XAMI

Google on Tuesday unveiled Pixel, its first branded smartphone in the post-Nexus era. With it, Google is squarely taking aim at Apple and its new iPhone 7. Here’s everything you need to know. Google’s Pixel smartphone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 SoC, a quad-core chip with two high-performance cores clocked at 2.15GHz and two energy-efficient cores running at 1.6GHz, along with 4G of LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB or 128GB of local storage. Around back is a 12.3-megapixel rear-facing camera with an f/2.0 aperture lens and 1.55 micron pixels that Google spent a year working on. Google touched on a few camera features including smartburst in which you hold down the shutter button to capture multiple images and let the phone select the best of the bunch and HDR+, a nifty low-light technique in which the camera snaps several photos and stitches them together instead of capturing one long exposure that may end up being blurry. The search giant was quick to point out that Pixel received a rating of 89 from DxOMark, the highest score ever for a smartphone camera. For comparison, the Galaxy S7 Edge and Sony Xperia X Performance earned a score of 88 while the iPhone 7 could only muster a score of 86. What’s more, Google is offering free, unlimited storage of full-resolution images and videos shot with Pixel via Google Photos meaning you won’t run out of storage at the most inopportune time. Connectivity shouldn’t be an issue as Pixel includes a USB Type-C connector as well as Bluetooth 4.2. Oh, and there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack – another solid jab at Apple. Powering the device is a 2,770mAh or 3,450mAh battery depending on which model you purchase. Quick charging technology allows you to get up to seven hours of runtime with just a 15-minute charge. As you’ve no doubt seen in leaked images, Pixel is constructed of a combination of aluminum and glass with no unsightly camera bump on the rear. It’ll ship running Android 7.1 Nougat and will be the first with Google Assistant built in. It'll also come with a dongle that'll make transferring data from your existing phone a breeze. For all of the features and benefits that Android affords, the mobile OS has been plagued by fragmentation over the years as handset makers and wireless carriers more often than not take their sweet time in rolling out updates. As a Google phone, Pixel owners shouldn't have much to worry about in this category as the handset will automatically download and install the latest Android updates in the background, making the process about as seamless as possible. Pixel will also come with a custom launcher that features round icons and apps that are just "a swipe away." The overall look and feel of the skin looks quite clean and polished, somewhat reminiscent of the vanilla experience that Nexus devices offered but with some subtle changes. Worth noting is the fact that Pixel doesn’t appear to be water resistant nor does it have a microSD card slot for local storage expansion. Google is partnering with Verizon in the US but will also sell Pixel unlocked via the Google Store. Pixel also works on Project Fi, should that be your preferred wireless provider. Pixel will be offered with your choice of 5-inch (1080p) or 5.5-inch (2,160 x 1,440) AMOLED display – both coated with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 4 – in three colors: Very Silver, Quite Black and Really Blue (a US exclusive). Pricing starts at $649 and $769, respectively, with both phones being made available to pre-order starting today. They're scheduled to ship later this month.

Someone has obtained a board for Nvidia's upcoming GeForce GTX 1050 Ti, revealing the company's new Pascal GP107 GPU that's reportedly being built using Samsung's 14nm process. The photos reveal a die smaller than a postage stamp, which is significantly smaller than the GP106 GPU used on the GTX 1060. This is due to a reduction in CUDA core count that sees the GTX 1050 Ti packed with 768 cores, as opposed to 1280 on the GTX 1060 6GB models. The reduction in core count, along with a smaller 128-bit memory bus, reduces the overall size of the GPU. The die is surrounded by four GDDR5 memory chips for a total of 4 GB of on-board frame buffer, which will be the standard amount of memory for the GTX 1050 Ti. Leaked specifications indicate the card will have a 75W TDP, so in theory it could rely solely on PCIe slot power, however the photo of the GTX 1050 Ti's board shows a 6-pin PCIe power connector in the top right. Rumors suggest Nvidia will launch a GeForce GTX 1050 alongside the GTX 1050 Ti, which will pack a cut-down GP107 GPU with just 640 CUDA cores. Both graphics cards will slot into Nvidia's graphics card line-up below the $200 GTX 1060 3GB version, providing budget performance for po[CENSORED]r games like Overwatch.

