AI (Artificial Intelligence) -We Are Closer To Real Brain Than You Know..!

DIGITAL ASSISTANTS

Hello Folks , I guess all of you know What exactly AI (Artificial Intelligence) is .

But If you don't know that much then, you can know more about it in an article by my colleague Mr. Jyotiraditya Dey

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• Apple's SIRI

• 2016 Technology Resolutions 

Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest subjects these days, and recent advances in technology make AI even closer to reality than most of us can imagine.

Those in the defense industry are not the only ones engaging in an arms race to create advanced AI. Technology giants like Facebook, Google, Microsoft ,Apple and IBM are all engaging in various AI-initiatives, as well as competing on developing digital personal assistants like

•  Facebook’s M

• Microsoft's Cortana

• Apple's SIRI

•  Google's OK Google

Mark Zuckerberg even wants to create his own version of Jarvis from Iron Man to run his home.
Robots are no longer limited to traditional blue-collar jobs, fully automated assembly lines and high-frequency trading algorithms. White-collar jobs are ripe for automation, and robots are replacing bank tellers, mortgage brokers and loan officers in the financial industry. These examples follow strict repetitive rule-based routines, and a machine easily can perform them without any human interaction.

The road to true artificial intelligence is not paved with a single discipline.

The road to true artificial intelligence is not paved with a single discipline, but rather a collection of specialized subject matters, techniques and theories that together interact to create some form of intelligence.
I have limited this post to include only a selection of the technologies and techniques applied in AI research and development. For further insight, Check logic programming.

NowYou Can Upgrade From A 32 Bit PC To 64 Bit to Windows 10- (Solved)

It has been a biggest con of Microsoft Windows that one cannot upgrade from a 32 bit PC to 64 bit PC.
Although a trick has been found to upgrade your current PC to 64 bit Windows 10.

And If your PC has a 32-bit version of Windows 10, then you're missing out on some productivity advantages. Use this guide to switch to the 64-bit version.

Microsoft offers Windows 10 as a free upgrade for computers running a genuine copy of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Also, similar to previous releases, the operating system is available on different editions and two versions: 32-bit and 64-bit.

In this Windows 10 guide, we'll walk you through the steps to verify whether your computer in fact includes support for a 64-bit version and we'll guide you through the upgrade process to Windows 10 (x64).

"Make sure Windows 10 64-bit is compatible with your PC"A 64-bit version of Windows can only be installed on computers with capable hardware. As such, the first thing you need to do is to determine whether your computer has a 64-bit processor.

 

"Make sure there 64-bit versions of device drivers"

Also, you also want to ensure that other components in your system, such as video and sound cards are 64-bit compatible, as 32-bit versions of drivers won't work.If your computer is only a few years old, it's more than likely that there are 64-bit drivers available. However, older components may not even be supported anymore. Before switching from a 32- to a 64-bit version of Windows, check your manufacturer's website to see if there are 64-bit drivers available.

 

Make a full backup of your PC

You will be doing making significant changes on your computer, as such it's a good idea to make a full backup of your system before upgrading.
You can use our previous guide to make a full backup of Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and even Windows 7.
Remember that you will also need to backup your personal files to an external drive or OneDrive, as they will be deleted during the installation process.

Create Windows 10 installation media

• Connect a USB drive with at least 4GB of available space.

• Visit Microsoft's Windows 10 download page.

• Click the Download tool now button and save the Media Creation Tool on your desktop.

•  Double-click the MediaCrationTool.exe file.

• Read the license terms and click Accept.

• Select the Create installation media for another PC option.

• Click Next.

• Uncheck the Use the recommended options for this PC option.

• Make sure to select your language, edition, and, more importantly, the architecture, which in this case is 64-bit (x64).

• Click Next.

• Select the USB flash drive option.

• Click Next.

• Select the removable drive from the list.

• Click Next.

• Once the installation media is created, close the Media Creation Tool.

Install a 64-bit version of Windows 10

• Restart your PC with the installation media connected and begin the installation of Windows 10.

• On the Windows Setup, click Next.

• Click Install now.

• As you previously have an activated version of Windows 10, you can skip the option if you're prompted to enter a product key.

