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Sony’s Dog Robot to be Launched in the US in coming October

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Aibo
Image Source: wsj.net

Its been around more than two weeks after the Anki’s Vector was launched. Now, Sony has also announced the launch of its Aibo does robot in the US by the coming October this year. Interestingly, The Anki robot has been a success with its launch having a low price of $250. The Sony Aibo, comparatively bigger in size robot has also got more features than the Vector robot and also the price is even higher. The cost of the Aibo robot will be $2,899, and the presale will start in September. Although before delivery they will be exhibited at the Sony Square in Manhattan from Friday through Oct. 14.

The Sony Aibo is a smart dog robot, sleeker than its ancestor Boxy robot and is capable of remembering over 100 different faces, through its OLED-screen eyes. The robot can sense the smile, touch, praise and can play music. It can speak 1,000 words and is enabled with the feature to imitate a real dog, responding to its owner’s commands with a bark. Having a camera on its back and different sensors embedded into it, are helpful to map your house so that it can walk freely in your house. You can add new tricks to its knowledge base and also, using its Aibo app, you can map its activities, give it commands and also manage your house by enabling its camera feature on.

The new Aibo dog robot comes with a charging station, a pink ball and an Airbone. Even having many features included to it, the Aibo robot’s sale may be a little less than the Anki’s Vector due to its high price. As earlier in Japan too its sale was much lesser than the other home robots.

Qualcomm Announces new Flagship Chip featuring 5G connectivity

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Qualcomm Snapdragon
Image Source: mybroadband.co

The world’s largest semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm has announced its new flagship processor, built on the 7-nanometer mode process. Noticeably, the Apple’s A12 processor and Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor are also built on the same technology. And now Qualcomm is also about to produce its own high-performance processor.

The processor is considered to be the Snapdragon 855, and Qualcomm has claimed that the processor will provide better speed, improved battery backup, and performance. The flagship chip is likely to be the first mobile platform that will be 5G-capable and will be implemented in the premium flagship smartphones when used with the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50. Although Snapdragon X50 5G modem is not new to the technical world, it will be used in a smartphone for the very first time. And, according to Qualcomm, it has already begun coupling the processor with OEMs developing next-generation consumer devices.

The President of Qualcomm Incorporated stated, “We are very pleased to be working with OEMs, operators, infrastructure vendors, and standards bodies across the world, and are on track to help launch the first 5G mobile hotspots by the end of 2018, and smartphones using our next-generation mobile platform in the first half of 2019.”

Qualcomm is already considered as a leader in 3G and 4G mobile technologies. Now this time it is coming with the 5G technology with its faster, smaller and power efficient Snapdragon 855 to be used with high-end smartphones.

Apple’s new “Low Cost” MacBook Launch after 4 Years

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MacBook Air 2018
Image Source: igeeksblog.com

It has been more than three years when Apple had launched its last Mac Book laptop in 2014. Also, the MacBook Air was upgraded with a faster processor last year, remaining the cheapest laptop by Apple. The MacBook Air is the only laptop by Apple, without a high-resolution screen, costing about $1000.

Reportedly, Apple is about to launch a new upgraded version of its MacBook, or it can be the upgraded version of MacBook Air. The launch may be by the end of this year, with the launch of other Apple products including the new iPhones and iPad.

Last year the MacBook sale went down by a large scale as the upgraded MacBook cost higher and could not meet the professional needs of the consumers. Since 2010, it sold the fewest number of its MacBooks in a quarter this year. The other companies like Lenovo and Acer also launched high-end laptops that attracted the customers with their new features.

By looking at the reduced sale of the MacBooks and desktop computers, last year, MacBook was planning to launch the new MacBook at the beginning of the year but got delayed. Later, it was set for June and July of this year, but again due to some production issues, the launch is now delayed for October 2018.

The new Apple laptop is going to be similar to the MacBook Air, but, added with a high-resolution, Retina-version display. The screen will be about 13 inches and will include thinner bezels around it. It will including the 14nm Kaby lake processors from Intel. The new MacBook is expected to be cheaper, that may result in the reduced storage for the basic models, up to 128 GB SSD reduced from 256 GB.

Apple considers its laptop and computer lineup as an important part of their company and will continue its production and sale. For now, Apple has not declared anything officially. But the trusting the sources, we can expect the launch of new MacBook by the fall of this year.

Samsung’s $300 Bixby Smart Speaker to be Launched by the End of the Year

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Samsung Galaxy Home Speaker
Image Source: hiconsumption.com

Following the lead of its rivals, Apple, Microsoft and Google, Samsung has announced the launch of its new smart speaker Galaxy Home powered by Bixby. Bixby was released by Samsung last year, which is a voice robot embedded in a few of the smartphones and home appliances of Samsung, which is similar to the Google assistant and Apple’s infamous Siri. The automated smart speaker by Samsung will provide a surround sound and can be controlled manually or by voice commands.

1. Design: Since the announcement of the Galaxy Home speaker there has been a chaos about the look of the speakers. Some have compared it with a witch’s cauldron, a fondue pot and also with a backyard grill. It has a three-legged stand and is equipped with eight far-field microphones, to take the commands from the user. It has full-range speakers and an onboard subwoofer for surround sound, with a sound steering and audio tuning by AKG. The size of the Galaxy Home is considerably space-age and larger than Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa.

