comic book-like animations in under a minute. All of the processing happens right on your smartphone, as well, so users can create Prisma videos without a cellular connection too. There are nine different "styles" of videos available with this new feature. All of the video processing happens on the phone Prisma launched in June of this year, first on iOS and then on Android a month later. Within its first month of availability the app, which is free, was downloaded more than 10 million times. Part of the app's appeal is the fact that it uses sophisticated neural network processing, or deep learning algorithms, to process the photos. Prisma has described this process as entirely different from photo filter...

Noida-based Ringing Bells, a company that came to the spotlight with the launch of the ‘world’s cheapest smartphone’ – the Freedom 251, on Friday announced its products will be available on Amazon India, starting Saturday. The day also happens to be the start of the Amazon Great Indian Sale. In an emailed statement, Ringing Bells detailed which products will be available via the e-commerce site, and notably, the list does not include the Freedom 251. Ringing Bells says the Freedom LED TV series will be made available on Amazon India, alongside select smartphones, feature phones, as well as power banks. Detailing which televisions in the Freedom LED TV will be available, Ringing Bells said the Freedom Junior (24-inch), Freedom Young (32-inch), and Freedom Mega (40-inch) will go on sale on Amazon India from Saturday, priced in the range of Rs. 8,999 to Rs. 19,999. Ringing Bells also said its features phones, Hit, King, and Raja, will be available on Amazon India, priced in t...

Rajasthan State Handloom Development Corporation (RHDC) is in discussion with e-commerce giants like Flipkart and Amazon to market products made by artisans in the state. RHDC has 15 show-rooms in Rajasthan and one in Ahmedabad, and its keen to open more outside the state with the support of Government of India, she said “We are in discussion with Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal so that our market becomes more widespread,” RHDC Managing Director, Shuchi Sharma was quoted by PTI as saying and she also added that the talks are yet to fructify. RHDC has 15 show-rooms in Rajasthan and one in Ahmedabad, and its keen to open more outside the state with the support of Government of India, she said. Officials said RHDC is helping artisans of the state by providing them access to capital, technology and markets. RHDC, with support from Development Commissioner (Handlooms), Government of India, and in association with FICCI has organised a five-day ‘Colours of Rajasthan’, an exclusi...

About 850 sites were banned last year after an SC order. In an attempt to protect children from sexual abuse online, the government will soon issue an advisory to Internet Service Providers, asking them to filter and block related objectionable images, videos as well as text. “In compliance with the provision of the (IT) Act… websites/portals and ISPs should deploy filters/technological tools to block/disable any such child sexual abuse images, videos and text available on the Internet,” according to a draft note prepared by the Ministry of Electronics and IT and reviewed by The Hindu. Last year, the government had banned more than 850 sites citing the Supreme Court’s directions to address the menace of pornography, especially child pornography. However, the move did not go down well with a majority of users who took to social media to criticise it. The Centre later clarified that the move was temporary and it was planning a long-term policy to tackle online child sexual a...

Pen Drive, USB, or Flash Drives call it whatever (though these terms are used interchangeably they refer to slightly different technologies), at the end of the day, all that matters is that they are extremely portable and allow us to hoard data. Though it works just fine for the large part of its lifetime, chances are it'd go corrupt sometimes. Yes, we are talking about the USB Flash Drive detected but not showing in My Computer issue. And when they stop working or go corrupt we simply assume that it can't be fixed and dump them. What we don't know is that it takes just a few clicks (simple troubleshooting) to make it function as it'd otherwise. So, without wasting any time, let us tell you how to quickly make your flash drive work properly. Cross check if it's working on other ports We'll anyway, tell you how to fix the problem, but, we'd recommend you to plug in the pen drive in alternate ports to cross check. If all fail, proceed to next ...

