At Computex 2016, ASUS unloaded a ton of new devices for consumers to gawk at and drool over. While majority of those were, as expected, Windows PCs, ASUS also had something in store for the Android fans in the crowd. Giving credence to earlier leaks, it unveiled not just one but three ZenFone 3 models, each with its own story … Continue reading
Rather than bringing more computing power to wearable devices, Qualcomm is aiming for efficiency with its new Snapdragon Wear 1100 chip. Announced today at Computex, it’s meant for small wearables that won’t be able to fit in large batteries. The com…
There is nothing quite like being able to kick back your feet, prop them up on a sofa, and settle down for a good book at the end of a particularly grueling day at the office. After all, that is when you can let your imagination escape and run wild, while you forget the trials and tribulations earlier on. Having a good reading light would go a long way in ensuring that your reading experience is prim and proper, although a glass of milk with a cookie on the side does help as well. The $99.95 Cordless Over The Shoulder Reading Light brings a certain traditional yet modern charm to any home, that is for sure!
Being a cordless rechargeable lamp which will rest over the back of a chair or sofa, without the need for any floor space, it has a weighted, flexible brown microsuede fabric base which will drape over the back of a padded chair or a sofa’s backrest. There, it will be held secure by its own weight both in front, at the back, and along its 12″ width. There is also a 15″-high flexible antique bronze neck which will bend to arch at your desired angle for casting the cool LED’s light over your shoulder; while the light’s barrel adjusts itself to provide wide-angle light for general reading or a narrow, focused beam for detailed tasks. The integrated battery can last up to eight hours of high-powered light (13 hours of low-powered light) from a six-hour charge.
[ Cordless Over The Shoulder Reading Light ushers you into a wireless lifestyle copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
The cheetah is known as the fastest animal on land. According to studies, the cheetah can sprint at speeds of up to 64 kmph during a hunt, but it can also have bursts of speed of up to 112 kmph, speeds that not many of us even drive at, let alone run at. Now if you’re curious as to what this might look like from a cheetah’s POV, you’re in luck.
Recently the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden officials hooked up a GoPro to one of their cheetahs, Savannah, in order to get an idea of what running at high speeds might look like from a cheetah’s point of view. According to Alicia Sampson of the cat ambassador program, it seems that the cheetah didn’t really mind at all. “We put it on Savannah and she could really care less.”
For those of you who love nature documentaries and are fascinated with animals and their behavior, this video should prove rather insightful as it shows that while the body of the cheetah is moving rather ferociously, the head of the cheetah remains still, almost like it is on a gimbal that shows just how focused the animal is while on a hunt.
It is a pretty cool video so if you have a few minutes to spare, do check it out in the video above to see Savannah in action.
GoPro Attached To Cheetah Results In Some Stunning Footage , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Early this year Nikon announced their new lineup of compact cameras that falls under its DL family. The cameras were originally pegged for a release in March, but it seems that they still have yet to be released, and now a report from Mirrorless Rumors has revealed that would-be customers will have to wait even longer.
According to the listing on Amazon for the Nikon DL cameras, the retailer has them pegged for a release on the 30th of June, which in itself is already a delay from its original intended release in March. However Mirrorless Rumors now claims that they have heard from their sources that the cameras will now ship in late September or possibly even in early October!
This is quite a huge delay as that is about 3-4 months from Amazon’s release date of June. That being said, Nikon has yet to officially comment on whether or not the cameras are delayed, so take it with a grain of salt for now, but either way we guess maybe you shouldn’t get your hopes up just yet, at least not until we get the official word.
For those unfamiliar, the Nikon DL represents Nikon’s new take on compact cameras and seems to be bringing the fight to Sony’s RX100 series of compacts with 1-inch sensors. There are several variants of the DL cameras to choose from, with each model feature a different set of lenses.
Nikon DL Shipments Rumored To Have Been Delayed To Sep/Oct , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
It takes quite a bit to process virtual reality, which is why headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift have such high system requirements, and why headsets like the Samsung Gear VR will only play nicely with the company’s flagship devices. So does that mean that if you own a cheap smartphone that you’ll be left out of VR?
While it might seem that way, it turns out that Microsoft Research has been working on a project called FlashBack. The goal of FlashBack is to bring VR to low-end devices, and how they plan to do that is through a simple approach: by pre-rendering the scenes beforehand, meaning that even if you have a slower processor less RAM, it won’t really matter, at least not as much as how fast your storage is.
