As India prepares to install a nationwide facial recognition system in an effort to catch criminals and find missing children, human rights and technology experts on Thursday warned of the risks to privacy and from increased surveillance. Use of the camera technology is an effort in “modernising the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification”,
Month: December 2019
Fujifilm on Monday launched its X-A7 mirrorless digital camera with a 24.24-megapixel APS-C sensor in India. Meant for beginners, the Fujifilm X-A7 has been priced at Rs. 59,999 by the Japanese photography and imaging major, and it will come with a Fujinon XC 15-45mm lens kit. The camera will also be available in five colour
China’s DJI, the world’s largest commercial drone maker, said on Wednesday it is developing technology that would allow the public to track the registrations of drones in flight using just a smartphone, amid a broader industry push to make such data available. SZ DJI Technology aims to roll out a free app in 2020, pending
Another year, another new GoPro. Arguably the leader in the action camera market, GoPro has been consistently iterating its flagship action cameras, which are marketed as its ‘Black’ models in each generation. The Hero 6 Black and Hero 7 Black offered small, iterative updates over the Hero 5 Black, which debuted the design that we
Amazon has considered adding facial recognition technology to its Ring doorbell cameras, according to a letter to a US senator defending its video-sharing partnerships with police. The company told Sen. Ed Markey that facial recognition is a “contemplated, but unreleased feature” of its home security cameras but that there are no plans to coordinate that feature
Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic is abandoning the semiconductor business with the sale of its last business in that sector to a Taiwanese company. Panasonic said Thursday it was transferring the semiconductor business operated by Panasonic Semiconductor Solutions to Nuvoton Technology. In recent years, Panasonic has sold its semiconductor plants in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Terms were not
The Google Stadia felt like a miracle the moment I loaded Destiny onto a Google Pixel phone. Sitting in a lounge chair on a rooftop, I was shocked to see that I was able to move my old Hunter around in glorious 60 frames-per-second combat. On a phone! But moments are fleeting, and latency on
Google’s new game-streaming service Stadia demonstrates the possibilities of gaming from the cloud, but experts say it’s hindered by a lack of compelling video games and a convoluted pricing scheme. Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at IHS Markit, called Tuesday’s launch more of a public beta test than an actual debut. He said the
In 2012, after Disney acquired Lucasfilm — the maker of Star Wars — it decided to end in-house video game development that had gone on for two decades at LucasArts, founded by George Lucas himself. Less than a year later, it signed a decade-long partnership with gaming behemoth Electronic Arts — popularly known as EA
Steams Remote Play Together beta was opened in October, and less than a month later, the feature has now gone public. Steam Remote Play Together allows multiple players to enjoy a game together, but with only one of them actually owning a copy of the game. The feature is now available on Windows, macOS, Linux,
Fortnite’s Chapter 2 is in full swing right now, but it appears that there are some surprises left in the store before Season 1 comes to an end. Epic Games has announced that Season 1 of Fortnite’s Chapter 2 has been extended and it will now conclude in February. As for the reason behind the
Many longtime members of the Pokémon community called it the worst controversy ever. It’s the “angriest I’ve ever seen the Pokémon community,” said YouTuber TheJWittz. The outrage started this past summer when it was announced for the first time in the series, most of the past Pokémon wouldn’t return in the first home console release
Fortnite Save The World mode is in the limelight again. Epic Games has added Dungeons, a new area for players to explore. Dungeons area in the game’s Save The World mode is riddled with traps and monsters that players need to take on in order to win rewards. A pair of new heroes with unique
Minecraft Earth, an AR version of the classic Minecraft game, was announced back in May this year, but its closed beta testing was limited to only a few regions. The availability of Minecraft Earth has now expanded to India as well, among a host of other countries. The early access for Minecraft Earth on Android
Black Friday 2019 is here, which means deals are raining everywhere, including games. If you’ve been searching for discounts on games at places like Steam and the PlayStation Store, have a look at GOG, where some acclaimed titles are up for grabs with hefty price cuts in tow. We are talking about both fresh entries
