The World Gets Its First Look at Halo 4

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The embargoes have been lifted, and now the rest of the world gets to see what a group of journalists experienced a week ago at Microsoft’s Spring Showcase. Halo 4 is coming, and it aims to please.

Rebuilding a legendary, best-selling franchise from scratch is no small feat, and 343 Studios has the monumental task of taking over the franchise from Bungie, who left after the last game, Halo Reach.

The bulk of the new info about the “fourth” title (really, the sixth or seventh if you count ODST and Wars) comes in this production video which you can see below:

Many aspects of the game are addressed, including the story mode which is “delving into Master Chief’s humanity, and what makes him tick as a character.” As Halo has been notoriously light on characterization of its faceless hero, it will be nice to see him humanized a bit more.

There aren’t a whole lot of specific gameplay details yet, other than the fact that the beloved Battle Rifle is back. What’s most impressive is that 343 is building the game from the ground up with a complete graphical, audio and musical overhaul, and from what we can see, it absolutely looks gorgeous on the surface.

But screenshots and footage are one thing, the most important part of any Halo game is how it feels. If 343 can effectively emulate Bungie’ subtle touches that made gameplay so addicting, they’ll undoubtedly have a job with Microsoft making Halo games for years to come.

More info as it leaks out, but enjoy the screenshots and video for now. A trailer is promised shortly, and I’ll post a follow-up if so.

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Adobe Lightroom 4 Introduces Video-Editing Capabilities, Ships Wednesday for $149

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Image: Adobe

Adobe unveiled the latest rendition of its popular photo-management software Lightroom on Wednesday, introducing a host of new features designed to appeal to professional and amateur photographers alike, including a cleaned-up user interface and video-editing capabilities.

Some of the latest functionality have been around since Adobe unveiled Photoshop Lightroom 4 Beta in January. The software maker said thanks to more than 250,000 downloads and an active testing community giving feedback online, developers were able to spot and fix 800 bugs. More than 2,700 photographers helped shape the final product, which is available for shipping and download beginning today. The full-version of Lightroom 4 retails for $149; upgrade and student licenses cost $79.

Lightroom got a slight facelift in its latest version. Editing controls have been simplified so that exposure, for instance, now encompasses brightness and recovery. The sliders are now by default in the center (zero) position, which makes much more sense than starting at an arbitrary numerical point. Shadow and highlight controls are more powerful in Lightroom 4 as well, able to recover vast imaging details once lost in overly bright and dark images. The below two photos show how much detail you can recover with Lightroom 4.

Image: Adobe

Image: Adobe

Image: Adobe

Video support is a welcome addition as well. Even old-school photog pros get intimidated by video-editing software. They might occasionally shoot footage on their Canon 5D Mark II, but it’s easier to stash those .movs in a folder to be forgotten about than to actually learn how to use Avid. Now, Lightroom can catalog video clips alongside images and also includes basic editing capabilities, such as the ability to play and trim clips, export stills from videos and make adjustments.

One of the smartest features of Lightroom 4 is flexible brushes that let you make adjustments in specific parts of a photo, so you can bring out details in targeted areas. Furthermore, a special brush makes white balancing a cinch, even when shooting single images with varying lighting. The ensuing results are natural colors and images that come out as intended.

Photographers love to capture so they can share with others. Whether that means sending large attachments over email or uploading to Facebook, Lightroom makes it easy to do because of its integration with Facebook and photo-sharing websites, and a new internal email client that works with Gmail, AOL and other email services.

The new Lightroom is a combination of the overdue (email integration, video cataloging) and inventive (selective brushes). Together, these features make up a powerful tool to manage, edit and share large photo libraries.

Source- Here!

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Meet Cheetah, Boston Dynamics' Terrifyingly Fast Running Robot (Video)

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A warning for anyone who imagines a Skynet-ruled world of robot domination: Don’t watch the video below. 