In an effort to keep costs down, the Mozilla Foundation recently launched a new project that it hopes will reduce the amount of time its developers spend working on non-core components of Firefox. As a non-profit, it’s important for the Mozilla Foundation to keep costs at a minimum. As Mozilla Senior Director of Engineering Johnny Stenback explains, Project Mortar will allow Mozilla to have a stronger focus on advancing the web and reduce the complexity and long-term maintenance cost of Firefox by replacing non-core pieces of its platform with existing alternatives like those from other browser vendors. Initially, Project Mortar will investigate how Firefox handles PDF rendering and look for lower cost approaches to providing Flash support as its use continues to decline. Right now, the project is determining the feasibility of using the minimum set of Pepper APIs to support the PDFium library for rendering PDF documents as well as the Pepper Flash plugin. As The Register highlights, PDFium is Chrome’s open-source native PDF viewer. The Adobe / Google-built Pepper Flash player, for those not familiar, runs inside a sandbox in an effort to limit the amount of damage that malicious code could do when exploiting a vulnerability in the plugin. Stenback notes that if these experiments are successful, it will allow them to completely remove NPAPI support from Firefox once NPAPI is disabled for general plugin use.

Samsung’s reputation may have taken a beating following the overheating Galaxy Note 7saga, but it’s nothing compared to the damage done to Volkswagen after last year’s revelations that it cheated on emissions tests. Now, the German car manufacturer is trying to repair customer trust with its electric and fully-autonomous concept car, the I.D. Volkswagen showed off some images of the I.D. at the Paris Motor Show over the weekend. It also unveiled a futuristic short video of the car (below), demonstrating how features such as the “collect me” app and retractable steering wheel might work. The car will be Volkswagen’s first vehicle to use its Modular Electric Drive Kit. The company says it will have a range of 373 miles on just a single charge, and that all its future electric cars will be based on the I.D’s design, using similar parts and component. Volkswagen wants the I.D. to be its first fully autonomous vehicle. The steering wheel disappears into the dashpad when drivers touch the logo, activating the self-driving I.D. pilot mode. The feature may not available when the car launches in 2020, but the company promises the system will be available in the I.D. by 2025. Other specs include a 168bhp electric motor, a lithium-ion battery, wireless charging with the option of plugging it into the mains, and the ability to charge up to 80 percent capacity in 30 minutes. Moreover, the trunk can be used as mailbox, whereby delivery services can locate the car using GPS and are granted permission to open the trunk using an app and drop off parcels. Owners are then notified of the delivery and the boot is locked. "Volkswagen is currently working with international logistics service providers to implement this innovative concept," the company says. It will take time before people can trust Volkswagen after it used special software to beat emissions testing. While the company refused to relate the I.D. with Dieselgate, it no doubt sees an electric car as a step toward repairing its damaged reputation and showing it can be an eco-friendly company.

It seems that every time we’re on the eve of a big smartphone reveal, a retailer manages to leak some images and specs online. Google’s set to unveil a slew of new hardware at its San Francisco event tomorrow, including the highly-anticipated Pixel and Pixel XL handsets. But UK store Carphone Warehouse has beaten it to the punch, with pictures and specs of the new smartphones appearing on its website. Canadian carrier Bell Canada ‘accidentally’ leaked photos of the devices when a preorder page appeared on the company's website yesterday. It was quickly taken down, but Carphone Warehouse’s information (since removed) showed even more photos and a list of specifications, though 9to5 Google points out that “some specs don’t quite add up.” Other than the 5-inch and 5.5-inch sizes, the Pixel and Pixel XL look identical. The top and bottom bezels are quite large, and the top half of phone’s rear features a mirror-finished section where the fingerprint sensor and camera sit. There appear to be two speakers at the bottom of the device next to the UBC Type-C charger, which can provide 7 hours of battery life from a 15-minute charge. Internally, the standard Pixel features a Snapdragon 821 2.15GHz processor. It comes with 32GB or 128GB of storage - though you can add another 256GB with the microSD slot - and 4GB of RAM. The Gorilla Glass 4-covered screen has a 1920 X 1080 resolution, and the 12MP rear camera has a f/2.0 aperture. The front snapper, meanwhile, offers 8 megapixels. The 5-inch pixel is powered by a 2770mAh battery, and it comes with Android Nougat 7.1. The Pixel XL has mostly the same specs as its little brother, apart from the upgraded quad HD display and 3450mAh battery. Both phones are available in black or white. Carphone Warehouse’s page revealed some of the services available with the Pixels, including “unlimited storage for your photos and videos, all stored at full resolution.” Google’s AI-powered virtual assistant is also highlighted, as is its messaging app, Allo, and cross-OS video calling application, Duo. There’s even support for Live Cases, the customizable cases that come with companion live wallpaper. No prices appeared on Carphone Warehouse’s page, but some rumors claim the smaller Pixel will start at $649.

