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Mantis Vision’s Aquila is a 3D view-and-capture tablet

We should not be surprised that 3D tablets – where you can view your 3D videos sans the glasses – never really caught on with consumers. A mobile device is not really a viable medium for 3D content, and there are bigger and better screens where you can watch all of that. But Israel-based outfit Mantis Vision is giving it another try with its new “Aquila” tablet, making the device a bit more specialized than just a 3D viewing device.



Mantis Vision already has a track record with 3D technology as they contributed their MV4D core 3D engine to Google’s “Project Tango”, a tablet device used for 3D-mapping. The same engine is now in the Aquila tablet, powered by a very capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor, and backstopped by 2GB of RAM. The 3D-capable screen is an 8-inch 1920 x 1200 full HD display.


The MV4D sensor for 3D capture is mounted on the back of the tablet via a 13MP camera synced with an infrared camera, an IR projector, and a white LED flash. The way it works is that the image data is captured via the synced cameras while the projector is used to query the environment via a proprietary “Structured Light Pattern”. This data is used to bring the image or video together to create 3D depth.


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As of now, only a few reference tablets of the Aquila have been made, but Mantis Vision expects the tablet to be OEM ready by 2015. The development kit is available right now at a costly USD$915, but discounts will be given to academics and researchers who will use the tablet for studies. An application for the development kit program is available via the Mantis Vision website.


VIA: Linux Gizmos


Samsung looking at payment process through smartwatches

South Korean gadget giant Samsung is reportedly looking at how they can incorporate simple payment functions to the next wearable devices – smartwatches, more specifically. The target is the Mobile World Congress slated for early in 2015, where by that time, Samsung is expected to launch a payments-enabled smartwatch.



Samsung is reportedly teaming up with a natural partner in mobile and online payment systems, Paypal. The idea is to have a biometric sensor on your smartwatch so that your identity can be verified. This is purportedly set to be implemented on Samsung’s third-generation smartwatch, with the Samsung Gear S launching at IFA 2014 recently.


Another player in this movement will probably be Synaptics, which will obviously handle the biometrics solution for the smartwatch. Richard Bergman, CEO of Synaptics, has been quoted as saying that they are indeed working with Samsung and Paypal in creating an “area type” payment system which is more viable for smartwatches. The idea is that the payment system can work within a limited range of the smartwatch in question.


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This idea needs to be fleshed out a bit more, of course, and we will be happy to bring you any developments in the next few months with regards to this project. We have to remember that we could also be seeing this new feature in a round-face watch from Samsung, obviously riding on the popularity of the Moto 360.


VIA: Business Korea





Sunrise update: Google Cal sync, Todoist, Trello integration

With so many calendars for Android devices out there, it’s now become a race to have as many popular or essential 3rd party apps integrated into your app. One of the more popular ones out there is Sunrise, and the newest update will make its users even happier and might convince others to switch to this particular calendar app as it now seamlessly syncs with Google Calendar and is integrated with two other productivity apps.



If you are dependent on Google Calendar for work or school purposes, but still prefer to use a different calendar app for your phone or tablet, seamless and real-time syncing is crucial to keep all aspects of your life organized. Sunrise’s newest update does just that now, as wherever you choose to update or add an event to your Google Calendar, whether on your desktop browser or through any of your apps, it will sync across all devices.


Both Todoist and Trello have become popular apps for productivity fiends, as they are both minimalist yet feature-packed. And now they are integrated with Sunrise. That means whenever you add a due date to any of your tasks in the former apps, it will automatically add to the latter, app as long as you add Todoist and Trello to the list of apps to be synced with your calendar. You can also edit the tasks on Sunrise, and it will sync back. At least it’s supposed to. But it seems that either it’s still buggy or there is a lag time in syncing as we don’t see it happening yet when we tested it.


