Category: Tech News

Samsung Gear VR headset apparently not for Ireland Says #Samsung #VR by @jimboireland

Last year Samsung announced the Superb Galaxy Note 4 and also the Note Edge which are arguably  the best handsets on the Market today but they also announced the  Gear VR headset at IFA which seemed quite popular on announcement.

gvr1

People therefore opted to buy the Galaxy Note 4 in preference to the Edge in order to use it with the VR headset as the Note Edge is not compatible.People have been asking about the VR headset and its nowhere to be seen so they were asked on Facebook about by several people and they replied that they would not be ranging it here..Users who have anticipated and opted for the Note 4 may not be happy at this news but in time it might change however its available to buy online but you will probably pay a considerable amount for it.

Our own Tech Bernie also asked them. We also asked our contact who is a rep for Samsung.

Via Samsung Ireland Facebook

Shell garages to let you pay at the pump with PayPal and Motorist App. by @jimboireland #Shell

Shell are to now allow users in the UK to pay for their petrol or diesel from their car,It saves you time by allowing you to pay for fuel by credit or debit card without having to queue in the shop. Also, the terminals are chip and pin enabled, providing you with added reassurance when paying for your fuel.

Now this is kind of funny,at every garage we always see signs sporting ” do not use your phone” and so on..

Shell currently have an app on Android and iOS called “Shell Motorist” which lets you check your Fuels Reward Network ® points balance, your transactions and rewards progress.

– Find the nearest station with the Shell Station Locator
– Keep up to date with all the latest news on Shell promotions, products and services.

 

The Telegraph UK reports the following..

After a successful pilot in 2013, the service will be available to Shell Drivers Club members from April and then nationwide later in 2015 through both the PayPal app and the Shell Motorist app.

Michael Hominick, Retail Marketing Manager at Shell UK, claimed “Customers will now have the flexibility and convenience of paying without having to leave their car. Those who want to go in store and pay or purchase other items will still be able to, with the benefit of reduced queues.”

Rob Harper, Director of Mobile Commerce at PayPal UK added that “We’ve always believed people will use their mobile phones to pay if there’s a clear benefit.”

The PayPal app is already accepted in more than 8,000 UK shops and restaurants, and is used through some 19 million active British accounts. Would you like to see this implemented here in Ireland not only with shell ? Tell us below.

Source

Sony unveils New phone and design! Enter the Xperia E4 By @VicenteA_George #Sony #Xperia #Android

Sony has just unveiled their new phone of 2015 and is a mid-range but has all the bells and whistles it can have.

Press Release

London, 10th February 2015 – Sony Mobile Communications (“Sony Mobile”) today introduces its new Xperia™ E4 smartphone, offering ease-of-use, big screen entertainment and powerful battery performance in a high-quality yet affordable design.

“With Xperia E4, we wanted to offer people some of the premium Sony features they have come to expect – with unparalleled ease of use – at a highly-competitive price point,” says Tony McNulty, Vice President, Value Category Business Management at Sony Mobile Communications. “With a simple set-up, great screen and unrivalled 2 day battery life we’ve created an on-the-go entertainment device that will keep on going, wherever you are.”


But keeping the beauty Sony has us used to, the devices itself is very attractive if you’re not a power user.

In the internal we have a 5-inch IPS LCD (540 x 960), a quad-core MediaTek MT6582 chipset at 1.3GHz, Android 4.4.4 Kit Kat, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage (only 5 available), a microSD slot, a 5MP – 2MP combo, a 2,300mAh battery and two variants one Single Sim and other Dual Sim.

Xperia E4
  • Sony’s acclaimed craftsmanship offers robust and stylish design and great ease of use
  • Looks good, sounds good – large 5” qHD display with IPS for the best viewing angle, high quality audio playback and fun social music app, PartyShare
  • Long-lasting two-day battery life, with a powerful, 2300mAh battery with Ultra STAMINA Mode
  • Available in black and white colour options with customisable UI themes and different covers to suit your style

Sony says the phone will be available latter this February but we don’t know when or even the price tag yet, we hope they get the price right.