2. Cost: As Galaxy Home is competing with its contemporaries Google, Apple and Amazon, that are already are at the higher end of the prices ranging from $250 to $400. The price of Samsung Galaxy Home is yet be announced but is expected to be around $300. Before galaxy Home, Samsung has launched the Alexa-powered Samsung VL350 that cost $250.

Samsung is ready to give a tough competition to its competitors now in the music and speaker industry. Also, it has announced a partnership with Spotify and will add the live music streaming to Galaxy Home. The other features, launch date and the price of the Galaxy Home smart speakers will be announced in its Developer’s conference in the November month of this year, until then we can only guess what it will bring different from other smart speakers.

Ed Fries : Lead Developer of the Gaming Console Xbox

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From the invention of computers decades ago till today, when the technology has surpassed innovations, games have also been evolving tremendously. Starting from the 8-bit block type games to the high-end graphics almost life-like games, have made their way in the market. Companies, like Atari and Microsoft, brought some of the earliest games which became widely popular all over the world. Genius people have contributed their bit to the development of the gaming sector from years, and have set a landmark in the industry. One such figure is Ed Fries.

Early Life

Ed Fries, born on 1954, is an American video-game programmer and an entrepreneur. It was in the early 1980s when he fell in love with video games while playing the arcade games. His father worked at the Boeing an Aircraft manufacturing company and his mother was an engineer. His father loved the aeroplanes more than anything and Fries also found similar love with games. Fries got a B.S. in Computer Science from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, in 1986.

Ed Fries
Image Source: eurogamer.net

Ed’s first program was a clone of Frogger that he developed for the Atari 8-bit family and was distributed using the bulletin board system. Developing this clone proved to be a lucky move for Fries, as someone from the gaming industry noticed his game and offered him a job. In 1982, Fries published his first game, which was named as The Princess and the Frog. The game was published by Romox. Fries wrote two more games for Romox, which were named as Ant-Eater and Sea Chase.

Career

Just after earning his BS degree, Fries went to the Seattle area, to join Microsoft. During his ten-years job with Microsoft, he worked on the productivity software like Excel and Word. He worked at Microsoft for ten years. During this time he also created Microsoft Game Studios.

Initially, he was handling the team of around fifty people and over the course of eight years, the team increased to above twelve hundred people. The team developed and published more than 100 games, among which a lot of games were sold to more than a dozen million customers.

It was in the late 1990s when Fries led a team which created the first version of the Xbox gaming console. The development of Xbox put Microsoft on the top list in the interactive entertainment business. Fries was the most important figure among the game development community and played a pivotal role in the acquisition of Bungie, Ensemble Studios, and Rare.

Career after Microsoft

Fries left Microsoft in January 2004 and, started consulting various startups. One of the companies he consulted was FireAnt which was later acquired by Sony Online Entertainment. Some other startups Fries was involved with were Ageia and Emotive Systems. Ageia, a company building an EEG based game controller, claims to bring the first “physics accelerator” chip for games and Emotive Systems.

Fries’ favourite game is World of Warcraft, and he is currently working on bringing the game into a three-dimensional life. This project is carried out by his own startup company Figure Prints. The company deals with making 3D models of a player’s characters, using Z Corporation printers.

Fries said in an interview that within just 12 hours of taking his company to live, more than 4000 people ordered a model. “It takes almost a week to complete one model”, he explained further. His another favourite game Halo got an updated version called Halo 2600, which was released as an Atari 2600. Currently, Fries serves as an advisor for Ouya, which is an Android-based game console and development program.

New Xbox Avatars Rolling Out to Windows 10 Testers

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Xbox Avatars
Image Source: xbox.com

Microsoft has been working on its Xbox avatars for more than a year now and, had announced its launch the last fall. The plan did not work out and the launch got postponed. Also, in the mid of April 2018, the promotional video of the Avatars was leaked that faded away all the suspense.

In June 2018, Microsoft started testing Xbox Avatars. The Avatars were unveiled for the insiders for testing on the Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead rings. Now, after two months of the unveiling for the insiders, on 16 August, Microsoft has made it available for the Windows 10 testers as well. The testing for the Avatars is done through an app named as Xbox Avatar Editor that is available for download from the Microsoft Store. Also, the Windows 10 testers must be a part of Microsoft’s Xbox Insider program, so that, they can have the full access to all the functions of the Avatars.

The Xbox Avatar Editor is fledged with various new Avatar customization features, like body type options, clothing, props and even fingernails, to customize your Avatar accordingly. By the launch of these new live-Avatars Microsoft is going to add some more dynamic features to make the Avatars look more realistic.

Using the new Xbox Avatars, the users will be able to create a unique representation of themselves through the different options of clothing, appearance, colour, mood etc., according to their personalities, or otherwise. The new Avatars will be integrated into the Xbox One Dashboard and will be displayed on the Gamertag Profiles.

The testing of these Avatars has been going on for two months now, and there has been no announcement of any fixed date on which the Avatars will be launched officially. But according to the sources, the month has been decided and the Avatars will be available for the Xbox users by the October this year.