Apple releases bunch of ‘guided tour’ videos introducing key features of upcoming iWatch

Apple has released a bunch of ” guided tour” video that introduces people with the main features of the upcoming Apple iWatch .

According to the Verge, Apple has published four videos walking potential buyers through use scenarios and key features.

The video, “welcome to Apple Watch”, is an overview of the main hardware and software concepts that include the digital crown, friends button, glances and force touch.

Astronomers witness formation of massive star over 18 years

Astronomers observed formation of a massive star, called W75N(B)-VLA 2, over the period of 18 years.

Pair of images of a young star, made 18 years apart, has revealed a dramatic difference that is providing astronomers with a unique, “real-time’ look at how massive stars develop in the earliest stages of their formation.

The astronomers used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to study a massive young star, which was some 4200 light-years from Earth. They compared an image made in 2014 with an earlier VLA image from 1996.

Microsoft puts a stop to Kinect for Windows v2 sensors

Microsoft has announced that it will no longer be making Kinect for Windows v2 sensors.

Launched last year, the Kinect Adapter allows users to connect a Kinect for Xbox One sensor to Windows 8.0 and 8.1 PCs and tablets.

CNET quoted Michael Fry, a senior technology evangelist for Kinect for Windows, as saying, that because both Kinect for Xbox One and Kinect for Windows v2 sensors are functionally identical, Kinect for Windows SDK 2.0 works exactly the same with either.

Fry also said that Microsoft would still provide support for Kinect for both Xbox and Windows.

Sony buying some OnLive assets for its cloud gaming services

Sony Computer Entertainment is buying various assets of OnLive, including 140 U.S. and international patents for cloud gaming services.

Onlive will be shutting its operations on April 30. The company is not renewing any subscriptions, and users whose subscriptions renewed on or after March 28 will be refunded.

OnLive says that the OnLive Game Service, OnLive Desktop and SL Go (Second Life) will all be available until April 30.

US firm develops glasses for colour blindness

A US firm has given thousands of people their first look into the colours red and green by tricking the brain with a pair of sunglasses.

EnChroma, based in Berkeley, north of San Francisco, developed the colour blindness corrective gear two years ago and recently launched an upgraded model of sunglasses allowing users to play sports and is child-friendly, Xinhua reported.

Over 340 million people around the world suffer from colour blindness, as the condition can hinder simple everyday activities, like driving.

Hubble finds giant objects near dead quasars

NASA’s Hubble space telescope has clicked a set of wispy, goblin-green objects that are the ephemeral ghosts of quasars that flickered to life and then faded.

The glowing structures have looping, helical and braided shapes.

“They do not fit in a single pattern. The features offer insights into the puzzling behaviour of galaxies with energetic cores,” said Bill Keel from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.

These images reveal a set of bizarre, greenish looping, spiral and braided shapes around eight active galaxies.

World’s smallest light-powered gyroscope soon

A team of applied physicists has devised a method to develop world’s smallest light-powered gyroscope – a fraction of the width of a human hair – that will enable a new generation of phenomenally compact gyroscope-based navigation systems, among other intriguing applications.

“We have found a new detection scheme that may lead to the world’s smallest gyroscope sooner,” said Li Ge, physicist at the City University of New York.

Create your kid’s exclusive scrapbook on Facebook

Facebook has introduced a new feature that not only helps you collect and organise photos of your children at one place but also share them with other friends on the social networking site.

The Facebook “Scrapbook” lets you create a photo tag for your child even if he or she is not on Facebook and then create a Facebook album of the photos in which he or she is tagged, CNET reported.

Facebook found that several parents tag their partner in photos of their kids in order to share those photos with their partner’s Facebook friends.

Adobe launches text, photo-centric storytelling app ‘Slate’

Adobe is launching a new text and photo-centric storytelling app called Slate for the iPad.

Slate focuses on text and images and combines the simplicity of the editing side of the popular blog-publishing platform, Medium, with the design chops of Adobe.

According to TechCrunch, using a set of pre-designed templates in Slate, users can create anything from magazine-like travel stories and photo albums to newsletters and reports.

Google ‘declares war’ on China’s biggest web registrar

Google has declared war on China’s biggest web registrar, China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), due to its “bad behavior.”

In its security blog post, Google made it clear that it would no longer accept HTTPS certificates from the CNNIC, effectively cutting the registrar out of the SSL system that secures the web. HTTPS certificates ensure that web content cannot be intercepted in transit and CNNIC controls that process for the whole Chinese web, The Verge reported.

TenXer ‘shuts doors’ as Twitter acquires it for under 50 mln dollars

Twitter has reportedly purchased TenXer, a platform for developers and engineers to work together better, in a deal that sources said was priced under 50 million dollars and would lead to the closure of the San Francisco-based startup.

TenXer CEO and co-founder Jeff Ma said that they will shut down operations at their firm and continue their work with the micro-blogging platform, reported The Verge.

He added that the firm was excited to apply what they had learnt in the past three years to a world-class engineering organization.

LinkedIn ‘buys and shuts down’ Refresh.io to add predictive insights to its products

LinkedIn has bought and will be shutting down Refresh.io, a startup and iOS app of the same name that provides insights about people in your networks right before you meet them.

