Cyber Tech
We offer the best troubleshooting steps for electronic devices and home appliances. Tired of being over charged by technicians ? Save money by fixing
your own device. |
We offer the best troubleshooting steps for electronic devices and home appliances. Tired of being over charged by technicians ? Save money by fixing
your own device. |
Beware of cheap USB sticks with high storage capacity
In online shops, you'll sometimes find offers that look too good to be true - very inexpensive USB sticks offering a large amount of data storage of one terabyte or more, for example.
Consumers should always view such offers with suspicion, experts say. Even if your computer suggests that the flash drive's memory actually matches its advertised capacity, a cheap USB stick can usually store much less data, sometimes even resulting in data loss, according to the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Advice Centre in Germany. If you're looking for a USB memory stick with a large amount of storage, you should compare the advertised prices with those of reputable manufacturers before purchase. Kingston, for example, does indeed offer a two-terabyte flash drive. But you'll have to shell out some €4,000 (RM19,780) to get your hands on it. — AFP Relaxnews. |
Spotify's free subscribers can now play music on Google HomeSpotify has a treat for those who use the music-streaming service for free.
Starting now, free users will be able to enjoy and control music through a Google Home device, just as premium subscribers have been able to do since the launch of the home hub, Spotify said Friday. The news could nudge some free Spotify users toward investing in one of Google's home hubs if they haven't already. Especially if they're trying to decide between Google Home and the rival Amazon Echo, which can still be used only by Spotify Premium subscribers. Access through Home will be available to free Spotify users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France and Germany. "We are incredibly excited that, from today, millions of Spotify's free users will be able to enjoy Spotify in their homes through voice-activated speakers for the very first time, thanks to the Assistant on Google Home," Mikael Ericsson, Spotify's product director for platform and partner experience, said in a statement. Using a voice-activated smarthome hub with a speaker lets you simply tell the device what you want to hear, freeing you from having to search for tunes on your phone. With a properly configured Spotify-Home setup, you can get your music going by using commands like "OK, Google, play Spotify," "OK, Google, play Discover Weekly" and "OK, Google, play my Taylor Swift playlist." After that, you just have to hope no one in the room objects to your choice and gives Home different orders (the only downside we've discovered to voice-controlled music playback). |
Viemo launches 360-degree videoVimeo on Wednesday added the ability to upload and watch 360-degree videos, widening the places to watch VR experiences and offering options to sell or rent experiences directly to viewers like you.
Vimeo trails bigger rival YouTube and Facebook, the world's biggest social network by users, in providing the ability to upload and share 360-degree videos, which are the basis for video in virtual reality. But its pedigree as a hub for independent filmmakers and its track record of giving creators tools to polish their content and make money off it sets Vimeo apart from those more populist rivals. In other words, Facebook and YouTube want to put 360 and VR in everyone's hands. Vimeo wants to make it something dedicated filmmakers can run with. "Right now, it is expensive and time-consuming to make 360 video. Most [people] can only do it when they're working with big brands," said Anjali Sud, senior vice president and general manager of Vimeo's Creator Platform. "Content is the missing piece that would take immersive stories from nascent to mainstream." Virtual reality is an entertainment format that uses headsets to create the illusion of transporting you to a different place. Big investments in VR hardware by tech giants like Facebook and Samsung have spurred hype around virtual reality, but the new format still lacks standard practices about how to pay for the stuff you watch in VR, especially outside the realm of games. Right now, most VR content is either free -- often supported by a brand or corporate sponsor -- or pay-to-play. Almost all paid experiences are games. Some entertainment VR companies are experimenting with other models: Last year, movie studio 20th Century Fox released its "The Martian VR Experience" for $20, and VR startup Wevr has introduced an annual membership model for $8 and $20 a year. Vimeo's move makes it one of the first worldwide marketplaces for creators to sell 360-degree videos directly to viewers. Vimeo Pro and Business members, who pay a fee for those membership levels, can choose options for renting, buying or subscribing through the company's Vimeo on Demand service. Creators get 90 percent of the revenue after transaction costs. At launch viewers can watch 360 video in Vimeo mobile apps, including Android-powered and Apple devices, that can be used with compatible headsets, like the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream. The company says support for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive is coming soon. For creators, Vimeo also will allow uploads of 360 videos in up to 8K resolution and playback at various quality levels, including high-definition offline viewing in its mobile apps. It provides a range of customization settings, like embedding options. The company is launching resources such as tutorials on the basics of 360. Correction at 5:25 a.m. PT: A quote about the expense of 360-degree video was originally attributed to the incorrect Vimeo executive. The speaker was Anjali Sud, Vimeo's director of video product. Paying with Your FaceFace-detecting systems in China now authorize payments, provide access to facilities, and track down criminals. Will other countries follow?
