IntellectBeat

Hours after German site Game Star confirmed that once Xbox One exclusive Quantum Break is coming to Windows 10 PC, it seems that Microsoft will be bringing more of its exclusives to the platform. According to Gamespot, Gears of War 4, ReCore, Scalebound, and Fable Legends are coming to Windows 10 PC as well. While ReCore and Fable Legends were already announced for Windows 10 PC earlier, Scalebound and Gears of War 4 were not. No indication on release dates for either title were mentioned. We'd speculate that Scalebound might just end up being released on the same day and date as the Xbox One version, and there will perhaps be a period of timed exclusivity for Gears of War 4 as the franchise is perceived as an Xbox exclusive. Similarly, there's been no information on how either title would perform on PC vis-a-vis their Xbox One versions. At the time of writing, Gamespot has  removed  any mention of Gears of War 4 and Scalebound coming to Windows 10 PC. Suffice to say the s...

Google last week detailed its Marshmallow update for the Android Wear operating system but seems to have missed one feature, Doze for the smartwatches. The update changelog by Google last week mentioned battery life improvements but failed to reveal anything about the inclusion of the Doze feature. In the meantime however, v1.4 update release notes by Motorola for its new Moto 360 smartwatch reveal an Android 6.0 Marshmallow feature for smartphones has come to the wearable platform - Doze. It will improve the battery life on wearables like it does for handsets. The release note say that Doze "recognises when your Moto 360 is idle and automatically goes into a deep sleep state. How does it work? When your watch is not charging and not in use, Doze mode shuts down unnecessary background processes to optimise power." The Android v1.4 update is based on API 23 and Android 6.0 Marshmallow, iterating over API 22. Wayne Piekarski, a Senior Developer A...

Google has rolled out a bunch of updates for its Google Forms,Keep, and Clock Web intefaces and applications. The updates bring numerous tweaks and useful tools making it easy for users to access various functions or gather information quickly. The search giant has introduced an enhanced user interface for its Google Forms in the update, bringing templates such as quizzes and customer feedback, apart from support for new add-ons. It also includes update for Google Apps for Work and Education users. As a part of the update, Form creators will now receive real-time email notifications when someone completes and submits their form. The feature is switched off by default. Creators can additionally access individual responses from within the Form editor. Furthermore, the Google Form creators will be able to view whom they have sent their forms to and who still needs to respond. For Google Apps for Work and Education users, the update will bring Work and Education-related templat...

Apple's dominance in the United States may not last so long. Rival Samsung  and other  Android smartphone OEMs are slowly growing their presence in the country. The gap between the market capture of Apple and Samsung isn't that wide any more, as per market research numbers for 2015. Parks Associates, a research and consulting firm,  reports  that  Apple dominates the market share in the United States with 40 percent capture in 2015. The company right below it, however, isn't so far away. According to the firm's numbers, Samsung accounted for 31 percent of the market in 2015. It adds that a third of  iPhone  users own a model that's more than two years old, compared to 30 percent of Samsung users.  To put the number into perspective, as per comScore's data  from August 2015, Apple had a 44.1 percent share of the US market, and Samsung had 27.4 percent market share. This does hint a decline in iPhone's popularity in the United States. Oth...

Vizag port in Andhra Pradesh is set to run its entire operations on solar power from next month, its chairman M T Krishna Babu said on Thursday. Visakhapatnam Port Trust has already commissioned 2MW solar capacity and will add another 8MW by March 20, he said at a roadshow in Hyderabad ahead of Maritime India Summit 2016, to be held in Mumbai in April. "We will be the first major port in the country to run entire port operations on solar energy," Krishna Babu said, adding VPT has spent Rs. 60 crores to set up the plants. Devendra K Rai, Director, Union Ministry of Shipping, said the target is to operationalise 135 MW of solar power projects by 2020 in eight major ports - JNPT, Paradip, Kamarajar, Kandla, V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Kolkata and New Mangalore. He said 50MW of wind energy projects are also planned to be developed in V O Chidambaranar, Chennai and New Mangalore ports during the period. Speaking to PTI, Rai also said that consulting firm McKinsey has s...