Vodafone Idea on Sunday announced the increased tariffs for prepaid services that will go into effect on December 3. The telecom operator has been dealing with massive losses and posted a record quarterly loss of Rs. 50,922 crores in third quarter of this year, biggest in Indian corporate history. Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) is hoping
Expanding its innovation footprint in India, global chip-making giant Intel on Monday unveiled its new design and engineering centre which was inaugurated by Telangana’s Information Technology Minister K. T. Rama Rao. Spread across 300,000 square feet, the centre can accommodate 1,500 people. The state-of-the-art facility comprises six LEED Platinum certified floors, modern amenities and an incubation
Who could have guessed an adorable, big-eyed baby Star Wars alien would have generated a ton of demand for toys? Apparently not Disney, which today started to sell merchandise based on The Child from new Disney+ show The Mandalorian, commonly known as “Baby Yoda”. The shirts, bags, mugs, and phone cases all feel…forced, like Disney
Xiaomi, the world’s fourth largest smartphone vendor, on Wednesday reported a 3.3% revenue growth (QoQ) in the quarter that ended in September. While the results fell largely in line with analysts’ expectations, a drastic drop in the company’s growth underscores some of the struggles that handset makers are facing as they shift to services to
Science is exciting in theory, but it can also be dreadfully dull. Some experiments require hundreds or thousands of repetitions or trials — an excellent opportunity to automate. That’s just what MIT scientists have done, creating a robot that performs a certain experiment, observes the results, and plans a follow-up… and has now done so
There’s no such thing as perfect privacy or security, but there’s a lot you can do to lock down your online life. And the holiday season is a great time to encourage others to do the same. Some people are more likely to take security into their own hands if they’re given a nudge along
Looking for some gift ideas for the photographer in your life? Look no further. Though shooters amateur and professional tend to take care of their own needs pretty well, there are plenty of things you can given them that they’ll appreciate. But you might have to be ready to spend a bit — people don’t
Translating the physical world to the digital has been a challenge, especially when it comes to things like color: Color isn’t actually all that static a thing, and the myriad displays and cameras we use can represent them in very different ways. But new gadgets from startup Nix can help cut through the confusion –
Peak Design has evolved from a crowdfunded upstart into a trusted accessory brand for photographers everywhere, and this week it introduced updates to its ‘Everyday’ line of backpacks and bags. These new and improved designs offer stuff that impresses anyone who was previously a fan of Peak’s work, and should also win the company brand
If you just bought a smart TV on Black Friday or plan to buy one for Cyber Monday tomorrow, the FBI wants you to know a few things. Smart TVs are like regular television sets but with an internet connection. With the advent and growth of Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services, most saw internet-connected
A few weeks ago, Ubiquiti unveiled the UniFi Dream Machine, an all-in-one networking device that combines a router, a switch with four Ethernet ports and a Wi-Fi access point for $299. It has what Ubiquiti calls an integrated cloud key that lets you control your network. I’ve been using the UniFi Dream Machine on my
$35 million-funded Omni is packing up and shutting down after struggling to make the economics of equipment rentals and physical on-demand storage work out. It’s another victim of a venture capital-subsidized business offering a convenient service at an unsustainable price. The startup fought for a second wind after selling off its physical storage operations to
In some corners, the smartphone market is showing its first signs of life in some time. Recent figures from Canalys indicate a small but notable uptick in the European market as shipments grew 3%, year-over-year in Q3. The analyst firm put global growth at 1% globally in another recent report. Generally, such numbers wouldn’t warrant
Why are we all trapped in enterprise chat apps if we talk 6X faster than we type, and our brain processes visual info 60,000X faster than text? Thanks to Instagram, we’re not as camera-shy anymore. And everyone’s trying to remain in flow instead of being distracted by multi-tasking. That’s why now is the time for
You’ve probably heard murmurs about Google’s forthcoming Ambient Mode for Android . The company first announced this feature, which essentially turns an Android device into a smart display while it’s charging, in September. Now, in a Twitter post, Google confirmed that it will launch soon, starting with a number of select devices that run Android