SmartEyeglass prototype from Sony at IFA 2014

Sony already announced their mobile devices at IFA 2014 electronic show in Berlin. Its time for them to show other products they have been developing and today they showed their latest SmartEyeglass prototype. Framed inside the thick plastic, there is the clear lenses. Texts appear on the lens in green color giving a very different experience.

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This prototype glass feels little unwieldy due to its large body. It still interacts with the smartphone to provide locations and context aware information. It supports apps like Wikitude for directions, Cookpad for showing recipe information for cooking and Local Life for showing what’ events are happening around in local area. The additional settings menu is also found in a paired smartphone that shows display for gmail updates, facebook posts, calender reminders, tweets and RSS feeds possible on glasses.
The texts appearing on the lens remind of the 1980’s computer monitors. They take over a great portion of lens and the display is nothing but green texts and some graphics and they are a bit higher resolution than that of old computer monitors.

Samsung got Android powered Printers for enterprises

IFA 2014 Trade Show is still going on. Samsung already announced their mobile devices on 3rd September. They are not done with new product announcement. This time, they come up with an idea of Printer powered by Android Operating System.

Samsung is planning to sell 10 different printers to business and enterprises. More of that, these printers will be the first in class to have Android OS. These Smart MultiXpress printers will have smart UX center on top of Android. Samsung also provides additional Samsung NFC Pro acessory that can be used with all these printers and users are facilitated to print from their Smartphones remotely. Samsung further says: 

“The new Samsung Smart MultiXpress series of MFPs each feature a 10.1-inch full touchscreen panel that enables users to search and print from web browsers, emails, maps, images and other types of content – without the need to connect to a PC or server. The touchscreen also offers the ability to preview documents, as well as editing and annotating capabilities.”

 

Western Digital’s portable drive: All things in One

Lets talk about the storage capacity here. Nearly every smartphone is capable of 1080p video recording, DSLR cameras of photographers need a lot of space for capturing photos and videos on-the-go and everybody these days want HD movies. All of these criteria needs a lot of storage. There are cloud storage options too but it isn’t conventional always due to lack of internet where ever you go. May be, this is why WD has came up with its awesome idea for its portable drive.

 

This protable drive is part of My Passport from WD. For computer users, it supports USB 3.0 port for faster data transfer. It provides option for photographers to swap their SD cards into it and it automatically downloads the photos and videos from card to drive. If the camera is wifi enabled, then the contents can be transferred wirelessly using FTP protocol. It has in-built wifi for wireless file transfer as well as media streaming to devices that supports DLNA protocol. HD videos can be streamed from up to 4 different devices at the same time. It also offers mobile apps, My cloud that supports other cloud services like dropbox, onedrive and google drive. This app manages various My Passport drives and provide option to choose which one for upload or download. 

This WD drive also doubles as wifi hotspot through which you can connect upto 8 devices at the same time. It charges via USB cable and can provide up to 20 hours stand-by time and 6 hours of continuous HD video streaming.

You can get this small unit in capacities of 500GB ($130), 1TB ($180) and 2TB ($220).

Sony wrap around its IFA announcement with Z3 family: Xperia Z3, Z3 Compact, Z3 Tablet Compact and also GCM10 Gaming Controller Mount

Before 6 months, Xperia Z2 was announced and now Sony got us another flagship Smartphone, Xperia Z3. A little thicker at 8.2 mm and IP65/68 rating for dust and water resistance. The bezels are also shrunken a little bit. Other features are nearly the same as that of Xperia Z2. Here it is:

• 2.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM 8974-AC
• Adreno 330 GPU
• 5.15-inch 1080p display
• 3GB RAM
• 20.7MP main camera
• 4K video capture (3840×2160 pixels/30p) with SteadyShot image stabiliization
• Digital noise-cancelling technology for an immersive audio experience
• 2.1MP front cam
• 16GB storage
• 4G LTE support
• Water and dust resistance (IP68)
• Android 4.4.4 KitKat
• Weighs 152g

 

 

Xperia Z3 Compact is also announced with everything previously leaked.

• 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 MSM 8974-AC
• Adreno 330 GPU
• 4.6-inch 720p display
• 3GB RAM
• 20.7MP 1/2.3-type EXMOR RS CMOS with G Lens, CMOS image, BIONZ for mobile
• 4K video capture (3840×2160 pixels/30p) with SteadyShot image stabiliization
• Digital noise-cancelling technology for an immersive audio experience
• 2.1MP front cam
• 16GB storage
• 4G LTE support
• Water and dust resistance (IP68)
• 2600mAh battery
• Android 4.4.4 KitKat
• Fast battery charging technology

 

 

Sony announced Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact, a 8-inch form factor tablet without any under-cutting specifications. It is also water and dust resistance like that of its predecessors. Here are the specs rundown:

• 8-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) TRILUMINOS display, with X-Reality and Live Color LED technology
• 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 CPU, Adreno 330 GPU
• 3GB of RAM
• 16GB storage with microSD
• 8.1MP Exmor RS rear camera, 2.2MP front camera
• Sony Front Surround™ audio technology
• Optional 4G LTE support
• IP65/IP68 rating – waterproof and dustproof
• 270gram weight
• Digital noise-cancelling technology for an immersive audio experience
• 4500 mAh battery — provides estimated 10 hours multimedia usage
• Quick charge technology

 

Lastly, lets talk about the accessory Sony announced today. It is GCM10 Gaming Controller Mount. It provides an option for gaming lovers to have full experience on-the-go. It isn’t something very huge, it provides a bridge between your Xperia Z3 devices to get connected to PlayStation 4 controller. If you love games, and you have one of the PS4 controllers lying around, you might consider get Sony’s GCM10.

