Monthly Archives: January 2016

HTC Vive is almost ready, Pre version showcased at CES

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HTC Vive Pre is the next step in the HTC’s VR headset development and it was revealed at CES with refined design and strap, a newly integrated camera, and better controller.

The Steam VR headset developed with HTC and Valve was officially revealed back at MWC in Barcelona last year. Its target is to become the best VR headset on the market, sparing no resources and making no compromises. This, of course, means the price won’t be kept low and it won’t target the mainstream users just yet.

So, the HTC Vive Pre, the ‘Pre’ moniker marking the penultimate iteration, is now smaller than the initially introduced Vive, yet it features a more comfortable strap that allows people with glasses to use it as well.

The Vive Pre also comes with better displays, brighter and sharper, and featuring the so-called mura correction, which should fix “unevenness, irregularity, lack of uniformity, nonuniformity, inequality”.

The Vive Pre has been upgraded with a camera, which will allow the VR headset users to peek in the real world, while staying in the virtual one hassle-free.

The controller has been tweaked, too – HTC worked to improve on the handling, the balance and the battery life (now up to 4 hours). There is a dual-stage trigger support, too.

The one thing HTC is not ready to talk about is the HTC Vive price. The company says it cares more about making it the best, rather than mainstream.

HTC Vive should hit the shelves in April, so we’ll know about the pricing and availability very…

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Automakers, Not Silicon Valley, Lead in Driverless Car Patents: Study by REUTERS

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By REUTERS

Automakers, not technology companies, are in the driver’s seat in developing self-driving, “autonomous” cars, and Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp is best positioned to lead the way, according to a new report on patents for the…

Published: January 5, 2016 at 07:05AM

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¿Sirven para algo las apps de ahorro de batería?

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batería

Google Play Store está abarrotado de aplicaciones que claman a los cuatro vientos ser capaces de alargar notablemente la vida de nuestra batería. Hablo de esas apps con nombres tan rimbombantes como; Power Save Defender, Juice Saver, Power Up Battery…
Al usar Android por primera vez, seguramente, tentados por la posibilidad, de tener unas horas más de autonomía en nuestro terminal, bajamos e incluso pagamos por alguna de estas, pero, lo único que recibimos son un montón de notificaciones molestas y publicidad.

La respuesta a la pregunta es no, estas aplicaciones no valen para nada, en su mayoría son malware y spam. Hay excepciones, pero ninguna que realmente merezca la pena. La única manera de ahorrar batería, es usando el modo ahorro de nuestro dispositivo, o a través de módulos Xposed especializados, cómo, por ejemplo, Greenify.

Cada día la gente de Google elimina miles y miles de apps maliciosas de su tienda online, y, un gran porcentaje de ellas, son algunas de estas, dado que, los malos saben que los usuarios buscan esas palabras. Sabiendo esto, piénsalo dos veces antes de instalarlas en tu móvil, y, si decides hacerlo, informate un poco sobre ellas y sus desarrolladores, os sorprendería saber el gran negocio que hay con estas apps falsas.

No todas son así, ni mucho menos, pero, la mayoría acaba administrando mal el dispositivo, desactivando las notificaciones push, o, haciendo tareas tan simples como bajar el brillo, y, obviamente no necesitamos una aplicación (que además ocupa espacio, otro dilema), para eso, podemos hacerlo por nosotros mismos.

Al final lo mejor es aprender un poco y saber utilizar nuestro sistema Android. Mantener en uso las apps que realmente utilizamos, limpiar un poco de vez en cuando eliminando archivos en la caché (Tampoco os olvidéis de las fotos y audios de Whatsapp) y desactivar servicios de notificación de aplicaciones cómo juegos, launchers, etc.

Quien sabe, quizás algún día, aparezca alguna app de este tipo que realmente merezca la pena, ese día seremos los primeros en mostrártela, pero, hasta entonces, avisado quedas. Siempre nos quedará el powerbank, aun así, de momento, ten a mano el cargador.

¿Y tú que piensas? Pásate por ¿Sirven para algo las apps de ahorro de batería? para dejar tu huella.

Puedes unirte a nosotros en Twitter, Facebook o en Google+

Publicado recientemente en Andro4all

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ZTE announces international expansion for its Nubia brand

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ZTE’s Nubia sub-brand has been around for a while, but at this point you can only officially buy such devices in a handful of countries. That’s all set to change this year, however.

According to an official press release, ZTE will be taking Nubia to “Latin American countries, Mexico and Argentina, key European markets including the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain as well as Malaysia and Thailand in South East Asia” in 2016.

Currently, Nubia is present in “China, North America, South America, Northern Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia and India”, as per ZTE. Nubia’s global website was launched today, and so far it’s available in English, Chinese, and Spanish at nubia.com. And “in the coming months” an online store will be added to the website, allowing people from across the world to buy Nubia wares straight from their maker. The e-commerce platform will be available in Europe…

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This Choetech battery pack has Quick Charge 2.0 and it’s pretty great [coupon code]

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We’ve already established how handy battery packs are to have. They’re there to give your phone battery a boost or even a full charge when you’re out and about. No need to be that person sitting on the ground next to a wall outlet in the airport. No need to bring your wall charger along and have to plug your phone into a wall at a party. The battery pack will take care of you when and where you are, as long as you’ve charged it beforehand.

