oPhone’s Smell Technology Comes To eBooks, Songs & Bracelets

The creator of the oPhone, Professor David Edwards of Vapor Communications has come up with three new products that use the oPhone technology in various ways. The first product is the oBook. When you are reading a book on an oPhone connected device such as an iPhone or iPad it shall recognise the “scent tag” on a page of the book and combine the scent chips or oChips to produce the aroma as described in the page of the book. Currently, the creators of the oBooks are showcasing Goldilocks & The Three Bears (the Smelly Version), at the Sensorial Storytelling exhibition at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York. 

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Next we have the oMusic and by now you might have deduced that it has something to do smells enhancing the effect of a particular song. Since there are millions of songs in the world and it would be impossible to choose one to everybody’s liking, so the makers of oMusic decided to compose one with the help of composer Daniel Peter Biro. The team also roped in master perfumer Christophe Laudamiel to create fragrances to compliment the song “Memory: Witness of the Unimaginable” that is currently an exhibit at the Le Laboratoire Cambridge. 

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Even though the above creations are for demonstrative purposes only, they certainly point towards a future that will see more platforms of education and entertainment using the smell technology developed by Vapor Communications. Finally we would like to inform you about a bracelet from the company that you can actually buy. The not-so-smartly titled oBracelet costs just $10. The oBracelet has specially made eyelets in which the company slips in one of two fragrances. While the first one is good old chocolate, the second one is called Silence and the purpose of it is quite bewildering. According to its creator Christophe Laudamiel, the silence fragrance acts in the same way silence helps you listen better. To make it more clear, the scent of Silence will help you be more attentive to the scents around you. So does that mean Silence is odourless? We aren’t so sure of spending ten dollars on that right now.

To know more about these new products you can visit the product pages on the company website and its coverage on Engadget.

Sony Xperia E4G Dual Price In India, Specs And More

Sony Corporation has announced the launch of its new mid-budget Android smartphone called Xperia E4G in India. Having a 1.5 GHz Quad Core (MediaTek MT6732) processor at is core, the phone's front is adorned by a 4.7" touchscreen display with 960 x 540 pixel resolution, well protected by a scratch-resistant glass. As the name suggests, the new Xperia phone comes with Dual SIM cards. According to the company, the major USP of the phone is its battery life. The 2300 mAh battery that sits inside a 10.8 mm thick body, offers talk time of ~13+ hours. With Sony Stamina mode activated, the phone's battery is said to last 6 hours of HD video playback and 48 hours of music playing.

Sony is popular for bringing high-end cameras in their phones, however, the Xperia E4G Dual sports just an above average 5 megapixel snapper on the rear sporting 4x digital zoom. The camera is capable of recording 1080 pixel HD videos and comes with a plethora of settings for better picture quality. On the front, there's a 2 megapixel camera for capturing selfies or making video calls back home.

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The user's storage & processing needs are catered to using 1 GB RAM, 8 GB flash memory (expandable upto 32 GB via microSD). Among the various connectivity options, all the basics are covered with the presence of Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi and WiFi Hotspot functionality, aGPS, USB High speed 2.0 and Micro USB support. Moreover, the Sony smartphone features support for GPRS/EDGE (2G), UMTS HSPA (3G) as well as (LTE) 4G. 

A glance at the specs list will tell you that the Xperia E4G can be compared to the 2nd generation Moto E smartphone, which offers similar specs at a much lower price of Rs. 7,999 only. It therefore does not need to be told that the phone will face really serious competitions from its rivals in the overcrowded India Android phone market.

What are your thoughts on the Xperia E4G Dual's launch in India? Share with us in comments below.

Source: Sony Mobile

Russia Wants Its Own RSS : Russian Space Station

Russian President Putin wants to build RSS: 'Russian Space Station'. Calling it an 'economic necessity', Putin said that in the longer term, the Russian Space Station is going to be necessary to improve their economy and he's not satisfied with Russia's participation in the the International Space Station (ISS) program. One of the reasons Putin cited in favor of RSS was that they will be able to see all of Russia from it; and from ISS only 5% of Russia is visible. 

Russia's space station is expected to be actively used for science experiments and it will be fully under their control. Putin also expressed confidence that the new space station will be ready by 2023 and the respective teams have already had talks with NASA officials. NASA however, has not commented officially on any such plan. United States and Russia have been the top financial supporters of the ISS program since its launch in 1998. Russia earlier operated a low Earth orbit space station 'Mir' between 1986 - 1996 which mostly served as microgravity research laboratory. 