The terms of the deal have not been revealed but the main app will be shutting down on April 15 after which the company will not accept any new sign-ups. Twelve of the current team of 15 employees will join LinkedIn in Mountain View to work on incorporating the technology they have developed into various LinkedIn products, reported TechCrunch.

Black holes do not gobble up information: Study

The “information loss paradox” in black holes — a problem that has plagued physics for nearly 40 years since Stephen Hawking first proposed that black holes could radiate energy and evaporate over time — may not exist at all, researchers report.

“According to our work, information is not lost once it enters a black hole. It does not just disappear,” said Dejan Stojkovic, associate professor of physics at the University at Buffalo.

Physical information does not get lost forever in black holes: Study

A new study has revealed that black holes don’t erase information, which may suggest that “information loss paradox” in black holes does not exist.

That’s what some physicists have argued for years: That black holes are the ultimate vaults, entities that suck in information and then evaporate without leaving behind any clues as to what they once contained. But new research shows that this perspective may not be correct.

Snapchat blocks third-party apps, unveils ‘first-ever’ transparency report

While releasing its first ever transparency report, Snapchat has announced that it has cut-off all third-party applications from accessing its data, in a bid to show its users that it takes their privacy seriously.

Steven Levy, Backchannel, said that the company had been working to make it harder for third-party apps to access data on its app and finally they have managed to close the hole entirely, The Verge reported.

The recent restrictions meant that Windows phone users too would not be able to use any of the third-party apps they relied on to use Snapchat so far.

Hospitalized alcoholics die 7.6 years earlier

A new study has revealed that alcohol-dependent hospital patients die from multiple morbidities 7.6 years earlier.

University of Bonn Hospital researchers together with British colleagues found that the mortality of alcohol dependent patients in general hospitals is many times higher than that of patients without alcohol dependency. In addition, they die about 7.6 years earlier on average than hospital patients without a history of alcohol addiction.

The researchers are calling for earlier and more intensive psychotherapeutic support of persons with alcohol addictions.

WhatsApp allows all Android users to make ‘app-to-app’ voice calls

A major update introduced by WhatsApp will now allow android users to make voice calls on the application.

The feature, which had been teased for months, was introduced to select users earlier when the last update was rolled out a few weeks ago. However, it can now be availed by all, reported The Verge.

The latest version of WhatsApp offers a cleaner layout with three tabs for Calls, Chats, and Contacts. Users have to just click the Calls tab and select a contact to chart talking.

Nikon announces new J5 camera with 20.8MP and 4K video shooting

Japanese electronics company Nikon has introduced a new camera J5, which is a part of its 1 J ensemble.

According to Engadget, J5 is a compact, powerful camera which is part of its 1 series of mirror-less hardware. The J5 comes with a 20.8-megapixel, VFI CMOS sensor (DC format), an XP5A image processor, ISO range of 1600 to 12,800 and support for NFC and WiFi.

Scientists develop device that improves human walk

In a world’s first, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University have developed an unpowered ankle exoskeleton that reduces the metabolic cost of walking by approximately seven percent – thus helping individuals walk using less energy.

The results are roughly the equivalent of taking off a 10-pound backpack and are equivalent to savings from exoskeletons that use electrically-powered devices.

Acer to launch all-in-one touchscreen Chromebase desktop this summer

Acer has recently announced its all-in-one Chromebase desktop, which would have a giant touchscreen, a report said.

The Chromebase, set to launch this summer, has been equipped with a new hardware trick, a 21.5-inch, 1080p display, Nvidia’s Tegra K1 processor, and 100GB of Google Drive storage for two years, The Verge reported.

The new Chromebase’s price has not yet been revealed. (ANI)

HTC launches a new device One 8s

HTC has launched a new device called HTC One 8s which has a mix of new and revisited features on a midrange handset.

According to CNET, it has a 5-inch screen and curved with metal body. The display comes with a 1920×1080-pixel resolution.

HTC One 8s runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with version 6.0 of its Sense interface.

One 8s comes with a 13-megapixel duo camera with f/2.0 aperture and 28mm lens. Video recording can be done at 1080p HD. It has a5-megapixel front camera to work with. 1080p HD video recording on that front camera is a nice touch.

Phillips launches new color-changing smart light Hue Go

Phillips has introduced a new color-changing smart light to the Hue family called Philips Hue Go, this summer and with a built-in, rechargeable battery, we will be able to take it around with us.

Philips Hue Go is in a shape of a hemisphere.

According to CNET, Hue Go connects wirelessly with the Philips Hue bridge over Zigbee, with controls situated in the Philips Hue app on our Android or iOS device. We will also be able to integrate it with third-party apps and devices built to work with Hue, including IFTTT.

Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS games can now run on Wii U’s

Nintendo has announced that users can play older games of Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS on Wii U’s using an app called Virtual Console, through software emulation.

Nintendo 64 titles of which 21were available on the console’s predecessors have been absent from the Wii U’s Virtual Console. Wii U owners could still access those original titles by launching their console into a separate Wii interface, but the experience was not up to the mark.

Pre-clinical trials for suppressing HIV set to begin

Pre-clinical trials for permanently suppressing HIV are set to begin at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, in Brisbane.

Associate Professor David Harrich said that the gene therapy could replace or diminish the need for the constant cocktail of drugs HIV patients currently need to stop HIV from crippling their immune system or developing into AIDS.

Harrich genetically modified an existing protein in the virus and found the changed molecules prevent HIV from infecting other cells.