Roku 3 review

Roku is plugging headphones and several other new features into its latest set-top box for streaming Internet video to TVs, a move that amplifies its effort to upstage Apple's better-selling player.The Roku 3 box going on sale Wednesday also includes a more powerful search engine to find movies, TV shows and music more quickly and new menu for perusing the more than 750 online services available through the device. The new model will be sold for $100, initially only at Roku's website and Amazon.com. Next month, it will expand into other retail outlets, including Costco and Best Buy stores. Prices for older Roku models with less horsepower start at $50.
The new player is the first update to Roku's line of set-top boxes since July 2011. In the interim, Roku last year introduced a finger-shaped device that plugs directly into high-definition ports, much like a flash drive fits into a personal computer's USB drive.
The ability to listen to video and music on headphones will probably be the Roku 3's biggest attraction, especially for households that already own one of the company's earlier boxes. Ear buds are included with the Roku 3, although any pair of headphones can be plugged into a jack on the side of the device's remote control. Just as with the set-top box itself, a Wi-Fi connection is required for the headphones to work. It's a feature unavailable on the Apple TV player that poses the main competition to Roku's streaming devices.
The Roku 3 introduces new navigation tools that will be automatically sent to previous versions of the box in a software update later this year. The redesign displays more information by stacking the channels vertically in rows of three instead of in single, horizontal row in the middle of the screen. The makeover means nine channel choices can be seen at a time instead of just five under the old format.
The new box also boasts a faster processor than previous models, an upgrade likely to appeal to people who want to use the device to play online video games on their TVs.
Although it's still a small company, Roku Inc. has emerged as a significant player in the steadily growing market for Internet video since it introduced its first set-top box nearly five years ago. Originally conceived within Netflix Inc. as a cheap and easy way to get Internet video on to flat-panel TVs, Roku now offers a wide array of entertainment options. Besides Netflix's Internet video subscription service, Roku boxes also connect to alternatives from Amazon.com and Hulu.com, as well as a variety of online music stations.
Most of the top Internet video services can also be seen through Apple TV, a set-top box that's similar to Roku's device. But Apple TV is better known, largely because it's made and sold by a technology powerhouse that operates more than 400 stores scattered throughout the world while the Roku players are made by a small, privately held company.
Although Apple Inc. doesn't provide precise figures, CEO Tim Cook has indicated to analysts that the company has sold more than 10 million of its streaming boxes. That includes more than 2 million Apple TV players sold during the final three months last year, up from about 1.4 million at the same time in 2011, Cook told analysts during a January conference call.
Roku will only say it expects to sell the five millionth device in its history by the end of this month. The company, which is based in Saratoga, Calif., said its annual revenue was about $150 million in 2011. Management declined to provide a revenue figure for last year.
Apple's revenue topped $156 billion during its last fiscal year ending in September, with most of the sales rolling in from its line-up of iPods, iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. Company co-founder Steve Jobs considered Apple TV to be a "hobby," a description that Cook has echoed. Before he died in October 2011, Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson that he had finally figured out how to build a TV that "would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices."
Those words have spurred recurring speculation that Apple intends to sell its own big-screen TV that would connect to the Internet and run on the same software as its iPhones and iPads.
Cook also hinted during his January discussion with analysts that the company may be ready to move beyond the Apple TV boxes. "I tend to believe that there's a lot we can contribute in this space," Cook said then. "And so we continue to pull the string and see where it leads us."

5 Wi-Fi-enabled cameras you can buy in India today

Cameras have been a means to capture life's precious moment for over hundreds of years. However, in the recent times it is not just enough to click the pictures but also to share them with the world through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. So, consumers are increasingly looking at camera that come with built-in wireless connectivity to instantly share what they click.In the last couple of years, many leading camera makers have launched Wi-Fi-enabled cameras and some of these cameras have trickled to Indian shores as well. Here's our list of top five Wi-Fi enabled cameras (in no particular order) that are available in India today.

1) Samsung Galaxy Camera
    Price: Rs. 26,520
The Samsung Galaxy Camera was unveiled at IFA 2012 and reached India by November 2012. The camera features a 16.3-megapixel sensor with a f/2.8 aperture and 23mm-480mm lens that has 21x of optical zoom. Under the hood, the camera is powered by a 1.4GHz quad-core Exynos processor, as found in the Galaxy S III smartphone. Samsung Galaxy Camera runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean).

It features a 4.8-inch S-LCD display with a resolution of 1280X720 pixels translating into 308 ppi. It has 1,650 mAh battery that Samsung claims can last up to seven hours. The camera comes with 8GB of internal storage, 32GB of expandable memory with microSD support. Connectivity options include 3G (HSPA+ 21Mbps), HDMI 1.4, WiFi a/b/g/n, WiFi HT40, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. Samsung Galaxy camera also supports 3G connectivity via a micro-SIM but does not have calling features.