Nearly two months after the successful launch of Instagram Stories, Facebook is now bringing a Snapchat-like way of sharing moments within Messenger. Dubbed Messenger Day, the feature essentially lets people share photos and videos with layered text, scribbles and stickers that disappear in 24 hours. Each image can be displayed for up to 10 seconds. A Facebook spokesman told TechCrunch that the social network is “running a small test of new ways for people to share updates visually,” but for now that test is limited to users in Poland. The company noted that it often runs such experiments, but they don’t always turn into actual products, and that it has nothing to announce for now. Similar to Instagram’s implementation, Messenger Day feeds are available at the top of the Messenger home screen, above recent conversations. Users can respond to an individual photo or video and the conversation will be directed to Messenger. The Stories slideshow format has proven quite po[CENSORED]r for Snapchat in terms of time spent within the app and engagement. Instagram launched a near perfect clone back in August, with CEO Kevin Systrom having no repairs in giving Snapchat all the credit they deserve. This isn't the first time Facebook has made Messenger itself more Snapchat-like. The company also tested disappearing text-based messages, and launched failed products like Poke and Slingshot that borrowed from Snapchats ephemeral theme.

HTC has launched a new app store for its Vive virtual reality headset where it’ll highlight a variety of VR experiences beyond gaming including art, design, education, music, sports, travel, and more. Dubbed Viveport, the storefront is available now in more than 30 countries including the US following a closed beta for Chinese users. “Viveport is the place where people can start their journey to virtual reality experiences,” Rikard Steiber, president of Viveport, said in a statement. “We launched in China earlier this year. We are happy to roll this out globally with some of the best creators in the industry. Our vision is to establish Viveport as the platform for virtual reality.” Currently Viveport has a fairly limited catalog of about 60 titles. Some of them are games, such as Cloudlands: VR Minigolf, Everest VR, Fantastic Contraption, and World of Diving. But the store has plenty of non-gaming VR content including Stonehenge VR, Mars Odyssey, The Music Room and an all-new edition of the Blu, among others. A special section called Viveport Premieres will highlight new content that’s launching on the store first. In contrast to Oculus’ approach, Viveport will not restrict itself to Vive-compatible software, it will accept titles from other stores and platforms. The company told Venture Beat that while there are no Oculus VR titles now, users should “stay tuned for news on that in the future.” Referring to the arrival of the PlayStation VR headset from Sony in October, Steiber wished them the best of luck. “It is important that VR be successful on game consoles and mobile. We’ll have more consumers coming on to experience VR. That’s good for the ecosystem.”

A report from Chinese site Zol, as spotted by TechPowerUp, suggests that Nvidia could be preparing the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti for launch at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2017. The GTX 1080 Ti would be the second graphics card to use Nvidia's Pascal GP102 silicon, which was first used in the Titan X. This new report suggests that for the GTX 1080 Ti, 26 of 30 SMs will be enabled, leaving the card with 3,328 CUDA cores and 208 TMUs. In contrast, the Titan X has 28 SMs enabled for 3,584 CUDA cores. The GPU will reportedly come with a base clock of 1,503 MHz and a boost clock of 1,623 MHz. As for the memory interface, we're expecting to see 384-bit GDDR5X providing 480 GB/s of bandwidth, attached to 12 GB of VRAM. With this sort of specification sheet, the GTX 1080 Ti will be an expensive graphics card, especially considering the GTX 1080 already retails for $599. There's no word on exact pricing just yet, but it could end up costing $700-800 in Nvidia's current line-up. The Titan X, which is Nvidia's most powerful graphics card, already retails for a huge $1,199. Between now and CES 2017, Nvidia is expected to launch the GTX 1050 and, if a new report is correct, the GTX 1050 Ti. Both cards will slot beneath the $250 GTX 1060 in Nvidia's mid-range and entry-level line-up. The GTX 1050 Ti will reportedly pack 768 CUDA cores, while the GTX 1050 will use 640, down from 1280 cores in the GTX 1060.