 

Let us know what you think about this new design! Or tweet us at @jimboireland, @Tiwaash or @VicenteA_George using #techbuzzireland!

 

Source

Stay tuned for more TechBuzz!

A smartphone dongle for diagnosis of infectious diseases. by @jimboireland #STDs

Odd it may seem but its happening,There is a dongle for diagnosing STDs,however looking ahead this could be an ideal solution without the embarrassment and shorten queues in hospitals and more again it gives results quite quickly too and apparently cheap enough considered costs you would accumulate having to get tested etc..

A team of researchers, led by Samuel K. Sia, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia Engineering, has developed a low-cost smartphone accessory that can perform a point-of-care test that simultaneously detects three infectious disease markers from a finger prick of blood in just 15 minutes. The device replicates, for the first time, all mechanical, optical, and electronic functions of a lab-based blood test. Specifically, it performs an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) without requiring any stored energy: all necessary power is drawn from the smartphone. It performs a triplexed immunoassay not currently available in a single test format: HIV antibody, treponemal-specific antibody for syphilis, and non-treponemal antibody for active syphilis infection.

 

 

 

“Our dongle presents new capabilities for a broad range of users, from health care providers to consumers,” Sia adds. “By increasing detection of syphilis infections, we might be able to reduce deaths by 10-fold. And for large-scale screening where the dongle’s high sensitivity with few false negatives is critical, we might be able to scale up HIV testing at the community level with immediate antiretroviral therapy that could nearly stop HIV transmissions and approach elimination of this devastating disease.”

 

Read more at Science Mag

 

You can now buy the One Plus One every Tuesday with no invite. by @jimboireland #OnePlus

Lat year the One Plus One launched and had a rather odd business model even i ranted about it openly but in the end,sending invites to buy a phone to me was a rather silly idea but it turned out to be a good idea for them and its one of the best handsets out there today in terms of money thats for sure,its a great device all over and you cant argue its price.

Today we received a mail in our inbox which states the following.

 

Dear Friends,We’ve been shipping the OnePlus One for half a year, and nowadays we’re bumping into lots of people using it when we’re out and about. It’s incredibly exciting for us, but we always strive to do better. Although we have an active and supportive fanbase, a lot of people have interest in the One but have told us that it’s just too difficult to buy. We believe that great things should be shared. Thus, it’s been our goal from the beginning to put our products into the hands of as many people as possible.

Over the past few months, we’ve been exploring new ways of making the OnePlus One easier to purchase. The overall amount of available invites has increased significantly, but we’ve also held pre-order and open sales events, allowing for purchases without the need for an invite. During these events, we have been collecting data and fine-tuning our production schedules.

Today, we’re glad to announce that we’re making it even easier to buy the One.

Every Tuesday, we will open up sales for 24 hours, starting at 8 am London time (midnight in Los Angeles; 4 pm in Hong Kong). The OnePlus One will be available without an invite in both 16GB Silk White and 64GB Sandstone Black.

This doesn’t mean that our beloved invite system is going away, and it will continue to be the standard method for purchasing the One during the remaining 6 days of the week. And, you will still receive invites to share with friends whenever you buy a One, even onTuesdays.

As a young tech startup, we’re constantly experimenting, iterating and improving. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and coming with us on this journey. We wouldn’t be where we are without you, and you are all as much a part of OnePlus as we are.

Never Settle.

The OnePlus Team

Your Voice activated Samsung Smart TV is listening to you. #Samsung #TV by @jimboireland

If you own a Smart TV from Samsung you might want to be careful as to what you are saying because its listening to you if you sport a voice activated TV at home or anywhere for that matter.But its not like Samsung have not warned you already as Stated in its privacy policy which can be read in full here

Voice Recognition

You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands.

If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.

If you do not enable Voice Recognition, you will not be able to use interactive voice recognition features, although you may be able to control your TV using certain predefined voice commands. While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it.