• Accept the licensing agreement and click Next.

• Click the Custom: Install Windows only (advanced) option.

• Select and delete system partitions -- usually: Drive 0 Partition 1 and Drive 0 Partition 2.

• Click Next and follow the on-screen directions to complete the installation.

After the installation, make sure to go to Settings > Windows Update to download the latest updates and drivers. If some of the drivers are not available through Windows Update, make sure to check your computer's manufacturer website download and install the 64-bit version of the drivers needed.
Now, it's also the time to install any previous app and restore your personal files from backup.

Windows 10 64-bit benefits

Between a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of Windows, there are no differences in features. However, there are productivity benefits. For example, the 64-bit version addresses the 3.5GB of RAM limitation found in the 32-bit version of the operating system. This advantage means that on computers with at least 4GB of RAM, you'll be able to run more applications simultaneously. Other applications like Google Chrome will be able to handle more opened tabs, and you will be able to run more memory-intensive applications, such as AutoCAD, Photoshop, and video editing programs.
It's worth pointing out that while we're focusing on Windows 10, Microsoft doesn't support a direct path between architectures for previous versions of the operating system eith

HTC desire 630 Specification

HTC at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Sunday unveiled HTC Desire 630 Smartphone. 

The company says that the new Desire-range smartphones, which feature colourful rear panels complete with unique 'micro splash' paint speckles, will begin rolling out to both retailers and at htc.com, from March. The HTC Desire 630 Smartphone run Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Sense UI on top.

The Desire 630 also features a 5-inch HD display but unlike the Desire 530 will be available dual-SIM model only. It is powered by a 1.6GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. 

Rest of the specifications are the same as the Desire 530 with the only exception being the rear camera on the device. The Desire 630 packs a 13-megapixel rear camera and also houses BoomSound technology.

HTC Desire 630 detailed specifications-

GENERAL

Release date- February 2016

Form factor- Touchscreen

Battery capacity (mAh)- 2200

Removable battery- Yes

SAR value- NA

DISPLAY

Screen size (inches)- 5.00

Touchscreen- Yes

Resolution- 720x1280 pixels

HARDWARE

Processor- 1.6 GHz Quad-core

Processor make- Qualcomm Snapdragon 400

RAM- 2GB

Internal storage- 16GB

Expandable storage- Yes

CAMERA

Rear camera- 13-megapixel

Flash- Yes

Front camera- 5-megapixel

SOFTWARE

Operating System- Android 6.0

Skin- Sense

CONECTIVITY

Wi-Fi- Yes

Wi-Fi standards - NA

GPS- Yes

Bluetooth- Yes

Headphones- 3.5mm

FM- Yes

Number of SIMs- 2

SIM 1

SIM Type- Micro-SIM

GSM/CDMA- GSM

3G- Yes

4G/ LTE- Yes

Supports 4G in India (Band 40)- Yes

SIM 2

3G- No

4G/ LTE- No

Supports 4G in India (Band 40)- Yes

SENSOR

Compass/ Magnetometer- No

Proximity sensor -Yes

Temperature sensor- No

New HTC 1x9 reviewed with all specs

HTC just announced the One X9 smartphone, the companys latest mid range smartphone in the new ‘One X series. It packs a 5.5-inch 1080p display and is powered by an Octa-Core MediaTek Helio X10 processor. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, BSI sensor, optical image stabilization (OIS) that can detect shake in 0.125 milliseconds, 4K video recording and RAW image capture. Android version is not clear yet, but there are chances that it might be running on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), similar to the One A9. It has dual front-facing BoomSound speakers with Dolby audio, 7.99mm slim metal body and packs a 3000mAh battery with fast charging support. It has dual SIM support and has 4G LTE connectivity.
Pros and Cons of HTC One X Android Smartphone

Good thing about HTC One X smart phone is that it comes with big and bright 4.7” screen, powerful camera (with very attractive tools) and latest android ICS operating system. One sad thing about HTC One X android Smartphone is that its owners can’t claim it as a quad-core bragging rights. Also lack of SD card slot weaken its specifications to a great extent. If we left these bad and sad things about this phone then it is really a incredible Android smartphone.