Mir - Russian Space Station​

It's also expected that the Chinese will also have their own CSS (Chinese Space Station) ready by 2023 in order to establish themselves as superpowers in space. Russia is already constructing Vostochny Consmodrome (Eastern Spaceport) - expected to be ready by 2018 to reduce Russia's dependence on Baikonur Cormodrome in Kazakhstan. 

Source: Brahmand

Lollipop Powered Micromax Canvas Spark Price To Be < Rs. 6000 [Rumors]

Most homegrown brands are facing a tough time with Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Lenovo sweeping the entire market with their heavily loaded Android smartphones offered at extremely cheap prices. One such homegrown brand is Micromax India which had set the bar quite high for its competition to catch up to, only a couple of years back. It looks like the company has decided to rise back to its earlier level of popularity by introducing a low-budget phone titled 'Micromax Canvas Spark' which is all set to come up off the wraps on an event slated for April 21st of this month. The company has sent media invites saying, "Join us for an electrifying get together and witness the reveal of this exciting gadget!" 

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With the official launch date just a couple of days away, the rumour monger wheel has started to turn and the tech community is suggesting that the Canvas Spark phone will be priced below Rs. 6,000. Though the company has purposefully left the features out of its social media pages & website, there are rumors of the phone featuring a 4.7 inch display with Corning Gorilla Glass and a 8 megapixel camera. Some are anticipating a Quad Core processor as well. The only thing that we know for sure is that the Canvas Spark features Android 5.0 Lollipop OS. 

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The affordable phone will be made available exclusively via e-commerce portal Snapdeal. That's all we know for now. We will keep you updated about the phone's features as the launch happens.

What are your thoughts about Micromax Canvas Spark? Share with us in comments below.

Yamaha Saluto Price In India Out; Plays Both 'Economical' & 'Practical' Cards

After repeated failed attempts of making waves in the Indian economical bike segment, Yamaha Motor Company in India is back again with a new 125cc segment bike named 'Yamaha Saluto' priced at Rs. 52,000 (ex-showroom Delhi). Yamaha has earlier launched bikes in the same segment (Gladiator 125, SS125 and YBR 125) which could not strike a chord with the Indian audience. With Yamaha Saluto, the company has made it a point from the start to promote the motorcycle as the most 'practical' and 'economical' choice for the budget-friendly young customers. Apart from those tags, the company wants to portray the bike Saluto as a motorcycle designed for family use, which is a great marketing idea. Without further adieu, let's move straight into the bike's feature highlights. 

The 125 cc engine under the hood is an air-cooled, single-cylinder and the Saluto is said to deliver a whooping mileage of 78 km/litre. The bike features telescopic fork front suspension and a swingarm for the rear. The engine delivers max power of 8.3 PS at 7,000 rpm and 10.1 Nm of torque at 4,500 rpm. At 112 kg, the bike looks comfortably light-weight and the rider's comfort is taken care of with new suspension, footrests and seat are setup to enhance comfort. There's a 7.6 litre fuel tank on the bike. As for the looks, the bike gets a new resin tank cover, which we believe doesn't do much to enhance the style quotient. 

As we take a look at the motorcycle's specifications list, we find 130 mm drum brakes on front & rear. Measurements are 2,035 mm in length, 700 mm in width, 1,080 mm in height and 1,265 mm in wheelbase with 180 mm of ground clearance.

That's all about the features and specs that any potential buyer needs to know before going to check it out in the nearest store. The company has plans to sell ~60,000 models of the Saluto in the year 2015. If all goes according to their plans, Yamaha India will pump up the expansion of their network by next year and we might find more Salutos zooming past us on Indian roads.

What are your thoughts about the bike's looks and overall appeal? Share with us in comments below.​

Lasers Might Be Used To Rid Of Space Debris Soon

With every satellite launch, we see an increase in debris orbiting around the earth. It’s not just debris from the satellite launches but also defunct satellites, 500,000 of them are orbiting the earth creating a deadly threat for active orbiting vehicles. In the past, NASA has concocted different ways for tackling this nuisance but this time Japan's Riken research institute has thought of a new way that is not just utilitarian but also ultra-cool. A proposal has been submitted by scientists from RIKEN, University of California, IZEST EcolePolytechnique, University of Paris and University of Torino that talks about a laser mounted on the International Space Station that shall monitor and destroy space debris out of earth’s orbit. The system that will require no assistance from ground control consists of EUSO’s infrared telescope and a CAN laser.

