The much hyped Honor 6 Plus is finally going to see the light of the day in India. The company will be launching two devices today, one of which, of course, is the Honor 6 Plus. So let’s go on and check out what Honor has in store for all of us.
The Honor 6 Plus offers a Full HD, 5.5 inch display with 401 ppi pixel density. Its processing abilities are handled by an Octa-core, HiSilicon Kirin processor, developed by Huawei. It comes with 3 GB RAM and a massive 36oo mAh battery.
The USP of the Honor 6 Plus is its bionic parallel dual lens camera on the back. It utilizes two 8 MP camera and is said to offer instant focus within 0.1 seconds. The camera also allows for capturing depth information for panoramic images. We had previously seen a dual lens ultrapixel cameras on the HTC One M8 which wasn’t received all that well in the market leading HTC to bring a revamped version called the One M8 Eye. Now we have to wait just a few hours to know if Honor’s iteration of a dual lens camera wins over the efforts by HTC.
Honor has been well received as a brand around the world. According to the company’s statement, it sold 20 million units in 2014 alone. The brand came to India in October last year to similar favorable responses. Now with an identity of its own, Honor will have to take on a plethora of competing brands in India. Let’s see how it tries to win us over. The balls in your court Honor, show us what you got?
Honor, which was the brand name for Huawei’s smartphone line-up, will be holding an event tomorrow where it will be launching two new devices for the Indian market. We gathered up all the available updates to give you a fair idea of what to expect from tomorrow’s event.
The Arrival of Honor 6 Plus
According to various sources, one of the major devices coming from Honor’s stable tomorrow is the Honor 6 Plus. The device features a 5.5 inch, Full HD display with a pixel density of 401 ppi. It is powered by Huawei’s own, HiSilicon Kirin octa-core processor and comes with 3 GB RAM. The device is juiced up by a massive 3600 mAh battery.
The Honor 6 Plus is available with a 16 GB internal storage option for the 3G device while the LTE device is offered in 16 and 32 GB storage options. All versions are expandable up to 128 GB, which makes it a delight for multimedia hoarders. It is not sure as of yet what variant the company would be offering in India.
A DSLR Quality Camera
On the camera front, the Honor 6 Plus features a dual 8 megapixel camera on the back. Honor in its invite also mentioned “two cameras” which means that it was indicating at the Honor 6 Plus. It is the first to flaunt a bionic parallel dual-lens camera. On the front end too, the camera holds an 8 megapixel camera for selfies.
Some leaked images made their way online and were found to be as good as professionally shot DSLR images. The accompanying write-up states that it was taken by a Honor device. Companies like Apple and Samsung have already exhibited unique camera features that produce images that are identical to professional cameras. Does the camera of the new Honor device have what it takes to take on the giants? We’ll find out soon when we get to play with the new devices.
The Rebirth of Honor
We might also get an answer to the question everyone is asking; why did Huawei spin-off Honor as an independent brand. Huawei is a recognizable brand which has been around for a while and is almost a household name. By leaving Honor to compete in the brutal smartphone market its own without the support of Huawei is a risky endeavor. We will learn more about the latest developments in Huawei’s household and the future of Honor as a smartphone brand tomorrow.
So tune in iGyaan tomorrow as we report on all the latest from the world of Honor.
Samsung is ready to let its latest flagships, the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge to take on the world. There is a lot of excitement for these two handsets which is evident from the fact that Samsung received record orders of 20 million units within a week of launch. The Korean electronics giant released these new top of the line phones for sale in India today and here is everything you wanted to know about them.
What’s New?
Samsung had faced a lot of flak in the past couple of years for offering uninspired designs and features in its devices. The company considered the criticisms and said that they would be going back to the basics and create a device from scratch. It was called Project Zero and these two new launches of today are the first handsets to come out of Samsung’s initiative.
The New Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge introduces a premium metal and glass based design. Samsung has put great stress on the design aspects of the new handsets, and the elegant one-of-a-kind design of the S6 Edge is the proof of the hard work undertaken at Samsung’s laboratories. The devices offers unique features such as Samsung Pay, which lets you use your phone for card based transactions. They also offer the most pixel intensive Quad HD display with 577 ppi for a unique, eye-popping multimedia experience. and wireless charging and ultra power saving mode for improved convenience.
