IntellectBeat

InFocus has launched its new smartphone - Bingo 50 - in India. Priced at Rs 7499, the InFocus Bingo 50 will be available exclusively on Snapdeal. The registration for the phone starts from March 15. It will go on sale from March 21. The InFocus Bingo 50 comes with 8 megapixel front and rear cameras. The rear camera on the Bingo 50 sports the Samsung S5K3H7 camera module with an f2/2 aperture, auto Focus and LED Flash. Other features include a 5-inch HD display, quad-core processor, 3 GB of RAM, 16 GB built-in storage(expandable up to 64 GB), 2500 mAh battery. This dual-SIM 4G phone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The Bingo 50 will come in Sandstone Grey and Leather Black variants.

Samsung at its pre-MWC 2016 event launched its Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge, and reportedly sold 100,000 units within the first two days on its home turf recently. Now, a new rumour about the smaller Samsung Galaxy S7 Mini has started making rounds on the Web. It is worth mentioning that while the Samsung Galaxy S6 Mini was also rumoured last year, it never saw the light of the day so the following piece of information for the Galaxy S7 Mini too should be taken with a pinch of salt. The last mini version of the 'S' series handset we saw was the Galaxy S5 Mini. A report coming from Taiwan suggests that the rumoured Samsung Galaxy S7 Mini smartphone will be looked upon as a competitor to the much-talked-about iPhone SE handset, which is likely to launch on March 21. The Galaxy S7 Mini is also said to be the first 'Mini' smartphone to feature high-end specifications, says Apple Daily website. The Samsung Galaxy S7 Mini will reportedly spor...

In addition to natively supporting cross-platform play between Xbox One and Windows 10 games that use Xbox Live, Microsoft will now enable developers to support cross-network play as well. This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks. Xbox Live players, however, will always have the option of choosing to play only with other Xbox Live players. The company has also announced that Psyonix's Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of this new capability by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well. Steam and the PlayStation Network had both previously supported cross-platform and cross-network play between console and PC, a feature proven technically feasible since mass-market titles such as 2000's "4x4 Evolution" and "Phant...

Chinese mobile device maker Xiaomi confirmed that it has initiated a process to set up single-brand retail stores and expects to complete the same in the next few weeks. "We have initiated the process and submitted a few documents online. However, this is very preliminary and the process will only be completed over the next few weeks, after which we will be sharing more details," Xiaomi said in an e-mail response. The move follows US technology major Apple's similar application in India. The company sells its devices through select e-commerce platforms and retail stores. India is one of the largest markets for Xiaomi globally, which assembles devices like Redmi 2 and Redmi Note at the manufacturing facility of Foxconn, a leading contract manufacturer. According to research firm IDC, shipments in India grew 28.8 per cent yoy to 103.6 million units in 2015 compared with 10.1 per cent growth for the global market. Last year, the government had relaxed the foreign direct...

Lenovo has launched its recently-announced K5 Plus smartphone in India at a price of Rs 8,499. The new phone will be available via open sale exclusively on Flipkart from March 23. Encased in a metal body, the Lenovo K5 Plus features a 5-inch full HD display, 13 megapixel rear camera, and a 5 megapixel front camera. The phone weighs 142 grams and has a thickness of 7.9mm. Under its hood is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 616 64-bit octa-core processor paired with 2 GB of RAM. It has an internal storage of 16 GB (expandable up to 128 GB via microSD card). The dual-SIM, dual LTE phone includes stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos, OTG support, and a 2750 mAh removable battery. It will come in a choice of three colors - silver, gold, grey. The Vibe K5 PLus comes with Lenovo's TheaterMax technology, which is said to convert any multimedia content on the Vibe K5 Plus into an immersive one, thereby giving users a virtual large screen cinematic experience when viewed through a VR headset. Th...

Google's artificial intelligence (AI) program AlphaGo has been awarded the highest Go grandmaster rank, reserved for those whose ability at the ancient board game borders on "divinity", South Korea's Go Association said Tuesday. The association announced the award before the final game of AlphaGo's five-match series with South Korean grandmaster Lee Se-Dol, with the computer currently holding an unassailable 3-1 advantage. AlphaGo was given an honorary "ninth dan" professional ranking, equivalent to that held by Lee who has 18 international titles to his name and is widely considered one of the greatest Go players of the modern era. "Neither man nor machine has ever received a honorary professional dan certificate to date, although many people have received honorary amateur certificates", an association spokeswoman told AFP. The citation on the certificate, serial-numbered 001, said it was given in recognition of AlphaGo's "sincere...

You can dunk Samsung's new smartphones in water, but don't drop them on a sidewalk, a new study finds. SquareTrade, a company that offers extended-protection plans for gadgets, said the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge still functioned after being submerged in water for 30 minutes. Audio was "permanently muffled and distorted" after the dunking, but the Samsung phones still outlasted Apple's iPhones in SquareTrade's water tests. The study, released on Monday, also found that Samsung's new phones are more prone to breaking than the iPhone 6S, which survived 30 seconds in a tumbling test chamber, similar to a dryer without heat. The test is meant to mimic repeated drops phones often face. Both Samsung models had minor cracks on the screens and significant damage to their backs. The iPhone 6S Plus, a larger version of the 6S, did worse. Its screen completely shattered in SquareTrade's tests. The screens of all four phones cracked when dropped face down on a sidew...

Social networking giant Facebook is using its artificial intelligence(AI) technology and resources to map the entire Earth and launch the world's most detailed population maps that will help it beam cheap Internet to remote areas. To begin with, the Facebook AI team crunched 14.6 billion images of maps from across 20 countries, including India, covering 21.6 million sq kms to come up with the first detailed map of human settlement for these countries. "This is an impressive project from our team developing solar-powered planes for beaming down Internet connectivity and our AI research team. Many people live in remote communities and accurate data on where people live doesn't always exist," wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a latest post. The 20 countries mapped were Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine and Uzb...

You can dunk Samsung's new smartphones in water, but don't drop them on a sidewalk, a new study finds. SquareTrade, a company that offers extended-protection plans for gadgets, said the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge still functioned after being submerged in water for 30 minutes. Audio was "permanently muffled and distorted" after the dunking, but the Samsung phones still outlasted Apple's iPhones in SquareTrade's water tests. The study, released Monday, also found that Samsung's new phones are more prone to breaking than the iPhone 6s, which survived 30 seconds in a tumbling test chamber, similar to a dryer without heat. The test is meant to mimic repeated drops phones often face. Both Samsung models had minor cracks on the screens and significant damage to their backs. The iPhone 6s Plus, a larger version of the 6s, did worse. Its screen completely shattered in SquareTrade's tests. The screens of all four phones cracked when dropped face down on a ...