IntellectBeat

Microsoft is opening up pre-orders for HoloLens development edition today. "Broad consumer availability is further down the line," says Microsoft's Alex Kipman, but today developers can start to pre-order the device for $3,000. Microsoft started applications for the development kits back in October, and the company says it will now invite developers to purchase the HoloLens development edition as a result. HoloLens dev kits will start shipping to the US and Canada on March 30th, allowing developers to start creating games and apps for the headset. Microsoft has revealed the exact hardware specifications for HoloLens today, alongside what's included in the box. Microsoft is bundling seven apps and games on the Hololens for developers, and it's hoping that these basic experiences will encourage developers to create their own apps to really demonstrate what the HoloLens is capable of. Microsoft's March 30th launch date also coincides with the first day of the ...

WIth all the leaks and rumors coming thick and fast about the Galaxy A9 Pro, it looks like the time for its official announcement is very near. Earlier this month this bigger sibling of the Galaxy A9 was spotted on GFXBench, and now this upgraded variant of Galaxy A9 has found its way to AnTuTu, confirming to the world the upgrades it will bring over the Galaxy A9. The Galaxy A9 Pro is revealed to be equipped with a Snapdragon 652 chipset and 32GB of internal storage. Though Antutu doesn’t mention the display size, but an earlier GFXBench listing pegs the phone to come sporting a 5.5-inch display, but rumours peg the phone to come with a 6 display. The A9 pro will also get a bump in RAM, moving to 4GB from the 3GB chip found on the Galaxy A9. The phone’s camera gets an upgrade and moves up from a 13MP primary camera to 16MP. This will also mean the A9 Pro won’t have the same sensor as the rest of the A (2016) lineup. The A9 Pro comes with an 8-Megapixel camera...

As a part of Holi Celebration offer, Reliance has announced price drop for its existing smartphones. The LYF phones that will receive price cut are- Earth 1, Water 1, Water 2, Flame 1 and Wind 6. The company has also announced addition of three new smartphones to the LYF portfolio, namely, Flame 2, Wind 4 and Water 7. The company was planning to launch these devices in later half of March, but these new phones will now be available to buy across retail stores in the next few days. With the launch of three new models, the LYF portfolio now consists of 8 phones with price starting from Rs. 4,999. Out of the three new models announced today, the cheapest one is the Flame 2 which carries price tag of Rs. 4999. It comes with 4G LTE support with VoLTE. The LYF Wind 4 is backed up by a 4000 mAh battery while Water 7 features an optical fingerprint sensor for additional security. The details on specifications and features of the new models are sc...

Officials at the University of California Berkeley said that they were alerting 80,000 people, including current and former students, faculty and vendors of a cyber attack on a system that stores social security and bank account numbers. The news comes just more than a week after a Southern California hospital paid hackers $17,000 in the digital currency Bitcoin to regain control of their computer systems after a so-called "ransomware" attack. The San Francisco Bay Area university said there was no evidence that attackers actually took any personal information, but that it was still alerting the 80,000 individuals to be on the lookout for misuse of their information. The school said a hacker or hackers gained access to its financial management software in late December due to a security flaw present when the system is updating. Officials have notified law enforcement, including the FBI, and hired a private computer investigation company. The university said among the pote...

In the Hindu Kush mountains craftswomen painstakingly stitch flowing scarves, skilled artisans who were unable to sell their products beyond the remote region until mobile internet came to Pakistan and dropped the market into the palms of millions of previously marginalised people. The women of northern Chitral are among the unlikely profiteers of an e-commerce boom since 3G and 4G Internet arrived in the deeply conservative Muslim country in 2014, suddenly able to market and sell traditional products without leaving their villages or in some cases even their homes. "The online platform eliminates the middleman," says Nasrin Samad, the entrepreneur behind the artisan brand Kai, which works with women across the region. Now, Chitrali women "have access to a global audience," she says. Kai products are sold on polly & other stories (pollyandotherstories.com), which launched late in 2015 to connect traditional artisans like those in Chitral with consumers hungr...

In the very last second before liftoff Sunday, SpaceX scrubbed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket to send a communications satellite into orbit, marking the third delay since last week. A fuel problem forced the sudden delay, following a postponement -- known as a hold -- earlier in the evening due to a ship that ventured into the waters off Cape Canaveral, Florida, said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. " Launch aborted on low thrust alarm. Rising oxygen temps due to hold for boat and helium bubble triggered alarm ," Musk said on Twitter . The Falcon 9's engines are powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene. In June 2015, the Falcon 9 exploded some two minutes after launch, a failure that was blamed on a faulty strut that held helium bottles in place. The ship moved away in time for a launch attempt, and the countdown went almost to ignition before it was cut off suddenly. "We were counting down, we got to just about T-0 when we had an abort," at 7:21 pm (0021 GMT) said S...

Addicts in a new study at the University of Houston will strap on virtual reality headsets and navigate a "heroin cave" to help them try and kick their addictions. Researchers are looking to see if making their way through a simulated house party crammed with stimuli aimed at evoking cravings for the drug will help better equip those who suffer from addiction to do so in the real world. The heroin environments, a house party where the drug is snorted and one where it is injected, took nearly a year to complete to ensure realism, its creators said. The study from the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work uses an eight-camera infrared system that projects life-sized 3D avatars and environments with which participants can interact in a virtual reality chamber known as the "heroin cave." Details from an open pizza box on the back patio to cash tossed on a table next to a cigarette lighter are meant to augment sensations and trigger a heroin craving. ...

Commemorating the 112th birth anniversary of renowned Bharatnatyam dancer Rukmani Devi Arundale, search giant Google has posted a doodle on its India homepage. Rukmani Devi Arundale was not only a Bharatnatyam dancer and choreographer but also worked as an activist for animal rights and welfare. What was considered as a low and vulgar art in the early 1920s, it was Rukmani Devi who is attributed for reviving the classical dance form from its original 'sadhir' style and presenting it on stage despite strong public protests. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1956 and the 'Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship' in 1967. It is also believed that she had declined the chair of the President of India in 1977, once offered by Morarji Desai, the then Prime Minister of India. Today's doodle, dedicated to Rukmani Devi illustrates the popular dancer holding one of the Bharatnatyam mudras. The doodle is visible only on India homepage.

China will send its second orbiting space lab Tiangong-2 into space in the third quarter of this year, which is expected to dock with a cargo ship next year, authorities said on Sunday. As part of the country's space lab programme, China also plans to launch the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts on board, in the fourth quarter of this year to dock with Tiangong-2, Xinhua news agency reported. After its first test flight in the Wenchang satellite launch centre in Hainan province, a next-generation Long March-7 rocket will put the country's first cargo ship Tianzhou-1, which literally means "heavenly vessel" into space in the first half of 2017 to dock with Tiangong-2 and conduct experiments. During the process, China will verify key technologies including cargo transportation, on-orbit propellant resupply, astronauts' medium-term stay, as well as conduct space science and application experiments on a relatively large scale. China's mul...