Samsung has added a security feature called Samsung Knox on these new flagships which basically lets you use the same device for business and personal purposes. The user presses an icon that switches from Personal to Work use with no delay or reboot wait time. Samsung has claimed this feature will be fully compatible with Android and will provide full separation of work and personal data on mobile devices and addresses all major security gaps in Android.
A Flagship Spec-Sheet
Samsung Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge definitely have a spec-sheet that would be the envy of all the lower end devices in the market. The two devices are almost identical and differ only in terms of their processor and battery power.The S6 is equipped with 64-bit Exynos octa-core while a peppier 2.5 GHz Exynos octa-core chipset is embedded on to the edgy Galaxy S6. Both the devices are available in 32, 64 and 128 GB storage variants and there are no expandable storage options.
The success of the Galaxy S6 is essential to Samsung. The company has been constantly losing its market share in the smartphone game. The phones have been received well by the critics and its now the turn of the end consumers to give their verdict on Samsung’s latest flagships. If the new design is appreciated by the target audience, Samsung might also attempt at bringing the design features in devices which are lower in the food chain. The Korean giant needs to re-establish its dominance in the lower end of the market, and a design revamp of the entire portfolio with boost in specs would be one way of achieving that goal. The market results of this year might be able to predict the future of the company.
Price and Availability
Samsung will be bringing the Galaxy S6 and the S6 Edge with all their accessories to India and they will be available for purchase from the 10th of April. The Galaxy S6 is priced at Rs. 49,900 for the 32 GB variant, Rs. 55,900 for the 64 GB and Rs. 61,900 for the 128 GB variant.
The curvy S6 Edge is priced at Rs. 58,900 for the 32 GB variant, Rs, 64,900 for the 64 GB and Rs. 70,900 for the 128 GB variant.. The devices will be available in all the colour variants (White Pearl, Black Sapphire, Gold Platinum) that were showcased during their international launch. The Galaxy S6 will have an additional colour option of Blue Topaz while the S6 Edge will be available in Green Emerald.
Samsung has also offered some goodies for folks who pre-order their new phones before the April 10th release date. The company is offering 10,000 points to the customers in case the price of the device falls. It is also offering free screen replacement warranty for twelve months from the date of purchase.
Check out our exclusive hands-on video from Samsung’s MWC 2015 launch below:
Tom Cruise is known for his awesome action-filled cinematic adventures. He has done some phenomenal movies like Top Gun, Minority Report, Knight and Day and Edge of tomorrow. But his magnum opus, his most prominent franchise is of course the Mission Impossible series where he plays the indomitable spy, Agent Ethan Hunt.
While the last movie in the franchise was known as Ghost Protocol, where Ethan’s entire team is disavowed by the government and they had work on their own to stop a nuclear attack on San Francisco. Upon release, MI4 – Ghost Protocol became the becoming the highest grossing Mission: Impossible film and the highest-grossing film starring Tom Cruise.
In this fifth instalment of the series, Ethan’s team is now ready for their new mission. This time around they are taking on the The Syndicate, a highly trained organization of rogue assassins that kill on order. Accompanying Tom Cruise in this movie will be the funny Simon Pegg reprising his role as tech specialist Benji Dunn. Jeremy Renner who is known for playing Hawkeye in the Avengers series will play William Brandt, a role introduced in the last movie. The trailer is full of high adrenaline action and intense spy shenanigans. We will surely be waiting for this one.
Chinese telecom company, Huawei has become an identifiable brand name. You are bound to come across a Huawei branded connectivity devices like modems and dongles. Huawei also makes smartphones, and its Honor line of smartphones have received favorable feedback from the market. There are some speculations in the market that Huawei will spin off Honor as an independent brand.
Huawei has sent out invites for the launch of the Honor 6 Plus. The press release sent along with the invite calls Honor an independent brand and puts stress on the Honor brand name throughout the write-up. The company has also launched a hashtag called #TestofHonor for marketing its new smartphone. The invite too is devoid of any mention of Huawei.
