World's 8th best player beats world's fastest robot in Table Tennis match

Timo Boll, ranked eighth in the world in Table Tennis, squared off against KUKA Robotics' 'Agilus' robot and just about managed to win.

It may still not be the time for robots to take over the world, but surely that’s going to happen soon. “Agilus” a robot created by KUKA Robotics, a Chinese company, held its own and almost won in a Table Tennis match against a top level athlete. Timo Boll, a German TT player, currently ranked eighth in the sport in global rankings (and who held the No. 1 rank in the past) was able to beat the robot in a tightly contested match organised by KUKA Robotics.

Timo Boll is the brand ambassador for KUKA Robotics and the match was organised by the company to publicise its line-up of industrial robots. According to KUKA’s website, the Agilus robot is capable of handling payloads up to 6 kilograms and has a reach of almost 3 feet. The robot itself weighs 52 kilograms and has been designed for operations such as loading, unloading and handling materials, packing and assembling, among others. 

Unfortunately, the actual video of the match looks heavily edited and spruced up with Hollywood style slow-motion and tracking shots. This does give the impression that the video does not represent the actual match but rather, a cinematic “retelling” of the match. Nevertheless, it is a very cool watch and I’d suggest you stick around till the end to watch Boll playing against multiple Agilus robots.

You can watch the video below:

http://goo.gl/su7X9z

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Google launches URL Shortener app for Android users

Google has released an Android app to help you shorten URLs and provide insight as to who is clicking your link.

Google has long provided the URL shortening service goo.gl. Users are able to log in to the site, paste a long URL and have it shortened by Google. On top of the URL being share friendly, Google would also provide analytics detailing who is actually clicking on the link.

Early this week Google released an Android app for the service, taking link shrinking and tracking mobile.
The app is free and can be downloaded from the Google Play store.
There are plenty of options for link shortening, with most social networks doing this on your behalf, but by using Google's service you're able to see how effective your posts are. And with the Google URL Shortener app installed on your Android device, you'll no longer have to wait until you sit down at a computer to shorten or check on a link.

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Facebook Messenger now available on Windows Phone

Facebook Messenger has officially been released for Windows Phone 8. But the app is missing the voice messaging feature.

Facebook has released its Facebook Messenger app for Windows Phone and now users can download it from the Windows Phone Store. 

The Facebook Messenger for Windows Phone was announced last week at the Mobile World Congress 2014, held in Barcelona, Spain, by Joe Belfiore, Vice President of Windows Phone. The Facebook Messenger app for Windows Phone comes with the same features as iOS and Android platforms but without any voice messaging options.

The app lets you send photos privately, share location with everyone, have group conversations and send stickers to friends. All your Facebook friends are automatically added to the 'People' tab and a user can import new contacts as well. Users are able to see, when people have seen their messages, which of their friends are using Messenger and who's active on Facebook. Users can also turn off notifications when working or sleeping. The only feature missing is that the app has been released without any voice messaging options.

Rumors about the new Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8.1 update have also emerged on the web. Microsoft plans to make some extensive changes in the interface with the new update. According to leaked screenshots, the next WP update will bring an option to set a background image on the Start screen. Users will also have an option to make Live Tiles transparent that can be skinned with an image in the background. The new update will also bring Cortana, Microsoft's much anticipated voice assistant service to the Lumia smartphones. The new Windows Phone 8.1 update is expected to be launched in early 2014.

 

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New MSI laptop claims to be able to run latest games at '3K' resolution

MSI GS60 Ghost Pro laptop shown off at CeBIT, comes with Nvidia's new mobile GPU, can play 'latest' games at ‘3K’ resolution.

MSI showed off its new GS60 Ghost Pro laptop at the CeBIT conference currently taking place in Hannover, Germany. According to MSI, the GS60 runs on Nvidia’s yet-to-be-made-official, laptop graphics processor and thanks to that, it can run ‘latest’ games at ‘3K’ resolution- defined by MSI as 2880x1620 pixels.

In terms of hardware, the Ghost Pro features variants that go up to an Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. The best possible variant can also include dual SSDs in Super RAID mode and a Blu-Ray writer. The GS60 Ghost Pro is also quite thin and light at only 19.5mm and 1.99 kilograms.

MSI says that the GS60 laptop will hit stores (India not specified) in April and will be priced anywhere from $2,200 to $2,800 (Rs. 1.34 lakhs to Rs. 1.71 lakhs approx.) depending on the variant.

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Gionee Elife E7 unboxing: An impressive package for the price

 

The E7 is massive upgrade over the E6, while still retaining the competitive pricing

By Roydon Cerejo /  11 Mar 2014 , 16:39

We finally have Gionee’s flagship handset with us in the lab and what better way than to kick off than with an unboxing video. The Elife E7 is the successor to the popular Elife E6 whose claim to fame was the superior, industrial build and design. The E7 is quite different from the E6 in this respect but it still has all the makings of a serious contender in the mid-range segment, even though it’s the company’s flagship.


