Pressy is a little gadget that is touted as being the “almighty Android button.” Specifically, Pressy will transform your headphone jack into a clickable button and it comes preset with three actions. These include a short click to toggle the flashlight, a long click to toggle in and out of silent mode and a double […]
The extent of Oppo’s mobile photography efforts is quickly becoming clear: the company just used Sina Weibo to tease a new series of plug-in camera lenses for its smartphones. The initial range will use 16-megapixel Sony CMOS sensors with optical image stabilization, and they will also have a degree of support for NFC, SD cards and WiFi. Buyers will only have to choose between a thin lens with 10X zoom and a thicker, 15X variant. While Oppo isn’t yet ready to disclose launch details for the add-ons, we won’t be surprised if we hear more about them at the company’s N1 smartphone event on September 23rd.
Filed under: Cellphones, Cameras, Mobile
Via: Engadget Chinese (translated)
Source: Sina Weibo (login required)
This week the folks at Archos have decided to let their whole second half of 2013 strategy out in the open with a release that shows off their tablet (and smartphone) range. What we’re seeing here first is a collection of tablets – large and small – aimed directly at Apple and Samsung competition, made […]
Though PC streaming from NVIDIA SHIELD is still considered “Beta” by the company itself, an over-the-air software update coming this week has increased the number of games supported by the device officially up to 31. This OTA update suggests that NVIDIA is edging in ever-closer to a final bump for the machine into Go Time […]
Sure, Foursquare is a nice option for recommendations from friends and those who have already explored your current locale. It appears, though, that the days of manually searching the app for nearby treasures will soon be a thing of the past. Today, Foursquare began a rollout to select Android users a “smarter” version of the service — one that’s proactive with its recommendations. That’s right, folks, the app will ping you via push notification when you’re near a friend’s go-to sushi place or offer up cocktail suggestions based on the bar that you just cozied up to. Fret not, you can still check in like you’re used to, but now Foursquare will offer up recommendations even if you don’t. Battery drain shouldn’t be a concern here as the company says a day’s worth of advice should roughly translate to a 20-minute Angry Birds session. In the next few months, the feature will reach all Android users, with iOS to follow sometime after that. For now, if you’re not one of the lucky thousand or so, you can peruse the backstory via the source link below.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
Via: TechCrunch, AllThingsD
Source: Fourquare
Most physical keys have been chased off phones, thanks to the rampant rise of touchscreen technology, but here’s a Kickstarter project that wants to bring smarter kind of physical key to your phone. Pressy is a hardware button that plugs into the headphone jack of your Android phone and can be customised to trigger a range of functions.
So, for instance, if you always wanted a shortcut to snap a photo and upload it straight to a social network you could create that function in the Pressy app. Of course there are apps that can do this sort of thing, but the point about Pressy is that it’s a chunk of hardware that sits within easy reach of your fingers — thereby cutting down on the number of actions required to perform the function you’re after.
The (free) Pressy app will apparently allow a range of shortcuts to be created, based on a combination of short and long presses of the Pressy key. Which all sounds great, so long as you don’t get your shortcuts mixed up — and end up turning on your flashlight instead of taking a sneaky photo, say. Or sending an SMS to your mum saying ‘I’m on my way’, instead of toggling on your Wi-Fi.
The app will also allow for app settings to be customised too, so in addition to a basic photo snapping shortcut you could set up a specifically sneaky photo shortcut that keeps the phone’s screen and flash off and kills the shutter noise. If you wanted to be really, really creepy.
What if you’re using your headphone jack for, y’know, actual headphones? Pressy’s makers have thought of that. The key can be clipped into a small key chain housing, rather than plugged into your phone — and the button on your headphones then doubles as the Pressy key, so you don’t have to fish your keys out of your pockets to trigger your shortcuts.
How much does this smart micro button cost? $17 will get you the basic Pressy. You’ll have to be pretty patient though, as it’s not due to ship til March next year. The project is at least well on its way to hitting its goal of $40,000, with more than $30,000 raised and still 46 days left to run on its funding campaign. Hardware hacking FTW.