The company has recently launched just Wi-Fi variant of this camera, but that is yet to make its way to India.


2) Nikon Coolpix S800c
    Price: Rs. 20,950
Just like Samsung, Nikon too is offering an Android-based camera in India. However, this one runs on the dated Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Nikon Coolpix S800C features a 10x optical zoom lens, 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor, 3.5-inch OLED WVGA touchscreen. The camera comes with 1.7GB of internal storage.

Nikon Coolpix S800C supports downloading Android apps via Google Play Store and also comes bundled with Nikon's 'My Picture Town' app for uploading images directly to its cloud storage.
The Coolpix S800c comes with 18 filter effects, including the new Toy Camera effect, Pop and Super Vivid color filters, as well as Cross Process and Peripheral Darkening filters.


3) Panasonic Lumix DMC SZ5
    Price: Rs: 13,500
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ5 comes with is 14-megapixel CCD sensor. The camera sports a slim, metal-built design. It features 10x optical zoom and can record 720p HD videos at 30p in MP4 format. The Lumix DMC-SZ5 supports SD, SDHC and SDXC memory cards.
Of course, it comes with built-in Wi-Fi and you can use your smartphone as a controller to zoom, focus and shoot from a distance - all over Wi-Fi.


4) Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX200
    Price: Rs. 14,990
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX200 Wi-Fi-enabled camera features 18-megapixels Exmor R CMOS sensor and comes with 10x zoom. As per the company, as this camera comes with the Optical SteadyShot feature of Exmor R CMOS models, it is able to reduce the effects of camera shake for crisp, blur-free images. One can record full-HD movies with the help of this camera. It is just mere 17.5mm thick and weighs105 grams (without the battery and memory card).

5) Samsung NX1000
    Price: Rs. 34,900
The Samsung NX1000 is a mirror-less compact system camera, which comes with 20.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor and in-built Wi-Fi. NX1000 features a high speed capture and fast auto focusing. The camera is capable of recording 8 frames per second in a continuous shooting mode. You can also record 1080p HD movie with this camera. Samsung NX1000 comes with what the company dubs as 'i-Function button,' which allows users to control the camera functions such as shutter speed, aperture, EV, WB, and ISO using the focus ring. It is powered by 1,030mAH battery. Samsung NX1000 has a plastic-bodied and a 3-inch LCD screen and weighs 222 grams (without the battery and memory card).
It is noteworthy, that Olympus and Cannon are both looking at launching a slew of new cameras in the near future and have indicated that a few of these models may come with Wi-Fi capabilities. So this is one segment that is going to see a lot of action in the times to come.

Temple Run: Oz app review

Ever since Imangi Studios launched the endless running game Temple Run for iOS and Android, it made sure that we never stopped running. The game has seen 4 versions since the original release in August 2011, with the sequel, Temple Run 2 launching earlier this year in January. The game has not just been appreciated, but went on to break the record of Angry Birds Space clocking in 50 million downloads in just 13 days.

Of these 4 versions, two are spin-offs released in association  with Disney. While one was Temple Run: Brave, based on the animated Disney/Pixar movie Brave, the more recently launched Temple Run: Oz is inspired form the upcoming Disney movie Oz: The Great and Powerful. We started running in the new environments to find out if it continues to keep us just as addicted as the original game.

Temple Run: Oz stays true to the game's tradition of non-stop running as well as turning, jumping and sliding to avoid hurdles and collecting coins. But since this version is based on Disney's movie, it incorporates a lot of elements such as new environments, objects and characters. You run as The Great and Powerful Oz down the mesmerising Yellow Brick Road in the Whimsical Woods and The Dark Forest.

Now instead of the three demon monkeys or one big giant weird-faced monkey, you're being chased by three flying baboons at the start of the game and every once in a while when you stumble while running.

The game is definitely more challenging than the original one but similar to Temple Run: Brave and the recently launched Temple Run 2 in some ways. It seems to have gotten faster as well, demanding greater focus and better reflexes. The obstacles in the game are quite tricky and catch you by surprise. They appear only when you approach them really close, unlike the earlier games where you could see them well in advance.

Plants in the game often leap from locations on the side of the path, attempting to grab you as they fall. Trees also often fall, seemingly out of nowhere, into the path to block your way. But the obstacles are just one part. The path itself will sometimes crumble while you're on high bridges or cliffs, forcing you to make a split-second decision to move to the side of the bridge that remains intact.