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Nokia Wows With Super-Megapixel Camera

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The Nokia 808 PureView, which boasts advanced imaging technology

Bold moves from Nokia today at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the leading mobile industry event for launching new mobile products. Among the five phones it released today, the most important were:

1) The Lumia 610smartphone, which runs on Windows Phone 7 and costs just 189 euros (about $250). This represents the cheapest Windows Phone that Nokia has ever offered, important because it putsMicrosoft‘s mobile operating system into a more competitive price range for the first time. Apple‘s cheapest iPhone 4S, and Samsung’s Galaxy S both cost around $200 in the United States.

2) The PureView 808, a chunky phone that boasts a remarkable camera capable of taking 41-megapixel photos. (Apple’s latest iPhone, the 4S, takes pictures at 8 megapixels.) Nokia says the PureView doesn’t aim to shoot pictures the size of billboards, but create “amazing pictures at normal, manageable sizes.”

Symbian is widely seen as an unwieldy operating system that worked great on Nokia’s earlier mobile phones back when the company dominated the industry, but failed to make the transition to smartphones. It illustrated why Nokia needed to do something drastic, like adopt Windows.The PureView is, naturally, wow-ing delegates at MWC. But there’s a slight problem. Unlike the Lumia, it doesn’t run on Windows. It runs on Symbian, the unpopular operating system that Nokia is currently phasing out in favor of Microsoft’s. Why? Nokia had already been working on the PureView before its chief executive, Stephen Elop, sealed up the company’s dramatic partnership with Microsoft a year ago. Its engineers probably couldn’t make the pivot in time.

The surprise return of Symbian might be why investors sent shares of Nokia down by 7% to 4.02 euros today. They may also have felt that Nokia hasn’t gone cheap enough, with Asian handset makers like ZTE and Huawei bringing out Android-run smartphones that flirt with the $100 mark.

But Nokia’s investors have more reason to be optimistic than they did a year ago, when Microsoft was only just coming into the picture. Though competitors are nipping at its heels, Nokia still ships more mobile phones than anyone else (133.5 million devices in the last quarter), thanks largely to its dominant presence in emerging markets.

And rounding out today’s quintet from Nokia were three feature phones in its low-cost Asha range, which employed a more advanced set of tools such as Twitter, Facebook, a big chunk of free games from Electronic Arts, and Microsfot Exchange e-mail access.

“Nokia is seeking to take emerging market users to the next level,” says Eden Zoller of technology research firm Ovum.

As more people in emerging markets adopt smartphones, Nokia is gradually moving towards a middle ground between high-end and low-end, with a cheaper Lumia and a more advanced feature phones. This may be why Chief Executive Elop said that releasing the PureView 808 and the Lumi 610 were the “actions necessary to improve the fortunes of Nokia.”

It is a shame that with its Symbian platform and 450 euro ($605) price tag, the PureView will probably end up a niche product. Its launch at least shows where Nokia wants to go with Windows products. Can Nokia squeeze a 41-megapixel camera into a Windows phone? Its engineers are no doubt trying to do something along those lines, and into a phone that’s as cheap as the new Lumia 610. They’ll have to move fast, though.

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NASA Finds An Atmosphere Around Another Of Saturn's Moons

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NASA’s Cassini probe, which is currently on a mission to explore Saturn and her moons, has detected signs of a thin atmosphere around Saturn’s moon Dione. This confirms a hypothesis from the Hubble Space Telescope, which detected signs of ozone around that Moon.

The Cassini probe detected a very thin concentration of oxygen ions around the moon – one ion for every 11 cubic centimeters of space around the Moon. That’s roughly the same density as the Earth’s atmosphere 300 miles above its surface. That’s actually higher above the Earth than the International Space Station, which maintains an altitude between about 205 and 255 miles.

Dione isn’t the only one of Saturn’s moons that has an atmosphere. Titan has a much denser atmosphere, and the moon Rhea also has a thin, oxygen atmosphere comparable to Dione’s. It’s not certain exactly how the oxygen molecules are created in those moons’ atmsopheres, but this finding does demonstrate that oxygen atmospheres are possible without being the product of life.