When MediaTek announced that it would be producing true eight-core mobile processors later this year, we knew it was only a matter of time before its main rival Qualcomm chimed in. As illustrated by a set of guitar amplifiers, the San Diego gang explains that while they rebuild their CPU cores for each generation (the latest architectures being Krait 300 and Krait 400), they claim that “Our Competitor” — which is labeled with the same font and colors as MediaTek’s logo — simply “chooses to duplicate the same old cores” based on ARM’s slower Cortex-A7 architecture. That said, it’s worth a reminder that Qualcomm’s cheaper Snapdragon 400 range also uses Cortex-A7.
Later on in the video, Qualcomm uses a Guitar Hero-like visualization to compare the performance difference, as well as show how octa-core is overrated for most apps. Apparently only 17 out of the top 20 Android apps in China use two cores at most, hence the bare fretboard for the octa-core side. The Snapdragon side, meanwhile, combs through a denser bunch of apps at a higher speed. Of course, there’s bound to be some bias here, so only time will tell how close to reality this argument is. Until then, enjoy the cheeky clip after the break.
Given the stiff competition from other photo editing apps, Yahoo is approaching its Flickr renaissance with steely determination. Today’s update to the iOS app introduces a slew of new features designed to give it a fighting chance in a crowded market. Love ’em or hate ’em, filters remain all the rage, and Flickr is rolling out a handful of new ones with suitably hip names to please the masses. Now, users will also have the ability to see a live preview of the filter before they apply it to their photo. Also included in the update are several beefed up — and free — editing features, like color balance settings, level adjustments and a sharpening tool. Lastly, the camera function is getting a minor overhaul as well. You can now pinch to zoom, compose a shot with the handy dandy grid and lock your exposure and focus points. To get your hands on the update, head on over to the source link below.
Source: iTunes
The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset isn’t even available for consumers to buy yet but here comes the cut-price competition… While the Rift development kit will set you back $300 — and still requires a PC to do the gaming horse-work — vrAse, a soon-to-be-launched-on-Kickstarter project, is approaching virtual reality from another direction. It wants to turn your existing smartphone into a pair of wearable virtual reality/3D specs. And do so for as little as £48/$75.
Since high-end smartphones are powerful computers in their own right, and come furnished with cameras front and back, why not just stick your phone right on your face, right? Provided you don’t mind looking like Mr Phone Face, of course. vrAse is one part Oculus Rift, one part Google Glass, one part sci-fi ski goggles — with gaming, 3D movie-watching and augmented reality use-cases envisaged by its creators, assuming they can get developers to make the apps to go with their goggles.
At launch there’s clearly not going to be a lot of ready to rock apps but they say they will offer demo content to show off vrAse’s AR and 3D gaming capabilities. Plus, any movies already made for 3D can also be downloaded or streamed in Side by Side format (SBS) for viewing on vrAse. And films and games can also apparently be converted to SBS for viewing on the device.
vrAse is effectively a toughened smartphone case, attached to a pair of wearable goggles. Your existing smartphone slides inside the case so you’re looking directly at its screen through vrAse’s dual lenses — which generate the 3D/immersion effect. And that’s pretty much it. Compatible smartphones at launch are the iPhone 5, HTC One, Xperia Z, Galaxy S3, Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 2. In future the creators say they will make it compatible with any smartphone.
How immersive will vrAse be? That’s the key question. And the answer will depend (in part) on the smartphone screen you’re pairing it with. The higher the screen res, the better looking the picture will presumably be. Beyond that, vrAse’s creators aren’t going into detail about what sort of field of vision to expect from vrAse so it’s hard to say how it will stack up against the likes of Oculus Rift. It is looking considerably cheaper to buy, however, so set your expectations accordingly. Update: vrAse says the range of vision is configurable but currently the device offers more than 105 degrees of binocular vision field.
vrAse’s makers are hoping to raise £55,000 via Kickstarter. If they hit their target they’re aiming to ship to backers in February. Their crowdfunding campaign kicks off on Saturday.
While the current first-wave Moto X devices from Motorola allow custom-order colors and etching, a tip today suggests that a low-cost version of the device might include the ability to swap out casings whenever the user chooses. What we’re seeing today is a combination of a photo of some colored backsides of a next-generation Moto […]
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