The Bluetooth smartring that lets you rule all your gadgets

Just pop this device on your index finger and trace “TV” in the air. You’ve just turned on the television. Now trace out a sentence. Voila - there it is on your smartphone screen.
Japanese startup Logbar says the Bluetooth gadget - simply called “Ring” - is ready for mass production after six prototypes helped to reduce its bulk and finetune the gesture recognition technology at its heart.

A campaign to cover production costs on crowdfunding website Kickstarter blew past the original $US250,000 ($A280,946) within days.
With a month remaining, the campaign has raised $US417,000 from more than 2,500 backers.
Australians who pledge at least $US165 plus $US15 for shipping can expect one in the mail as soon as July.
In addition to controlling home appliances and writing text messages, the gadget will allow wearers to verify mobile payments with the flick of a finger.
Vibrations and an LED light will also notify wearers when, for instance, their phone receives a text, Logbar says.

Headband can tell when brain is overloaded

A NEW headband may be able to tell you when your brain is on mental overload and offload some of your work to another person. 
 
The Boston Globe reports that the technology, in development at Tufts University’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab by computer scientist Robert Jacob and biomedical engineer Sergio Fantini, will enable the headband to read brain activity and enable a computer to determine whether the wearer is bored, fatigued, or sharp.
The project has been developed with air traffic controllers in mind due to the rigorous and highly stressful nature of their work.
But the possibilities of the brain scanner can be extended to other areas.
The researchers and their students also have used the device to generate movie recommendations for wearers, based on how their brains respond to other films. In another experiment, pianists practised on an electronic keyboard while wearing the headband. As their brain signals indicated mastery of a melody, a computer added complexity to the songs by playing harmonies.
The technique for analysing and acting upon brain activity is called functional near infra-red spectroscopy, or fNIRS. A row of small red lights embedded in the headband beams light waves through the skull and onto the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
A computer connected to the headband cannot actually read minds but it can gauge the person’s level of mental exertion by measuring the amount of light absorbed by the brain.
A tired brain draws more blood than one working easily, and therefore absorbs more light. That tells the computer the wearer may be overwhelmed.
As every brain is different baseline testing of each individual is required to determine the point at which performance begins to suffer.
There is also capacity to modify the headband to allow electrical stimulation to improve mental awareness.
The developers say the headband causes no pain and is not dangerous.
“The level of light we’re sending is comparable to the level of light your brain would be exposed to on a sunny day,” Fantini said.
The developers say they have no plans at this stage to bring the product to market but are open to businesses taking the headband further.
“We’re basic researchers,” Jacob said. “It would be delightful if these things do filter into the world, but I’d like to believe that’s not our mission. Our mission is to invent new scientific ideas and spread them, and hope they are useful to someone.”

HTC presents dual camera for HTC One 2

HTC takes to social media to tease its latest smartphone, the "all new" HTC One. 

The company is so excited, in fact, that it has taken to various social media channels to promote the smartphone. Uploaded just today, HTC told its Twitter and Facebook followers that life will become "twice as beautiful on March 25."
What's more, an image accompanying the update shows six photos, each with a "two" theme. While the use of the number could be to interpreted as the "second HTC One," it's more likely meant to tease the rumored dual-camera feature.
Indeed, leaked images and details from the past few months suggest the handset will feature two camera sensors on the rear. What they'll actually do, however, remains unclear at this point. Perhaps one will capture video while the other takes photos?
The camera is just the latest in a series of leaks from HTC about the handset. Last week, it teased the device's Boomsound feature and on Sunday, HTC talked about its unibody design.

Originally posted at Android Atlas

Intel grabs smartwatch maker -- report

Intel has reportedly purchased smartwatch maker Basis Science to become part of the firm's arsenal in the wearable device industry. 

  

Basis Health Tracker smartwatches 

 

 while the exact amount Intel paid is not known, it is believed to be between $100 million and $150 million. Basis has secured roughly 7 percent of the wearable fitness tracker market and over $30 million has been invested in to the company by Norwest Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Intel Capital.
San Francisco-based Basis has one lone product on the consumer market: the Basis Health Tracker Watch. The wrist-based tech includes a health tracker and connection to an online personal dashboard to encourage users to incorporate healthier choices within their lifestyles. The watch measures steps taken during the day, calories burned, sleep quality, and physiological metrics like heart rate. New health goals are automatically set and adjusted based on the data.
Intel has made traction within the emerging wearable technology market, showcasing a number of product this year at trade conventions including smart, wearable baby monitors, the Jarvis headset and the Edison smart chip. If the reported acquisition of Basis is confirmed, then this could pave the way for Intel to tap into smartwatches by using an already-established company with a fair market share and technology already available.
In addition, the smartwatch and its design team could be a platform for Intel to set its own designs and features.
In a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session last month, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said that he uses two wearable devices, one which is an "internally developed" product -- revealing that the wearables industry, beyond supplying chipsets, is likely to be of interest to Intel.
Intel has a way to catch up to compete with rivals that have already entered the wearables market with sensors and devices. Qualcomm and STMicroelectronics currently supply a large swath of the market with sensors, and major firms including Samsung and LG already have wearable devices available. Google is rumored to be considering a smartwatch as part of the next-generation Nexus release.



 via ZDNet

HTC harvests smartphone power to help solve world challenges

The "Power to Give" initiative aims to turn unused processing power from millions of smartphones into a supercomputer that can tackle issues like cancer, climate change, and space travel. 