Who said that to be part of a moon mission you need to be associated with organizations like NASA or ISRO? Well, times have changed, giving rise to newer opportunities. Google Lunar XPrize (GLXP) competition, which was announced in 2007, enables organizations to be the first to land a privately funded robot on the moon. The mission is to successfully land on the moon by December 2017, travel 500 meters on the lunar surface and transmit high-definition images and videos. Sounds cool, doesn’t it? What’s even cooler is that India’s very own Team Indus is among the top three teams to embark on this mission. Many moons ago, in 1969, Neil Armstrong took a giant leap for mankind. But talent and technology will help us take an even bigger leap this time around. Team Indus, which was almost one of the last teams to enter the GXLP competition, had to depend on these two factors to make it this far in competition. The Bangalore-based team has developed a micro rover for this mission, c...

Moto E3 Power Smartphone: An American multinational Smartphone making company, Motorola has finally Launched its new 4G smartphone under its E series in India – the Moto E3 Power. The Company Hosted a Special Launch Event in India, where it launched the new E3 Power smartphone. It is now exclusively available to buy Via. Flipkart with a Price Tag of Rs 7,999. It is a VoLTE supporting smartphone, Users can also get a free Reliance Jio SIM with a Welcome offer that entitles free voice and 4G data till 15th December 2016. Check full features about Moto E3 Power handset Below. Moto E3 Power Smartphone Launched and available to buy Via. Flipkart at Rs. 7,999 Specifications: The New Motorola E3 Power Smartphone features 5-inch HD IPS 1280×720 pixels resolution Display and comes with smudge proof screen and water repellent nano coating. The Handset is powered by 1GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6735P processor, that is packed with 2GB of RAM. It supports dual-SIM with 4G VoLTE connectivity ...

Coolpad Max available at half the price Coolpad launched its first flagship smartphone in India back in May for Rs 24,999, which was out of its budget pricing trend as seen in the previous models. The flagship did not create as much friction as its low-cost siblings, but the company has finally decided to adjust the price of Max to make it a total worth for smartphone shoppers. The timing of the price cut couldn't be more perfect as people are already in the festive mood and Coolpad is also planning to launch a new high-end smartphone on Sept. 23. The details about the upcoming premium smartphone are pretty thin at the moment, except for a few teasers shared by the company. But, in the meantime, shoppers can take advantage of the current offer. Coolpad Max was launched at Rs 24,999 exclusively on Amazon India. But it is now available for Rs 13,999, saving a whopping Rs. 11,000 on both gold and rose gold editions. the handset had the best of Coolpad's design when c...

The maker of expensive printer ink, HP, appears to have programmed all its printers to reject other people’s electronic cartridges on 13 September. Thousands of HP printers around the world started to show error messages on the same day, saying that non-HP cartridges were damaged. It called on customers to Remove them and replace them with new cartridges. On HP’s support forums numerous complaints were posted and Dutch online retailer 123inkt also received a large amount of complaints on that day and decided to investigate the matter. Looking under the bonnet of their test printers they found a large scale problem with their private label brand cartridges with several HP printers. When they emailed their customers asking them if they wanted to check if their printer also had problems, they received replies from more than 1,000 customers confirming it. The problem existed in the printer’s firmware although HP claimed it was unaware of the fact. People who complained to HP...

Connect your iPhone or iPad to your desktop or laptop. Depending on your device, it can take up anywhere between 600MB and 1.2GB of space. It also has new features like “raise to wake”, customization of animation speed, better keyboard and greatly improved battery life. Some of the apps on sale included SnapTube Premium, Personal Keyboard, Symmetrica, DuMore, and a lot more. An Apple spokesperson stated that they experienced a brief issue with the software update process, in which it affects a small number of users during the first hour of availability. Apple made the change so that people no longer blasted past the pile of notifications that piled up on their lock screens since the last time they used their phones. The old “slide to unlock” has been replaced with the instructions: “Press Home to Open”. Also Read: Why Apple Removed the iPhone Headphone Jack · Siri is more advanced. Interestingly, Siri also provides you the fare according to the type of ride you opted in a...