Another Boom in OS Field : Android on Linux

 Android on Linux

Shashlik brings Android apps to Linux, and you can try it today.

Ubuntu Phone could one day run Android apps thanks to this project.

At its core, Android is just Linux. But Android provides a run-time and various other libraries that applications depend on, so you can’t just install Android apps on Linux and expect them to work. Open-source project Shashlik is attempting to bridge the gap, and now offers a preview release that can run many Android applications on Linux today. 

 

Shashlik runs Android on Linux

Essentially, Shashlik runs Android in the background on your Linux system. (Shashlik developers are working on stripping down Android as much as possible.) OpenGL and graphics code are rendered directly on your Linux system for speed, but Shashlik provides an Android activity manager, daemons, and intents so Android apps will work properly.
But Shashlik isn’t just an emulator—it aims to provide a more native experience. When you install an Android app, Shashlik will extract its icon and create a menu entry so you can launch that Android app just like you’d launch any other Linux desktop app. All the Android emulation happens behind the scenes.
Shashlik has been under development for a while, but it just recently offered a preview release. Currently, you can download version 0.9.3. Packages are available for both Ubuntu and Arch Linux. They’ve only been tested on KDE’s Plasma 5 desktop so far, so you may want to use Kubuntu—the Ubuntu “spin” that includes KDE’s Plasma desktop—to try Shashlik for yourself.
After you install the Shashlik packages on Linux, you’ll need an Android app in APK file form. Shashlik provides a link to a Flappy Bird APK known to work. Find the APK file on your system, select the Open With option, and tell it to open the file with the following command: /opt/shashlik/bin/shashlik-install
Shashlik will then install the app and you’ll be able to launch it from your desktop’s applications menu. Other APKs may or may not work—if an APK has native code, it must support x86 processors and not just ARM processors, or it won’t work. 

Flappy Bird on Linux

Of course, there are other projects dedicated to Android app compatibility. Google is working on its own ARC Android runtime in Chrome. On Windows and Mac OS X, BlueStacks provides an Android experience that works pretty well. But Shashlik is open-source, unlike these other projects. It could potentially be integrated into Linux distributions. It works natively on Linux and doesn’t require Chrome.
Ubuntu could even use this as the basis of a project to allow Android apps to run on Ubuntu phones. Canonical has no plans for that yet, but it could give Ubuntu phones a leg up and help their almost nonexistent app ecosystem. 

GOOGLE ROBOTS : YOU CERTAINLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THEM

GOOGLE SMART ROBOT ANSWER GOOGLE'S INTERVIEW QUESTION

 

 Google's artificially intelligent neural network of computers is now so clever that it can solve puzzles meant for computing professionals who apply for jobs with the internet giant.

According to researchers from Oxford University, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Google, the deep mind neural network can be taught to solve communication-based co-ordination tasks. The network previous succeeded in teaching itself  to play 31 retro arcade video games, although it was unable to master PAC-Man.

The robot first needs to develop a communications protocol in order to communicate with other agents in the network, and the researchers say that for the first time, deep reinforcement learning has enabled the neural network to successfully learn communications protocols.

The puzzle set for the neural network is one that is posed to prospective Google employees when they attend an interview with the company.

Can you answer this Google interview question?

Q: An executioner lines up 100 prisoners single file and puts a red or a blue hat on each prisoner's head. Every prisoner can see the hats of the people in front of him in the line – but not his own hat, nor those of anyone behind him. The executioner starts at the end (back) and asks the last prisoner the colour of his hat. He must answer "red" or "blue."
If he answers correctly, he is allowed to live. If he gives the wrong answer, he is killed instantly and silently. (While everyone hears the answer, no one knows whether an answer was right.) On the night before the line-up, the prisoners confer on a strategy to help them. What should they do?
 

In order to solve this problem, the Deep Mind neural network modeled each of the 100 prisoners as a separate computer in the network and then considered what colored hats each agent would be able to see if they were lined up in a row. Each artificially intelligent agent had to consider what to tell the others, and then collectively they could work out the answer.