Microsoft at its Ignite conference for IT professionals this week demonstrated some of the many ways it is building artificial intelligence into its products and services. As Microsoft AI and Research Group Executive Vice President Harry Shum points out, they’re focused on building an AI stack that spans infrastructure, services, apps and agents in an effort to “democratize” AI, thus making it accessible – and valuable – to everyone. Shum points out that AI is shifting the computer science research supply chain and blurring the lines between research and product. As someone that has worked on both research and product teams, Shum said he realizes that end-to-end innovation in AI will not come from isolated research labs alone but rather from the combination of at-scale production workloads. Indeed, one only needs to look back to this past March and the failure that was Microsoft’s “Tay” chat bot as evidence that a single division approach isn’t always best when working with cutting-edge technology like AI. To help accelerate this movement, Microsoft is forming a new group that’ll bring several divisions under one roof. Included in the new sector are Microsoft Research and the company’s Information Platform Group as well the Bing and Cortana product groups plus the Ambient Computing and Robotics teams. The combined group will be comprised of more than 5,000 engineers and computer scientists, Shum said.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched an updated version of Raspbian, a po[CENSORED]r open-source operating system for the foundation’s various single-board computers. Raspbian isn’t developed or affiliated with the Raspberry Pi team although it does serve as one of two operating systems the foundation officially supports (the other is Noobs, which stands for New Out Of the Box Software). As UX engineer Simon Long explains, he met with Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton a little over two years ago and was flat out asked if he thought he could make Raspbian better. Having very little experience with Linux or Xwindows, Long hesitantly said he thought he could help. Raspbian, for those not familiar, isn’t exactly the most aesthetically pleasing OS on the block. As such, the initial batch of changes consists almost entirely of visual tweaks. This is evident from the get-go as an elegant splash screen replaces most of the diagnostic messages during boot-up. Long notes that the splash screen was carefully coded as to not slow down the machine’s boot time. Once at the desktop, you’ll find a vibrant background image – one of 16 sourced from the foundation’s own Greg Annandale. Other quick-hit changes include reworked taskbar, menu and file manager icons, revised temperature and voltage indicators, a new window frame design, the inclusion of the Infinality font rendering package, an updated login screen, options to disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth plus a handful of new applications. The new image, dubbed PIXEL (which stands for Pi Improved Xwindows Environment, Lightweight), is available to download free of charge from the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s website. Long notes that the uncompressed image is more than 4GB in size meaning some older unzippers may not be able to decompress it properly. If that’s the case, you can simply use a program like 7-Zip on Windows or The Unarchiver on Mac to get the job done.

Welcome Claudiu

Ask people for their views on artificial intelligence, and many will talk about their fears of Terminator-style human enslavement by robots. Even Professor Stephen Hawking once saidthat AI could end humanity. But now, five tech giants have joined forces to publicize the benefits of super-intelligent machines. Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have formed an alliance under the snappy title of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (PAI). In addition to alleviating fears over a possible Skynet scenario and other “legitimate concerns,” the non-profit group will conduct and publish research in AI-related areas such as ethics, fairness, privacy, transparency, the exchange of information between machine learning systems, trustworthiness, reliability, and collaboration between people and artificial intelligence. The Alliance emphasized that it has no plans to "lobby government or other policy-making bodies." There will be equal representation between corporate and non-corporate members, and it wants “academics, non-profits and specialists in policy and ethics” to join the group. The project's website states: "We believe that artificial intelligence technologies hold great promise for raising the quality of people's lives and can be leveraged to help humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health, and education." One name noticeably absent from the list of founding partners is Apple. Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz, one of the partnership’s two interim co-chairs, told The Guardian: “We’ve been in discussions with Apple, I know they’re enthusiastic about this effort, and I’d personally hope to see them join.” Elon Musk’s non-profit research company OpenAI is also missing from the founding members lineup, though it may join at a later date. PAI is in discussions with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence regarding future members.