According to Microsoft Research, FlashBack improves VR on low-end phones by as much as 8x better framerates, and 97x less energy consumed by the device. In a way it is similar to how streaming video games works, in which the processing is done somewhere else, meaning that you will be able to game on just about any device.
FlashBack will also work with dynamic scenes and animated objects by generating fast approximations of the correct image, while trying to fetch more closely-matched entries from its cache for future scenes. Unfortunately for us, FlashBack is still in its early stages of development which means that we won’t be seeing it released anytime soon, but it’s a step towards making VR more accessible to everyone. In the meantime check out the demo above to see the differences between a system running FlashBack and without.
Microsoft FlashBack Will Bring VR To Low-End Handsets , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
While there is a particular view that Xiaomi is the Apple of China, one ought to take into consideration the kind of innovation that Apple has made as well as their marketing prowess that have made the Cupertino company into such a juggernaut that it is today. Xiaomi? Sure, they make nice looking handsets that do perform well, at the same time being priced very competitively, but innovation that changes the mobile landscape? Not quite. However, this has not stopped Xiaomi from leading the Chinese smartphone market.
The Chinese smartphone market is the largest in the world, which is no surprised, and with Xiaomi achieving a record-breaking 26% market share in April, this is a whole lot of smartphones that we are talking about here. In second place at 15.7% would be Honor from Huawei, while the third would be LeEco, who has captured 10.5% of the market in record time. Apple currently stands at 8.2% of the market share, which means Xiaomi has more than triple the amount of market share of Apple’s.
Do take note that if Huawei’s entire range of smartphones were to be taken into consideration as well, then we are looking at a figure which is slightly north of 23%, and that would place them very near to Xiaomi.
Xiaomi Tops Chinese Smartphone Market…Again , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
The winds of change have started to blow in our direction yet again from China, the world’s largest population, where the most recent rumor points to a spanking new Honor-branded device that is on the way. This particular handset is touted to complement the recently unveiled Honor V8 under the Huawei banner, and will boast of a smaller display.
We are referring to the Honor 8, which might jolly well succeed from where the Honor 7 left off last year. Word on the street has it that it will arrive with a 5.2” display, Huawei’s Kirin 950 or Kirin 955 chipset, 4GB of RAM, a 12MP dual camera setup located at the back, and a USB Type-C port. Wireless charging will also be part of the deal, and in a throwback to older days, the handset will come with an IR blaster as well as a battery capacity that is 3,000 mAh at the bare minimum.
2.5D curved glass well cover the back as well, hence chances are this will come with a metal frame. Would the combination of these aspects turn it into the most beautiful handset from Huawei so far? Only time will be able to tell, so stay tuned and all will be revealed for sure later on.
New Honor Device Set To Arrive , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
CINCINNATI, May 30 (Reuters) – The director of the Cincinnati Zoo insisted on Monday that a three-foot (one-meter) barrier around the gorilla enclosure was adequate, even though a 4-year-old boy was able to climb over it and fall in, forcing zookeepers to shoot the ape dead after it grabbed him and dragged him around.
The death of the gorilla, a 17-year-old Western lowland silverback named Harambe, outraged animal lovers, about 20 of whom staged a vigil outside the zoo. More than 200,000 people signed online petitions on Change.org to protest the shooting, some demanding “Justice for Harambe” and urging police to hold the child’s parents accountable.
“The barriers are safe. The barriers exceed any required protocols,” Thane Maynard, director of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens, said in answer to questions at a news conference about the incident on Saturday. “The trouble with barriers is that whatever the barrier some people can get past it. … No, the zoo is not negligent,” he said.
Maynard, director of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens, stood by the decision to shoot the gorilla after he dragged the boy around by the ankle. He said the ape was not simply endangering the child but actually hurting him.
“Looking back, we would make the same decision,” he said.
“The gorilla was clearly agitated. The gorilla was clearly disoriented,” said Maynard, while lamenting the loss of “an incredibly magnificent animal.”
The zoo received thousands of messages of sympathy and support from around the world, he said.
Still, Maynard faced a series of questions about how a 4-year-old was able to climb the barrier and through the bushes and reach the 15-foot drop into the water surrounding the enclosure.