PROS Very good battery life Above average camera CONS Poor performance Expensive Not ergonomic Momentum is an important aspect of selling in the smartphone market today. Brand perceptions are set really easily, and changing them can be a gigantic task. Brands like Asus ruled the roost last year, outshining many with their value for money smartphones. The Asus Zenfone 2 was the first phone to bring 4GB of RAM to smartphones, while the company also brought a laser AF camera system to the budget range. Barring the fact that Asus’ product nomenclature was obscenely confusing, it seemed that the company could do no wrong. It’s 2016, and after a brief break, Asus is back. The Zenfone 3 was announced at Computex 2016, and as it was last year, Asus is hitting multiple price segments. However, thanks to Intel’s exit from the mobile SoC market, Asus can no longer keep up its pricing. The company may not have said it officially, but adding Qualcomm’s chipsets have obviously raise...

Samsung releases ultra-slim Galaxy A7 with metal body in India.Samsung India e-Store Samsung appears to be planning to release a series of smartphones from its A family, one of them being the Galaxy A7 (2017). The new device has been spotted on Zauba, an imports and exports tracking site in India, giving a hint that it could be launched soon. The other handsets from A-series that are making news include the Galaxy A3 (2017), Galaxy A8 (2016), Galaxy A5 (2017), and Galaxy A4. The South Korean electronics giant is expected to release the Galaxy A7 (2017) in December, by the time its predecessor, the Galaxy A7 (2016), completes a year-long cycle in the market. Also Read: Is Samsung about to start selling refurbished smartphones A new Samsung device with model number SM-A720S, believed to be the Galaxy A7 (2017), has been spotted on Zauba with a 5.7-inch display and a price tag of Rs 13,716 (price likely to be changed at the time of launch). The device has been sent from So...

Apple's latest version of iOS comes packed with features for Cisco's corporate customers. At least 30 organizations have already tested the iOS enhancements, and Cisco says they saw significant IT management gains. When Apple released iOS 10 this week, it gained another important foothold in enterprise mobility. The company's latest software integrates with an updated version of Cisco Systems' networking protocols for its Wi-Fi routers to give businesses the ability to prioritize enterprise traffic, business apps and communications on corporate iOS devices. Almost a year ago, Apple and Cisco announced a plan to give iOS devices special treatment and critical capabilities for IT. The result of their partnership is an "experience that wouldn't have been possible for either company to deliver alone" or in a single app, according to Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager at Cisco. [ ] "It took us a year because it was rea...

Coolpad India just sent out invites for the launch of a new smartphone in the country on September 23rd, Friday. The invite just says Beast Among The Best along with the date. The company is expected to release a new smartphone in the Coolpad Note series. Based on a poll on its forum, the smartphone could pack 4GB of RAM. It launched the Coolpad Note 3 last year at a competitive price tag of Rs. 8,999, which got a price cut to Rs. 8499, later it introduced the Coolpad Note 3 Lite and Coolpad Note 3 Plus smartphones. Regarding the lineup and the upcoming smartphone, Coolpad on its Facebook page, said: Features like Fingerprint scanner, 3 GB RAM, high quality camera along with other top notch features were offered in these smartphones. Impressive design and intelligent technology complemented with a smart price tag ensured each of these phones exceeded your expectations and made it big in the budget smartphone category. Also Read: Coolpad Note 3 Lite Review: Great performer ...

HYDERABAD: On September 6, Narsimha Reddy Konda, an auto driver, passed away as the 108 emergency ambulance his family had called for help went to the wrong address. To ensure that such mishaps do not happen, the agency operating the 108 Ambulance Services is coming up with an app to reach the places from where the calls emerged at the quickest possible time. Presently, the 108 ambulance service does not have the facility to pin point the location of the caller using GPS. Tragedies such as the death of Narsimha, could be a thing of the past with Emergency Management and Research Institute (EMRI), the agency that operates the 108 service launching its “108 android application”. The application is expected to be launched in October and this app is said to be successful in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, where it was already introduced. Users of the app can dial 108 using the app which will then share GPS location of the caller. “This will help bring down our response time. We do ...