The outrage that some have exhibited over Apple’s decision to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack from the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus likely isn’t going away anytime soon. The Cupertino-based company does supply a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter with each phone sold but in reality, it’s just something else to leave behind or misplace during a busy day. What’s more, the adapter prevents you from charging your device while headphones are plugged in. If you’ve found yourself facing these circumstances lately, a project currently seeking funding on Indiegogo may be worth a look. The Fuze case is, well, a protective case for your iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. What’s unique about it is that it reintroduces the 3.5mm headphone jack, thus eliminating the need to carry around a dongle or adapter. It also has a Lightning port through which you can presumably charge your phone while listening to music and an integrated battery (2,400mAh for the iPhone 7 case and 3,600mAh for the iPhone 7 Plus version). It’s worth noting that the images of the device on the Indiegogo page differ a bit from what’s shown in the video above. Its creators say the original design was to have an extended base where the 3.5mm jack would be stored but after prototyping and testing, they decided it was too bulky and unattractive. Instead, backers will receive the case shown in the still images which measures 5mm thick and weighs 28 grams. A pledge of $49 at the early bird tier will get you on the list for a Fuze case for your iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. The flexible funding campaign has a month left and has raised a little over $2,600 of its $60,000 goal thus far.

Images of Huawei's upcoming large-screened flagship, the Mate 9, have leaked on Chinese social network Weibo. The images show a large six-inch screen with bezels as slim as the Mate 8, with a new dual-camera system boasting Leica branding. A slide advertising the Mate 9 has also revealed the pricing tiers and color options for the device. The most expensive model will deliver a ludicrous 6 GB of RAM along with 256 GB of storage for 4,700 yuan ($705), while the middle model provides 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage for 3,900 yuan ($585). The cheapest Mate 9 will set you back 3,200 yuan ($480) and pack 4 GB of RAM plus 64 GB of storage. Color options also appear to vary by tier, with the top-specced model coming in six colors, filtering down to three colors for the cheapest variant. The phone itself seems to use a metal body, so the colors are appropriate for a high-end metal design. The dual camera system on the rear is expected to use the same dual-12-megapixel sensor setup as on the Huawei P9, although the leaked images show an increase in aperture from f/2.2 to f/2.0. Internally, benchmarks have suggested the Mate 9 will include an all new Kirin 960 chipset featuring ARM's latest high performance CPU cores, the Cortex-A73. The Mate 8 launched in November last year, so it's only a matter of time before Huawei decides to official unveil the Mate 9. The phone is set to launch with Android 7.0 on board and a new version of the company's EMUI skin, making this the first major Huawei phone to launch with Noguat pre-installed.

When he isn’t giving away his vast fortune, bringing the internet to remote parts of the earth, or trying to rid the world of all disease, Mark Zuckerberg continues to run a social media network that boasts nearly two billion active monthly users - and that requires some innovative tech. To show off some of Facebook’s cutting-edge, eco-friendly hardware, Zuckerberg is posting rare images of the technology on his own FB profile. First up is its massive data center facility in Luleå, Sweden, which stores the world’s largest archive of photos, as well as an increasing number of videos. As the site is located less than 70 miles south of the Arctic Circle, the temperature in the area is often below 50 degrees. Zuckerberg showed the huge fans that draw cold air from the outside to cool the tens of thousands of servers in the data hall. In the winter, when temperatures can drop to minus 30, the heat from the servers is used to warm the building, which is about the size of six football fields. The natural cooling/heating system, along with the power from a dozen nearby hydro-electric plants, mean the facility is 10 percent more efficient than traditional data centers and consumes 40 percent less power. Google is another company trying to reduce its data center energy usage; the search engine giant is using it Deep Mind AI to efficiently manage servers and environmental controls. As big as the building is, there are only around 150 people working inside its halls. Zuckerberg says that because of the simplified design, just one technician is required for every 25,000 servers. They often travel about on scooters, given the enormous size of the center. The Facebook CEO explains how the equipment has been stripped back to its bare bones so it can be accessed and repaired quickly. “A few years ago, it took an hour to repair a server hard drive. At Luleå, that’s down to two minutes," he said. Max Zavyalov, a network engineer in the Edge & Network Services team, was equally enthusiastic about the hardware: “Look at these racks, the network devices, the cabling. Everything is like reference model!” Through its Open Compute Project, Facebook releases its data center hardware designs to other developers and engineers. “We come from a proud hacker background and from a company largely built upon open source philosophy in software,” said Joel Kjellgren, Luleå Site Manager. “We just couldn’t understand why the same principles couldn’t apply to hardware.” It’s not all about power and efficiency; there’s also the question of privacy and security. Zuckerberg posted an image showing the huge number of old and obsolete hard drives that have been crushed to protect their contents. As a final word, Facebook’s director of data center design engineering Jay Park claimed that “There is no more efficient data center in the world.” And the company isn't slowing down; when the Los Luna, New Mexico site comes online in late 2018, it will be powered by 100 percent renewable energy and the company's seventh data center.