 

 Answer, by Terence Gaffney, mathematics professor at Northeastern University:
"You have a 100% chance of saving all but the last prisoner, and a 50% chance of saving that one. Here's the strategy the prisoners have agreed on. The last prisoner counts the number of blue hats worn; if the number is even, the last prisoner yells "blue", if odd, yells "red". If the the 99th prisoner hears "blue", but counts an odd number of blue hats, then his hat must be blue so that the total number of blue hats is even. If he counts an even number of blue hats, then his hat must be red. If the last prisoner yells red, then #99 knows that there are an odd number of blue hats.
So #99 counts the number of blue hats he can see. Again, if they are even, his hat is blue, if odd, his hat is red. The 99th prisoner then yells out the color of his hat and is spared. The next prisoner now knows whether the remaining number of blue hats, including his own, is odd or even, by taking into account whether #99 had a blue hat or not. Then by counting the number of blue hats he sees, he knows the color of his hat. So he yells out the color of his hat and is spared. This saves all but the last prisoner, and there is a 50% chance that his hat is the color he shouted out." - Answer first appeared In the New York Times.

The researchers say that the network of computers was able to work out the answer to the problem by themselves and this is a great step towards getting robots to work together successfully to complete tasks.

  "They've come up with protocols that are different from how humans solve these problems. We don't yet fully understand what the solutions are, but we know that they work," Oxford University researcher Jakob Forester told  new scientist  magazine.
The research, entitled   Learning to communicate to solve riddles with deep distributed  Recurrent Q network  is an open-access paper published in the Cornell University Library repository.

New smart glass will allow typing via virtual keyboard.

New smart glass will allow typing via virtual keyboard.

Scientists have developed smart glasses with stereo-vision that allow users to text a message by offering a virtual keyboard.

Scientists have developed smart glasses with stereo-vision that allow users to text a message or type in key words for internet surfing by offering a virtual keyboard for text and even one for a piano.

K-Glass is an even stronger model of smart glasses reinforced with augmented reality (AR) that were first developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2014, with the second version released in 2015.

The latest version, which KAIST researchers are calling K-Glass 3, allows users to text a message or type in key words for internet surfing by offering a virtual keyboard for text and even one for a piano.

Currently, most wearable head-mounted displays (HMDs) suffer from a lack of rich user interfaces, short battery lives, and heavy weight, researchers said. Some HMDs, such as Google Glass, use a touch panel and voice commands as an interface, but they are considered merely an extension of smartphones and are not optimised for wearable smart glasses.

Recently, gaze recognition was proposed for HMDs including K-Glass 2, but gaze is insufficient to realise a natural user interface (UI) and experience (UX), such as user’s gesture recognition, due to its limited interactivity and lengthy gaze-calibration time, which can be up to several minutes.

As a solution, Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo and his team from the Electrical Engineering Department developed K-Glass 3 with a low-power natural UI and UX processor to enable convenient typing and screen pointing on HMDs with just bare hands. This processor is composed of a pre-processing core to implement stereo vision, seven deep-learning cores to accelerate real-time scene recognition within 33 milliseconds, and one rendering engine for the display.

The stereo-vision camera, located on the front of K-Glass 3, works in a manner similar to three dimension (3D) sensing in human vision. The camera’s two lenses, displayed horizontally from one another just like depth perception produced by left and right eyes, take pictures of the same objects or scenes and combine these two different images to extract spatial depth information, which is necessary to reconstruct 3D environments.

The camera’s vision algorithm has an energy efficiency of 20 milliwatts on average, allowing it to operate in the Glass more than 24 hours without interruption. The research team adopted deep-learning-multi core technology dedicated for mobile devices to recognise user’s gestures based on the depth information.

This technology has greatly improved the Glass’s recognition accuracy with images and speech, while shortening the time needed to process and analyse data. In addition, the Glass’s multi-core processor is advanced enough to become idle when it detects no motion from users.

Instead, it executes complex deep-learning algorithms with a minimal power to achieve high performance. “We have succeeded in fabricating a low-power multi-core processor that consumes only 126.1 milliwatts of power with a high efficiency rate,” Yoo said.

REMIX OS - Bugged : ALL KNOWN BUGS by DAVID VISHNOI

I would like to draw readers attention towards the bugs in Remix-os

read my previous articles:

•  REMIX OS reviewed by ConvergeQuick TEAM : Pros and Cons 

•  How to Install NEW REMIX-OS on a Hard Disk Drive or DUAL BOOT with WINDOWS ? 