Honor as a smartphone brand has been in India since October 2014 when they launched their first phones on Flipkart. The brand is known for devices like the Honor Holly, 3C, and 3X. The devices run Emotion UI, which is based on Android OS. The devices are good on the design front and have generally received favorable response from the users.
Now it is unsure as to why Huawei would separate its recognizable brand name from its Honor line of smartphones. The brand would have to deal now with the onslaught of brands already competing in the brutal smartphone markets of the world.
Google is the gateway to the internet. Without it, let’s just agree that most of us will be lost on the internet. The other search engines don’t even come close to Google’s dominance in the search business. People have now begun to perceive the Silicon Valley giant as the new superpower as it controls a key access to the digital economy. It has now been found that Google used its dominance to take content from websites like Amazon, TripAdvison, and others illegally to further its own business.
The report was filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the United States of America. The report states that Google manipulated its search results to promote its own services and in turn sabotaged rival companies. The report says that this manipulation caused “real harm to consumers”.
The report says Google picked content from its rivals without giving them any compensation
The websites who complained about Google’s illegal actions include major names such as Amazon, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Microsoft and its search engine Bing, and Expedia. The report states one example in which Google blatantly copied Amazon’s rankings for popular products and used it for its search results.
The infuriating bit about this entire episode is that Google used its position to bully the companies. When the companies complained about the illegal actions, the search giant threatened them with a disappearance from search results.
FTC had voted to end its investigation of Google in 2013. The report was not published until recently. Some claim that Google’s massive donations for President Obama’s re-election campaign led to the federal regulators going soft on the company. In fact, Google was the second biggest donor for Obama’s 2012 campaign. There is already pressure in the European Commission to challenge the monopoly of Google in the European search markets.
Under the settlement conditions, during the closing of 2013 investigation, the companies got the option of opting out of their content getting picked by Google without the threat of removal of their names getting dropped in the search listing. But the real story here is that Google used its dominant position and political influence to blatantly steal content and then bully the owners. This revelation will lead to more people questioning the massive size of Google and how to address its monopolistic attitude.
Taxi aggregator service, Ola is one of the most prominent cab services on the Indian roads. It is currently in the process of raising Rs. 2500 crores to expand its business. While it’s taking care of its fundraising efforts, the company has launched a new food delivery service called Ola Cafe. This services will be well appreciated by working professionals.
Ola Cafe will be added to the existing app so won’t have to clutter your device by adding a new app. It will be available to users in select localities of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai. Lunch is served from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM, snacks are served from 3:00 PM to 7.00 PM while dinner is served from 7:00 PM to 11.00 PM.
Users can choose the item of their choice from the menu and specify the quantity and then place the order. The payment for the meals can be done through Ola Money or directly through cash. The company says it will deliver food within 20 minutes of order.
You can also cancel the order before it’s delivered. You can cancel the order from the app itself or by calling Ola. You cannot cancel the order once it’s delivered. You also cannot order the meals to a separate location as your current location is taken by default as the delivery address.
Ola had previously stated that it would enter the product delivery space, and food is as good a product to understand the challenges of a delivery business. It is not sure as of yet as to how many of its vehicles will be engaged in its food delivery wing. Ola had earlier stated that it has a fleet of 1 Lakh taxis across India, but it still is struggling to meet the growing demand for its basic cab service.
Ola’s prime competition, Uber has already launched a similar service called UberFRESH in America where it deliver lunch and dinner . Uber also delivers groceries, medicines, chocolates and a lot more in the United States. So it’s clear that Ola wants to beat Uber in the delivery business by having the first mover advantage in the massive Indian market.
Marvel had revealed its last theatrical trailer for the second Avengers movie just a few days back. Everyone thought that those were the last footages from the movie that we’ll get to see before the pre-destined blockbuster comes to a theater near us. But Marvel knows how to keep its fans excited for their expertly crafted comical extravaganzas.