Instant messaging is an increasingly competitive market and despite your best efforts to keep it simple and use a single app or platform, it's hard to avoid keeping two or three apps around to keep in touch with different groups of people. In any given day I get hundreds of notifications from HipChat,WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, and my business’ Facebook Page. While most of these clients are mobile-first nowadays, thankfully for my sake all offer some form of desktop counterpart — either a full blown native client or a web based one — so I can reply faster and more comfortably using an actual keyboard. However that doesn’t make switching between different app windows and browser tabs throughout the day any less annoying. If this sounds familiar, there are a handful of all in one messaging clients that can save you the trouble by keeping all your chats under one roof, and best of all they are cross-platform. The concept isn’t new — remember Trillian, anyone? — but updated for today’s mobile messaging world. Franz I’ll tell you right away all three options we’re covering today work similarly as they are essentially wrappers for the web versions of all the supported messaging apps. But Franz is still my favorite of the bunch. It feels polished, fast and is presented in a clean, no-frills interface. It covers a wide range of services, among them Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, Telegram, WeChat, Skype, HipChat, Google Hangouts, GroupMe, Steam Chat, and more. As of writing there are 34 different services in total and development is active so new ones are added regularly. The latest update introduced support for email (Gmail, Inbox by Gmail, and Outlook), Twitter’s TweetDeck client and custom HipChat servers for companies that prefer self-hosted solutions. Moreover, Franz allows you to add each service many times, which is useful if you manage multiple business and private accounts at the same time. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Rambox Rambox is an open source alternative to Franz that works pretty much the same but covers a lot more services — 74 and counting at the time of publishing this piece — and adds a few bells and whistles of its own. Each service you add is listed in its own tab in the Rambox interface, with notifications handled individually for each service and the option to mute all by enabling Do Not Disturb mode. Like Franz, you can add each service many times, but a key feature that differentiates Rambox is the ability to add a custom service in case you are using an obscure or niche app that isn’t already listed. As long as the service is accessible via URL, which I tested by adding a tab for Chatra. Other unique features include the ability to lock the app if you’ll be away for a period of time and setup a password for when you come back or when launching the app. If you use Rambox in different computers, you can synchronize your configuration between them, configure it to use a Proxy if your network blocks some services, and add custom behaviors via custom code injection. Overall it’s a broader and more flexible alternative, though after using it for a few days it didn’t feel as polished as Franz, and I noticed a little lag while switching between clients. Rambox is also available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and since it’s open source you’re always free to check its inner workings. All-In-One Messenger If you’d rather have a solution that lives inside the browser then All-in-One Messenger will be more up your alley. It has a more limited list of supported services but not by much, and all the big ones are there. Like its desktop-based counterparts above, you can use as many accounts of the same messenger platform as you want. You can get desktop notifications with one-click reply and mute specific services if you are being distracted by one of them. If you are a fan of hotkeys All-in-One supports a few, allowing you to quickly toggle between tabs or jump directly into one of them and reordering within the chat interface. All-in-One is simple, stable, well designed and uses roughly the same amount of resources they would in a browser tab in Chrome. It’s available as a Chrome Web App, and while I prefer a standalone client, it still serves the purpose for keeping all your messaging clients accessible in a single place. It’s also the only of the three that will work on Chrome OS, so there’s that, too. Article By: TechSpot

