Acer’s Predator 21X

This Gaming Laptop Is a Monster

Acer unveiled an insane gaming laptop with 21-inch curved display, dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 graphics Cards and much more.

Acer’s Predator 21X: This Gaming Laptop Is a Monster

If we look around, we will find laptop manufacturers are trying hard to make smaller and thinner laptop designs because laptops are meant to be carried and a lightweight laptop could make life much easier.

Acer At IFA 2016 in Berlin had unveiled the laptop that undoubtedly is a beast. Acer has unveiled the world’s first curved-screen laptop which is especially focused for gaming purposes. Acer’s new laptop name is Predator 21 X.

Acer’s New Predator 21X shares a much bigger screen than average which measures 53.3 centimeters (21 inches). It weighs about 8 kilogram that’s too almost four times more than average laptops. However, it’s unique shape, design and curved glass screen are world’s first.

As we already mentioned this is the gaming laptop it carries Dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPUs which supports the awesome G-sync technology which promises “unmatched graphics performance”. It will be packed with Intel Core i7 processors from the Kaby Lake Series. However, Kaby Lake processors are yet to be released.

Apart from this Acer’s New Predator 21X offers four DD4 slots and 64GB RAM also 4TB of SSD storage with RAID-0 support. Acer’s new predator 21X had full-size LED RGB mechanical keyboard with CherryMX switches and a SoundPound2+ sound system (4 speakers and 2 subwoofers). It carries five cooling fans and it had a Numpad that can flip over to become a touchpad.

One of the interesting features is it includes Tobii eye-tracking technology, which the company explains “To bring gameplay immersion to the next level, the notebook also integrates Tobii eye-tracking technology for a new method of control that’s more intuitive and natural. Built-in eye-tracking hardware (infrared sensors and software) unlocks a completely new facet in gaming.”

“By tracking a gamer’s eye with software, the notebook introduces new interactions like aiming, identifying enemies and taking cover simply by gazing at objects on the screen. Eye tracking also enhances the experience by providing infinite views whilst navigating treacherous paths and roads in a game.”

So, these are the specifications of the World’s first laptop with a rounded screen. Acer didn’t give an exact release date. However, by looking at its specifications we could easily assume that it would be pretty expensive. You can have a look at the laptop in the video below:

DuckDuckGo!

Some Geeky DuckDuckGo Tricks That Make It Better Than Google

Short Bytes: DuckDuckGo is an anti-Google search engine that claims that it doesn’t track you. In this article, we’ll be telling you some cool DuckDuckGo tricks that will change the way you use your search engine.

You might have heard about DuckDuckGo search engine. If not, it’s the search engine that doesn’t track you at all. But, this is not the only great cool thing about it. There are several other cool features, called “goodies” by DuckDuckGo, that will make you think about changing your default search engine.

In this article, I’ll be telling you about some geeky DuckDuckGo tricks that make it better than Google and much more work-friendly:

Quick Navigation

If you are more of a keyboard guy, DuckDuckGo is the place for you. You can easily navigate through the search results with the help of some keys. Here are some shortcuts:

• <j>: To move down through the results
• <k>: To move up through the results
• <l> or <Enter>: To open the highlighted link
• <h> or </>: To go to search bar
• <s>: To go to misspelled link
• <t>: To go to the top of the page

Cheat sheets

This is an awesome feature of DuckDuckGo. If you’ve had a hard time remembering keyboard shortcuts, for example the list I’ve given above, and you’ve to go through the entire manual or a blog post just for a quick reference, DuckDuckGo has got you all covered.

They’ve got most of the applications, like Vim, covered for which there are a number of key bindings. Just type the application name followed by “cheat sheet”. For example, look at the Firefox cheat sheet below.

Similary, you can look for the DuckDuckGo cheat sheet at DuckDuckGo.

Instant Answers

DuckDuckGo provides instant answers on several queries. Here are some results.

Movies with

Type “movies with” followed by your favorite actor’s/actress’ name and you’ll get what you wanted. Let’s search for “movies with Jesse Eisenberg”.

Soundcloud

Listen to music directly through DuckDuckGo. In the search bar, type artist’s name followed by “Soundcloud”. For instant, “Daft Punk Soundcloud”:

Recipes

Search for recipes directly from DuckDuckGo. Looking for pizza recipe? Type “pizza recipe”.

Weather

Check out the weather. Just type “weather” or “weather <location name>”.

And much much more…

There are hundreds of more cool instant answers. Try these queries at DuckDuckGo: “stopwatch”, “password strong”, “lose yourself lyrics”, “rhymes with cool” etc. It’s a pretty cool feature for a search engine.

Bang Search

It is my favorite. For instance type “!a blazers” in the DuckDuckGo search bar. What bang search does is, it directly redirects you to the site you wanted to search for. For this example, “!a” refers to amazon. So, you’ll see the available blazers directly at amazon. No more clicking links in the search results. There are thousands bang searches available (currently 6396) and increasing. You can search for a movie, say “Ant-Man”, directly at “Imdb”, through DuckDuckGo by searching “!Imdb Ant-Man”.

