Wondering where a fabulous picture on the internet was taken at – we’ve all been there. Guessing the location is quite hard if the image is not geotagged.

It seemed someone at Google had this problem, too, so the company decided to take the image search to the next level.

Google built a neural network called PlaNet, loaded with more than 90 million location-tagged images. When you search for the location of a picture – PlaNet scans it at pixel-level matches its contents to the already existing database.

The first batch of trials proved promising – PlaNet guessed the country with a 28.4% success rate and the continent – with a 48% success rate. PlaNet was also able to recognize 3.6% of times images at street level accuracy, and 10% at city-level.

Sure, those numbers hardly sound impressive, but they, in fact, do when you consider this is just the beginning.

Hopefully, we’ll see PlaNet up and working sooner rather than later. The service supposedly takes 377MB of memory, which means it can easily work even off a smartphone.

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Samsung Electronics has officially started mass production of industry’s first 256 GB memory chip based on the Universal Flash Storage 2.0 (UFS) standard. The company boasts the new chip features outstanding performance for mobile devices, which exceeds that of a typical SATA-based SSD for PCs.

In fact, data transfer is up to 850MB/s read and 260MB/s write. That’s three times faster than high-performance micro SD cards.

The chip, which is based on the company’s V-NAND tech, boasts up to 45,000 read and 40,000 write operations per second. (IOPS). That’s two times faster than the previous gen UFS memory.

As you can guess, watching and recording 4K movies is a breeze for the chip. Samsung also hints at its future phones supporting USB 3.0 interface and says with this new 256GB UFS 2.0 chip, transferring a 90-minute 1080p video will take just 12 seconds.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 6 will quite probably come out this September and it doesn’t sound outlandish that the company’s flagship phablet will be the first phone to feature such storage…

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After carefully reporting on all the various device announcements and demos at MWC 2016, like the Samsung Galaxy S7, LG G5 and Xiaomi Mi 5, to name a few, we can safely say that mobile photography is a big buzzword this year. All the major players seem to be working hard in this respect and with ambitions of sustaining its rapid growth, Chinese OEM Huawei really can’t afford to lack behind.

In a newly announced move, Huawei and Leica have forged a long-term partnership to work on, as you would expect, advancements in photography. Now, considering the size and scope of operation of both parties, especially Huawei, the cooperation could potentially work both ways, and it probably will, with joint research as well as development, but judging from the statement of Leica CEO Oliver Kaltner, we are most likely to see improvements in mobile camera tech in the short term.

The strategic alliance between Huawei and Leica Camera demonstrates the desire of two rapidly growing and globally active brands to continuously push the envelope of the technologically possible. In addition to innovative strength and premium standards, our two companies are united by the commitment to uncompromising quality. The technology partnership with Huawei offers Leica Camera an excellent opportunity to introduce its proven optical expertise into a new product segment and to unlock exciting business areas in the field of mobile devices. Smartphones make a very important contribution to the world of photography and open an important door for Leica to new target groups and fields of application.

And as a quick sidenote. If you haven’t heard of Leica Camera AG, you probably need no more than a few minutes of searching to understand the truly legendary status the German camera maker has in the field. That being said, the partnership holds great promise for the…

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Google seems to have eliminated the need for keyboard as far as using its Docs productivity suite is concerned. After adding the Voice typing feature last year, the company has now rolled out an update that brings along voice-based text editing and formatting to Docs.

To use the new features, you need to first enable voice typing, something which you can do be heading to the Tools menu on your Chrome Web browser and then selecting the Voice typing option. Thereafter you can start editing and formatting with commands like “copy,” “insert table,” and “highlight.”

To access the complete list of voice commands, simply say “Voice commands help” while the voice typing feature is enabled. Alternatively, you can also get it in the company’s Help…

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The Pebble Time smartwatch has received a price cut in the US. Daily deal aggregator and online retailer Groupon has the timepiece listed on its website for $135, down from its MSRP of $200 (the device is usually available for around $150).