EUSO​

Extreme Universe Space Observatory or EUSO developed by Japan's Riken research institute has a telescope that is currently being used to detect ultraviolet light emitted produced by ultra-high-energy cosmic rays entering the Earth's atmosphere at night. The Japanese researchers believe that since this system has wide field of view and powerful optics it can be modified to detect high-velocity debris fragments at twilight. The second part of the proposed system requires a fibre optic CAN laser that is found in particle accelerators. Once the telescope identifies the debris, even the ones with diameters of 1cm, it can fire powerful laser pulses that cause a phenomenon called as plasma ablation that will heat the object and turn it into plasma. This shall push the disintegrated debris into earth’s atmosphere that shall obliterate it instantly.

In the proposal that has been published in the Acta Astronautica journal states that the implementation shall take place in two phases. The first phase shall be a proof-of-concept test on the International Space Station with a 20cm version of the EUSO telescope and a laser with 100 fibres. If that goes according to plan a full scale version shall be installed on the ISS that shall consist of a three-meter EUSO telescope and a laser with 10,000 fibres that will be capable of obliterating debris in a range of 100 kilometres. The researchers have also chalked out an additional plan which shall consist of a free flying satellite in the polar orbit that will have a range of 800 kilometres.

For more information on this development, you can read the journal link mentioned in the above paragraph or its coverage on Science Daily and Engadget.

Japanese Maglev Train Travels At 590kmph, Breaks Its Own & Global Speed Record

The Central Japan Railway Company has informed the public that its magnetic levitation bullet train has broken the world record for the fastest train. The prototype train with 29 technicians on board managed to travel at 590 kilometres per hour, which is 9kmph more than the previous speed record set by the another Japanese train in December 2003. If you are thinking it will take years to break this record, you are quite mistaken. The company planning conduct another speed run on the same test track constructed in the Yamanashi prefecture on Tuesday that shall be aimed at achieving speeds of 600kmph. 

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The bad news however comes with the disclosure that commuters won’t be enjoy this staggering speed when the Japanese company opens up the train service for the in public in the year 2027. Once the company sets up the train tracks between Tokyo and Nagoya (352kms) the speeds will be limited to 505 kilometres per hour instead of 590kmph. Even with a 313 mph speed, the journey duration from the aforementioned cities will be reduced to 40 minutes which as Engadget points out is less than half the time required by the current generation of bullet trains.

The Japanese are so convinced by their prowess that they are even planning to export the maglev train technology to the US. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be proposing the construction of a high-speed train link between Washington DC and New York when he travels to the United States on the 26th of this month.

US Navy X-47B Combat Drone Refuels Itself In Air, Autonomously

Drones have become an integral part of any defence establishment. Whether it’s for surveillance or for warfare, armed forces across the world are spending tons of money developing drones that are capable for any situation in the war zone. The US Navy has two new ones, the X-47B series carrier-based unmanned aircrafts. The UAVs have been named as “Salty Dog 501” and “Salty Dog 502”. The “Salty Dog 502” has achieved a tremendous feat in the UAV industry by being the first drone to refuel itself in the air. Yes, military UAVs in the past have managed to do the activity but the Salty Dog 502 did this without any manual input from a pilot on the ground. 

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As you can see from the image above, the Salty Dog 502 X-47B UAV is trying to grab the fuel line from a refuelling aeroplane belonging to Omega Air Refuelling, a US Department of Defence contractor that modifies Boeing 707s into airtankers. Since the drone can refuel in air, it does not have the miserable range anymore. It can be used for extended long-range missions with ease. Ars Technica points out the fact that the X-47B is one of the few drones that are not flown by a pilot with remote controls; it is guided by commands from an application running on a desktop computer.

With this feat, you might think that these new drones will be commissioned into service but sadly they will be heading into retirement very soon. Even though they have completed only 20% of the potential test flights, the US Navy will be making them into museum exhibits. The reason for this decision is the US Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) combat drone. The aforementioned drones have different sizes and performance as compared to the UCLASS drones and thus cannot be inducted into the fleet. No worries though, because the technology used in these drones will be incorporated into UCLASS drones in the future.

 

Ultrathin Paper Microphone Gains Energy From Your Speech

Your words may not motivate anyone, but they can certainly fill an ultrathin paper microphone with energy. A team of researchers from the Georgia Tech Institute of Technology have developed a rollable, 125 μm thin, paper-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that can harvest energy from your speech and deliver a maximum power density of 121 mW/m2. What's more important is that this paper-microphone can be used in commercial grade mobile phones to supply some additional power to your device.

Zhong Wang and his colleagues created this paper-microphone using a paper sheet about the size of a postage stamp. They developed an array of tiny holds on the paper using sophisticated lasers and coated it with copper on one side. The paper sheet was then laid over a sheet of teflon and joined it on one of the edges. Sound waves passing through the sheets causes them to vibrate differently and contact each other. This vibration creates an electric charge which can be used to charge a capacitor at the rate of 0.144 V/s. 