Customize

People can easily customize DuckDuckGo according to them. Click on the menu at the top right corner of the page for customization options. As DuckDuckGo does not store your information, it depends on the browser cookies for remembering settings. So whenever you’ll reset your browser, your settings will be gone. To prevent this, they provide an option to store your settings in the cloud. That’s a pretty good feature too.

Did you find these DuckDuckGo search tricks helpful? Tell us in the comments below.

7th Generation Intel Core Processors

Intel Unveils Kaby Lake — 7th Generation Intel Core Processors For “Immersive Internet”

Short Bytes: Intel has announced its next generation processors based on the 14-nm Kaby Lake architecture. The 7th Gen Core chips support viewing and editing of 4K UHD content without the need for a discrete graphics chip. Intel expects computers packed with Kaby Lake chips to hit the markets by next month.

Intel Inc. has finally put the curtains off its 7th Gen Intel Core processors based on the 14-nm Kaby Lake architecture. Continuing its legacy of launching more powerful processors in every successive Core series, Intel has enabled the Kaby Lake-based chips to have improved support for 4K UHD and 360-degree video content.

As Intel demonstrated earlier, this would allow you to stream 4K videos as well as edit and share them right out of the box. You can combine multiple 4K video streams and watch a UHD movie at the same time.

The 7th Gen Core processors include upgraded versions of Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and Core m3. Intel has managed to improve the performance and reduce the power consumption at the same time. The Kaby Lake processors can improve the battery life up to 3-times when 4K videos are played on the computer.

Intel has also partnered with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to bring their ULTRA 4K movie streaming service (launched in January this for Sony’s 4K TVs) to the users of the 7th Gen Intel Core processors. The movie rental service will commence sometime in the first quarter of 2017.

Intel aims that its next-gen Core processors would power most of the laptops and 2-in-1s in the market. Let’s see, how they perform in comparison to the recently announced Zen architecture-based processors by AMD.

“We are incredibly excited about the strong partnership with our OEM customers and expect more than 100 different 2 in 1s and laptops powered by 7th Gen Intel Core to be available starting in September through this holiday season,” writes Navin Shenoy, corporate VP and GM for  Intel’s Client Computing Group.

To say we are excited about our new 7th Gen Intel Core family is an understatement. I don’t think there has ever been a better time to check out what a new Intel-powered PC can do.

— Via Intel Newsroom

If you have something to add, tell us in the comments below.

First Movie Trailer Using AI

Morgan: IBM Watson Creates World’s First Movie Trailer Using AI

Short Bytes: The 20th Century Fox teamed up with IBM Research to create the world’s first cognitive movie trailer with the help of the AI bot IBM Watson. It chose 10 moments out of the horror flick Morgan and then a human editor stitched them to come up with a trailer.

The IBM Watson is getting better every day. Last time, we heard about it when it detected a rare form of leukemia in a patient’s body and when it was used to drive a bus. Now, doctor IBM Watson is preparing for a Hollywood debut. The supercomputer IBM Watson was used to create the trailer of the 20th Century Fox horror movie Morgan.

For a scary movie, an important thing is how a person digests it. “Our team was faced with the challenge of not only teaching a system to understand, “what is scary”, but then to create a trailer that would be considered “frightening and suspenseful” by a majority of viewers,” writes Michael Zimmerman for IBM.

Over 100 horror movie trailers were fed to the IBM Watson in order to give IBM Watson the “feel” of a horror movie. Though in reality, it is just some binary numbers for the AI bot.

The trailer videos were segmented into small moments on which IBM Watson performed an analysis of audio, video, and how each scene was composed. It helped Watson detect what scenes were depicting, for example, a frightened person or an eerie moment.

After watching the 90-minute Morgan, IBM Watson came up with 10 moments (6-minutes of total length) that “would be the best candidate for the trailer”.

The final trailer, however, required the help of a human as the AI-bot didn’t have editing capabilities. “Our system could select the moments, but it’s not an editor. We partnered with a resident IBM filmmaker to arrange and edit each of the moments together into a comprehensive trailer.”

An average time of ten to thirty days is required for the creation of a movie trailer. The editing team manually analyses every moment of the movie that could become a part of the trailer. The eligible candidates are then stitched together in such a way that it gives an overview of the movie. Watson’s involvement shrunk down the whole process to a matter of around 24 hours.

“Reducing the time of a process from weeks to hours –that is the true power of AI.”

The combination of machine intelligence and human expertise is a powerful one. This research investigation is simply the first of many into what we hope will be a promising area of machine and human creativity. We don’t have the only solution for this challenge, but we’re excited about pushing the possibilities of how AI can augment the expertise and creativity of individuals.

Source: IBM

Windows 10’s Worst Feature!

Cumulative Updates: Windows 10’s Worst Feature Arrives On Windows 7/8.1

Just in case you were wondering “how will Microsoft encourage Windows 10 installation after the expiry of free Windows 10 upgrade offer”, we have an answer. The company is looking to take away the user control from Windows 7 and 8.1 and make them just like Windows 10. Starting from October 2016, Microsoft will enable a cumulative update model in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, just like the one in Windows 10.