 

Samsung IFA annoucement: Note 4, Note Edge, Gear S and Gear VR

We all knew Note 4 was coming. The metal-frame around the Note 4 is the new alteration with somewhat same faux-leather lacking minus stitching all the way around. Here are other specs of Galaxy Note 4:

CPU/GPU	Snapdragon 805, Quad-core 2.5 GHz Krait 450 / Adreno 420
CPU/GPU (Select markets)	Exynos 5 Octa 5433, 64-bit, Octa-core 4 X 1.3 GHz Cortex-A53 + 4 Cortex-A57 / Mali T760
Display	5.7-inch, 2560 x 1440, 515 ppi
RAM	4GB
Memory	16/32/64 GB,nmicroSD up to 128GB
Battery	Said to be 20mAh more than Note 3 (3220mAh)
Camera	16MP/3.7MP, BSI Sensor, Optical Image Stabilization, LED flash
Connectivity	WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, GPS / GLONASS, NFC, Bluetooth® v 4.0 (LE), IR LED (Remote Control), MHL 2.0
Network	2.5G/3G (HSPA＋ 42Mbps), 4G LTE
Sensors	UV, fingerprint scanner, heart rate monitor
OS	Android 4.4.4 KitKat with TouchWiz
Dimensions	Not Available
Colors	Charcoal Black, Blossom Pink, Frost White, and Bronze Gold

 

Samsung Galaxy Note Edge is pretty much same specification as that of Galaxy Note 4 will quite small screen size and of-course the edge display added as the name suggests. It offers tons of cool features such as it is used for notifications, playback controls, news, sports scores and can help you as  a night clock without a need to turn the main screen display. Also, the edge screen is a part of an AMOLED screen family. It has swipe gesture features supporting upto 7 screens left to right and quick setting from up and down. You can also set shortcut for applications allowing home-screen free from dock bar. Also, developers can take advantage of the edge screen as SDK is on the way to be released.

 

Samsung Gear S is pretty much the same as previously mentioned.

 

Samsung Gear VR is a new smart device from Samsung doing partnership with Oculus. It works as so sort of shell to Note 4 which works as the main display. Note 4 can be popped inside the device only to become one with VR headset. Back button is at the side and down below it is a touchpad for navigating the UI of smartphone without the need to pull it out. Speakers are placed right above the ears and two lenses transfer image into your eyes. Scroll button is placed at the top for adjusting display, in case anybody needs it.

3D cinema, VR Games and educational usage are the first priority when this device comes to the market.

Sony’s inter-changeable lens for Smartphone attachable camera.

Sony was one of the company to think out of the crowd and introduced to the world their smartphone cameras. Those were QX10 and QX100. They provide users to capture great pictures with that camera lens and using smartphone as a view-finder. Now, the followup camera QX1 has now hit the web, noted from Xperia blog and Sony Alpha rumors. 

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Like QX10 and QX100, the new QX1 will enhance the photo taking experience on android devices. But unlike last years model, the camera itself comes in two parts: Sensor and Lenses. Ya, you heard it right, lenses are detachable and inter-changeable from the sensor. It allows users to attached E-mount lenses that are used on Alpha series of Sony’s mirror-less cameras. Also, it is believed to use A6000 sensor found in Alpha series cameras.

Now for the price, its certainly won’t come cheap. According to the information, the pricing starts at around $395 and that only for the sensor. If you want to attach 16-50mm lens on that sensor, the price bumps to $590. That isn’t a cheap at all. How many of you think you could grab this hardware when it is available?

 

Tronsmart’s New Media Player (TV Box): Android powered Device

Media Player manufacturer Tronsmart launches Orion R28, powered by quad-core Rocketchip RK3288  Cortex-A17 based processor. This processor is clocked up to 1.8 GHz with ARM Mali-T764 GPU. 

This device is said to feature 3 different form factors; The Pro, The Meta and The Telos:

1. 2GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage with Wifi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity.
2. 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage with Wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac connectivity.
3. 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage with Wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac connectivity. This Telos version isn’t currently available.

The Pro version is available for $79.99 and The Meta version is available for $99.99 on geekbuying.com. This price is for Promotional offer of first batch of device released. All these models run on Android 4.4 KitKat with OTA updates in future. The ports available are 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 micro USB with OTG, a standard HDMI, RJ-45 Ethernet port and microSD card slot.