The exhibit met standards set by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which conduct regular inspections, Maynard said.
He said zookeepers would review the barrier but he made no promise to redesign it.
The zoo association’s 2016 accreditation standards, published on its website, said “some means of deterring public contact with animals (e.g., guardrails/barriers) must be in place.”
“Insufficient barrier fencing” is listed as one risk to visitors.
Animal lovers turned their anger toward the parents while mourning the death of the gorilla, lighting candles and holding “Rest in Peace” signs at the vigil.
“That child’s life was in danger. At the end of the day, it falls on the parents. No one else,” said Vanessa Hammonds, 27, who said she flew in from Houston to attend the vigil.
Authorities have not identified the boy. Michelle Gregg, who identified herself on Facebook as his mother, asked others not to judge her because “accidents happen.” She said her son was recovering from a concussion and a few scrapes.
A family statement on Sunday expressed condolences for the animal’s death.
“We extend our heartfelt thanks for the quick action by the Cincinnati Zoo staff,” the statement said. “We know that this was a very difficult decision for them, and that they are grieving the loss of their gorilla.” (Reporting by Ginny McCabe, Barbara Goldberg and Ian Simpson; Editing by Daniel Trotta and David Gregorio)
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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Viacom Inc’s six independent directors vowed on Monday to fight any attempt to oust them from the board, saying they found “inexplicable” the assertion that controlling shareholder Sumner Redstone was mentally competent and acted of his own free will.
In a letter to shareholders, Lead Independent Director Fred Salerno said the directors would legally contest any bid to remove them, the latest salvo in an increasingly public and bitter battle for control of Viacom at a time when the U.S. media company needs to focus on turning its business around.
The letter came three days after a statement from Redstone, issued by his spokesman, that said the 93-year-old media mogul was considering ousting Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman and the board of directors.
Salerno made no mention of Dauman in his letter, but said the independent directors have tried to meet face-to-face with Redstone for several weeks and have been turned away.
Writing on behalf of six of Viacom’s 11 board members, Salerno said, “we feel the responsibility to challenge in court what we honestly believe would be legally flawed removals.”
“That is especially so because the flaw we see would be the inexplicable assertion that Sumner was acting of his own free will and with the mental competency to do so,” he wrote.
A spokesman for Redstone declined to comment.
Redstone holds 80 percent of the voting shares in Viacom and CBS Corp . Earlier this month, he removed Dauman and Viacom board member George Abrams from the seven-person trust that will control the shares after Redstone exits.
Dauman, 62, has filed a legal challenge to that move, arguing that Redstone was being manipulated by his daughter, Shari. She has called that allegation “absurd” and said her father made his own decisions.
Solerno’s letter called a replacement of the independent directors “completely inconsistent with Sumner’s lifetime commitment to an independent Board” and “equally inconsistent with his stated judgment for many years that his daughter, Shari, should not control Viacom or his other companies.”
A spokeswoman for Shari Redstone declined to comment.
Shares of Viacom have fallen more than 50 percent in the past two years as its cable networks, including MTV and Nickelodeon, suffered from falling ratings because younger viewers were migrating online and to mobile video. Viacom’s U.S. advertising revenue has declined for seven straight quarters.
Salerno said the directors were not happy with Viacom’s current performance, and they were “very focused” on improving it and on “the need for management to drive it.”
He added that they intend to continue with plans to “explore strategic options that might include a minority investment in Paramount,” Viacom’s movie studio.
Questions about Redstone’s health have swirled since one of his former girlfriends, Manuela Herzer, filed a lawsuit last year arguing that he was not mentally competent to remove her from his advance healthcare directive.
The case, which claimed that Redstone was “a living ghost,” was dismissed earlier this month. The mogul had struggled to speak when questioned by attorneys, but he was clear about wanting Herzer out of his life and putting his daughter in charge of healthcare decisions if he could no longer make them.
Since Redstone removed Dauman from the trust on May 20, Viacom shares have risen more than 13 percent, a move that some investors saw as the first step in a change in management that could eventually lead to a sale of the media company.
A hearing on whether Dauman’s case should be expedited is scheduled in Massachusetts on June 7, after he filed a petition to have the trial date moved up.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Jessica Toonkel; Editing by Tiffany Wu)
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