Image Credit: ACS Nano​

The research team says that their concept can be adopted in variety of applications to harvest sound energy. For example the technique can be used in wearable gadgets, military equipments, in jet engines to reduce noise and even a budget-friendly human ear implant. The research was published in ACS Nano Publication. Do check out the source link for further information.

50 Years Of Moore's Law And The Future Of Integrated Circuits

On April 19th, Gordon E. Moore, a young electrical engineer from California who worked for 'Fairchild Semiconductor' in Mountain View, published a paper that has been the inspiration behind the eye-blinding evolution of the computing industry. Contrary to the popular belief that the original paper talked about the number of transistors installed on an Integrated Circuit will double every two years; it wasn't until 1975 that this idea actually emerged. At the best, we can say that the 1965 paper gave rise to the concept of Moore's Law. 

The original paper talks about the relation between manufacturing costs per component and the number of components per integrated circuit. Moore looked at what his company was working on and while the chips being shipped had about 8 components, he knew that FairChild engineers were already working on chips with 16, 30 and even 60 components per IC.

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Moore's prediction has largely held up for decades. The roots of the electronics industry are in Chemistry; and Moore himself has a PhD in Chemistry. Moore explains that the innovations in material formation has lead to unimaginable progress. The computing industry has seen growth not only in the transistor density, but also with the semiconductor manufacturing progress. In Moore's times, a 2" silicon wafer was 'top-end' and today's engineers are already working on 18" versions. The overall result is that the cost of creating transistors has been reduced by 1 billion times. Moore notes that the number of transistors existing on planet Earth has already surpassed the number of ants and is already the highest-volume product in the entire history of humans. 

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Moore's law, however, may not hold true as the industry hits the physical limits. The 14 nm Chips (Intel Broadwell) are already hitting the edge and with components so close, the heat escaping has become a problem. The chip manufacturers are now working on new materials and techniques like quantum tunneling to keep up with Moore's law. 

Do let us know your views. We look forward to your participation in following relevant discussions on CrazyEngineers:

• Is there a limit to Moore's Law?
• Electronics Development and Moore's Law
• Is it necessary to keep up with Moore's Law?

Source: ExtremeTech

Google Project Loon Update: Thousands Of Balloons Are Getting Ready!

Google's Project Loon, as you may already know, is an ambitious project to deliver the Internet around the world using tens of thousands of balloons floating in the sky. According to the latest video from Google (embedded below), Google's Mike Cassidy (in-charge of the project) says that Google's using its own manufacturing facility and automated systems to deliver a balloon in hours instead of days. He further says that the company is now ready to launch thousands of balloons in the Sky. 

Google's conducting trials of the Project Loon project with leading service providers like Telstra in Australia, Telefonica in Latin America and Vodafone in New Zealand. Google's been working on this project for the last few years and is now confident of launching the project.  

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Google's experiments have revealed that the balloons can stay afloat in the sky, at an altitude way above the passenger gets fly, for up to 6 months. Google's developed software systems and hardware that can keep real-time track of the balloons and predict where the balloons can be retrieved from. In addition, the company claims to have developed a very reliable launch system for the balloons. Cassidy further said that with the new automated crane system, Google can now launch dozens of balloons every day. 

Google's not talked about the commercials so far and how the end users will access the Internet. Google will deliver the Internet using the existing service providers. Cassidy said that the vision for the project is to make the Internet available to anyone with an Internet ready smartphone. Do check out the video released by Google below and let us know your thoughts.

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Source: PCWorld

Xiaomi Mi Note Black Edition Can Be Bought For $400

Xiaomi Mi Note Black' is a premium edition smartphone that will lighten your pocket by $400 (approx ~ Rs. 25000), which is a bit pricey considering that the basic model Mi Note 4G's price is just Rs. 9999 in India. An advanced version called Mi Note Pro priced at $540.00 (~ Rs. 33,000) has arrived along with it. It seems that the Chinese mega brand is on a spree of launching different editions of its super popular smartphone Mi Note as it sees that people are willing to pay extra to make the phone suit their style quotient. After announcing the arrival of Mi Note Bamboo Edition and Mi Pink Edition earlier this month, we weren't expecting any big announcements about Mi Note. Much to our surprise, the company launched two new variants - Mi Note Black Edition and Mi Note Pro. Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun confirmed that the phone will go live on May 6. Let's find out the specifications and features of both these new phones and see if their price is justified.