 

Now here's the list of known bugs:

• Netflix issue - Netflix not working ,not loading any movies.

• Sound - interference in sound output and input

• Sync issue - Mail Client not Syncing with Gmail or ActiveSync Servers

• Reboot issue - OS Randomly restarts anytime.

• Locking - Display doesn't turn on when pressing power button.

• Wifi -Wifi disconnects by itself after a couple of minutes

•  Headphone issues - when connected at the same time while charging I get some statics sounds (it stop when I unplug the charger, strange) | when playing music and locking my device I hear lags in the music which makes it impossible for listening with a lock screen.

•  Facebook Messenger - when getting a message the head widget wont popup on screen like it suppose to be, I believe it apply to every popup widget.

•  Multiple windows - when working with couple of windows (in phone mode) the "current app" settings wont work if you just touch the floating window. for the setting wont be greyed out I needed to minimize the app and open it again.

• Notification Center - the notification and settings center looks amazing but every notification is categorized under the app name and under it the notify will show, why? It add another interaction to see what is the notification for example the spotify app usually have a controller at the notification center but now I see a "Spotify" notification and just when I press it it will extend and show me the controller (unneeded action in my opinion).

• Downloading - I tried to download something locally and I failed every time! I tried using different browsers and apps nothing helped.

• Lock screen (request) - Can you make the notification visible on the lock screen itself (like a quick view as it exist on AOSP lock screen).

• Languages - languages... languages... languages... no matter what Keyboard app I install it just don't let me change to my desired language, please fix!

• Email app - cant set an exchange account (workaround by installing gmail app).

• File Manager app - wont see mounted DOK (workaround by installing ES File Explorer app).

• Camera app - it just me or there is no settings to set anything?

• Power Manager app - very basic, where are all the details???

• Default Launcher - this is more a request, I would love more customize options (see Nova Launcher for example...)

Vivo Xplay boasting 6 GB RAM and Octacore processor : Monster Configuration

VIVO has launched its flagship device Xplay 5. The company has introduced two variants of the smartphone, one Vivo Xplay with 6GB RAM and Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and the other Vivo Xplay Elite with 4GB RAM and Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor.The Vivo Xplay 5 Elite will be priced at Rs 44,308 while the Xplay 5 will sell for  Rs 38,215.

 

 

Highlights

• Vivo Xplay 5 features a 5.43-inch QHD display with a coating of Corning Gorilla Glass on top. 

• It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor paired with 6GB of RAM. 

• The smartphone features a 16MP rear camera and runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. 

 




t comes equipped with a 16MP rear camera with dual tone LED flash and an 8MP front facing snapper for selfies. The handset also incorporates a fingerprint sensor and offers 4G, LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS as connectivity options. The smartphone packs a 3,600 mAh battery and will be available in Champagne Gold and Rose Gold colour options.
it does look like a refined mix of a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and the Mi 5.

Good NEWS For iPhone users : "NOW YOU CAN TWEAK YOUR APPS WITHOUT JAILBREAKING YOUR iPHONE"

There is a good news for ios users who are suffering from limitation of ios and performance of apps now they can use A newly launched “tweak store” called Extensify gives iOS users an alternative to jailbreaking their devices by offering a simpler way to install modified versions of popular third-party applications like Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp, Vine, Instagram and others. Unlike with some of the jailbreaking efforts in the past, the Extensify app – basically an app store for tweaks – can be installed without needing to be tethered to a computer. However, it stops short of allowing users to modify the iOS operating system itself.




That doesn’t necessarily make using Extensify “safer” than jailbreaking, of course – you’re still downloading software from outside the trusted App Store environment. The usual security concerns apply here, and you should not proceed to use Extensify without a solid understanding of those risks.
However, Extensify does represent a clever way to avoid having to jailbreak your phone or tablet in order to take advantage of various tweaks.



Instead of jailbreaking, Extensify users can instead just run modified apps that offer additional functionality, which are installed fairly easily.
The idea for Extensify comes from developers Majd Alfhaily and Kevin Ko, who featured prominently in the jailbreak community and know first-hand how frustrating it can be to wait for new jailbreak releases.