But other than that bug, everything seems to be working okay, and we are eager to begin writing down to-do lists and due dates and watching them appear on Sunrise. You can download the app for free from the Google Play Store. Or if you have it already, make sure you’re updated to the latest version 1.3.0





Microsoft increases OneDrive increases free storage to 30GB

The cloud storage wars have been heating up, as more mobile users want easier access to their files and photos by saving it not on their devices’ limited space, but on the bigger cloud drives. In the early days, we were already happy with 5 or 10 GB of free space, but nowadays, that’s just a minuscule of the space we consume. Microsoft announced this weekend that they are doubling their OneDrive free storage from 15GB to 30GB.



Starting now until the end of the month, when you download the OneDrive app for your device, you will be able to get the 30GB of free storage. Existing users will also notice that their storage has also increased. You need to activate your device’s auto upload feature for the camera roll to be able to use this extra 15GB, while the other 15GB can be used for your documents and other files. But that would of course depend on whether you have more photos or documents to back-up. The important thing is that you have 30GB of free storage space.


The increase in free storage space coincided with the release of the iOS 8 for Apple devices and the new iPhone 6. The latter needs at least 5GB of space to be installed in their mobile devices, which has created problems for some users as they couldn’t spare that much space. But OneDrive’s offer is not just for iOS users, but also for those who use other platforms, including Android and Windows.


If you haven’t downloaded OneDrive yet on your device, you better do so before the end of September, if you want to get the free extra 15GB of storage space. You can download it for free from the Google Play Store.


SOURCE: OneDrive





Oculus producing a game for Samsung Gear VR

It’s funny (not funny) how “virtual reality” hasn’t really gained momentum from the heady days of the 90s where everyone was excited about the technology until today where it’s still an obvious bystander to mainstream tech. That said, Samsung is set to splurge some of their well-earned smartphone profit on the Samsung Gear VR and Oculus is set to launch a game created especially for the Gear VR.



The game is tentatively named VR Quest, and according to Oculus, it will be a mobile dungeon crawler game in the classic RPG mold. John Carmack, chief technology officier at Oculus, says that the game is "Zelda-esque", harping back to memories of the Nintendo gaming classic Legend of Zelda. We suppose we should take that with a grain of salt, but only time will tell if it will really be that good.


There is no information yet as to the ship date of the game, as Samsung is just getting around to launching the Gear VR. There is no clear launch date for the Gear VR device, but rumors are pointing to the release before the year ends.




Would you buy a Samsung Gear VR? Honestly, we can’t see the viability of the device except as a specialized entertainment platform. The technology is certainly impressive, and we love Oculus to bits. Let’s see if the hype catches on, there is not long to wait on this it seems.


VIA: IGN





These Discounted Flash Drives Are Your Android's Best Friend

These Discounted Flash Drives Are Your Android's Best Friend


If you've ever run out of space on your Android device, or wanted to transfer large files between two phones, these clever flash drives might be just what you're looking for.


Read more...
















Google Chrome hack allows Android apps to run on any desktop

Recently, Google made an interesting addition to Chrome which allows it to run certain Android applications through what it called ARC or “App Runtime for Chrome”. There were limits to what ARC could do – like running only on Chrome OS and only for certain apps – but the good Android developers generally dislike limits, so a developer named “Vladimir” went on a process of taking the limits away.



Vladimir’s modded ARC clone is called “ARChon”, and it does a number of cool things. Firstly, the developer has made it so ANY app would run on it, and not just the original four apps that were supported. Honestly, such a cool feature and only four apps supported? That’s a travesty, and we are happy that good old Android persistence won out.


Also, Vladimir has also made it so that ARChon can run on any desktop operating system – Windows, Mac OS or Linux – basically anywhere that a Chrome browser can run. ARChon allows for sideloading of apps onto Chrome. The bad news is that Chrome does not accept the normal APK format for app packages, they have to be converted to Chrome extensions. The good news is that Vladimir thought of this as well and has a solution for converting APKs to Chrome extensions.


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To be transparent about this, the hack is crash-y and buggy to say the least, and only a few apps do really “work” in the fullest sense – but the system works in the sense that it allows the apps to be loaded and run. This is a look towards what may be in store for Android as a universal runtime platform, but for now, check out the instructions via the dev’s github page.


VIA: Ars Technica


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