Mi Note Black​

Now Mi Note Black is a limited edition variant that will come with famous Chinese singer Jason Zhang's 10th album out-of-the-box in an exclusive black packaging. Only 30,000 units of the smartphone will be available for flash sale in China. The phone's specifications are the same as Mi Note, in that there's a 5.7-inch full HD display screen (1080×1920 pixels) with 3D curved Gorilla Glass 3, 4G LTE support, 3000 mAh battery, Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.5GHz processor, Adreno 330 GPU, 13 megapixel rear camera, 4 megapixel front snapper, 3GB RAM and 16GB internal storage.

Mi Note Pro​

As against this, the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro has a bundle full of advanced features and anyone looking for high-end specs should definitely check this one out. Featuring a 2560x1440p 2K Sharp/JDI screen that has a pixel density of 515 pixels per inch, Mi Note Pro is powered by a 64bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 OCTA-core processor and Adreno 430 GPU. Running on a 4GB LPDDR4 RAM and a 64GB ROM, the phone's rear end camera has a 13 MP sensor and is capable of capturing 4128 x 3096 pixel resolution images with autofocus and dual-LED along with 2160 pixel HD videos. The one on the front meant for capturing selfies doesn't disappoint either. It has a 4 MP 1/3'' sensor size, 2µm pixel size lens with ability to capture 1080p images & videos.

That's all about the feature highlights of both these phones that you ought to know before jumping to make the purchase. Among the other limited edition smartphones that were launched this year, we found theBlackberry Passport Gold & Black and the OPPO R5 Gilded variant rather interesting. There is no news about whether or not these Xiaomi phones will be launched in India. Nevertheless, the company's upcoming event in Delhi is going to attract large audience.

What are your thoughts about the two new Xiaomi Note smartphone variants? Share with us in comments below.

Facebook Asks, "How Do You Pronounce Your Name?"

It is a well known fact that the social networking website Facebook wants to know your personal information with the minutest detail. Leaving up to its name, the internet giant has come up with a new feature that lets users share how they want their name to be pronounced. Since the feature hasn't been made available to users worldwide, it was highly probable that it is just an experiment the Facebook engineers are toying with. However, the Facebook team confirmed to Yahoo Tech saying that they are currently testing it only for a handful of English speakers in the U.S. Among the users who could see the Facebook's name pronounce feature on their profiles, it was a Twitter user RinRi who posted a screenshot of it. Take a look -

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The pronunciation of the name will be displayed on the user's profile in text as well as audio format. So anyone on your friends list can click and check how to pronounce your name correctly. To set the feature, users need to go to the 'About' tab on their profile and then find an option that reads 'Details About You'. After clicking on it, Facebook will ask, "How do you say your name?". The social network displays a list of possible pronunciation options, as well as button to play a sample audio clip. If from the pre-defined choices, none matches yours, you can type in a new pronunciation key.

The move might be a part of Facebook's aim to deliver a more personalised experience to its users. Many a times, we know some people via Facebook and have known them for years without meeting them ever. In Asian countries, it gets very difficult to pronounce a person's name correctly, owing to vast differences in our languages. It seems that the feature might actually be useful for Facebook users in India.

What are your thoughts about the Facebook pronounce feature? Share with us in comments below.

LG G4 Specifications Revealed in Leaks ahead of the April 28 Release Date

Every major thing you want to know about the new flagship phone LG G4 is out in the open. As a part of weekly Gadget Roundup, we sought all the details that there are to know about the latest phone from the South Korean tech-giant. LG Corporation's G4 is the successor to LG G3 which made its debut in India (Asia), Europe and Middle East last year in the month of June. The power packed phone was quite a hit among LG fans as it came with many kickass features. Ever since, LG G4 has been making rounds of tech news portals as the phone many were looking forward to. With an official release date set on April 28th, several leaks were definitely part of the game. And this time, we got a full reveal on what features and specs to expect from the new LG flagship device. Let's take a look.

Sporting a 5.5 inch QHD (2560 x 1440 resolution) IPS quantum display, the LG G4 comes with a Slim Arc Design and a 8.9 mm body - both features introduced to give the user a comfortable, firm grip. Taking about the design, the most prominent feature of the phone is its rear end which sports genuine leather, a feature that only the limited edition smartphones come with. It goes without saying that the leather variant will be priced much higher than the basic variant. The LG Quick Circle case that comes with a window to let the user view notifications while the cover is closed, may also be seen making a return with the G4. Here's what the leather variant looks like -

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Moving on to what's beneath the body, well, the rumour mongers suggest that 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor (Dual-core ARM Cortex A57 & Quad-core A53) and Adreno 418 GPU will be the ones to power the phone. A 3 GB RAM might as well be on the specs list alongside 32 GB ROM with microSD card support. Though there's no word about the phone's cameras, there are speculations about a 16MP rear snapper with f/1.8 aperture with HD video recording support and an 8 MP front-facing lens.