“We don’t treat Extensify as a jailbreak replacement, but our plan is to fill the gap between jailbreak releases,” says Alfhaily.
The way the system works is by first installing Extensify through a configuration profile on your device. After Extensify is trusted, you can browse its app store to download the tweaks. The app sends a request to the iTunes App Store, downloads a fresh copy of the host application, repackages the app with the tweaks (called “exos” in Extensify), then sends the request back to the device and sideloads the application.
(Side-loading apps, as you may recall, became possible with the release of Xcode 7.)
Extensify doesn’t host apps on its servers, only the exos (the tweaks), as all but one are made by the team behind Extensify. The “Phantom” tweak for Snapchat is the only exception.

How to Install NEW REMIX-OS on a Hard Disk Drive or DUAL BOOT with WINDOWS ?

Jedi Remix-Os is now available to download from their official website and Many of the people have been asking questions regarding whether we can Dual Boot REMIX-OS with WINDOWS or not.



As in previous article we told you that REMIX-OS canonly be installed on a FAT32 file system. So here we go

  

Also Read before installing Remix-Os-

    Pros and Cons of Remix Os- By ConvergeQuick Team Member David Vishnoi

So , Here is a full Guide on How to Dual Boot Remix Os with Windows -


Requirements -



    A USB Drive
    Official Remix Os
    20GB Hard Disk Partition ( 16GB will also work but it should be FAT32)
    EasyBCD 2.3

Step 1. Open Downloaded Remix Os zip file and extract it to the the root of new 16GB Partition that you created earlier .





Step 2. Insert USB Drive and format it with file system FAT32


Step 3. Now Open Remix Os USB Tool ( That you extracted ) .



Step 4. Choose ISO Image ( That you extracted ) and select USB Drive that you inserted .


Step 5. Now click on Ok and Install Remix Os on USB ,


Step 6. After Installing it on USB Drive , Copy all Files / Folders from USB and paste it to that 16GB Partition  that you created earlier .


Step 7. Install and Open EasyBCD 2.3 .


Step 8. Click On "Add new Entry"




Step 9. Click On ISO




Step 10. Choose Path as Remix Os ISO from the 16Gb partition .




Step 11. Select Mode as Run from Disk


Step 12. Click on Add Entry .


Step 13. Click on Tools ( Upper left corner ) .


Step 14. Restart Computer !


Now your Computer will restart , Whenever You will restart You will get 2 Options -


    Windows
    Remix Os

Choose Remix Os and Enjoy !



Select either "Guest Mode" or "Resident Mode (Permanent) " to start Remix OS , Guest mode will not save any data and is only for trying Remix Os , while Resident mode will save all data !






Note - If you want to Go to Your Windows OS then just Restart again !

All You Need To Know About Xiaomi Redmi Note3

About Xiaomi Note 3-
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 features a full-metal body and a fingerprint sensor placed at the back below the camera. Xiaomi says that the sensor is ultra-fast and can unlock the phablet in just 0.3 seconds. 

It features a 5.5-inch 1080p display, Snapdragon 650 chipset, 16-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel selfie camera, and connectivity options like dual-SIM card slots and 4G LTE support. On the software front, it runs on Android Lollipop-based MIUI 7.

Specification-

• Screen Size- 5.50-inch
• Resolution- 1080x1920 pixels
• Storage- 16GB
• RAM- 2GB
• Rear Camera- 13-megapixel
• Front Camera- 5-megapixel
• OS Android Lollipop Based MIUI7
• Battery Capacity 4000mAh

Xiaomi on Monday announced it is launching the Redmi Note 3 in India on March 3, anticipated to be the variant it had launched in China in January. The company is holding an event at Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi, which will be open to fans as well, it confirmed in a forum post.

    To recall, the new variant of the Xiaomi redmi note 3 with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 650 SoC was launched in Dark Grey, Champagne Gold, and Silver colours at CNY 999 (approximately Rs. 10,000) in China, and can be expected to be available at roughly the same price point in India. It sports an all-metal body and also packs a fingerprint scanner at the back, just like the original redmi note 3 with a MediaTek SoC.