At GTC Europe, Nvidia has unveiled a small amount of information about their upcoming Xavier SoC, which is designed to succeed Parker in the company's collection of products focused on autonomous driving and artificial intelligence. Nvidia is continuing to name their SoCs after comic book characters – Xavier is in reference to Professor Charles Xavier from X-Men – so there's certainly no shortage of names to choose from. Xavier is expected to improve on nearly every aspect of Parker, packing in a huge seven billion transistors on a die manufactured using TSMC's 16nm FinFET+ process. There's not a whole lot of information about the CPU and GPU configurations inside Xavier, but here's what Nvidia has announced so far. The CPU will be made up of eight custom ARM cores designed by Nvidia, possibly using a new design that succeeds Denver used in their Parker SoC. The GPU will use Nvidia's next-generation Volta architecture and pack 512 CUDA cores, up from 256 in Parker. Nvidia wants Xavier to absolutely crush Parker in terms of performance. The company is aiming for 20 Deep Learning Tera-Ops (DL TOPS) at a power consumption of just 20W, which is crazy when you consider the entire Drive PX2 board with multiple Parker SoCs and several discrete GPUs hits 24 DL TOPS at 250 W of power. It will still be some time before we see Xavier in the flesh, as Nvidia is beginning to sample the SoC in the last quarter of 2017 ahead of expected volume production in 2018.

Apple’s po[CENSORED]r MacBook Pro range is due for an update soon. With the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2 launches out of the way, the company is reportedly gearing up to ship the new laptops "some time in the second half of October,” and is currently hard at work on macOS 10.12.1 to finalize support for the rumored Touch ID sensor and OLED bar. According to reports, Apple plans to introduce completely revamped 13 and 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros with a thinner and lighter form factor. The new models might ship with Intel’s seventh generation Kaby Lake processors, if the companies' release schedules line up, and are expected to feature multiple USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 support. Apple is said to be introducing its fingerprint scanning Touch ID feature to its new family of MacBook Pros, integrating it into the power button. Just like on the iPhone, the fingerprint reader would remove the need to type in a password and allow users to authenticate Apple Pay purchases, a feature that just expanded to the web with macOS Sierra and iOS 10. The new laptops are also expected to see the physical function keys along the top of the keyboard replaced with a new OLED display touch bar, which will present different function keys to users depending on the applications they're using. In addition to redesigned MacBook Pro models, Apple may also introduce updated MacBook Air models and new iMacs with AMD graphics chips before the end of the year.

Google has announced a version of its YouTube app for Android tailored specifically for people in areas where connectivity is limited. Dubbed YouTube Go, the new app has been designed from the ground up to give users more options over quality and file size, offline viewing and local sharing with nearby users without using any data thanks to Wi-Fi Direct. The app was field tested with hundreds of users in 15 cities across India and will be launched there first, with plans to make it more widely available early next year. "YouTube Go is a brand new app to help the next generation of users share and enjoy videos," YouTube Vice President of Product Management Johanna Wright said in a statement. "YouTube Go was designed and built from the ground up with insights from India, in order to bring the power of video to mobile users in a way that is more conscious of their data and connectivity, while still being locally relevant and social." The app is a natural extension of YouTube’s previous offline modes. The home screen will feature the typical po[CENSORED]r and trending videos from nearby, but with a new preview function where users will able to peek at a few frames before deciding to watch it or save it on the app. Google is targeting the so-called “next billion” Internet users that are coming online, many of them in India, Indonesia, Brazil, and China. And of course it’ll want to monetize views as well. Keeping with the low bandwidth approach, YouTube Go will only use six-second ads, which don’t cost much data, and will be compressed to make downloads as small as possible. Indian users can sign up now to test YouTube Go.

After being tested in closed beta by over 300 select organizations last year, Facebookannounced last December that the enterprise version of its social network, Facebook at Work, would be rolling out over the following months. And while it may be a bit later than planned, the Slack competitor will finally launch publicly next month, according to The Information. Aimed at businesses and their employees, Facebook at Work looks very similar to its non-enterprise version. It features a scrolling newsfeed, posts that can be 'liked', timelines, groups, events, the ability to follow and interact with co-worders, and a built-in chat service. Facebook said that the service would remain free - as it has been during the testing phase - with a charge of “a few dollars per month per user” for premium features such as analytics and customer support. However, the firm has now decided to charge a set monthly fee for all active users. The company didn’t specify how much it would ask, though it’s believed to be between $1 - $5. For reference, Slack charges $6.67 per active user. Facebook at Work director Julien Codorniou said it changed the payment model as Facebook believes it can keep individual employees engaged with the product. Anyone worried about their personal and business Facebook profiles overlapping needn’t worry. The two accounts are kept separate; anything shared on a work account will only be seen by people in the company, and anything displayed on a personal account will only be visible to friends (based on privacy settings). If it proves po[CENSORED]r, many office workers may find themselves spending even more of their waking hours on the social network.