The most likely culprit for the creation of the oxygen molecules are radioactive particles from the Sun or other sources striking the water-ice on Dione’s surface. That could cause the oxygen to become liberated from water molecule and turned into a gaseous form.

“Scientists weren’t even sure Dione would be big enough to hang on to an exosphere, but this new research shows that Dione is even more interesting than we previously thought,” said Amanda Hendrix, Cassini deputy project scientist in a NASA press release. “Scientists are now digging through Cassini data on Dione to look at this moon in more detail.”

Now that the presence of oxygen ions have been detected around Dione, the next step is for Cassini project scientists to examine Cassini’s data from its flyby last December. It’ll be interesting to see what they find, if anything.

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Japan Moves the Needle on Micro-CHP

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South Korea and the United Kingdom are fielding aggressive efforts to bring the economic and environmental benefits of cutting-edge micro-CHP technologies to mainstream energy markets.

Micro combined heat and power, or micro-CHP, is the small-scale production of electric and thermal energy in a single process. Micro-CHP systems are usually installed close to the point of consumption are most prevalent in the residential and light-commercial sectors.

This is the first of several posts about these national micro-CHP programs.  Japan’s Ene-Farm program, which Dan Carter, a fuel cell analyst at Fuel Cell Today, recently described as the “the most successful residential micro-CHP fuel cell project to date,” seems like the obvious place to start.  So let’s start.

Toshiba, JX Energy, and Panasonic are the key players in Japan’s stationary FC program, which is focused on the smaller end of the micro-CHP system size – 1 kilowatt (kW) micro-CHP units designed for single‐family homes. The Japanese government considers appliance-scale, stationary fuel cells to be one of 21 key technologies for the future. Japan has a small presence in larger fuel cell technologies. Fuji Electric is the only company in Japan making fuel cells larger than 100 kW.

In 2000, the Japanese government and industry launched the Ene-Farmdeployment program for residential fuel cell micro-CHP system. In the first four years, the program focused on technology verification. In 2005, the program evolved from the verification phase into a large‐scale demonstration project involving 10 industrial partners who developed sales channels.

The sales were primarily to new homes, but plans to pursue the retrofit market are in reportedly in the works. During the first stage of the large-scale demonstration, nearly 3,000 micro-CHP fuel cell systems were installed. In 2009, the demonstration project evolved yet again into a full-blown commercialization program.

During the past three years, more than 20,000 units have been installed and that is likely the tip of the iceberg for future sale growth. In Japan, 45% of homes heat with natural gas, 45% with LPG and 10% with electricity.

“The spectacular growth in sales to date is expected to continue, and in 2012 it is hoped almost 20,000 units will be sold, rising to a sales target of 50,000 units per year by 2015,” according to Carter’s analysis in “Fuel Cell Residential Micro-CHP Developments in Japan.”

Ene-Farm systems operate during the day and switch off at night, when demand for both hot water and electricity falls dramatically in most homes.   One of the limitations of the Ene-Farm systems is that they must be connected to the electricity grid to operate. In other words, if the grid goes down, so do the Ene-Farm systems. If customers pony up the extra funds to pay for a battery, the system can be configured to operate independent of the electric grid.

Source- Here!

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LG to announce range of Android smartphones

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LG will be unveiling much hyped smartphones like LG Optimus Vu, Optimus 4X HD and Optimus 3D max during the MWC in Barcelona.

Smartphone manufacturer, LG is all set to announce its new range of Android smartphones during the Mobile World Congress 2012 which is currently underway in Barcelona, Spain. LG has officially releases a pre launch announcement including the names of all the smartphones that will be launched during the MWC.

The smartphones that will be launched include LG Optimus VU, LG Optimus 3D Max and the LG Optimus 4X HD.

The LG Optimus VU has been officially announced by the Korean company just a couple of day back and the 5 inch display based Android smartphone is a direct competition to Samsung Galaxy Note and Acer Iconia Smart. The LG Optimus VU comes in a 4:3 aspect ratio as against the 16:9 aspect ratio featured on most smartphones, which the company believes helps better handling of the device besides improving its usability. The LG Optimus VU will come preinstalled with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread operating system, but an Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade has been promised for the device already. Optimus VU will likely to get the Android 4.0 update three months after the launch of the device.