The new trailer for Avenger: Age of Ultron is released as a TV spot. This trailer reveals the premise of the movie. Tony Stark has created a new security institution after the demise of SHIELD in Captain America: Winter Soldier. Captain Steve Rogers is the head of operations while Tony’s job is to create innovations that assist the legendary team to take on their enemies. One such baby of Tony Stark is Ultron, who was designed to be a peacekeeping artificial intelligence. But Ultron goes rogue and unleashes mayhem on the humans. It’s up to the Avengers again to take on the superhuman task.
This trailer is also exciting because of the extended action sequences from the movie. While the last trailer focused on the fun elements, this trailer is all about our badass heroes kicking butt. Avengers 2 will release in India on the 24th of April, about a week before the United States. So tell your friends in America that they may have access to sweet devices before we do, but what we get is early access to the greatest action adventure flick of the year before they do.
Japanese camera maker Olympus has brought a new mirrorless camera to the Indian market. The E-M5 Mark II is an interchangeable lens camera with a visually appealing retro styling.
The E-M5 Mark II uses a 16.1 Megapixels, 4/3 Live MOS Sensor system to capture the images. The sensor also comes with a 5-axis* sensor-shift image stabilisation so that the videos and images are steady and without shakes. The body and lens systems are dustproof and splashproof. Olympus says that the camera has fast autofocus to ensure that your images are always sharp and in focus.
There are also 14 art filters for the used to try out some fun snaps. There is also a feature called photo story that takes multiple images of the same scene and makes one image. It offers two HDR modes, and you can take tilt shift images through the keystone compensation.
The camera has built-in Wi-fi and allows the users top share their images with ease with Olympus Image Share. You can also control the camera with a computer based app called Olympus Capture.
The Olympus E-M5 Mark II is priced at Rs. 74,990. It’s good to see that in an attempt to be valid in the smartphone camera age, the camera makers are adding exciting features to their camera. But the market might soon discard one major electronic product, and it sure isn’t going to be the smartphones. But if the cameras keep looking as sexy as the Olympus E-M5 Mark II we might keep them around for a while.
The Chinese smartphone companies have taken the Indian market by storm. Apart from bigshots like Xiaomi, OnePlus, and Lenovo, there are several smaller brand who are trying to woo Indian customers. Now another major Chinese smartphone brand, Meizu is getting ready to try its luck in the brutal landscape of the Indian market.
Meizu is getting ready to bring the M1 Note to India. The company has begun the marketing process for the new smartphone. A Facebook page for Meizu India is now online, and the company is hosting a giveaway on their page. The winner of the first contest will be declared on 21st of March.
The Meizu M1 Note flaunts an impressive spec sheet. It features a 5.5” Full HD display with a pixel density of 408 PPI. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The device is powered by a 1.7 Ghz Mediatek octa-core processor along with 2 GB RAM. The handset is juiced up by a 3140 mAh battery. The M1 Note is available in 16 and 32 GB variants. Unfortunately, there is expandability option.
The smartphone is great on the camera front too. It offers a 13MP Samsung camera on the back which is also protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The main camera is capable of taking 30 photos per second. On the front is a 5 MP snapper which offers enhancement features for selfies. The handset runs Flyme 4 UI, which is based on Android 4.4.4.
The phone has visually appealing design features and with aggressive pricing, it can be a hit.
Meizu M1 Note looks good on paper and has received favorable reviews in markets where it has been launched. It is priced at around $160 (Approx Rs.10,000) in China which is a competitive price tag. The lack of expandable storage though would bother potential buyers, and they would have to depend on cloud storage for their excess data storage. The device looks fantastic, and its aggressive pricing will ensure that it will attract a good number of takers in the Indian market.
If you were looking forward to buying the OnePlus One but were finding it hard to score an invite, well today is your lucky day. Between 1.00 – 2.00 PM today you will get a chance to own the original flagship killer without an invite.
This is a part of Amazon India’s Happy Hour Deal today. Amazon India has recommended the interested buyers to be signed in before the start of the sale. The e-commerce site also asked the users to update their delivery address and payment details ready as the stocks are expected to fly off the shelves really fast.