That’s not all of it. You’ll get an additional 15% discount upon entering the coupon code SALE3. This brings down the cost of the watch to $115 (or around $125 if you include taxes). Shipping is free. It’s a limited time deal – the listing currently shows less than 14 days left until the promo expires.

Just to recall, the smartwatch went on sale in the US back in July last year, and in December it received an update that included the ability track health without the need for a third party app.

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As most Sony fans are surely aware, the OEM’s signature “Z” series has been caught up in an end-of-life crisis for a few days now, with its fate hanging in the balance ever since the MWC introduction of the new X line of handsets.

Today Sony finally issued an official statement on the matter and everything seems clear, but it is definitely not what many would call good news. Short and rather grim, it reads:

The Xperia Z line has reached its culmination – Xperia X series represents a new chapter and evolution of our product strategy. Whilst the Xperia Z series was all about bringing the best of Sony’s advanced technologies to smartphones, Xperia X series is based on bringing smart, adaptive Sony user experiences across camera, battery performance and hardware / software design.

So, it is official – the legendary Z line will be no more, despite our previous expectations of a rich Z6 family. It also sounds like the new X series will be more or less taking its place.

However, there seems to be yet another grim forecast in the statement. While Sony is clearly attempting to soften the blow with adjectives such as “smart” and “adaptive”, the real intention seems to be a new focus on a wider mid-range device lineup.

This can already be seen to some extent in the Xperia X, XA and even the Xperia X Performance, which despite its Snapdragon 820 SoC, powerful camera and most other Sony bells and whistles, still lacks behind the Z5 Premium in the display department. Still, the move could prove a vital step to saving Sony’s already struggling mobile business and expanding its market reach. Plus, the first trio of Xperia X devices, might not have mindblowing innovation to offer, but we still found them to be excellent devices in our hands-on…

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Just over a month after there were reports that Foxconn is in talks to acquire Sharp, the deal has been sealed for a total of JPY 700 billion ($6.2 billion), according to Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei. Foxconn was earlier said to have made a $5.1 billion bid.

It’s worth mentioning that the Taiwan-based iPhone manufacturer, which was formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, was not the only bidder for Sharp – the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan was also in the race.

The state-controlled fund, which was said to be interested in keeping Sharp ownership inside Japan, reportedly offered the Japanese company a JPY 300 billion injection as well as a JPY 200 billion credit line.

No other details related to the deal, which is yet to be officially announced, were…

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Google has started selling a couple of cables for the audio-only Chromecast Audio.

RCA Cable for Chromecast Audio • Optical Cable for Chromecast Audio

The first cable is a standard RCA cable that will plug into almost any pair of speaker system. The cable is about a foot long and comes in a violent shade of lemon yellow.

The second is an optical (or TOSLINK) cable, which is a digital interface and should provide a cleaner output for connecting to an AV receiver or amplifier. This one is also a foot long and comes in the same shade of lemon yellow.

The cables are pricey and cost $15 for each. You can probably get cheaper and longer cables on Amazon that are probably just as good, if not better.

Source 1 • Source 2 •…

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Apple has released its latest iOS adoption numbers, revealing status quo. The latest figures say the version 9 of the company’s mobile operating system now powers 77% of compatible devices, which is the same as what was reported earlier this month.

The rate of iOS 9 adoption is, however, still better than its predecessor iOS 8, which hit the 77% mark in mid-March last year. As before, iOS 8’s adoption still stands at 17%, while 6% of compatible devices are running earlier iOS versions.

In case you aren’t already aware, the adoption numbers are calculated based on the usage of Apple’s App…

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If the $799 price tag of Lenovo’s Thinkpad Yoga 2-in-1 touchscreen laptop has kept you away from it all this while, here is some good news: the device has received a whopping $530 price cut in the United States.

The laptop – that can have its screen folded to give you a tablet-like experience – is now selling for $270. Amazon has it listed for that price on its US website, and the deal is said to be available for limited time only.

For $270, you get a 2-in-1 laptop powered by Intel N2940 Quad-Core 1.83GHz processor and featuring an 11.6-inch touchscreen of 1366 x 768 pixel resolution. It has 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD built in storage. The device runs Windows 10…

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