IntellectBeat

Acer on Thursday launched 10 new products including laptops, 2-in-1s, a Chromebook, Predator gaming devices, a smartphone, a fitness band, and more. The company at its New York event launched the Switch Alpha 12 2-in-1 laptop, Chromebook 14 for Work, Aspire S13 and R15 laptops, Predator 17x gaming notebook, Predator G1 compact gaming desktop, Predator Z1 gaming monitors, Liquid Leap fit fitness band, Liquid Zest Plus smartphone, and the Xplova X5 bike computer. Talking about the prices, the Acer Switch Alpha 12 will start at $599 and will be available in June this year. The Aspire S13 will be offered in Obsidian Black or Pearl White and will hit the shelves in May starting at $699. The Liquid Zest Plus smartphone will arrive later this year in the US at $250 (roughly Rs. 16,000). As for the Chromebook 14 for Work, the laptop's base model costs $349. For gamers, the new Predator devices will reach the US and the Europe in June. The Predator 17X and Z1 monitors will...

More and more people are set to explore the outer space in the coming years with technology offering greater chance than in the last six decades, Nasa astronaut Scott Parazynski said Ahmedabad Thursday. He was speaking on the topic 'Human Destiny in Space: Current & Future Prospects' at the Physical Research Laboratory Ahmedabad. "It is a very exciting time in the history as we are going to fly many more people, both scientists as well as tourists, into the space than we did in the last six decades," said Parazynski, who has travelled into the space five times as a  Nasa scientist. "If 550 people travelled into the space in the last six decades, we can expect 5,000 people to travel there in the next decade," he said, while sharing his experiences as an astronaut who has stayed in the space for more than eight weeks and spacewalked for 47 hours. "Imagine 5,000 people flying in the next one decade, and 50,000 in another decade. Space tourism prom...

Facebook is considering rolling out a feature that may allow users to make money from posts by letting them add a "tip jar". A Facebook's user survey hinted at several ways that users can make money or promote a cause on its website, including a "tip jar", branded content and taking a cut of the ad revenue Facebook earns from posts, The Verge reported on Thursday. The survey also asked users to indicate their interest in a "call to action" button, a way to let followers make donations and a "sponsor marketplace" to match users with advertisers, the report added. However, it is still unclear whether Facebook is rolling out this feature to all users or the company is making it available for only verified users. Currently, only publishers have been allowed to sell advertising inside its "Instant Articles" feature and Facebook recently clarified rules allowing posts sponsored by brands to be shared on verified pages. Facebook is a...

This year Google is marking Earth Day with a series of five doodles created by Google doodler Sophie Diao. Each of the doodles represent one of earth’s five major biomes: the tundra, forest, grasslands, desert, and coral reefs. "In each illustration, you’ll find one animal who’s been singled out for their 15 minutes of fame," Diao says in her post describing the doodles. Each time users visit the Google home page, they will randomly see one of the five doodles. The five doodles feature the tundra and polar bear, forest and red fox, grasslands and elephant, desert and tortoise, and aquatic/ocean, coral reef and octopus. The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970 and was founded by US Senator Gaylord Nelson. The original Earth Day was attended by about 20 million Americans. The Earth Day movement went global in 1990 and is now celebrated in over 175 countries across the globe. April 22 was officially designated as the international Earth Day by the United Nations ...

Xiaomi's Redmi Note 3, which so far has been available to buy only under flash sales, will now go on open sale on April 27. In other words, users will be able to buy the Redmi Note 3 on April 27 without having to pre-register for it. The company announced the April 27 open sale in a tweet, that said, "More #RedmiNote3 stocked, no registrations required for next sale! Get it 27 April, at 2 PM." https :// t.co /S0qbbVlM73  - More #RedmiNote3  stocked, no registrations required for next sale! Get it 27 April, at 2pm pic.twitter.com / zXVoWNNsCG — Redmi India (@RedmiIndia) April 21, 2016 While the phone comes in two variants - 16 GB (with 2 GB RAM) for Rs 9,999 and 32 GB (with 3 GB RAM) for Rs 11,999, users have been facing a tough time in buying the 32 GB model. During previous flash sales, while some prospective buyers couldn't even find the 32 GB variant listed, others said that they couldn't add the 32 GB variant to their carts. @XiaomiIndia  Devestating ...

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, tennis star Sania Mirza, actress Priyanka Chopra, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and founders of Flipkart Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal have been named by  Time magazine in its list of the '100 Most Influential People in the World'. Time 's annual list includes pioneers like American composer Lin Manuel-Miranda, leaders like IMF head Christine Lagarde and icons like Oscar-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio who are "exploring the frontiers of art, science, society, technology and more". Terming Rajan as "India's prescient banker,"  Time  said he is among a rare breed of "economic seers" who "steered" India through the global crisis and fallout, "playing a large role in making it one of the emerging-market stars of the moment". While serving as the youngest chief economist of the IMF from 2003 to 2006,  Time  said Rajan predicted the subprime crisis that would lead to the Great Recession, standing ...

A "cartel" of 4-5 telecom firms having a billion subscribers are making Rs 250 crore a day but not making investments on their network to improve services to check call drops, government told the Supreme Court on Thursday. "There is a cartel of four-five telecom companies having billion subscribers, who are making Rs 250 crore a day from outgoing calls. They have stupendous growth but they are making minimum investment on their network to improve the quality of service on their network to curb call drops," Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said. Rohatgi, appearing for TRAI before a bench of justices Kurian Joseph and R F Nariman, also defended the penalty imposed by the regulator on the telecom firms, saying it will be around Rs 280 crore and not thousands of crore as was being claimed by the service providers. "They are making around Rs one lakh crore a year from calls and the impact of penalty will be Rs 270-280 crore and not thousands of crore as claimed by...

Lab mice that spent just two weeks in space returned to Earth with early signs of liver disease, scientists have found, raising concerns about how long-term spaceflight and future missions to Mars may affect the health of astronauts. The mice studied spent 13.5 days aboard NASA's space shuttle Atlantis. When they returned, researchers collected liver samples. They found that spaceflight appeared to activate specialised liver cells that may go on to induce scarring and cause long-term damage to the organ. "We saw the beginning of nascent liver damage in just 13.5 days. The mice also lost lean muscle mass," said Karen Jonscher, from the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus. "We knew that astronauts often returned with diabetes-like symptoms but they usually resolved quickly," Jonscher said. "We have seen this same phenomenon in humans on bedrest - muscles atrophy and proteins break down into amino acids," she said. For years scientis...

Micromax has expanded its Canvas series of smartphones, with the launch of Micromax Canvas Spark 2 Plus. To refresh, the device was announced during the launch of Canvas 6 and Canvas 6 Pro flagship smartphones. Under the hood, the Canvas Spark 2 Plus is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor paired with 1GB of RAM. The phone runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. On the front, it features a 5-inch FWVGA display with 854×480 pixels resolution. On imaging front, the Canvas Spark 2 Plus sports a 5 mega pixel primary camera with LED flash and a 2 mega pixel front facing camera. The device houses 8GB of internal memory which can be expanded up to 32GB using microSD card. Backed up by a 2000mAh battery, it is claimed to deliver up to 17 hours of talk time and up to 350 hours of standby time. Connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. It will be available in Metallic Grey, Copper Gold and Champagne Gold co...