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An user-replaceable 3,000mAh battery will accompany the phone and the company has confirmed that the phone will be offered with various flip covers to be bought as a separate accessory, available in various colour options. Last but not the least, the LG G4 is confirmed to appear with the latest Android OS version 5.1 Lollipop .

That's all we know about the new LG smartphone so far. We will know more about LG G4's pricing and availability on the launch date. So, stay tuned for further updates.

Disney could now 3D print a Mickey Mouse soft toy for you

Disney Researchers or better called Imagineers always have some new technology up their sleeves and this time it's a 'Layered 3D Fabric Printer' that can create soft, flexible 3D objects. We live in an era where custom manufacturing technologies are on the rise. Not only are companies letting users create & own wearable custom jeans, but there's a huge demand for getting 3D models printed and mailed to your doorstep. It's no wonder therefore that we are imagining the next soft toys of our favourite Disney Characters be it Mickey Mouse or Lion King 3D printed for children to hug and play with. Coupling electronics with 3D printing tech, researchers are working on creation of interactive physical objects from daily life materials. Making waves in the exciting new research arena, scientists from Disney Research, Cornell University and Carnegie Mellon University got together to build the new 3D Fabric Printer. Let's see how it works. 

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Using any off the shelf fabric, this 3D fabric printer creates multiple layers of fabric sheets in a pre-defined design. A laser cutter is used to cut each sheet along the 2D contour. These layers are stuck together using a heat sensitive adhesive. By repeating these steps, the shape of the desired 3D object is created. The new kind of fabric printer is so designed that it feeds two separate fabric types into a single print, so that specially cut layers of conductive fabric can be embedded in the soft prints. 

The Disney 3D Fabric printer is structured similarly to other 3D printers in the market. Therefore, its head can easily be moved within a Cartesian system. However, this one uses two separate working platforms - 1. For cutting and 2. For bonding. The bonding platform can be found on the Z-axis whereas the cutting platform is located upside down above it. 

In the following video, the team demonstrates how they created 3D models with touch sensing capability and a simple LED display making use of a conductive fabric coil for wireless power reception. 

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A typical 3D fabric printing routine involves turning on the vacuum to hold fabric to cutting table. Then, 2D layer shapes and a bounding box are cut out of the fabric material. After that, the bonding platform is raised to touch cut fabric, which is then released by turning vacuum off. Lastly, the platform is lowered and new layer is heat bonded to print.

In the Disney Research's new paper titled 'A Layered Fabric 3D Printer for Soft Interactive Objects', the team discusses how they were able to form precise, yet soft and deformable 3D objects from rolls of fabric. They have successfully demonstrated various 3D printed objects such as a soft cell phone case which contains a printed fabric coil capable of harvesting power from the NFC hardware of any smartphone we use today. Isn't that marvellous?

What are your thoughts about Disney's new 3D Fabric Printer? Share with us in comments below.

Best whatsapp group names

I thought of compiling a list of the coolest and the best whatsapp group names that you've been using for your respective groups. For the sake of convenience, we'll stick to English names that you can use. I have collected a list of names which I found on various pages. Please feel free to add your suggestions below. Let's see how many innovative names can we come up with. 

• The Lords Of Words
• The Forwarders - [Because 99% of the people will only forward messages]
• Fantastic X - Replace 'X' with the number of members of the group
• Wordal Combat - Couldn't make a better name from Mortal Combat
• FUBAR Group - Apt for engineering college mates
• Recycle Bin - because no worthy messages go into this group
• The Abusement Park - Not sure if this is cool
• Pin Drop Nonsense - for the total nonsense group
• U R Fired - Because some day you will be

Feel free to add your suggestions

One plus two needs silicon valley funds to launch Q3 in 2015

OnePlus and Xiaomi were the two top Chinese mobile companies that grabbed most tech-headlines in 2014. OnePlus One received a lot of love from the tech community, even with their 'invite-only' model for sale of phones. OnePlus One offers powerful hardware and software for an attractive price point and their relationship with Cyanogen lead to a breakup that resulted into OnePlus developing their own custom, Android powered firmware called 'Oxygen OS'. Ever since, the geek community has been waiting for the next phone from OnePlus.