HTC has revealed that its press conference is taking place on the 20th of September at 8am BST, the company is expected to announce two new HTC Desire 10 smartphones. The new handsets will include the HTC Desire 10 Pro and the HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle and we have already heard a number of specifications on both devices. The HTC Desire 10 Lifestyle is rumored to come with a 5.1 inch HD display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and it will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor. The device will also feature 2GB or 3GB of RAM and a 5 megapixel front camera and a 13 megapixel rear camera. The Desire 10 Pro will come with a 5.1 inch display with a QHD resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels and it will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM and it will feature the same cameras as the Lifestyle. We will have more information about these new Android smartphones from HTC when they are made official next week.

Our Verdict The Intex Aqua Secure is a good phone and considering it's price, it bags good features. PROS Fingerprint scanner CONS Sub-par display slow performance poor battery life Budget smartphones have evolved very rapidly over the past three to four years. I am talking, not only about performance, but the features they are bringing to the table. Especially, better cameras and security features such as fingerprint scanners. Talking of fingerprint scanners, this technology has been around for quite some time now, but it has trickled down to the budget smartphone segment quite recently. Intex has made the technology even more accessible and affordable with the Intex Aqua Secure smartphone. The rather small phone(screen size is 4.5-inch) offers a fingerprint scanner at its back, and costs approximately Rs. 6,000. It is now the cheapest smartphone to offer a fingerprint scanner, but should you spend your money on it? Let’s take the phone through its paces to find out...

Our Verdict The Intex Aqua Secure is a good phone and considering it's price, it bags good features. PROS Fingerprint scanner CONS Sub-par display slow performance poor battery life Budget smartphones have evolved very rapidly over the past three to four years. I am talking, not only about performance, but the features they are bringing to the table. Especially, better cameras and security features such as fingerprint scanners. Talking of fingerprint scanners, this technology has been around for quite some time now, but it has trickled down to the budget smartphone segment quite recently. Intex has made the technology even more accessible and affordable with the Intex Aqua Secure smartphone. The rather small phone(screen size is 4.5-inch) offers a fingerprint scanner at its back, and costs approximately Rs. 6,000. It is now the cheapest smartphone to offer a fingerprint scanner, but should you spend your money on it? Let’s take the phone through its paces to find out...

The new AI robot, dubbed WaveNet, has been built by the same team that was responsible for developing AlphaGo. Google’s DeepMind team has developed a artificial intelligence (AI) robot which can mimic human speech sound, duping humans to think they are talking to another person. The new AI robot, dubbed WaveNet, has been built by the same team that was responsible for developing AlphaGo — the robot that defeated some of the world’s best GO players. Also Read: Now, Google Allows You to Share Paid Apps With Upto 6 People Through Family Library Artificial speech programmes are hard to create and developers currently use only two methods to methods for the same. The process involves collecting a large pool of words and speech fragments, spoken by a single person, making sounds and accent difficult to manipulate, according to technology website Engadget. However, the other process involves forming word’s electronically, depending on how they’re supposed to sound; the easier...

Xiaomi Redmi Pro (Representational picture)Xiaomi via Twitter Xiaomi appears to be getting ready for the release of its new device - Mi Note 2. The company had released Mi Note in January 2015 before launching an upgraded version, Mi Note Pro, in May 2015. The Chinese technology giant is yet to officially announce the release date of Xiaomi Mi Note 2, but it has been reported that the handset will be unveiled at an event on Wednesday. It has been certified by China's CCC (China Compulsory Certificate). The CCC certificate is a safety mark issued for smartphones manufactured and imported in the country. Here is final roundup of Xiaomi Mi Note 2 Xiaomi Mi Note 2 may arrive in just two days if reports are anything to go by. It is expected to come in two variants - one with a 64GB internal memory and 4GB RAM priced at 2,499 Yuan, and the other with a 128GB internal storage and 6GB RAM priced at 2,799 Yuan. It was also reported earlier that the company might release four var...