The musical backdrop of the beating drums has been replaced by the movie's background score that adds a lot of intensity and keeps the adrenaline rush going. As always, the graphics are really smooth and you'll be in awe of the surroundings and the attention to detail.

Temple Run: Oz also has certain common elements as seen in the Brave version of the game. You could collect bows in the game to unlock different bonuses like extra score points and score multipliers at the end of each running session. Here the bow has been replaced by a musical key to unlock the music box for similar bonuses. Further, you can choose to open all the boxes in case you're feeling too greedy, by paying additional coins.

A new element in the game as is the essence of the original Wizard of Oz movie is time travel with the tornado in a manner of speaking. While running you come across sign posts guiding you which direction to take and soon enough you'll see yourself transitioning between worlds with the yellow brick road collapsing before you and taking you to a different location.

The Whimsical Woods are set in bright environs but dangerous all the while with cliffs and forests. The Dark Forest is set in a graveyard amidst ruins of stones and gives a sense of evil lurking around. After each running session, if you happen complete that particular level's challenges, you level up and are awarded with gems or coins.

Another pretty neat movie-inspired element is the hot-air ballon which appears at several points in the game for an additional opportunity to collect coins as you sail through the clouds and make your way across the crystals reminiscent of Emerald City.

The balloons appear on the screen, and head quickly in one direction at a crossroads. Follow the balloon and hop on to take a balloon trip through the clouds. In case you don't feel like it, you can always choose to head out in the other direction.

The game also offers additional power ups every now and then which include a magnet, a flying monkey and a soap bubble amongst others. Gems can also be used to "supercharge" power-ups. For instance, the 2X coin power-up becomes a 3X coin boost at the cost of 1 gem.

You can opt for Weekly or Legendary Challenges from the Menu section that also award coins, gems and multiplier bonuses. These include challenges like Marathon Man (run a certain distance), Big Time (Get 125,000 points in 1 run), Steady Bankroll (Collect 25,000 coins) and many others.

Overall, the game offers a fresh perspective in terms of being movie-inspired. Apart from that the basic mechanics of jumping, sliding and tilting remains the same. Currently, the app is only listed on the App Store and like other Temple Run games, we'd hope to see it launch for Android as well. (Update: The game has now been released for Android as well priced at Rs. 53.18 in the Google Play Store). 

Even though the app isn't free, Rs. 55 ($0.99) seems pretty decent to try out something new. Those who still wouldn't mind skipping this version, can check out Temple Run 2 that's also new release and is available for free.

Temple Run: Oz (iOS, Rs. 55)
Temple Run: Oz (Google Play, Rs. 53.18)

Microsoft's Kinect powers 'magical' smart home in Spain

 

With a flick of the wrist, residents of a futuristic home developed in Spain can browse Internet pages displayed on the living room walls, switch off a giant projected alarm clock in the bedroom or transform the entire interior into a busy streetscape or tranquil beach.It may seem light years ahead of current "smart home" technology, but this prototype apartment in Fuenterrabia, a city in Spain's northern Basque country, is far from the realms of fantasy.
The technology used to create the interactive interior is the same as that already being used in video games.
The team behind the prototype have linked projectors which beam interactive applications on to walls to Kinect motion sensors, developed by Microsoft for its X-box 360 console, thus allowing residents to control their environment simply by waving their hands.
It seems to work like magic.
In the morning, a wave at the wall will switch off the alarm and display your diary at the same time.
If you fancy a change of scenery, just one small gesture will splash video on every wall, turning half of the apartment into a busy urban street or picturesque seascape, complete with sound effects.
"The project is a working prototype of a smart home," said its creator, Ion Cuervas-Mons, at a visual presentation of the project to AFP in Madrid.
"What we have done is to add a digital layer to a physical space to be able to interact with digital information through gestures, people's different movements," he said.
Cuervas-Mons launched the Openarch project in November 2011 and built the prototype in his own apartment.
He now leads the Think Big Factory, a core team of five architects and engineers, who collaborate with others to develop various products.
"There is a general interface, which is in the living room and which interacts with your hands," he explained.
"You go two metres away from the wall and move a type of cursor and you can switch lights on and off, turn music on and off, launch Internet sites, which then come up in a projection on another wall."
But the project is only 40 percent complete, he said.
"When we have finished the prototype, we will start to transform the applications into products. That is our goal for next year," he said.
The development team want to make the system unobtrusive so that a user can manipulate the gadgets in the most natural way possible.
Instead of trying to sell the entire interactive home system, the team aims to develop specific products from it.
But each product would be able to communicate, allowing a buyer to create a system for the entire house should they wish.
And homes are not the only destination for the technology, Cuervas-Mons said.
"For example, we have been working with a large retail business and the first sector where we might see this technology could be supermarkets," he said.
"This technology lets you convert non-commercial spaces into commercial spaces. You will be able to buy anywhere. You will be able to shop from your home, from the metro, from your car," he said. "I think this will totally change the way we shop."