Russia’s capital city of Moscow is getting rid of Microsoft’s products, replacing them with domestic software. The move comes after President Vladimir Putin called for Russian authorities and companies to be less reliant on foreign technology. The first casualties will be Microsoft’s Exchange Server and Outlook on 6000 Moscow computers. An email system installed by state-run carrier Rostelecom PJSC will replace the Redmond firm’s programs. Bloomberg reports that authorities are looking to expand the homegrown system, developed by Russia’s New Cloud Technologies, to as many as 600,000 computers in the future. Artem Yermolaev, head of information technology for Moscow, said that Microsoft Windows and Office could be the next products that get replaced. The migration to the new email servers is expected to take two years. The city has budgeted around $700,000 for the project, with the new licenses reportedly around 30 percent cheaper than Microsoft’s. Communications minister Nikolay Nikiforov said: “We want the money of taxpayers and state-run firms to be primarily spent on local software”. The decision to abandon Microsoft comes at a time of high tensions between Russia and United States. The EU and US sanctions that followed the annexation of Crimea saw many American companies shutter or cut back their business dealings in the country. Putin’s internet czar, German Klimenko, wants heavy taxes on U.S. technology companies, including 18 percent on app store purchases, to help Russian competitors in the country’s $3 billion software market. Russia has been looking to tighten its grip over the nation's tech industry recently. Back in June, it was reported that the country was looking to make backdoors mandatory in all encrypted messaging apps, part of an “anti-terror” bill that Edward Snowden called a “Big Brother law.”

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Toshiba a couple of weeks ago rolled out a new family of OCZ-branded solid state drives – the XV500 series – targeting mainstream desktop and notebook owners interested in replacing their tired (and slow) spinning hard drive. Now, Toshiba is addressing the entry-level market with its new OCZ TL100 family. Offered in capacities of 120GB and 240GB, both drives dish up sequential read and write speeds of up to 550MB/sec and 530MB/sec, respectively. Random read speeds on the two drives are identical at up to 85,000 IOPS, as are random write speeds at up to 80,000 IOPS. In addition to its higher capacity, the 240GB should be a bit more durable as it’s rated for 60 TBW (total bytes written) with an average of 54GB per day. The smaller 120GB SSD can only do half that at 30TB or 27GB/day. Both 7mm drives utilize Toshiba’s TLC (triple level cell) NAND flash and come backed by a three-year advanced warranty program. They also both consume a maximum of 1.6 watts and come with OCZ’s SSD management software. It’s unclear, however, which controller is running the show. As for pricing, the 120GB TL100 will set you back just $44.99 while the larger drive commands $67.99. Toshiba hasn’t yet said when the drives will go on sale although I suspect they’ll drop in time for the holidays.

The difficult times faced by BlackBerry this year have reached an almost inevitable conclusion: the Canadian company has announced that it would stop internal development of its smartphones, and instead focus on software and services while relying on partners to design and build any future hardware. "The company plans to end all internal hardware development and will outsource that function to partners. This allows us to reduce capital requirements and enhance return on invested capital.”," CEO John Chen said in a statement. The decision marks the end of an era for the company. In 2009, BlackBerry and Nokia were responsible for 70 percent of smartphone operating systems. Today, the company holds around one percent of the market share. Chen has twice said that BlackBerry would exit the hardware business become a software company only if he could not make it profitable. The company’s second-quarter results showed a net loss of $372 million, or 71 cents per share, on revenue of $334 million. BalckBerry’s move away from the BB 10 operating system to Android hasn’t been the success it hoped. The company’s first Android device, the Priv, ended up having its price cutin April due to low sales of around 600,000 units since launch. The company is working on other Android devices, including the DTEK60, a successor to the DTEK50 (a clone of theAlcatel Idol 4 with BlackBerry branding). Back in February, WhatsApp announced that it was dropping support for older operating systems, including BlackBerry OS and BlackBerry 10. A few months later, Facebook andPayPal revealed they would also be withdrawing support for the platform. Even the President had enough of the company's devices. In June, Barack Obama finallychanged his BlackBerry for an unnamed smartphone. BlackBerry will live on through its software offerings, and BlackBerry devices will continue to arrive through third-party manufacturers, but 2016 is fast becoming a year to forget for what was once one of the most po[CENSORED]r phone manufacturers in the world.