As you can see it’s quite a hulking box, with almost everything you expect from a smartphone and a little more. The phone runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and features Gionee’s custom Amigo 2.0 user interface layer to go with it. The phone’s 5.5-inch display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and the phone itself is lightweight, weighing in at 128-grams. The body is quite glossy though, so you are very likely to leave fingerprints all over the back and sides. The performance of the phone should ideally be super smooth considering the Snapdragon 800 SoC, but we will be delivering our verdict on this in the in-depth review soon.

The cameras on the phone are supposed to be a high-point for Gionee, which says that the Elife E7’s secondary camera works far better than the one on the iPhone 5s. It also features features such as voice trigger and touch trigger, which we went over in our first look of the Gionee Elife E7 . The phone also houses three microphones with noise cancelling functions in order to improve the quality of voice calls. The whole show is powered by a 2500mAh battery.

Take a quick look at the Elife E7’s salient features:
– 5.5-inch 1080 x 1920p screen with a pixel density of 401ppi
– Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS, EDGE
–GPS/AGPS, NFC, 3G, 4G (for 32GB model)
–16MP primary camera, 8MP front-facing camera
–16GB/32GB storage, not expandable

In terms of specs, the E7 will go directly up against the Nexus 5 and here’s a comparison of the two phones and their specs. We’ve already done an in-depth hands-on video review during the launch of the E7 and also took a look at its younger sibling, the E7 mini, which is yet to appear in the market. Waiting for the mini? Check out our first look at the Gionee Elife E7 mini.

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Micromax Canvas Knight A350: Overview and specs comparison

The new Micromax Canvas Knight is the first phone from the Indian manufacturer that runs on a true octa-core MediaTek processor. So how does it stand up to its competition? Let's find out...

Smartphones have already entered the octa-core phase, however, only a few smartphone brands have launched devices which run on a true octa-core processor.  To make things clear, a true octa-core processor means that all of its cores run on the same clock speed and at the same time. Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa 5410, which was seen on the Galaxy S4, is not a true octa-core as four of its cores are clocked at 1.6 GHz and the rest run on 1.2 GHz.

MediaTek is probably the only company whose true octa-core SoCs are being featured on smartphones. The recently announced Micromax Canvas Knight, with its competitive price tag, seems to be the next big game killer from Micromax.
So where does the Micromax Canvas Knight stand against iBerry Auxus Nuclea N2, the Motorola Moto G and the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2? Check out the comparison below...

	Micromax Canvas Knight	iberry Auxus Nuclea N2	Motorola Moto G	Samsung Galaxy Grand 2
Display	5 inch IPS LCD Full HD (441ppi)	5.7 Full HD IPS LCD (386ppi)	4.5 inch HD IPS LCD (326ppi)	5.25 inch HD TFT (280ppi)
Processor	2GHz Octa-Core MediaTek	1.7GHz Octa-Core MediaTek	1.2GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 400	1.2GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 400
RAM	2GB	2GB	1GB	1.5GB
GPU	Mali-450	Mali-450	Adreno 305	Adreno 305
Storage	32GB	16GB, expandable via microSD	16/32GB	8GB, expandable via microSD
Rear Camera	16MP	13MP	5MP	8MP
Front Camera	8MP	8MP	1.3MP	1.9MP
Battery	2350mAh	3500mAh	2070mAh	2600mAh
OS	Android 4.2.2	Android 4.2.2	Android 4.4.2	Android 4.3
Price	19,990	19,990	13,999 (16GB)	21,000

The Canvas Knight proves to be quite a winner when it comes down to specs. Will it be just as good in the performance department? To find out, do catch our performance update of the Canvas Knight which will be posted very soon.

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Nokia X launched in India at a price tag of Rs. 8599

Nokia X+ and Nokia XL will be launched soon as well.

 

Nokia's first Android smartphone, Nokia X, was launched in India today at a price of Rs. 8500. Nokia X is the first smartphone to run on the new Nokia X software platform which is based on Google's AOSP (Android Operating System Project).

Despite running an Android OS, the smartphone features a very customized OS from Nokia, which does not resemble Android at all. Nokia X features the 'Noka X software platform' is a customized mobile operating system made by the Finnish manufacturer. Users will not be able to access the Google Play Store. However, Nokia has made it clear that it will feature Android apps from Play Store on its own Nokia Store. Users will also be able to sideload .apk files even though compatibility issues may arise as the smartphone does not support Google services. Nokia has put more emphasis on Microsoft services such as Bing Search, Skype and OneDrive file storage.
The customized Android on the Nokia X resembles Windows Phone OS with its tile-based UI. Nokia is also expected to launch Nokia X+ and Nokia XL smartphones, which are the higher-end Android based phones. All the smartphones run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor with dual-SIM capacity.
Nokia X+ and Nokia XL have also been announced for India and will be launched with the next two months.
Nokia X was spotted earlier on the e-retailer site, The Mobile Store, with a price tag of Rs. 8500.
Nokia X features a 4-inch IPS LCD touchscreen, 512MB RAM, 4GB internal storage (expandable via memory card slot), 3.15MP camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and comes with an Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean based OS.
The smartphone will be available in black, green, cyan, red, yellow and white colors.

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