IntellectBeat

"We feel OS innovation has stagnated or stalled," said Vikram Natarajan, Cyanogen's SVP of global partnerships. "Apps have been stuck for a long time." The idea with MOD, then, is to move far beyond what apps are capable of. Even on Android, which is far less restrictive than iOS, there are portions of the OS that normals apps simple can't touch, like the aforementioned dialer or certain parts of the Android lock screen. Naturally, the company launched all new APIs to get developers onboard, and it also announced the MOD Ready Program, which helps phone makers and carriers to create their own mods. You wouldn't be blamed for viewing this whole announcement as an ideal Trojan horse for bringing Microsoft's services to Android. While the MOD platform will be open to all developers, the Redmond software giant is essentially Cyanogen's launch partner for the whole endeavor. Microsoft has also created a mod that lets you quickly jot something down in...

Researchers have developed a digital "magic wand" hardware device to improve home healthcare and to prevent hackers from stealing your personal data. Wireless and mobile health technologies have great potential to improve quality and access to care, reduce costs and improve health, said one of the researchers David Kotz, professor of computer science at Dartmouth College in the US. "But these new technologies, whether in the form of software for smartphones or specialised devices to be worn, carried or applied as needed, also pose risks if they're not designed or configured with security and privacy in mind," Kotz noted. One of the main challenges is that most people do not know how to set up and maintain a secure network in their home, which can lead to compromised or stolen data or potentially allow hackers access to critical devices such as heart rate monitors or dialysis machines. In the new Dartmouth-based project, the researches developed "Wanda...

Monopoly has got a fresh makeov Iconic board game Monopoly ditches paper money for credit cards er with the iconic board game's new cashless version being launched that uses credit cards instead of paper money in a bid to stay relevant for the tech-savvy generation. There was a time when true success was measured by the height of your Monopoly cash stack but these days, it is calculated with your credit score. In an attempt to keep the classic board game relevant to the millennial lifestyle, makers Hasbro have dropped the dollar bills for bank cards in its newest Monopoly edition "Ultimate Banking," which will roll out later this year. In the game, players will tap their plastic on a small credit card reader dubbed the "Ultimate Banking Unit" to purchase properties and pay rent. The bank cards will also track wealth and rising property values, Hasbro said. However, whether the move will payoff or not is not known. In 2007, Hasbro unveiled a similar concept ...

Some victims of the San Bernardino attack will file a legal brief in support of the US government's attempt to force Apple Inc to unlock the encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters, a lawyer representing the victims said on Sunday. Stephen Larson, a former federal judge who is now in private practice, told Reuters that the victims he represents have an interest in the information which goes beyond the Justice Department's criminal investigation. "They were targeted by terrorists, and they need to know why, how this could happen," Larson said. Larson said he was contacted a week ago by the Justice Department and local prosecutors about representing the victims, prior to the dispute becoming public. He said he will file an amicus brief in court by early March. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the matter on Sunday. Larson declined to say how many victims he represents. Fourteen people died and 22 others were wounded in the shooting att...

With his rickety bicycle and sackcloth mail bag, 62-year-old Indian postman Chet Ram does not look like a worker at the vanguard of an e-commerce revolution delivering everything from mobile phones to cow manure. He pedals miles each day in rural Rajasthan state, ferrying packages to villages and takes payments in cash because most of his customers do not have bank accounts, let alone credit cards. While in the United States online giant Amazon and its ilk experiment with futuristic drones and one-hour deliveries, in rural India e-commerce retains a distinctly old-fashioned feel. Yet the dawn of online shopping is changing the lives of people in rural areas -- and is breathing new life into India Post, the ailing state-run postal network, which has struggled with a huge deficit for years. In the past two years the 160-year-old postal giant has tied up with 400 e-commerce companies including Amazon and Indian giant Flipkart to deliver a diverse range of goods. It deploys its vast n...

China's Lenovo Group Ltd will launch a global wireless service for its mobile devices to cut roaming costs for its users, it said on Sunday. The service, called Lenovo Connect, allows users to travel to 50 countries and use their devices at local prices on mobile internet, without installing new SIM cards, Lenovo said in a statement on Sunday. For years, roaming or extra charges for the use of telecoms services outside a person's home country have been a source of consumers' ire as many were confronted with high phone bills after returning from holiday. The European Union has agreed to abolish mobile roaming charges across the 28-country bloc by June 2017, requiring telecom operators to treat all internet traffic equally. Lenovo said it could offer the service through its mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) activities, which currently has 11 million users globally. MVNOs are operators who rent access on bigger rivals' networks and tend to sell cheaper mobile pl...

Chinese electronics giant Huawei on Sunday unveiled its first personal computer, a convertible tablet aimed at the premium business market that will compete with Apple's iPad Pro and the Microsoft Surface. The thin MateBook has a 12-inch pixel display, weighs just 640 grammes (1.4 pounds) without the keyboard although it looks heavier, and has a battery life of ten hours under standard use. "Business people need a long lasting battery," said Richard Yu, Huawei's consumer devices chief, as he unveiled the new device in Barcelona on the eve of the start of the Mobile World Congress, the top annual trade show for wireless devices. The tablet fastens to its keyboard case using magnets and it features a fingerprint reader. The entry-level model with 128 GB storage starts at 799 euros ($890) in Europe with the top model coming in at 1,799 euros. Yu said last month that Huawei hoped to overtake US rival Apple and Korea's Samsung to become the world's leading ma...

At the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, electronics maker LG unveiled a new type of virtual reality headset that can be folded. The foldable design makes the LG 360 VR easy to carry and aid in watching VR content on-the-go. The device weighs 118g and is claimed to be just one-third as heavy as competing VR glasses. The virtual reality eyewear has been designed to work with an LG smartphone and unlike other VR headsets, the LG 360 VR doesn't require a smartphone to be inserted in the headset. It still works with a smartphone but one that is attached by a cable. The LG 360 VR offers 639 ppi and akin to Samsung VR device, it also processes images using the smartphone but instead of displaying them on the phone screen, images are sent to separate, lighter displays in the headset's eyepieces. The device is compatible with 360-degree images and videos captured with LG's own 360 360-degree camera as well as all Google Cardboard content.

Alongside the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, Samsung, at the Galaxy Unpacked 2016 event, also announced the launch of the Gear 360 camera, a 360-degree camera with front and back lenses to stitch together 360-degree videos for VR devices and apps. The Samsung Gear 360 is equipped with dual fisheye lenses, with both having 15 megapixel image sensors, giving users the ability to capture high-resolution (3840x1920) 360-degree video that also supports 30 megapixel still images. As explained by the company, users will also able to shoot 180-degree wide angle videos and images with only using one side of the camera lens. "Built for any time of day, Gear 360 offers Bright Lens F2.0, which creates high resolution images even in low-light conditions, where users can create full panoramic videos," says Samsung. The Gear 360 features is said to be compatible with a wider selection of accessories and mounts currently available on the market. When Gear 360 is synced with a Samsung smartphone,...