Kerala-based jewellery brand Kalyan Jewellers Wednesday announced its foray in the e-commerce segment and will offer gold and diamond jewellery on retail major Flipkart's e-commerce platform. The products will be available from Friday, the company said in a statement. Kalyan will make available its popular jewellery designs in gold and diamond encompassing rings, pendants, earrings and necklaces ranging from Rs. 3,500 to Rs. 2 lakh, it added. Kalyan Jewellers Chairman and MD T S Kalyanaraman said online jewellery sales is growing at more than 70 percent per annum, valued at more than Rs. 1,200 crores. The foray into e-commerce provides Kalyan with the opportunity to target discretionary expenditure of customers especially in the gifting segment, he said in a company statement. Over a thousand designs from Kalyan Jewellers from across the country and beyond will be made available on  Flipkart . Hallmarked gold and certified diamond jewellery ranging from Rs. 3,500 to Rs. 2 lak...

After TRAI's decision on discriminatory pricing, Facebook has announced that it has scrapped its controversial Free Basics initiative from India. Earlier this week, TRAI issued regulations in favour of net neutrality ruling against differential pricing and also said that a per day penalty of Rs 50,000 will be levied for discriminatory tariffs charged by service providers, subject to a maximum of Rs 50 lakh. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed his disappointment with TRAI's decision but said that the company was still "working to break down barriers to connectivity in India and around the world." However, a Facebook spokesperson told IBNLive in an emailed statement, "Free Basics is no longer available to people in India." In its regulations, TRAI has made it clear it "providing limited free data that enables a user to access the entire internet is not prohibited." This is in contrast to the idea behind Free Basics (earlier named Internet.or...

Got hundreds of Facebook friends you hardly know? Now is a good time to do some digital cleanup, while the year is still fresh. Review your security and privacy settings, and make sure those casual acquaintances you met at a bar eons ago aren't still getting the most intimate details of your life. Get rid of games and apps that might have latched onto your account years ago, but that you no longer use. Here are six cleanup tips: 1. Secure your account You've doubtless heard you should have a strong password. It's especially important for email and social-networking accounts because so much of your digital life revolves around them. Plus, many other services let you log on using your Facebook account, so if that gets compromised, so will your other accounts. Because passwords are tough to manage, it's best not to rely solely on them. Turn on what Facebook calls Login Approvals. It's in the account settings under "Security." After you do so, you'r...

Lava has introduced its latest affordable smartphone, called the Lava A71 4G. As far as the specifications of the phone are concerned, it is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor clubbed with 1GB of RAM. The phone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system, which is upgradable to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. On the front, there is a 5-inch HD display with resolution of 1280×720 pixels and pixel dennity of 294ppi. The screen features Corning Gorilla Glass for protection against scratches. It houses 8GB of internal memory, which is expandable up to 32GB via microSD card. On camera front, the phone sports a 5 mega pixel camera on the rear and a 2 mega pixel camera on the front. Both primary and secondary cameras are accompanied with LED flash for capturing better shots in low lighting conditions. Backed up by a 2500mAh battery, it is claimed to deliver up to 13 hours of talk time on 2G networks and 11 hours of talk time on 3G networks. Connectivity options which the dual SIM phone o...

Two of the world's biggest TV makers -- LG and Samsung -- are apparently ready to start progressively phasing out production of new 3D televisions in the future, reports South Korean news site ET News, essentially signing the death warrant of 3D technology in the consumer market. A total of 40 per cent of LG's TVs made in 2015 came with 3D functionality. This could drop to 20 per cent in 2016, before being cut further. In fact, the manufacturer may keep 3D for premium models only in future TV ranges. Samsung's decision is apparently even more drastic, with reports of no new TVs getting 3D technology. However, neither LG nor Samsung has yet confirmed these claims. Since the first models launched in 2010, 3D TVs have struggled to win over consumers, put off by the need for special equipment that's costly and not necessarily compatible from one brand to the next. Plus, the hassle of wearing 3D glasses and the eye strain they can cause soon curbed the public's enthusi...

Vodafone launched its high-speed 4G service in select pockets of the city and said the remaining areas will be covered by March-end. Vodafone, the largest telecom operator in the megapolis with over 33 per cent market share in terms of customers, said it will charge only 3G rates for the time being. The operator also said it will offer free upgrades to 4G and extra data for Vodafone Red customers for a month. The company's Managing Director and Chief Executive Sunil Sood, however, admitted that faster adoption will take time as only 15 per cent of its close to 9 million customers here have 4G-enabled handsets. The focus will be on selling bundled services to push upgrades, he added. Sood said that only 1 per cent of the close to a billion mobile handsets in use across the country have LTE or 4G compatible handsets. Around 30 per cent of active mobile users have no data-compatible handsets at all, he said. Only 4 per cent of Vodafone's close to 190 million customers have ...