Now Microsoft is changing the way your good-old Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 operating systems received updates. The company is making a switch to the controversial cumulative update model that’s similar to the one seen in Windows 10. This marks a shift from the individual patch release approach for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

In Microsoft’s words:

“Each month’s rollup will supersede the previous month’s rollup, so there will always be only one update required for your Windows PCs to get current. i.e. a Monthly Rollup in October 2016 will include all updates for October, while November 2016 will include October and November updates, and so on.”

If you haven’t figured out Microsoft’s plan to push Windows 10 yet, let me explain further —

Till now, Redmond’s older operating systems got some individual patches each month. If you chose to avoid some updates for a couple of months, you needed to download many Windows updates while patching your system in future.

On the other hand, Windows 10 gets just one or two updates per month. This single cumulative update has all the updates from previous months, making your computer up to date in one go. Sounds simple and great, right?

Well, there’s a plot twist. This shift to Windows 10’s monthly roll-up gives Redmond complete control over your Windows installation and its updates. Now, after October 2016, individual patches won’t be available for download.

Here’s the scariest part — just like Windows 10, now Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users will have only two choices. Either they need to accept all the updates pushed by Microsoft or stop upgrading and leave their systems vulnerable to hacking attacks. This approach of installing upgrades also hinders the ability to recover from a bad update.

The same update model will also be followed when it comes to security-only updates. From October 2016 onwards, Microsoft will release just one security-only update each month and no individual patches will be made available. However, the security-only update won’t be pushed via Windows Update.

So, if you’ve avoided Windows 10 thinking that Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 let you choose what updates to install on your PC, think once more. Yes, this is what Microsoft wants. It wants you to think that Windows 10 is now a better option as compared to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.

Did you find this article helpful? Don’t forget to drop your feedback in the comments section below.

“Fuchsia” New OS By GOOGLE

Google Is Developing A New Open Source OS Named “Fuchsia”

Short Bytes: To gain an even larger market share of operating systems, Google is working to create a new open source operating system named Fuchsia. You can find repositories of the OS on GitHub and Google’s website that mention the existence of its kernel Magenta. In the description, Google calls it an OS that targets modern smartphones and computers.

This one comes from the rumor mill that went into overdrive with speculations that Google is working on a new open-source operating system for smartphones and computers.

In the times when Google is bringing new features to the smartphone world and leaving iOS behind in terms of innovation, Google is probably looking to strengthen its position by working on a new open source operating system.

Codenamed Fuchsia, one can spot the new platform existing in Google’s Git repositories. However, at the moment, the repository doesn’t include any source code. This project was originally spotted on Hacker News.

If you go ahead and dig a little deeper, you’ll come across a line on Google’s Git repo that reads — “Pink + Purple == Fuchsia (a new Operating System)”.

Upon further digging the GitHub repository, we came to know that Magenta is the new kernel that powers the Fushia OS. The kernel is designed to interact with the OS via object handles. The documentation from the same calls it an operating system targeting the modern phones and PCs.

Targets modern phones and modern personal computers with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of ram with arbitrary peripherals doing open-ended computation.

This operating system is most probably intended to be used by consumer devices as its IRC channel notes that it currently boots on Intel NUCs with Skylake and Broadwell chips and tablets with Intel Core processor. A developer also mentioned that it’s also intended to support Raspberry Pi 3.

At the moment, Google hasn’t revealed any details about this new open source operating system named Fuchsia OS. We have contacted Google for more details and we’ll be letting you know if we hear something from them.

For OS nerds, here’s a fun fact: Pink and Purple (from Pink + Purple == Fuchsia) were both Apple codenames for operating systems.

Did you find this article interesting? Don’t forget to drop your feedback in the comments section below.

This game would take you 584 billion years to finish

No Man’s Sky is a new computer game with a universe of 18 quintillion planets

The newly released No Man’s Sky computer game would actually take a gamer 584 billion years to finish according to its developers.

 No Man’s Sky took five years in the making by indie developer Hello Games. No Man’s Sky is a glorified version of the highly popular Minecraft game. Built on an in-house engine, the final product weighs in at a meagre 5GB on your hard drive. More surprising is that the game of this magnitude was developed by just 15 persons. The game relying heavily on procedural generation, very little of the game’s visual make-up uses pre-made textures or assets. Instead, the star of the show is the set of algorithms at its core – lines of code capable of generating terrain, plants and even unique wildlife on-the-fly.

Each detail is unique to countless millions of planets across a virtual galaxy. No Man’s Sky’s 15 member British developers made this possible through a smart use of technology. Visually, we’re talking about a largely overlooked approach to graphics rendering that makes this level of variety possible. For No Man’s Sky, we’re talking about voxels.

Rather than concentrating solely on the polygons seen in 99 per cent of games made today, No Man’s Sky’s core utilisation of voxels makes this procedural generation – and also destruction – much easier.