The smartphone has 1024 x 768 pixel resolution based 5 inch screen that boasts of 650 nits of brightness and an 8 megapixel camera along with features like Android Beam, WiFi Direct for faster file transfer, Bluetooth 3.0 and a front 1.3 megapixel camera.

Along with this, the LG Optimus VU features a dual core 1.5 GHz processor and a faster graphic engine. For storage, the device has 32 GB of onboard storage and a 2080 mAh battery pack to power it up.

The LG Optimus 4X is LG's first ever device to feature Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich mobile operating system and quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile processor. The LG Optimus 4X HD comes with mere 8.9mm thickness the new a 4.7-inch True HD (720p) IPS panel display.

LG Optimus 4X's Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile processor comes with four processor cores and one companion core, which very recently had been marketed by Nvidia as "four plus one”. The device features a 1 GB RAM and 16 GB on board storage in the phone. At the rear, the smartphone features an 8.1 megapixel camera with LED flash and in the front there's a 1.3 megapixel camera for video calling and video chat.

The LG Optimus 3D MAX is the upgrade to the earlier Optimus 3D smartphone. At 9.6 mm thickness, the new phone is slimmer than the existing Optimus 3D which is 11.9 mm thick and is also lighter at 148 grams compared to 168 grams of the Optimus 3D. The Optimus 3D Max also comes with a faster 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and 16 GB of built-in memory.

Currently the Optimus 3D Max will come with Android 2.3 but it is likely to be upgraded to Android 4.0 soon, just like other LG models. One of the best part of the phone is its ability to edit 3D videos and images captured using its pair of 5 megapixel cameras. The phone can also capture normal 2D visuals and videos of up to 8 megapixel resolution.

Optimus 3D Max comes with a 3D capable, 4.3 inch LCD Display that will surely help users take full advantage of the 3D capabilities of this Android smartphone.

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Top 10 Upcoming devices in 2012

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Mobile world congress gives a glimpse of devices that will be coming in this year.

Mobile World Congress is one event where all the companies related to mobility industry like to disclose their plans for the year ahead. And this year was no different; almost all the big manufacturers have announced some exciting mobiles and tablets which may be launched in this year itself

There are many devices that are just improvement over what is already available while others promises to be game changers. Here is our pick of devices that promises to be just that - The game changers.

Nokia

Nokia, which is struggling to retain its market in both smartphone as well as feature phone segment, seems to be trying all sorts of things to make a comeback.

At this year's MWC, it launched phones in three different categories - a new Asha series of feature phones, a low cost Windows Mobile based smartphone and a high end Belle device with a superb camera.

All of them deserve their place in the list as they can prove to be true game changers.

Nokia Asha 302

Nokia Asha 302 is Nokia's first Series 40 phone to support Mail for Exchange, giving people access to their emails, contacts and calendar on an exchange server. It has a Qwerty keypad and a 2.4 inch display. The Nokia Asha 302 is powered by a 1 GHz processor. It offers 3G and WiFiconnectivity and a 3.2 megapixel camera.

Shipment of Nokia Asha 302 has already been started and the device is priced at Euro 95 or approximately Rs 6,300. Nokia has also announced Asha 202 and Asha 203 at the event which are priced lower than the Asha 302 but do benefit from Nokia's added services push.

While the hardware and some of the services of Asha 202 and Asha 203 are smartphone like, that is not the real game changing stuff. What is more interesting is the fact that Nokia has improved its Nokia Life tools services, added few premium games for free, and is trying to push the service envelop further for a feature phones across its Asha and S40 lineup of phones.

Nokia Lumia 610

Despite Nokia and Microsoft joining hand, Windows Phone market share is still less than 1 per cent. One of the reasons could possibly be the lack of entry level smartphones on this platform, which is one of the strengths of its rival Android platform.

