Auto-Lacing Shoe are here...Finally!!!

After the Bluetooth powered shoes finally we have what we all were waiting for. It’s the Auto-Lacing shoes like that of McFly’s auto-lacing shoes as in the “Back to The Future” series. 

But these shoes are not far from us. In fact the plan is to make it available in the coming year. Powerlace, a Canadian company designed a shoe named P-One with auto-lacing capabilities. At present they are running a Kickstarter campaign to fund their project to about $650,000 CAD and have already raised $34,211 CAD as of now. It will cost you about $175 CAD after launch. 

With 56 days left to reach its goal, they would start shipping the shoes in May 2015 if the funding is successful. The Powerlace shoes have a simple mechanism for auto-lacing that doesn’t involve any voice commands, complex chips, apps, batteries or motors. The mere insertion of the foot automatically engages the lacing system's mechanism. The activation of the small lever found at the lower rear end of the shoe unlocks the power system. It's really that simple! The total energy required for the lacing system's mechanism is provided for by the weight of one's body. 

Want that to become a reality, Go Support!!!!

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HP and Michael Bastian creates a Smartwatch for Fashionistas

Earlier this year HP announced partnership with Michael Bastian for a designer smartwatch which wouldn’t just appeal to the techie guys. It was more of a fashion statement than a gadget. Online retailer Gilt will be selling the new watch this coming Friday and The Wall Street Journal has gotten a first look at the device. 

Named MB Chronowing, this smartwatch comes in 2 variants and neither version looks like a typical smartwatch — the MB Chronowing wouldn't look out of place in a glass case full of traditional chronometer-style watches. Its 44mm diameter makes it a pretty large watch, and the chunky bezel recalls Tag Heuer more than Dieter Rams Braun. 

It is not a typical smartwatch with touch screen and voice controls. Instead it works by using a black and white LED display for notifications. In addition to an LCD display, the MB Chronowing includes a clock dial for reading the time. The battery is said to last up to seven days between charges and the watch will work with both Android and iOS devices. 

Michael Bastian's watch falls firmly in a category which is different from those of smartwatches we know, so it likely won't appeal to those lusting after a Moto 360 or Apple Watch. But if you want a nice watch that happens to also alert you to new messages or emails, the MB Chronowing could be an appealing choice. 

MB Chronowing will be available with leather, rubber, or nylon straps for $349, or with a crocodile strap and sapphire-glass crystal for a heftier $649. 

Source: WSJ

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London's new 'Driverless' Tube trains came from Future

Plans for a fleet of “driverless” Tube trains have been unveiled by Transport for London (TfL). 

The fleet of 250 trains, which are not expected to be in service on the Tube until the mid-2020s,will start out with an operator on board, but will be designed and built to be “capable of fully automatic operation”. 

Transport for London (TFL) said: ‘We would only consider implementing full automation following extensive engagement with our customers, stakeholders, staff and trade unions.’ 

With the new design, you'll be able to walk the entire length of the train, which frees up lots of space that was wasted just from closing off individual cars in the past. The entrances are now all evenly spaced and feature double-wide doors, which means it should be a lot faster to get on and off the trains. And you won't have to "mind the gap" anymore: the cars are all shorter, which makes the trains more flexible and able to come much closer to the platform edge. 

There are smaller improvements, too, like strips of LED lights along the doors that clearly flash red to warn passengers as they're about to close. In addition, all of the advertising and signage on the cars will use digital screens instead of paper inserts, and some of the deepest lines in London will get air conditioning for the first time with the new cars. And did we mention that there will be Wi-Fi on board? Perhaps most importantly, the new trains will be future proofed to run entirely operator-free (though they'll be staffed for the foreseeable future). 

Given all the exterior glitz, much remains the same inside the new tube cars. "Familiar is good, it's moving forward and is still recognizable," Priestman says. Besides the fact that the London Underground required the same number of seats, Priestman wanted to preserve a detail that's unique to the Tube: "It's interesting that it's possible to have fabric, and they last," he says of the upholstered seats, which would never fly in a city like New York. "It says a lot about the character of the design. It's not like a jail, people have respect for it, the lighting is right. Even in Hong Kong you have steel seats on the metros." 