[Representational Image] Samsung urges Galaxy Note7 owners to participate in replacement programme right now In Picture: Samsung Galaxy Note 7Twitter/Samsung Mobile India Last week, Samsung initiated a recall of Galaxy Note7 in select markets over the defective battery issue, which caused the devices to explode and in some instances catch fire. So far, there have been 35 confirmed cases of Galaxy Note7 catching fire while charging. This apparently forced many government-owned aviation agencies, including America's FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and India's DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation), to put sanctions on carrying the Samsung phablet in aeroplanes. Other airlines such as Qantas and Virgin Australia, among others, asked users not to carry the Galaxy Note7 in checked-in baggage and also not to operate and charge the device during the flight. Also Read:Is Samsung about to start selling refurbished smartphones Now, the company has officially ask...

The USB Kill Stick is meant to be a safety testing device, but uses may of course vary. Just in case you were feeling particularly destructive today, we’ve got just the device for you. USBKill is selling a little thingamajig that can fry your computer the minute this is plugged in. According to the Hong Kong-based company, the USB Kill Stick will "instantly and permanently disable unprotected hardware". What the Kill Stick does is it rapidly charges its capacitors from the USB power supply, when it’s plugged. Almost immediately after the stick then then rapidly discharges, with this entire process occurring within a few seconds. The Kill Stick was originally a proof-of-concept device, but the Kill Stick 2.0 is now a legitimate device on sale. The company believes hardware developers can include the device in their testing protocols to protect their hardware from electrical attacks. The USB and accompanying Test Shield (to safely test the device without frying your ...

Ahead of the Pokemon Go Plus launching next week, Niantic (unsurprisingly) is now pushing out a new update to the app that brings support for the accessory, along with a few other goodies. Last week, they announced that a new Buddy system would be added in a future update, a feature you’ll be able to enjoy in this latest release (version 0.37.0). Here’s the full changelog: Implemented Buddy Pokémon: Trainers will now be able to choose one of their Pokémon to be their buddy. A Trainer can earn Candy for their Buddy Pokémon by walking a certain distance. Made it easier to select smaller Pokémon on the screen. Fixed an issue where Eggs would sometimes hatch without displaying the animation. Improved performance reliability when a device switches networks to no longer cause the application to hang or stop updating. Pokémon GO Plus support Minor text fixes. The exact distance you’ll have to walk Pokemon to gain candies — and the exact amount received — still hasn’t been determi...

Android 7.0 Nougat is great. It has a bunch of back-end features custom built for the Android fanatics out there. But one of its major upfront features – split-screen mode – is arguably not as useful as it could be. Tablet usage is on the wane, split-screen usage on smartphones has never been huge for Samsung or LG and not all apps even support multi-window mode yet. But a new app has appeared that hopes to extend the functionality of split-screen mode in Nougat. As you probably know by now, on devices with the Android 7.0 Nougat update, when you enter split-screen mode with Chrome in one of the windows, an option appears in the overflow menu called ‘Move to other window’. This allows you to run two instances of Chrome in both multi-window panes. While that’s great, Chrome is the only app that works in both windows at once. Until now, that is. Also Read: Root Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with SuperSU Parallel Windows for Nougat is a new app that takes th...

They use a Lightning Port instead of a normal headphone jack. The Belkin website states that the device “supports one Lightning Audio device and one charger only”, so using the second Lightning port for anything other than charging might be a no no. Apple just opened the pre-order for the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus online at about 12:10am PDT. “I didn’t even get the AirPods yet, but I already lost them”, journalist Joanna Stern tweeted. Yes, but only if you are listening to music on wireless headphones – or spend $40 to buy an adapter. Because plugging in a wired headset is now impossible without a 3.5mm-to-Lightning adaptor (mercifully, included in the box with the new iPhones), going wireless is an easy and elegant fix. HTC for example, pokes fun at Apple’s use of the dual-camera setup by referencing their own use of a dual-camera back with the HTC One M8, which they’re keen to point out was launched over two years ago. Also Read: Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus to be avai...