The next Happy Hour Deal will take place on the 24th of March where you will be able to to buy the OnePlus One without an invite. So if you end up missing your chance today, there is still chance for you in the next sale. The 16 GB variant of the One is available for 18,999 while the 64GB variant comes at a price of Rs 21,999.
OnePlus has said that the smartphone will be getting an Android Lollipop update and the new Oxygen OS by the end of March. So if you were waiting for the right moment to buy the kickass device, well now is the best time to go for it.
Once the top portal on the internet, Yahoo has not seen good days in the recent past. But recently, since the arrival of new age apps and features, Yahoo has somewhat faded into the background. The company is now pulling out from China where it had to shut down its web portal in 2013. This move will result in a loss of jobs of 200 employees.
The consumer side businesses of Yahoo such as the Web portal, Yahoo Music and email service has already been shut down. Yahoo’s only office in Beijing was then transformed into a research facility. Now the company is pulling the curtain down on its entire show in China by shutting down the Beijing facility.
Yahoo’s Chinese business was overseen by Alibaba group. The Beijing facility though was directly controlled by Yahoo and the company employed over 350 employees there. The shutdown will lead to massive layoffs in terms of hundreds. Yahoo has intimated the employees about the shutdown. Yahoo had laid off about 2000 employees in 2012 citing financial woes.
Yahoo’s present CEO Marissa Mayer has been instrumental in turning the company around by taking some unpopular decisions. Her first task in the office as CEO was to shut shop in South Korea. As the services were being ignored for newer services outside US, she decided to bring focus back to America. There were also several layoff’s in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Middle East. In total, the company has cut between 700-900 jobs since October last year.
The wages were also cited as reasons for the shutdown. Yahoo China employees get twice the salary of their Indian counterparts. Considering there are no consumer side application in the country, it made sense for the company to cut the costs there.
3D printing is the technology revolution that will revolutionize the manufacturing process in the near future. The technology can be used to create almost anything under the sun. It has already been used to print human body parts to engine bits from rockets. The only hitch with this incredible feat of engineering is that at present the process of printing an object is a bit slow. A usual printer may take a few hours to complete its tasks. A California-based company called Carbon 3D has brought out a 3D printer technology which seems to address this issue. According to the company, an object can be created 25-100 times faster than the conventional printers.
Carbon 3D’s technology is called Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP). This technique uses laser and oxygen to control the process of creation of the object that is faster than ever before. Unlike the conventional 3D printers where the process of creation of the object happens layer by layer, this printer forms the entire three-dimensional object at once.
The process works like this; the machine creates an oxygen window which allows it to mix the laser light and oxygen in precise amounts in the resulting resin. A variation in this mixtures leads to the change in shapes. Though it is transparent to light, it allows oxygen to pass through it.
Below is the promotional video from Carbon 3D. The video doesn’t have an audio track, but we would suggest you play the Terminator 2 soundtrack to really get the feel of creation. It will totally remind you of the famous scene where the T-1000 rises after being frozen and blown into pieces.
The objects built by CLIP technology is also said to be stronger than its layered counterparts. The makers say that objects created by this technique almost resemble injection moulded parts which have consistent, predictable mechanical properties. The parts created are smooth on the outside and solid on the inside. The range of materials will also be broadened with CLIP. It can be used to create anything, from sports shoes to parts for automobiles.
Technologies like CLIP will ensure the mass scalability of 3D printing. It will help to build objects faster and stronger. Carbon 3D may have just put the 3D printing revolution on the fast track.
If you want to learn about the basics and more about 3D Printing check out our new show right here:
The Vatican Apostolic Library is a rich repository of historical knowledge. The library was founded in fifteenth century by Pope Nicholas V Parentucelli (1447-1455). This library has over the centuries gathered 82,000 manuscripts, 100,000 archival units, 1,600,000 printed books, 400,000 coins and medals, and a lot more valuable pieces of history. Considering their importance and delicateness of these items, Vatican invests heavy resources in their maintenance and preservation. Vatican decided to give access to the general public to a large number of documents and they partnered with NTT to bring the rare documents to the Internet.