 

HTC's "Power to Give" initiative aims to help researchers find a cure for cancer. 

HTC is looking to harness the power of users' cell phones to engage in some altruistic pursuits, like finding a cure for cancer, researching climate change, and bringing food to the world's hungry.
Working to solve complex world issues often means crunching massive amounts of data. Analyzing this data takes supercomputers and time -- and this is where smartphone-maker HTC fits in with its "Power to Give" initiative.
The company has partnered with a host of scientists and research institutions to give them unused processing power from Android smartphones. This means scientific data can be crunched faster.
"With each research project comes an analysis of massive amounts of data that can only be processed by one of the handful of supercomputers that exist in the world," HTC wrote in a blog post. "With over 1 billion smartphones in use today, we have an opportunity to combine their processing power to help revolutionize scientific research and make a profound and lasting contribution to humanity, if we all work together."
In order to get the processing power to researchers, HTC is asking Android smartphone users to help out. The way it works is, when users download the Power to Give app, plug in their phone, and connect to Wi-Fi, their unused processing power gets transferred to a grid.
Users can select which research projects they want their power to go to. The app doesn't run down the phone's battery or use any of users' data. Also, the power transfer works while the smartphone is sleeping.
"HTC Power To Give acts as middleware to connect a smartphone to different research projects, enabling the applications from supported projects to run and communicate with their central servers," HTC wrote. "Projects that could otherwise take hundreds of years could be executed in a drastically shorter time." 




 by Dara Kerr

 

Chen admits he has a “50:50 chance” of turning BlackBerry around

CEO John Chen opened up about his mission at BlackBerry in an interview for the Financial Times. He believes he has a "50:50" chance to turn around the struggling company. The CEO aims to make BlackBerry's cash-flow positive by the end of its current fiscal year and return to profit before the end of March 2016. He also hopes that BlackBerry will eventually become a dominant market player again.  

Mr. Chen believes the company has to act now, and refocus on its "heritage and roots - delivering enterprise-grade, end-to-end mobile solutions." He briefly compared his task at BlackBerry with his successful turnaround of Sybase, which went from stagnation to being acquired by Germany's SAP in 13 years. That's quite the chunk of time, but under his helm, the company did manage to achieve 55 consecutive quarters of profitability and a market capitalization of $5.8 billion, up from a low of $362 million. Obviously, the situation is more difficult with BlackBerry. Chen said "it's a bit more challenging to engineer change" in the Canadian company, without elaborating further.

John Chen stated that "it's important to stay positive" and commented that BlackBerry's enterprise customers tend to stay longer, although they are harder to win. Recently Chen scoffed at enterprise competitor Good Technology and US wireless carrier T-Mobile for their BlackBerry-undermining promotions which gave customers who want to ditch the company's services and phones an advantage.

Although BlackBerry fans are as outspoken as the company's CEO, T-Mobile's 94% trade-in rate of BlackBerry phones goes to show that the company's former management couldn't deliver an attractive enough portfolio of consumer products. That's, once again, something Chen's BlackBerry is starting to look after. It has already begun offering phones that directly address customer feedback and market opportunities. The BB Z3 is an offering for the emerging markets, which BlackBerry used to lack, while the Q20 brings back the trackpad and buttons “toolbelt” that BB fans missed from previous QWERTY-handsets. More powerful and compelling phones, including one with a 64-bit octa-core CPU, are planned for the non-distant future as well. 

  

source: Financial Times

Survey reveals that Apple is the most desired mobile brand in emerging markets

If Apple plays its cards right this year, it has the opportunity to grab a large number of new iPhone customers in developing markets, where traditionally it has been weak. According to a new survey released by Upstream and Ovum, of 4504 consumers in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria and Vietnam, Apple is the most desired brand of mobile devices in those countries. 32% of those surveyed want an Apple branded mobile device, followed by the 29% that covet a smartphone or tablet produced by Samsung. 13% are holding out for a Nokia model. In China, where the Apple iPhone is now available from the world's largest carrier in China Mobile, 42% want an Apple iPhone or iPad compared to the 32% wishing for a Samsung device.Last year, Samsung topped this list with Nokia second and Apple in third. Despite the survey results, Android devices activated in those countries add up to 296,493, trouncing the 90,184 iOS units activated in the same locations. Functionality was the top reason given by nearly half of the consumers in the region, for purchasing a specific handset. In Brazil, 22% need to trust the manufacturer while brand aspiration is important for Nigerian (23%), Indian (26%), Chinese (21%) and Vietnamese (29%) consumers.

 

"The race to emerging market consumers is truly underway after several announcements from handset manufacturers, content providers and notably Facebook – all of who are developing devices or mobile content specifically for consumers in these regions. However, blindly approaching new markets without obtaining granular insights into what people in these regions actually want and acknowledging what is important to them will lead to challenges along the way. Only when each player truly understands the audience of each region – being able to answer the questions of ‘what’s affordable’, ‘what content do consumers want’ and ‘what functionality is preferred’ – will they be able to connect with the consumers they are trying to reach."-Marco Veremis, CEO, Upstream 

 

 

The survey also discovered that in emerging markets, 40% are grabbing content from the Google Play Store compared to just 28% who do the same from the Apple App Store. For those not happy with these app marketplaces, 20% cite the lack of personal recommendations, 24% point to poor navigation in the stores, and 11% complain about the lack of payment options. 

 

 

 

 

source: BGR