You may disable Voice Recognition data collection at any time by visiting the “settings” menu. However, this may prevent you from using all of the Voice Recognition features.

 In a report today from the BBC Samsung warns its customers not to have conversations in front of the TV but Samsung have responded with the following. 

It said the privacy policy was an attempt to be transparent with owners in order to help them make informed choices about whether to use some features on its Smart TV sets, adding that it took consumer privacy “very seriously”.

Samsung said: “If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search. At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV.”

It added that it did not retain voice data or sell the audio being captured. Smart-TV owners would always know if voice activation was turned on because a microphone icon would be visible on the screen, it said.

Source 

Lockitron Bolt – Unlock Your Door without keys #Lockitron by @jimboireland #Bolt #Bridge

Technology in the home is now gathering pace rather fast and its showing more so each day with the products that are coming to market we are evolving slowly into having smart homes and this is the future if we like it or not,its making our lives more convenient and and testament is true convenience wins.. This new company has set up a quite nice way to unlock your door and i think its quite cool, lets have a look at Lockitron.

Lockitron Bolt replaces keys with your phone. With Lockitron Bolt, you can instantly grant family, friends and guests access to your home or business from anywhere in the world using your internet enabled smartphone.

Lockitron Bolt connects to your iOS or Android device directly via Bluetooth Low Energy. This means it will continue to work even if your power goes down or you experience a power outage. Thanks to Sense™, Lockitron Bolt will automatically unlock for you when you return home.

 

 

Meet your new key – Bolt by Lockitron uses Bluetooth Low Energy which means that Lockitron will keep working even in the event of power or internet outages.

Share access – Any iOS or Android phone can use the Lockitron app. You can instantly share access with your family and friends.

Peace of mind – Is your door locked? Lockitron can send a notification when your child unlocks the door using their phone or key.

Control from anywhere.

Bolt optionally connects to the internet with Bridge. With Bridge you can control and receive notifications from Bolt anywhere in the world.

Smart 

Lockitron Bolt uses four AA batteries which last for up to six months. Bolt will even let you know by email when they are running low.

Easily customizable

With Bridge you can control Bolt through our incredibly simple API endpoints. We’re working to integrate Bolt with a number of popular devices and apps.

Android and iOS applications

Lockitron Bolt is compatible with iOS or Android out of the box. With Bridge, other phones can use Lockitron through their simple mobile website.

With Bridge you can take the power of Bolt anywhere in the world. Bridge gives you peace of mind to know that your door is locked, even if you’re halfway around the world.

 

We think this is quite a nice idea,would you be interested in this ? Shout off below..

Source

 

PUZZLEPHONE Goes Ahead with a new Concept- PUZZLECLUSTER by @Tiwaash #PuzzlePhone #Tech

Sometime back we had an exclusive interview with the team of PuzzlePhone and we were pretty much impressed by the whole concept of dividing the phone into The Spine, Brain and Heart & still keeping it affordable allowing the users to just change the module which needs an upgrad. You can know about PuzzlePhone here. Moving ahead, PuzzlePhone is in news again & yet again for a unique solution to improve the life of the product and reduce the electronic waste.

The team at PuzzlePhone has come up with a new solution and they say “There is life even afterlife. At Circular Devices we believe that a product’s life cycle can be extended beyond its initial planned usage, thereby delaying its obsolescence. With electronic waste becoming an increasing threat for our planet, we took it upon ourselves to find an alternative to the inevitable disposal of your device”.

Here is the detailed explanation of what PUZZLECLUSTER project is all about:

Even if your smartphone can no longer deliver the performance you seek, it still contains a fully working computer, and there is no reason it should be discarded straight away. Our unique technology enables your device to be easily upgraded by replacing the PUZZLEPHONE’s Brain CPU module. The PUZZLEPHONE Brain is a self-contained computer in a convenient modular enclosure that is easily connectable. However, we are developing a state-of-the-art technology that will enable your old Brain modules to live on after you decide to upgrade.

http://www.puzzlephone.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/PuzzleCluster-A4-rev3-flatten_lr.png

PUZZLECLUSTER, the first scalable computer cluster platform based on recycled modular mobile technology.