The new design definitely looks as if it came from future. 

New Tube for London designed by PriestmanGoode. from PriestmanGoode. on Vimeo.

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Google Play Newsstand now in India

Google Play Store in India already had the Books, Movies and Devices. Music and Newsstand were missing. Now Google today launched Google Newsstand in India. It’s coming with 30 Indian publications and will be available starting tomorrow. 

Among the Indian publications that will be offered include Times Internet’s Indiatimes, Zigwheels, Luxpresso, Healthmeup, MensXP, iDiva, NDTV’s NDTV Movies, NDTV Gadgets, NDTV Sports, Anandabazar Patrika’s ABP News & ABP Majha, Missmalini.com, HT Media’s Mint, Hindustan Times & Desimartini, Jagran, ESPN Cricinfo and TV9 Telugu. 

Magazines include India Today, Vogue India, GQ India, Cosmopolitan India and Business Today. 

Apart from Indian magazines and publishers free & paid newspaper content from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, news sites like ABC News, The Atlantic, CNET, Huffington Post, The Guardian and Reuters among others and magazines like Forbes, The Economist, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Wired will also be available. In fact Google is giving free access to NYT for 60 days. While web version wasn’t available its app has been in the Indian Play Store for quite some time. Google has informed that users can also purchase magazine subscriptions through this service. 

Play Newsstand was introduced by Google in November last year, by combining two of its services – Google Play Magazines and its social news reader apps Google Currents. The company had then claimed that the service will offer more than 1,900 free and paid full length publications to which users can subscribe on the web, Android and iOS. 

So get ready for premium content from Google starting tomorrow. 

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YouTube to allow videos to be saved Offline soon in India

Apart from the big Android One launch today in New Delhi, Google’s Sundar Pichai had another big news for India too. Imagine watching the same video on YouTube again and again but without paying any data usage charges. Google announced that YouTube will be available offline in India in the coming weeks. Users will be able to download videos in the YouTube app and can watch later without any network connection. This is useful for both times when your connection is poor, and also for when you want to re-watch favourite videos. 

YouTube is popular here. You watch some videos again and again. How awesome would it be if you could keep watching them again and again without having to pay for data, and take the videos with you wherever you go? Within the coming few weeks, much of YouTube will be available offline in India. This is huge, and our users will really, really like this. You can download a video once, save it to your phone, and watch it again and again.           -Sundar Pichai 

The service will not be restricted to music videos, and users will have the ability to download any video off the service and store it offline. The demand for video on mobile has been around for a while - some telecom providers have experimented with YouTube focused data packs, which let you stream videos at a discounted data rate. Reports suggest that 3.7 billion online videos are consumed per month in the country. According to comScore, the total online video audience in India saw growth of over 70 percent in 2013 with the average viewer watching 18 percent more videos and spending 28 percent more time viewing. So it’s definitely a promising move by Google. 

YouTube app which in coming days might see a new option to save a video offline for users in India

Google did not mention as to when offline availability will launch in the country, nor has it stated whether the service will be available in other countries. There may be many challenges about some uploaders not wanting their videos to be downloadable but those are the challenges for Google to meet. As far as consumers are concerned, we have to say that this is good news even with the limited information available right now. 

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Nimble: A ring to control Everything

How does one point you to do something without speaking? They use their finger. Well now a few IIT 3rd year drop-outs have created a device which will be the next big thing in the area of wearable tech. It’s the Nimble. Nimble is a highly sensitive gesture control ring that allows users to interact, hands free, with almost all entertainment and communication technologies. 

Nimble on fingertip

Nimble, a tiny and flexible ring shaped device designed to magically transform 15 ft. in front of the computer into a highly accurate interactive space. Just plug in our USB sensor in the computer, get the nimble in your finger and leave the rest on our software. The product comes with three nimble rings, a USB sensor and a software. 

Nimble to play games

With their SDK, it is possible to develop more and more apps to make Nimble be able to cut through every prospect on our daily routine. It can be easily integrated with Android, iOS, Windows and Linux apps. With VR headsets it’s all the more possible to touch what you see. 