The highlight of the new Redmi Note 3 is it packs a hexa-core Snapdragon 650 processor (four cores clocked at 1.2GHz and two cores clocked at 1.8GHz). Other specifications of the smartphone are identical with original, including a 5.5-inch full-HD 1080x1920 pixels IPS display and offers 178 degree viewing angle. The Redmi Note 3 will be available in two RAM and storage versions - one including 2GB of RAM and 16GB of inbuilt storage, and other 3GB of RAM and 32GB of inbuilt storage. The company as of now has not given price information for the 3GB/ 32GB variant of the Redmi Note 3.

It runs MIUI 7 based on Android Lollipop and supports dual 4G SIM cards. The handset packs a 4000mAh battery with fast charging support that can charge up to 50 percent in 1 hour, same as the Redmi Note 3. On the camera front, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 sports a 16-megapixel rear camera with phase detection autofocus (PDAF) and two-tone flash. It also houses a 5-megapixel front camera. It measures 150x76x8.65mm and weighs 164 grams.

Whatsapp is ending support for some of the smartphones by 2017

WhatsApp is to cease support for a number of operating systems by the end of 2016, the company announced yesterday.

With Android and iOS dominating the smartphone realm, and Microsoft’s Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile still clinging on, the Facebook-owned company has revealed it will end support for BlackBerry (including BlackBerry 10), Nokia S40, and Nokia Symbian S60 by the end of this year. Additionally, it will no longer support Android 2.1 and 2.2 or Windows Phone 7.1.

The news comes in the same week that WhatsApp celebrated its seventh anniversary and also comes shortly after it passed one billion monthly active users (MAUs).
“When we started WhatsApp in 2009, people’s use of mobile devices looked very different from today,” the announcement read. “The Apple App Store was only a few months old. About 70 percent of smartphones sold at the time had operating systems offered by BlackBerry and Nokia. Mobile operating systems offered by Google, Apple and Microsoft – which account for 99.5 percent of sales today – were on less than 25 percent of mobile devices sold at the time. As we look ahead to our next seven years, we want to focus our efforts on the mobile platforms the vast majority of people use.”
While the news will no doubt be greeted with dismay in many regions, particularly developing markets where Nokia’s older operating systems still enjoy some market share, it makes sense for a company to focus its efforts on platforms that the vast majority of its users are on. WhatsApp has evolved a great deal since its inception as a simple mobile-messaging app — it now offers voice calls, and video calls are reportedly being added too. And it seems this, in part at least, explains why the company is looking to refocus its efforts in terms of the platforms it supports.
“While these mobile devices have been an important part of our story, they don’t offer the kind of capabilities we need to expand our app’s features in the future,” the announcement explained. “This was a tough decision for us to make, but the right one in order to give people better ways to keep in touch with friends, family, and loved ones using WhatsApp.”
Moreover, when BlackBerry itself is no longer focusing on its native operating system, well, who can blame WhatsApp for ditching it?
Moving forward, WhatsApp has one piece of advice for any of its users who are still using one of the aforementioned operating systems: Upgrade to iPhone, a more modern Android, or a Windows Phone device by the end of 2016.

Taking gaming to next level (PSVR)

Sony will soon reveal more about PlayStation VR, its upcoming virtual reality headset for the PlayStation 4, after months without saying much about the platform. The company is holding a PSVR-focused event on March 15th.

PlayStation VR was first announced at GDC two years ago under the codename Project Morpheus. Sony is yet to issue a price or release date for the final version of PlayStation VR beyond an expected launch in the first half of 2016

The PS4 is a major advantage to the headset in many ways because there are already 36 million VR-compatible PS4 consoles out in the wild right now. Sony also already has the benefit of controlling an ecosystem that console gamers have been fully invested in for decades. Sony owning both the headset and the brains powering it will be a score for consumers who won’t have to worry whether their specific rig can support the latest particularly demanding VR title. On the other hand, this will also be a limiting factor for developers really wanting to push the limits of the VR platform given the PS4’s lack of upgradability.

It will be interesting to see what Sony ends up revealing at the event and what arsenal of features/titles/specs they will call up to shift consumer attention toward their VR headset.