Japanese IT service company NTT provided the digitization solutions to Vatican. NTT Data is a leading IT services provider and global innovation partner headquartered in Tokyo, with business operations in over 40 countries. Their emphasis is on long-term commitment, which combines global reach with local intimacy to provide premier professional services varying from consulting and systems development to outsourcing.
One of their key service includes archiving digital manuscripts as high-definition data, supported with special measures for long-term storage and safekeeping. This includes use of a highly sustainable storage format, metadata management to increase search efficiency, optimized search algorithms and a user-friendly search interface.
NTT brought in its digital archive technology AMLAD which lets users view high definition images when viewed through a special application. The delicate documents were scanned with great caution and archived.
Most of the ancient texts require intense care as they are written on delicate materials like papyrus.
AMLAD (Advanced Museum Library Archives Deposit) is a service that helps to preserve and disseminate valuable ancient books, manuscripts, prints, visual and audio data into digital data. Those digital archives can be opened to the public as indexed data that is searchable from computers, smartphones, and tablets. NTT has also worked with the Akita Prefectural Library in Japan where they digitized thousands of images and documents. They also consolidated data from multiple databases from multiple institutions into one easily searchable formats.
Vatican has signed a contract worth Euro 18 million with NTT to digitize about 3000 manuscripts by 2018. In the long term Vatican wants to digitize all the treasures in its library. It would sure be an herculean task as it would amount to about 41 million pages in its entirety.
“We gladly accepted the collaboration of NTT to support the further improvement of the project of digital archiving of our manuscripts using their innovative technologies,” explained Monsignor Cesare Pasini, Prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library. “In so doing, we will further nurture our mission of preserving these treasures of humankind and making them more widely available and known in a deep spirit of universality-including the universality of knowledge and the universality of collaboration and agreement with institutions and companies throughout the world.”
History is an essential bit of our existence whose lessons pave the path for the future. The knowledge contained in the documents released by Vatican belongs to all of humankind and hence should be in public domain. This move by Vatican is commendable and we hope these documents raise new debates and discussion about our history in the popular culture.
Microsoft has announced today that it will be bringing its premier operating system, Windows 10 to 190 countries around the world this summer. The company also hinted at plans to expand its market share in the portable devices market. Microsoft’s collaboration with Xiaomi also led to many speculations in the market as to how the Chinese smartphone powerhouse would play in Microsoft’s plan to expand its mobile market share. The details aren’t out yet, but it seems Microsoft is offering a ROM that will replace Android to make Windows 10 the primary OS of a smartphone.
Microsoft has announced that under its deal with Xiaomi, a select group of Mi 4 ‘Power users’ will get a chance to test the new Windows 10. Xiaomi made clear that it is not a partnership between the two companies, and Xiaomi is just “assisting” Microsoft in its efforts.
The new ROM doesn’t offer dual-boot solution, and Windows 10 becomes the default OS of the smartphone. It is comparable to the CyanogenMod or any other custom ROM. The ROM is basically designed to get Android users to try Windows 10 native user interface and the Windows-centric apps. This, Microsoft hopes will encourage the users the to switch from Android to Windows OS.
At present, Microsoft is testing the ROM in China but it is definitely planning on expanding its reach to other countries. It has started with Xiaomi as the company has a proactive user base that constantly sends back feedback through the companies portal. Microsoft will find it easier to gather suggestions and feedbacks through Xiaomi’s already available infrastructure.
Microsoft is trying hard to find takers for its smartphone devices. According to the last IDC listing Android is a behemoth in the smartphone market which controls 82.3 percent of the global smartphone market followed by Apple’s iOS which holds 13.8 percent while Microsoft Windows Phone OS accounts for just 2.7 percent at present.
Microsoft has also talked about introducing advanced features which let users connect and work on their desktop and mobile devices seamlessly. If these features work in Microsoft’s favour, you can anticipate a rise in Microsoft’s smartphone market share because in the desktop OS space, Microsoft still rules with a comfortable majority. In fact, at present, the various Windows OS’s (Windows 7,8, 8.1) are running on over 69% of the computers while Windows XP accounts for about 19% of the global market. By offering unique interconnectivity features, Windows can attract its massive desktop user base to give its smartphone ecosystem a try.
