New Google Glass Teardown Claims Device Costs Only $150 to Make.

New Google Glass Teardown Claims Device Costs Only $150 to Make. A complete teardown of Google Glass, Google's $1,500 wearable computer, conducted earlier this month reveals that the price of the components adds up to just $152.47.  The teardown, performed by IHS, found that the most expensive part of the Glass is its frame, which the company priced at $22.

"Today’s Google Glass feels like a prototype," said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking services for IHS, in a statement. "The design employs many off-the-shelf components that could be further optimized. If a mass market for the product is established, chipmakers are expected to offer more integrated chipsets specific to the application that will greatly improve all aspects of performance, including processing speed, energy efficiency, weight and size."

The second-most expensive component of Glass, according to IHS, is its square lens, made by Taiwan’s Himax Technologies, at a cost of $20.

A similar teardown of the device was conducted in April by Teardown.com, which came up with a figure of $79.78 for the total cost of the device's components, a figure Google disputed.

"While we appreciate Teardown.com's attempt to guess the cost of Glass, their estimate is wildly off," a spokesperson from Google told the website eWEEK, earlier this month. "Glass — parts and all — costs significantly more than their estimate."

However, at just $70 more,  IHS Technology's estimate isn't likely to quell the chatter around the high price of Google Glass — a product the company says is still in beta testing — versus the cost to construct it.

But despite the wide margin between what IHS claims is Google's cost to build Glass and its price, the research company indicates that the device is worth more than the sum of its parts.

“[T]he vast majority of its cost is tied up in non-material costs that include non-recurring engineering (NRE) expenses, extensive software and platform development, as well as tooling costs and other upfront outlays," says Rassweiler. "When you buy Google Glass for $1,500, you are getting far, far more than just $152.47 in parts and manufacturing.”

This timing of this reveal of the new Google Glass teardown could turn out to be significant, as Google announced on Tuesday that it has decided to make the previously invitation-only wearable computing device available to all consumers without an invite.

Now, empowered with the knowledge that Glass costs around $150 to build, some fans of the device might think twice before parting with their $1,500.

Posted by : Gizmeon

BlackBerry planning new flagship smartphone

BlackBerry may be tech's fallen titan but the struggling Canadian company is planning a new flagship phone for one more roll of the dice. BlackBerry has hinted that several new devices are under development and the forthcoming handsets will be split between all-touch and QWERTY keyboard inputs. Speaking about its plans for the rest of the year, BlackBerry chief executive John Chen said one of the devices is of “flagship material”.

Exciting stuff. But the real question is has BlackBerry's ship sunk after sales hammerings from the likes of the iPhone 5S, HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S5? Commentators have suggested that the smartphone Chen is referring to is the keyboard sporting BlackBerry Q30 Windemere or the Q20 BlackBerry Classic. The latter was announced at Mobile World Congress earlier this year. At the time, it was said to have a late 2014 launch date.

Another interesting tidbit to come out of Chen’s comments is that BlackBerry currently has no plans to launch a wearable gadget. Would it be the quick fix turnaround that BlackBerry could do with? Let us know in the comments below or on the T3 Facebook page.

Posted by : Gizmeon

Google Challenged by 'Right to Be Forgotten' Ruling in Europe

Is Google responsible for links to old websites that can hurt your reputation? A top court in the European Union says the answer is yes.

The European Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that consumers have the "right to be forgotten" and can ask Google to remove damaging links. Google has said the ruling is "disappointing" and is tantamount to censorship. "We now need to take time to analyse the implications," a spokesperson told the BBC.

The case is based on a complaint by a Spanish man who argued that an auction note on his repossessed home damaged his reputation. Newspaper La Vanguardia published that information in 1998.

In a Facebook post, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding hailed the ruling as a "clear victory for the protection of personal data for Europeans."

This isn't the first time that Google's privacy methods have been challenged. A group of students in California is suing Google over the search giant's practice of scanning Gmail messages to glean advertising targeting information. Last month, Google announced it no longer scans students' emails.

Posted by : Gizmeon

Micromax Canvas Elanza 2 now available for Rs 9,999

Micromax Canvas Elanza 2 A121 is now available online for Rs 9,999. This smartphone has a 5-inch TFT HD IPS touchscreen display with 1280x720 HD resolution. The Elanza 2 is powered by a quad-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 mobile chipset and 1 GB RAM. The smartphone offers 4 GB on-board storage and has a memory card slot to accommodate up to 32 GB memory. Other features include Gravity Sensor and Proximity Sensor.