Carl Pei, the co-founder and CEO of OnePlus had promised that they will launch the next OnePlus phone, we call it OnePlus Two, Q2 or Q3 of 2015. The latest reports in the media point at possible launch of OnePlus Two phone in Q3, 2015. Pei is in talks with the venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley to raise funds. The funds will be utilised to up the headcount in the company to about 1500 by the end of the year. 

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Pei, only 25 years old, revealed to Bloomberg that OnePlus lacks the experience to grow a step further. One of the important part of the growth will be to hire experienced and senior-level talent to scale the company. OnePlus one got founded in 2013 with six people and has already sold over a million phones globally. Not bad for a startup company that now plans to ship over 3 to 5 million phones in this year. 

We've no idea what hardware or software OnePlus Two will ship with, but we hope the company keeps everyone impressed with their new product launches. We promise to keep you posted about all the latest developments. 

Fun with Linux

Top 11  Linux Distros for 2015

Elementary OS is the most beautiful Linux-based distro.

Linux is omnipresent, even if you don't realize it. I have been using Linux as my only OS since 2005 and with every passing year I come to realize that it has much more to offer than I initially, back in 2005, understood. There is something for everyone. In this article, I have picked some of the best Linux distros to help you get the job done.

The most beautiful distro: elementary OS

There is there no doubt elementary OS is the most beautiful Linux-based distro. The reason is simple: It is being developed by some of the great designers active in the open source world, so they have taken the design to every nook and corner of the distro.

In order to provide a consistent experience across core apps (such as browser or text editor), they have either created their own applications or picked the ones which fit neatly into their own design philosophy - for example they are using Midori instead of Firefox or Chrome.

Now that does pose some challenges as this browser won't be able to offer the features that Chrome or Firefox offers thanks to extensions and plugins.

Elementary OS is clearly inspired by Mac OS X; as they have a dock, top panel and applications have buttons at left side; the grey theme also reminded me of my Macbook.

It's a neat OS to try, which looks aesthetically great and does work out of the box.

Best desktop distro: openSUSE

I spend a majority of my work life on my desktop; it's a powerful machine capable of doing stuff like video encoding, image editing and regular writing.

I found openSUSE to be the most polished, mature and professional distro around. They take extra pain to integrate the chosen desktop environment with the rest of the OS, so you get a native experience.

I found openSUSE to be the most polished, mature and professional distro around.

openSUSE has made it extremely easy to install third-party software through their 'One Click Install' from software.opensuse.org (I found it easier than manually adding PPAs in Ubuntu). They have a huge repository of software and you are likely to find your software for openSUSE.

openSUSE has a gem of a tool called YaST - it's like a 'command center' of the entire PC and you can control almost every aspect of it.

openSUSE also makes it extremely easy to install multiple desktop environments including - LXDE, Enlightenment, Gnome, Mate, KDE, and Xfce, on the same system side-by-side through YaST.

Best distro for personal server: Debian

If you are running your own server for your own use, Debian is the distro to go for. Debian is known for its rock-solid foundation; nothing could possibly go wrong on a Debian server. Then it's extremely easy to manage a Debian system and a plethora of information is available through forums.

Best laptop distro: Ubuntu MATE

Laptops, unlike desktop PCs may not be that mighty when it comes to hardware and there are possibilities of proprietary hardware, that's where Ubuntu MATE does the job the best. Based on Ubuntu, MATE makes it extremely easy to deal with any proprietary hardware.

MATE makes it extremely easy to deal with any proprietary hardware.

In addition, MATE offers a great balance between performance and using resources efficiently. The interface of MATE is friendly, no learning curve, and looks extremely polished on laptops.

MATE believes in using fewer resources leaving them for your applications, which also translates into better battery life.

The most customizable distro: Arch Linux

Arch Linux is the best distribution when it comes to picking something which is totally under a user's control, where the distro plays the reload of a 'distributor' without adding its own patches to upstream projects.

When a user installs Arch, they are actually building their entire OS brick-by-brick and choose only those components they need, keeping it sleek and optimized for the job; of course it does require a user to be fully capable of managing Linux distros.

Since it's a rolling release distro, I call it 'shoot and forget'; once you install Arch Linux you don't have to 'upgrade' the entire OS every six months. Like Chrome OS, your system is always up-to-date; just keep the 'pacman -Syu' fire burning.

Arch Linux is the best distribution when it comes to picking something which is totally under a user's control.

The best distro for Raspberry Pi: Snappy Ubuntu Core

Raspbian is the undisputed leader on Raspberry Pis, however the recently announced Snappy Core Ubuntu, which runs on the latest Raspberry Pi 2 is a game changer. With their 'Chrome OS'-like updates, a user will never have to worry 

Sugar is a Fedora-based Linux distro aimed at educators.

about keeping their OS updated.