With Lumia 610, Nokia and Microsoft have addressed this concern to a certain extent. The phone expected to retail at Rs 12,500, will feature a 3.7 inch screen, 5 megapixel camera, GPS, 3G, and all the other bells and whistles of a smartphone along with Nokia's quality hardware.

And at least in terms of price and specifications, it will be a match to Android phones. Infact, in some cases it could prove to be better than some Android phones available in this price segment.

Lumia 610 will also mark the debut of Windows Phone Tango, which is the version aimed at lower end of the Windows Phone segment.

Nokia 808 Pureview

This 41 megapixel camera totting phone is already making waves in the gadget world. It has been awarded as the 'Best New Mobile Handset' at the Mobile World Congress by a panel of industry experts.

And the reason is obvious - the phone brings camera capability to a phone that was not even heard in the mainstream cameras itself. With a 41 megapixel camera, and intelligence to down size the image to enable easy sharing without introducing distortions, is simply amazing.

NoKia 808 Pureview features a 4-inch Amoled ClearBack display that has a 2.5 D curved glass made using the Corning Gorilla Glass technology. This Nokia smartphone features maximum thickness of 18 mm at the camera module portion and houses a single-core 1.3 GHz mobile processor with 512 MB RAM. By default, the smartphone comes with 16 GB on-board storage and can support up to 48 GB micro SD card.

The 41 megapixel Carl Zeiss image sensor comes with Xenon's automatic fill flash. Bearing the f/2.8 aperture, the 41 megapixel camera promises 7728x5354 resolution image in 16:9 format. The camera also supports up to 4x digital zoom without compromising on the quality. Of course, it allows capturing full 1080p HD videos at 30 frames per second with up to 3x Zoom while for the 720p HD resolution one can go up to 6x zoom.

Even on the pricing front, Nokia has done well, keeping the price of NoKia 808 Pureview close to approximately Rs 30,000 (Euro equivalent). Since the phone has not been announced for India, its exact price for the subcontinent users cannot be ascertained now.

Sadly, it uses Nokia (Symbian) Belle operating system, which is an OS that Nokia has already decided to Junk and would have been better if they chose the Windows Phone which they have adopted as their smartphone platform.

Samsung Galaxy Beam

We have seen feature phones in India with LED projectors, but none of them were of the quality that you can consider as a serious device, and that shows in the sales charts.

Though this is the third phone from Samsung to have a pico projector but this time around its implemented on a mid range Android smartphone. This makes us believe that more such phones will be coming in near future.

The Galaxy Beam features a dual core 1 GHz Processor with a whopping 6 GB RAM which will ensure performance in applications, multitasking and flawless projector performance. It features a 4 inch capacitive touchscreen with a 480 x 800 pixel native resolution.

The phone features HSPA+">HSPA+ ">HSPA 3G connectivity for faster data transfers. The smartphone is powered with the slightly outdated Gingerbread 2.3.4 operating system that is expected to be upgraded to Android Ice Cream Sandwich soon. The Beam also features a 5 megapixel rear camera capable of video recording in HD 720p resolution besides the 1.3 megapixel camera for video conferencing and video calling.

Samsung has not announced its price, but the Galaxy Beam is expected to hit the retail selves soon for a price below Rs 20,000.

Asus MeMo 370T

Asus has recently announced its Memo 370T tablet, which comes with a 7-inch LCD display, Tegra 3 quad-core processor, Android 4.o operating system and an 8 megapixel camera. But the game changing fact is that the tablet is priced at just Rs 15,000.

None of the tablets in the price range - like The Samsung Galaxy 7 Plus, HTC Flyer, or the Blackberry PlayBook - comes even close to the kind of specifications that Asus. In fact, all tablets with such specification cost Rs 10,000 more, which is the reason why we call this price a game changer.

Huawei Ascend D1 Q

The new Ascend D1 Quad phone features a 4 core processor, 12 core GPS, 4.5 inch HD display, 8 megapixel camera and 1800 mAh battery.

Notably, the smartphone comes with a Huawei chipset. Only Samsung is the other handset player with its own chipset.