US company Cinemersia is launching a new consumer service VR Being There that will bring a new angle to preserving that special day. "With the eruption of VR into the consumer market," said David Marlett, principal of Cinemersia, "it makes sense for every wedding to now be captured in full spherical 360 degrees. Brides and grooms will forever be able to return to the middle of their ceremonies, effectively 'being there' again and again, looking around, seeing their attendants and guests." Cinemersia is a live-action VR cinema production company and the aim of the new service is to work with wedding planners plus traditional photographers and film crews to record the event from every angle in an unobtrusive manner. "Wedding photography and videography are terrific for what they are, but nothing short of VR can place you back there, in the moment, preserving that forever," said Marlett. Even without a proper VR headset, VR footage can still be vi...

Versace is getting in the mood for Valentine's Day with the launch of a romantic new emoji app and a capsule collection of t-shirts. The Versace Emoji app sees the brand's iconic Medusa turned into a smiley face with a range of different playful expressions and styles. Users can embellish photos from their own library or create original images using various emoji stickers, backgrounds, filters and text color options. The app, which is free, is available for both iOS and Android . The fashion house has also launched a capsule collection of emoji t-shirts in black and white, printed with the Medusa Emoji wearing sunglasses or with hearts for eyes. The styles are available in both men's and women's sizes. "I love how the new Versace Emoji app lets everyone in the world express themselves and share their feelings," says designer Donatella Versace. "To have our own Versace Emoji is a real treat for Valentine's Day, and I can't wait to begin creating...

Palmer Luckey doesn't just want to sell a bunch of virtual reality headsets. He wants buyers to use them every day. The founder of Oculus told a group of developers working on VR content Wednesday that the immersive medium's success should be measured by time— not necessarily money — spent on it. "We can sell a bunch of things that will sit on a desk and stay dusty," he said on stage at the Vision Summit. "I wouldn't consider that successful. If we can make things that people use every day, that's a good sign for the future of virtual reality as an ecosystem." Oculus' technology surrounds wearers' eyes with 360-degree views of virtual worlds that are either created inside a computer or captured with several cameras. The headset tracks a users' movement and can be used with Oculus' wand-like Touch controllers to create an interactive experience. The Facebook-owned company is scheduled to launch the Rift headset March 28. Oculus inc...

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak had a front row seat as the personal computer began to reshape society. So it made perfect sense to him to bring a convention meshing technology with pop culture to Silicon Valley. The convergence will occur March 18-20 in San Jose, California, with the debut of Silicon Valley Comic Con. It's a new twist on an idea that has brought together fans of science fiction, fantasy and superheroes at packed shows held around the world for years. "I don't like doing the same thing as everyone else," Wozniak told The Associated Press Wednesday. So he teamed with four other partners to try something slightly different. Throwing technology into the mix should ratchet up the nerd vibe that ripples through all Comic Cons. A sold-out crowd of about 30,000 engineers, entrepreneurs and pop-culture connoisseurs is expected to swarm into the Silicon Valley event. The agenda includes a panel devoted to the quantum realm and an "app alley" fea...

Twitter 's woes deepened Wednesday as the struggling messaging platform said it failed to add users in the past quarter, adding to concerns it is lagging in the fast-moving world of social networks. The San Francisco group said its base of monthly active users was 320 million at the end of last year, unchanged from the previous quarter. And excluding those who follow Twitter using text messaging, the user base declined slightly to 305 million from 307 million in the previous quarter. Twitter, which has never earned a profit, said its loss in the past quarter narrowed to $90.2 million from $125 million a year earlier, but the market was focused more on its user growth. Twitter shares dropped more than 3 per cent in after-market trades that followed release of the report, extending a steep decline that has eroded some 75 per cent of its value from peak levels. The latest report showed revenue climbed 48 per cent to $710 million in the quarter when compared to the same period a ...

Yahoo Inc announced Wednesday it will lay off 107 employees in the first of what is expected to be more than 1,500 job cuts. The layoffs take effect April 11 and affected employees received 60-day advance notice of the move, Yahoo said in a notice filed with the California Employment Development Department. The layoffs were spread across a range of departments and job titles. Yahoo shares closed up 1 per cent at $27.10 on Wednesday and are down about 18.5 per cent so far this year. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer said during the company's fourth quarter earnings call this month it will cut roughly 15 percent of its workforce as part of a strategy to revamp its core Internet business. Yahoo had about 11,000 employees as of June 30, according to its website, down from a Dec. 31, 2014, total of about 12,500 full-time employees and what it called fixed-term contractors.