The best distro for kids: Sugar

Sugar is a Fedora-based Linux distro aimed at educators. While there are some other Linux distros for kids, I picked Sugar because it is not just a collection of software for kids, it's actually backed by a team whose sole goal is to create a platform for education. The project was a collaboration between The One Laptop Per Child, Pentagram, and Red Hat.

The best distro for gaming: Steam OS

Steam OS was designed as Valve Software's answer to Windows for PC gaming. They created this OS from scratch with gaming in mind. The OS is based on Debian and offers great support for optimizing your GPU for optimal game performance.

Valve is known for taking their time to bake the software before releasing it publicly, so the OS is still in beta stage - because things may break.

The only flip side of using Steam OS compared to some generic Linux, such as Arch Linux, is that Steam OS will format the entire drive, there is no option to choose the partition on which you want to install Steam OS.

The best distro for privacy: Tails

We are heading towards an age where our democratically elected governments (in the US and some European countries) are becoming more and more secretive and citizens are losing all of their privacy rights. In the age of companies mining our data and tracking our online activities maintaining privacy is becoming a game of chess; you have to stay one step ahead.

Tails (The Amnesic Incognito Live System) is the best distro you can get to maintain privacy and anonymity. The OS forces all connection to be routed via Tor and all direct connections are blocked. Since the OS is designed to run as a Live CD there are no 'traces' left on the hard drive.

Tails doesn't need any further recommendation, according to a Der Spiegel article the NSA itself declared it a 'major threat' to its mission. That's the best endorsement of Tails you can get in the 21st century.

The best distro for audio and video production

Linux doesn't have any of the consumer grade audio video editing software, even if Hollywood pretty much runs on Linux. That said there are many distros targeted at audio/video production. What sets these distros apart from others is that they use different components than those found on traditional desktops. These distros use a real-time or low-latency Linux kernal optimized to handle heavy audio and video work. They also don't touch PulseAudio, which is fine for desktop but not suitable for audio/video production. Instead of PulseAudio they use JACK.

Two of the most reputable distros for this task are KXStudio and AVLinux. These distros are also known for being extremely lightweight, for obvious reasons - they don't want to consume your resources; they keep the resources free for your production work. To keep system resources free these distros are picky about their desktop environments - while AVLinux uses the light weight LXDE, KXStudio uses an aggressively stripped down version of KDE.

The best distro for enterprise: SUSE Linux & Red Hat

Red Hat and SUSE are the two giants of the Linux world that have contributed heavily to a majority of open source projects, including the Linux kernel itself. Red Hat has shown prudence and is transforming itself from a client-server company to a mobile-cloud company. While SUSE may be struggling with getting moved around as its owner change (from Novel to Attachmate to Micro Focus), Red Hat is strengthening its position through acquisition (such as Feed Henry) and working closely with other emerging platforms such as OpenStack.

While Red Hat was the first company to register over a billion dollars in revenue through 'pure' open source products, SUSE seemed to be struggling for survival under Novell. The NetWare maker was split (just like Sun Microsystems) between their own proprietary solutions which were competing with SUSE's open source solutions. While SUSE's Linux market was growing NetWare was becoming a liability. When Attachmate bought Novell they separated SUSE Linux from Novell, making them an independent division to better focus on the Linux market.

Now SUSE is in new hands and we hope that the focus will be more on the Linux side which is a growing market.

Both SUSE and Red Hat are known for the best of the breed talent and extremely professional support system for customers. Even if their sales teams compete with each other to grab customers their developers work together to create and strengthen the backbone of the Linux empire.

The best distro for old hardware: Lubuntu

All of us have old hardware; it is not waste. Linux can breathe new life into this hardware, you can use it as a common PC for the family, or donate to the needy. The million dollar question for this old hardware is: Which OS will work better on it? The answer is simply any distro with and LDXE desktop environment.

Personally, I use Arch Linux on such hardware with LXDE slapped on top of it, but Arch can be a bit tricky for an average user so the best distro that you can get is Lubuntu.

Lubuntu, thanks to its Ubuntu base will work fine on your older hardware. Since there are LTS version of Lubuntu you can install 14.04 on a machine and it will get support for 3 years; no need to upgrade it every six months. If your hardware is in service the next three years you can easily upgrade to the next version without reformatting your system.

Here we've looked at Linux distros that take care of almost every computing need we may have. There is something for everyone and that's not using some "one size may fit all" solution. These distros are optimized for a particular task.

Go ahead make your choice. It's an open world.