The PUZZLECLUSTER will allow PUZZLEPHONE Brain modules to be reused and connected to form a fully integrated computer cluster. Our goal is to deliver a scalable product that can meet the needs of home users and small and medium enterprises, but also public institutions and data centers. Its applications can range from research and data analysis, to rendering farms and in-house cloud services, as well as any other case that requires parallel computing.

Initially, the PUZZLECLUSTER will include a power supply, internal connectivity for the PUZZLEPHONE Brain modules and supporting peripherals and external connectivity. It will also provide slots for PUZZLEPHONE Battery modules, which will be used for built-in UPS functionalities.

Thanks to this, all the computing power of the PUZZLEPHONE can live beyond its lifecycle in the device, and continue to live for a very long time as part of the PUZZLECLUSTER.

“When developing the PUZZLEPHONE, we always think about the whole cycle, from sourcing components to manufacturing, the device use itself and what to do when the time to upgrade comes,” says Alejandro Santacreu, Circular Devices CEO. “The PUZZLEPHONE Brain is a fully functional low power computer ready to be integrated in the PUZZLECLUSTER. It makes no sense to discard a perfectly working computer just because you have upgraded your smartphone. The PUZZLECLUSTER will extend the usable life of the PUZZLEPHONE Brain modules way beyond any other smartphone processor”.

At Circular Devices, our priority is to deliver state-of-the-art technology while minimizing our environmental footprint. We achieve this by thinking about the whole product life cycle before and after its planned use and exploring innovative and disruptive concepts like the PUZZLEPHONE and the PUZZLECLUSTER. We don’t dream about the future, we make it happen now.

We are very pleased with such great thought and initiative from the team at Circular Devices & wish them all the best for the future projects.

Stay tuned for more tech buzz.

#Picguesso A Picture guessing game that transforms your personal snaps by @jimboireland #IrishApps

There is plenty of photo games and apps now available for our devices today which include many ways of having fun with them by editing or so on today we have came across a new app which was made in Ireland by Damien Kierans and Gerald Gallagher the app is called Picguesso

We took some time out to talk to Damien today to talk about himself and the app and what’s ahead..

I am a designer engineer and I thought of the idea roughly a year ago and started jotting down some designs. When I was happy with the designs I had drafted and the functionality of the app I approached a colleague of mine who has experience with programming and together we started building Picguesso. We were working on the development of Picguesso in our spare time but due to our busy work schedule we decided to get some extra help on the back end of the app to try and get Picguesso launched sooner rather than later. We’re currently drafting up idea’s for a single player offline version called iguesso which is synced to your Picguesso accounted enabling players to climb the leaderboard. We are hoping to have iguesso ready in the coming months

What is Picguesso

Picguesso is a social gaming app that allows users to send and receive blurred images along with a hint and answer. The answer and image is revealed when the image is guessed correctly all while trying to beat the clock and your friend’s top score.

You will first need to sign in after its downloaded,at present the app is available free on Android and iOS we will put links at end of post.

Once logged in you can either pick from the gallery of images already preloaded,take a photo or choose from your gallery.

 

Once you have chosen the image you wish to share you can then pick from your friends list or you can opt to use your Facebook followers you can also pick a random player or challenge selected players,You can also give hints too.then the game begins from there..

 

When the game begins you will have an image similar to this on the phones screen..

Not only can you play this game in Ireland you can play this game basically anywhere in the world with already people using it in the USA, Canada, SE Asia, Australia and the U.K. Also Damien has told us that they hope to look at a Windows Phone version later in the year which is promising especially for Windows Phone users.

DOWNLOAD

We would like to thank Damien for talking to us today and filling us in on this exciting new app which i can see doing well and we wish the team at Picguesso all the best of luck with their future prospects which looks exciting and stay tuned for more updates later on…