Shortly after walking through the door at Face++, a Chinese startup valued at roughly a billion dollars, I see my face, unshaven and looking a bit jet-lagged, flash up on a large screen near the entrance. Having been added to a database, my face now provides automatic access to the building. It can also be used to monitor my movements through each room inside. As I tour the offices of Face++ (pronounced “face plus plus”), located in a suburb of Beijing, I see it appear on several more screens, automatically captured from countless angles by the company’s software. On one screen a video shows the software tracking 83 different points on my face simultaneously. It’s a little creepy, but undeniably impressive. Over the past few years, computers have become incredibly good at recognizing faces, and the technology is expanding quickly in China in the interest of both surveillance and convenience. Face recognition might transform everything from policing to the way people interact every day with banks, stores, and transportation services. This story is part of our March/April 2017 Issue See the rest of the issue SubscribeTechnology from Face++ is already being used in several popular apps. It is possible to transfer money through Alipay, a mobile payment app used by more than 120 million people in China, using only your face as credentials. Meanwhile, Didi, China’s dominant ride-hailing company, uses the Face++ software to let passengers confirm that the person behind the wheel is a legitimate driver. (A “liveness” test, designed to prevent anyone from duping the system with a photo, requires people being scanned to move their head or speak while the app scans them.) The technology figures to take off in China first because of the country’s attitudes toward surveillance and privacy. Unlike, say, the United States, China has a large centralized database of ID card photos. During my time at Face++, I saw how local governments are using its software to identify suspected criminals in video from surveillance cameras, which are omnipresent in the country. This is especially impressive—albeit somewhat dystopian—because the footage analyzed is far from perfect, and because mug shots or other images on file may be several years old. Facial recognition has existed for decades, but only now is it accurate enough to be used in secure financial transactions. The new versions use deep learning, an artificial-intelligence technique that is especially effective for image recognition because it makes a computer zero in on the facial features that will most reliably identify a person (see “10 Breakthrough Technologies 2013: Deep Learning”). “The face recognition market is huge,” says Shiliang Zhang, an assistant professor at Peking University who specializes in machine learning and image processing. Zhang heads a lab not far from the offices of Face++. When I arrived, his students were working away furiously in a dozen or so cubicles. “In China security is very important, and we also have lots of people,” he says. “Lots of companies are working on it.” One such company is Baidu, which operates China’s most popular search engine, along with other services. Baidu researchers have published papers showing that their software rivals most humans in its ability to recognize a face. In January, the company proved this by taking part in a TV show featuring people who are remarkably good at identifying adults from their baby photos. Baidu’s system outshined them. Face++ pinpoints 83 points on a face. The distance between them provides a means of identification.Now Baidu is developing a system that lets people pick up rail tickets by showing their face. The company is already working with the government of Wuzhen, a historic tourist destination, to provide access to many of its attractions without a ticket. This involves scanning tens of thousands of faces in a database to find a match, which Baidu says it can do with 99 percent accuracy. |
AirTV Play Live streamingSling's parent company Dish just birthed it a sibling for cord cutters and cord nevers who miss local broadcasts that you can only get via a cable or satellite subscription or antenna. AirTV looks like Roku mated with Fisher Price, but you'll never lose that remote in the couch.
Available now. Nintendo SwitchWith Nintendo's Switch finally out, there's a significant number of exclusives heading to the console this year. With so many to keep track of, we've compiled them all here for your convenience. Click ahead to check out all of Nintendo's exclusives coming in 2017. Be sure to check back often as we update this feature with new exclusives as they get announced.
Nintendo Switch is priced at US $300/£280/AU $470. One controller or two, vertical or sideways, motion controls or buttons…Joy‑Con and Nintendo Switchgive you total gameplay flexibility. Games come to life through easy-to-use motion controls and HD rumble—advanced vibration features built into each Joy‑Con Samsung Galaxy s8The Samsung Galaxy S8 has finally been launched and… well, it's entirely as we expected thanks to the myriad leaks that sprung up all over the internet in the preceding months.
But the good news is that it's a rather nifty phone, and you can check it out in some rather sumptuous depth in our hands-on: Samsung Galaxy S8 review to get all the morsels of information you could want on Samsung's new flagship. We know that some of you are in more of a rush though, and just want to know what's new and whether you should care about the new Samsung phone – and no, before you ask (and we have been asked countless times): it's not going to catch fire this time. Samsung has been very clear about that. What it will do is impress you with the large display, faster innards and all-round improvements throughout the user interface – so if you're not going to check out our thorough and filled-with-beautiful-photos Samsung Galaxy S8 hands-on (the plugs will only get more shameless) Samsung has now confirmed the Galaxy S8 release date: April 21 for the US, and April 28 for the rest of the world (including the UK) - although it hasn't given specific information on territories such as Australia. You can pre-order the phone already and if you do so before April 19 you'll get the Samsung Galaxy S8 delivered to your door as soon as the April 20 if you're in the UK (but no word on a free Gear VR... boo). Google IO 2017At Google’s 2017 I/O keynote today, CEO Sundar Pichai introduced new products and shared more information about the company’s “AI first” future. Here’s a running list of what happened that matters. Google is rethinking “all” of its products for an AI-first world. That’s the high-level promise from Pichai, and the change Google must successfully navigate to continue its dominance. Examples: Google Search now ranks differently using machine learning, Google Maps Street View automatically recognizes signs, video calling uses machine learning for low-bandwidth situations, etc. Google can now use your camera as an input device. Google announced a “Lens” feature for its Assistant service that will tell you information about what’s in front of your phone camera: What type of flower you’re looking at, info about the restaurant across the street, etc. This combines a bunch of tech buzzwords — AI, AR, machine learning, computer vision — into one feature, and highlights how Google’s massive collection of data about the world can be used together. It's also another example of how Google is trying to get ahead of the latest preference for photos versus text.
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