At its rear, Micromax has placed 8 megapixel autofocus camera and an LED flash. This camera can be used to record HD videos and click decent quality images. In the front is a 2 megapixel camera also with an autofocus feature.

The Micromax Canvas Elanza 2 A121 features 3G network support and offers WiFi as well as Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity. Location based services is powered with GPS chip inside. Micromax has packed a 2000 mAh capacity battery which might not be enough for such a large display.

Under Rs 10,000, currently there are many good devices including the Nokia X, Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2, Karbonn Titanium S5 Plus, Xolo Q900, and the Spice Stellar Pinnacle Pro to name a few.

Posted by : Gizmeon

World's slimmest smartphone Gionee Elife S5.5 hits India

World's slimmest smartphone Gionee Elife S5.5 hits India

The Gionee Elife S5.5 has a 5 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen with full HD resolution. Like other Gionee smartphones, it too comes with Android-based Amigo OS which is a heavily customised version of Android. Unlike the orthodox Android user interface where there is a home screen and a menu screen, here there is only a home screen.

The Gionee Elife S5.5 is armed with an octa-core 1.7 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM. As of now only one model of the phone with 16 GB internal storage has been announced which does not have any micro SD card slot.

The handset has a 13 megapixel rear camera and a 5 megapixel front camera. Besides, there is a 2,300 mAh non removable battery in the phone.

For connectivity, this 3G smartphone (with 42 Mbps download speed) comes with WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a micro USB port with USB on-the-go feature that would enable users to directly connect it with an external storage device like a pen drive via a 'male micro USB to female full USB' cable.

Posted by : Gizmeon

New application turns smartphone into health monitor

New application turns smartphone into health monitor

Researchers have developed a new smartphone app that monitors how heart and lung patients walk and can alert doctors when their symptoms worsen.

GaitTrack, an app developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U of I at Chicago, turns a smartphone into a sophisticated medical device.

Unlike other apps that merely count steps, GaitTrack uses eight motion parameters to perform a detailed analysis of a person's gait, or walking pattern, which can tell physicians much about a patient's cardiopulmonary, muscular and neurological health.

"Fitness apps and devices are tuned for healthy people," said Bruce Schatz, the head of medical information science and a professor of computer science at the U of I.

"They cannot accurately measure patients with chronic disease, who are the biggest medical market. A pedometer is not a medical device. But a cheap phone with GaitTrack software is," Schatz said.

According to Schatz, gait is sometimes called the "sixth vital sign" - after temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and blood oxygen level.

Gait speed involves several systems of the body working together in coordination, so changes in gait can be a sign of trouble in one or more systems.

Doctors often use an assessment called the six-minute walk test for patients with heart and lung disease, such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.

Patients with chronic disease often cannot be measured with typical pedometers since they tend to walk with shorter, more careful stridesBSE -1.66 %, or to shuffle, so specialised medical accelerometers are used.

The Illinois team used GaitTrack to administer six-minute walk tests to 30 patients with chronic lung disease and found that it monitored more accurately - and more cheaply - than the medical accelerometers.

In addition, they discovered that analysis of the gait data could predict lung function with 90 per cent accuracy, within an age group.

Schatz envisions the GaitTrack app running constantly in the background as a patient carries a phone.

The phone would periodically collect data, analyse it and keep tabs on the patient's status, alerting the patient or patient's doctor when it detects changes in gait that would indicate a decline in health so that treatment could be adjusted responsively.

The team published its findings in the journal Telemedicine and e-Health. 

Posted by : Gizmeon

Ready or not, Twitter's new profiles are coming.

Ready or not, Twitter's new profiles are coming.

Announced early last month, the profile update will soon be required for everyone on the service. Beginning May 28, all Twitter users will have the new profile, which has already been rolled out to new users and some existing users in the past month.

It's unclear how many people currently have the new profile, which features larger profile and header images, new timeline views and the ability to pin a tweet to the top of a profile page. It appears that a number of users are still using the old layout (and aren't happy about the impending switch).

The largest point of contention appears to be the new profile's resemblance to another popular social network: Facebook. Many users don't like the Facebook look, or prefer that Twitter distinguish between the two services more clearly. Both profiles include a larger, square profile picture, a cover image that spans the length of the feed, and the ability to Like or follow a user above the stream of content.

Posted by : Gizmeon