Smart watches: Next frontier for Apple, Samsung, Sony

After the smartphone, the intelligent watch promises to become the latest hi-tech trend, allowing wearers to peek at messages and even take calls without touching their phones.

BARCELONA: After the smartphone, the intelligent watch promises to become the latest hi-tech trend, allowing wearers to peek at messages and even take calls without touching their phones. As speculation grows that Apple may be working on an iWatch, other players at the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, including Japanese giant Sony, are already fighting for a place on customers' wrists.
Their target market is the person who's always glued to their smartphone, even in meetings or at the movies, or people who wish to monitor their heartbeat during exercise.
"The future in general is wearable devices," said Massimiliano Bertolini, chief executive of Italian firm i'm, as he showed off his flagship product, i'm Watch, at the industry event.
Available since 2011 and present in several European countries including Britain and Poland, it will go on sale in Spain's Corte Ingles department stores from next week, and could roll out with French retailers as soon as April, he said.
The smartwatch is an accessory to the smartphone, with which it communicates by Bluetooth wireless technology.
It means you can leave your phone in your pocket as you answer or reject a call, peruse emails or read updates from friends on Twitter or Facebook.
The i'm Watch features its own applications, too, such as i'm Sport, unveiled Monday, which links with a heart rate detector to allow a jogger to check his pulse. Such functions already exist in specialised sports watches but not on watches that are linked to smartphones, Bertolini said.
With a square aluminium frame, a 1.5-inch (3.8-centimetre) touch screen and a strap available in various colours, the watch has already found 30,000 buyers, 80 percent of them men aged mostly between 25 and 50.
"Seventy percent are iPhone users, 25 percent Samsung and the rest are other telephones using Google's Android operating system," he said.
The company aims to sell more than 200,000 watches in 2013, notably by targeting women with publicity emphasising its design rather than its technology.
Italian-made, it sells for a minimum of 300 euros ($390) for the basic model and prices climb to up to 16,000 euros for a luxury version in silver or encrusted with diamonds.
That leaves plenty of room in the market for competitors such as Sony's SmartWatch, a square, Android-compatible rival for your wrist that sells for about 130 euros or the $150 Pebble, a rectangular, Android- and iOS-compatible offering by the company of the same name, which raised $10 million in three weeks on "crowdfunding" site Kickstarter to develop the product.

Panasonic, Microsoft to release 4K Windows 8 tablet in 2013: Report

The 20-inch behemoth tablet from Panasonic that we came to know as "just a prototype" may actually see the light of a sales outlet sometime this year.

Back at CES, Panasonic had shown off a prototype tablet which measured 20 inches diagonally and ran Windows 8. The real show stealing highlight though happened to be the fact that it sported a 4K resolution display, which for the uninitiated, is 3840x2560 pixels, giving it a pixel density of 231 ppi.

If the latest reports are the believed, it would seem that both Panasonic and Microsoft are readying the 4K Windows 8 tablet for a consumer release sometime this year.

Given the tablet’s size and resolution, it would work splendidly for artists and architects and other such professionals who require large real estate to work on digital artwork. The Panasonic-Microsoft tablet could also work well in business offices as interactive user interfaces for kiosks etc.

As of now, all we know about the tablet is that it has a 20-inch screen and runs Windows 8 on a 4K-resolution LCD. We are not sure whether this is a Windows RT tablet, Windows 8 Pro. We don’t even know what sort of processor, RAM or storage this tablet has as of yet, but given the Panasonic is reportedly readying this for a release this year, we expect more details to be coming out soon.

Transparent 3D computer unveiled

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

LONDON: A transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content has been unveiled at the Technology, Education and Design (TED) conference in Los Angeles.

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

Allowing people to interact with machines in the same way they do with solid objects could make computing much more intuitive, he told the BBC.

He can see the system coming into general use within a decade.

The system consists of a transparent LED display with built-in cameras, which track the user's gestures and eye movements.

The design was inspired by what he sees as a human need to interact with things.

"Spatial memory, where the body intuitively remembers where things are, is a very human skill," he said.

Translating this to the digital world will enable people to use computers more easily as well as complete more complex tasks.

"If you are working on a document you can pick it up and flip through it like a book," he said.

For more precise tasks, where hand gestures are not accurate, there is a touchpad. It will allow, for example architects to manipulate 3D models.