Nimble with VR headset

Nimble can be used to control computers, play games, browse on your Smart TV, setting air conditioning temperature and much more. These can be done using simple gestures which later can be edited and customized according to you need. 

Nimble is available for pre-order at `5,500 but for the first 500 orders they are giving a discount of `2,000, so it’s available for just `3,500.

Source: Intugine

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Keep your heady up while driving with Navdy : Google Glass for your Windshield

Google Auto and Apple CarPlay works like an extension to your smartphone on the dashboard but a new startup is talking the Google Glass approach so that the driver need not take their evyes off the road to see navigation or any app notifications from their smartphones. 

Driving with Navdy is a lot like using Google Glass. Similar to a heads-up display, the device projects a transparent display on your windshield to show maps, notifications and music apps. The display is designed so the content is focused out six feet in front of you so drivers can easily view the display. 

When it is linked to the car’s on-board computer, it can also project speed, RPM, fuel economy stats, tire-pressure warning or battery-voltage warning, among others. Users can customize the display to show something specific, such as a large RPM dial in the center. 

...

At launch, it will be compatible with Google Maps, music apps and communication apps like messaging, phone and social media apps. While you won't be able to browse Facebook while you drive, Navdy will be able to orate text messages and notifications from social media apps, if those notifications are enabled. 

The company launched a 30-day pre-order campaign on Tuesday, where early adopters can purchase the product at $299. The retail price of Navdy is $499. They’re also implementing a referral program that if you refer someone to Navdy, you can get $30 in credit. 

Source: Navdy 

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Mircrosoft planning a data centre in India

After opening the biggest development centre in India 10 years ago, Microsoft is planning to open its data centre in India. With this move it will become the first MNC to setup the Data Centre in the country.  

Cloud services are the fastest growing segment of Microsoft and according to Jim Dubois, corporate VP and CIO at Microsoft, "It is growing double, triple every month, not every year." According to Gartner, public cloud services market in India is expected to grow from $423 million (` 2,550 crore) in 2013 to $1.3 billion (` 7,800 crore) in 2017. Gartner expects India to be the fastest growing market for cloud adoption globally.  

  

"We are considering a data centre in India. There are a lot of different companies that are looking at cloud right now, in anticipation that Microsoft will somehow figure out how to get that work," said Jim Dubois. 

  

However, Microsoft’s plan may hit a roadblock since RBI guidelines prohibit storing any customer data outside of India, which limits cloud adoption by financial services company. 

  

Despite this, none of the large cloud computing companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, has so far built a local data centre. Microsoft has 13 data centres globally to serve its cloud services while Amazon has eight and Google 12. In Asia, all three companies have data centres in Singapore, but none in Mainland China or India. "Over the last couple of years, the groundwork has been done in terms of Indian customers understanding nuances in public cloud. We are hearing about Amazon considering setting up a data centre in India but nothing has happened yet," said Naveen Mishra, research director at Gartner. 

Source: ET

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1.2B Usernames and Passwords leaked

Saw that reminder that your password is quite old and you must change it. Well, now it's really that time. With the news that as many as 1.2 billion user names and password combinations had been stolen, security experts are urging consumers to be more vigilant online. 

A Russian cyber gang injected malicious code into at least 420,000 websites to gather the data. The attack "looks absolutely enormous," said Geoff Webb, senior director of security and strategy at NetIQ, a computer security company based in Houston. "It's yet another example showing that there's lot of work to be done in making the Web-based applications that people use secure." 

Hold Security identified 1.2 billion “unique” stolen credentials consisting of both a username and a password.  However, the Milwaukee-based security specialist says that the gang amassed a total of 4.5 billion records, stolen from more than 420,000 web and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites.

Martinez described the heist as “another alarm going off” for consumers still reeling from high-profile data breaches at the likes of Target and StubHub. Consumers, he added, need to think seriously about password security. 

“Refreshing the passwords is critical, not relying on the same passwords across sites is critical,” he said. “At a minimum, the sites that you rank as critical such as your bank, your bills, need unique and distinct passwords.”

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