Being a Chinese player, the pricing will be another key advantage of the Ascend D1 Q which is expected to be much lower than the other European, Japanese and Korean brands.

Apart from Ascend D1 Q, Huawei has also announced Ascend D Quad XL and Ascend D1 smartphones. The Ascend D Quad XL comes with a 2500 mAh battery which lasts two to three days of normal usage. The Ascend D1 runs on a 1.5 GHz dual core CPU and has a 1670 mAh battery.

Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD

The tablet, called Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD, has a Huawei 1.5 GHz quad core processor, Google Android 4.0 operating system and a 10 inch IPS high definition display screen.

Huawei MediaPad 10 FHD enables high speed wireless access of up to 84 Mbps ( HSPA+ ">HSPA+ 21/42/84 Mbps), while at the same time supporting a number of network standards including LTE.

The tablet also boasts the industry's highest screen resolution and high definition 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS display that supports multi touch. Huawei has fitted an 8 megapixel auto focus rear camera and a 1.3 megapixel front camera in this smartphone. The tablet has a unibody design made of aluminum alloy. It is 8.8 mm thin and weighs only 598 gram.

HTC One series

HTC has announced its latest 'One' series of Android based smartphones including One X, One S and One V. All these phones will focus on better camera and sound experience.

HTC has been lagging in the Android race for quite some time now, and their strategy to regain that market share is through value addition.

The three phone series is also good on pricing as it address all three low, mid and high end range. The high end HTC One X will come with 1.5 GHz Super 4-PLUS-1 (Quadcore) Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile processor with an integrated fifth battery saver core and a high-performance 12-Core Nvidia GPU. It also comes with a large 4.7-inch, 720p HD screen with contoured Corning Gorilla Glass.

The mid end HTC One S will feature Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor with up to 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU. The smartphone has a 4.3-inch screen with contoured Corning Gorilla Glass display.

HTC One V will be the cheapest of the series and will feature a 1 GHz processor, and a 3.7 inch touch screen. It will have a 5 megapixel camera.

All of them will feature Android 4.0 OS. These phones if they deliver on what is being claimed can surely turn the tide in their favour. It will give them good marketing fodder to market these phones as well.

LG Optimus L series

LG, which competes well with Samsung in all other areas, has been a laggard in the Android smartphone space as it is too slow in launching new phones while on the other hand most of their phones were entry level, which resulted in low brand recall as far as phones are concerned.

However during this years' MWC, LG has shown a lot of keenness to make it big. It launched Optimus Vu which is a 5 inch Samsung Note challenger as well as a range of product under its new L series.

Under the new L-Style design strategy, the Google Android OS running Optimus brand smartphones will feature metallic elements on the body, slimmer look, better keys placement and comfortable form factor.

The three phones launched under the new series are Optimus L3, Optimus L5 and Optimus L7.

The Optimus L3 features 3.2-inch touchscreen display with 3 megapixel camera and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Sporting a 4-inch touchscreen display, the Optimus L5 is the middle brother with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. While the flagship Optimus L7 will feature 4.3-inch touchscreen display and will feature a 5 megapixel camera.

There were other important phones from LG announced including the latest version of Optimus 3D. All these launched put together LG seems to be one of the most important mobile phone brand to watch out for in the next year.

Sony Xperia P

Sony had announced the Xperia P smartphone at MWC 2012. The Xperia P features a unique aluminum unibody design, which is integrated with the transparent bar similar to the Xperia S.

Xperia P sports a 4-inch display with Sony's new 'White Magic' display technology on which the company touts best in class visibility, 8 megapixel camera with Exmor-R (Sony's tech) technology,NFC capabilities, HDMI output and synergy with Sony's suite of services. All this based on a dual-core processor and Android 2.3 (will be upgraded to Android 4.0.

Sony has also announced a unique docking system, the SmartDock, which will enable users to connect their Xperia smartphones with their HDTVs and will offer ability to add input devices like a keyboard and mouse enhancing the productivity capabilities of the smartphone. The phones will be launched in next few months.

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