So, what we’ve reviewed this week is the B612Q battery pack from Choetech. How does this battery pack with a weird name stand out from the rest, you ask? Well, it certainly stands out from any battery pack we’ve reviewed yet. It has a Qualcomm Certified Quick Charge 2.0 to charge the B612Q battery 75% faster than standard chargers and is also featured with a quick charge port for devices which support QC 2.0 technology. How rad is that? Faster battery pack charging and faster phone charging if your phone has the capability. Additionally, the B612Q has 10,400 mAH which should offer you a solid couple of phone charges or should serve you and your friend for a night out.

Choetech offers a few different variants of its Quick Charge 2.0 battery packs with different capacities and ports. We reviewed the 10,400 mAH battery with a Lighting port ($29.99). They also offer 15,600 mAH ($31.99) and 20,000 mAH ($38.99) batteries with Lightning ports for only a fraction of the cost more. Additionally, Choetech offers a 10,400 mAH variant with a USB type C port in place of the Lightning port ($31.99). I think Choetech providing Lightning or USB Type C ports in addition to the industry standard micro-USB ports is really great. This removes the need to bring extra cables with you when you’re traveling just so you can charge your battery pack and your phone. Whatever charging cables you use, you can get a Choetech battery pack that can be charged with that cable.

CHOETECH B612Q Charger-4
CHOETECH B612Q Charger-3
CHOETECH B612Q Charger-2
CHOETECH B612Q Charger-1

The Choetech B612Q battery pack operates much like any other battery pack out there. It has a button that activates charging mode on the battery and will also activate the LED lights on the front of the device that display the charge of the battery. The case is metal and has a nice feel to it but it seems to attract fingerprints a bit. Last, the battery packs come with two input ports to charge the battery (micro-USB and Ligtning or USB type C) and two output ports (Quick Charge 2.0 and a standard 1 A port). Two devices can be charged at once, but the battery pack does not pass through charge. Last, the battery pack comes with a 12 cm micro-USB cable.

Slide1Next we compared charging performance between the B612Q and the Motorola Turbo Charger which also has Quick Charge 2.0 technology on my Nexus 6. As can be seen in the figure to the right, the B612Q quick charge port actually slightly outperformed the stock Nexus 6 Motorola Turbocharger with a charge rate of 1.3% vs. the 1.1% per minute  over 40 minutes on the Moto Turbo. For comparison, I also charged the Nexus 6 on the B612Q 1 Amp port which yielded a charge rate of about 0.5% per minute. So, pretty nifty results for the Choetech B612Q.

So how does the Choetech B612Q stack up against other chargers we’ve reviewed like the TYLT ENERGI 10K and or the Lumsing Grand A1? Compared to the Lumsing Grand A1 13,400 mAH, the Choetech is very similarly sized, lower battery capacity and slightly more expensive, but it has more input ports and quick charge technology. Compared to the TYLT ENERGI 10K, the B612Q is smaller sized, similar battery capacity, has Quick Charge 2.0 and more input ports, but has less charging ports and does not have pass through charging. So overall, I will still probably prefer the TYLT ENERGI 10K for traveling because of the number of ports and pass through charging, but the charging speed of the Choetech B612Q has bumped it up to one of the top chargers out there, especially for the great price.

The Choetech B612Q and other Quick Charge 2.0 battery pack variants can be picked up on Amazon. For a limited time, Choetech has provided the Android and Me readers an exclusive coupon code to drop the already low price of the chargers even lower. The code WHNJTCYR will get you $4 off the B612Q and the code MIFLDQVJ will get you $6 off the B611Q, the 15,600 mAH battery, bringing both totals down to $25.99. If you’re in the market for a battery pack these are definitely worth a look, especially if you have a Quick Charge 2.0 device. I’ve also been told Choetech will soon be releasing a Quick Charge 3.0 battery pack. So keep on the lookout for that.

Let us know if you have any questions about the Choetech battery pack and/or if you’re getting one. What are your favorite battery packs out there and when and how do you use them? Happy New Year everyone!

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Lenovo announces VIBE S1 Lite that probably won’t make it to US soil

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Lenovo has just announced the new VIBE S1 Lite at CES 2016 that we wouldn’t mind seeing come to the US market but probably never will.

The VIBE S1 Lite features an all glass design with a 5-inch 1080p IPS display, MediaTek processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage and a 2700mAh battery. All of that is packed into a body just 8.5mm thin for $199.

We certainly aren’t hurting for options in the mid-range Android category in the US, but the VIBE S1 Lite looks like it could be one of the more attractive options. Either way, it’s launching in China soon with other regional markets to follow shortly.

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