First look: Lenovo's crazy Magic View smartwatch concept

Magic View's 'Virtual Interactive Display' is a first in smartwatches — but you can't buy it yet.

For Android followers and smartwatch fans, the most interesting announcement out of Lenovo's TechWorld event in Beijing might have been the company's crazy new concept design for a smartwatch, dubbed "Magic View." Part traditional smartwatch, part secondary display, the device introduces an intriguing new way to look at pictures or video on your wrist. Whether it'll ever take off in a consumer product remains to be seen. In the meantime we've had the chance to test out the watch in Beijing. Check past the break to learn more.

The Magic View concept is a pretty bulky beast, as might be expected for a limited proof-of-concept. Physically, it's about the size of LG's webOS-based Watch Urbane LTE The watch face itself seems like a distant cousin of the Moto 360, made by the Lenovo-owned Motorola. The "flat tire" cut-off portion of the screen remains in place, but besides that there bezels are about as thin as the 360's. For a prototype, it's not bad looking aside from the very obvious bulk.

It looks and behaves like a smartwatch. On the software side, however, Lenovo tells us it's not running Android Wear, but custom software based upon Android. Many of the UI elements and interactions are familiar, but it's clearly running something other than Google's standard wearable OS.

But the star of the show is Lenovo's new Virtual Interactive Display (VID), which lives below the main LCD on a panel of its own. This panel appears opaque from a distance, but hold it up to your eye and you'll see a full-sized image. It's not unlike the handful of eye-based wearable displays we've seen in recent years, including Google Glass and Sony's Smart Eyeglasses. The picture is clear, but significant movement has the potential to blur things out of focus.

Lenovo's demo units were loaded up with a few sample apps which make use of the VID. Firstly, a straight up video player served as a demonstration of the display's size and clarity, bot of which were pretty good. That said, we used the Magic View indoors, and it's unclear how well the technology behind it will adapt to daylight viewing.

Another demo involves a 360-degree Google Street View style panorama of a stadium, with the watch's sensors used to control the motion of the image, effectively giving you an interactive portal into wherever this spherical photo was taken. At a technical level it's an impressive sight to behold, though there's no doubt you're going to look a little goofy holding this thing up to your eye in public. It's also not clear how this is going to be any easier than pulling your phone out of your pocket, though the manufacturer is touting privacy as one reason you might want to view stuff on a tiny display only you can see.

Ultimately that's why we're still looking at a concept smartwatch, not a consumer product. And what's more, it's unclear how a second display would impact already tenuous smartwatch battery life. So there are challenges to be overcome here, it'll be interesting to see how Lenovo goes about implementing the VID in a more consumer-friendly product. In the meantime it's a fascinating technical showcase.

Microsoft is Launching series of new ultra stylish windows phones !!

 It’s been a while since Microsoft announced a new flagship Windows phone, but a new report suggests it could have a whole bunch of devices ready to go in the near future. According to NokiaPowerUser, the company is prepping four exciting handsets.

Late last month, rumors about a successor to the Lumia 930 have started appearing online. Microsoft is working on new smartphones, dubbed the Lumia 940 and Lumia 940 XL, which will feature high-end specifications alongside a uni body aluminum design.

Here are the details of Microsoft lumia 940 XL.

This is a sleek flagship device with dual stereo speakers at the bottom of this phone. With a 6.8mm waistline, this is a windows 10 devuce powered by Intel atom x7 64 bit processor with 5.4 inch screen. The display is super Amoled with quad HD resolution.

This device is packed with 4GB of RAM and 32GB inbuilt storage with a microSD card slot. The back camera is a Carl Zeiss optics packed with 24MP preview camera and 8MP front facing camera.

The designer also included a fingerprint scanner just right of the windows button. However this 940XL concept looks stunning and classy. This device is sleek and shiny.

Micromax’s Yu to debut its new smartphone Yuphoria soon

After the grand success of the first smartphone Yureka, Yu is all set to launch its successor, Yuphoria in the Indian Smartphone market soon. The device is expected to be launched on May 12, exclusively on amazon.in, through flash sales as it was seen earlier with Yureka.

The Yu is the subsidiary of the Indian smartphone selling giant Micromax, which is teasing the Indian consumers by releasing the videos showing the features of the device.

Regarding the teasing campaign, the company has launched 2 teasers. The first one shows the improved build quality of the device by a scene in which the handset users drops the device on the floor.

Following it, someone utters, “the Yuphoria is fine” before the camera is pointed towards the floor which has a broken tile to imply that the device actually broke it.

Meanwhile, the second one shows that a guy is playing music in his phone and hairs of a lady sitting opposite to him, fly all over the place. It seems that the company is trying to convince users which are not satisfied with the Yureka’s performance as most of the Yureka users complained about the built and sound of the device.

Rumors surfacing on the internet suggest that unlike the Yureka, the Yuphoria may boast a metal rim and rugged polycarbonate back. In addition, it is expected that the device will be priced around Rs. 15,000 for all plastic body.

The Yureka successor will be running on Android 5.0 Lollipop-based CyanogenOS 12 supported by a 64-bit processor that will be coupled with a 2GB of RAM and sport 16 GB of unexpandable internal storage. With the regular connectivity options, the device will offer 4G LTE support and an HD or full HD display.

Apart this, Micromax has ended the legal tussle with OnePlus, yesterday. OnePlus today announced that the cases have been withdrawn and the legal proceedings against the firm have been resolved through mutual consent. Five months earlier, the firm alleged that OnePlus was infringing the exclusive rights of Micromax to use Cyanogen software. As, the co-founder of the company, Rahul Sharma has signed an exclusive contract with Cyanogen to use the OS for its subsidiary product, Yu Yureka.

The company was alleged the OnePlus just before the launching of Yu Yureka and as of now the firm has taken those allegations back before launching Yu Yuphoria. It is so, may be because the allegation on the company affected the sales of both of the devices as the consumers were in fear that they won’t get OTA update for the OS in their devices.

OnePlus Two to have Snapdragon 810 SoC onboard and to be priced at $400

OnePlus CEO says OnePlus Two will sport Snapdragon 810 SoC and cost CNY 2,499 ($400/Rs. 25,000)

OnePlus Two the much awaited smartphone from OnePlus will be made available to buyers in Q3 of 2015 according OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei. Other than that not much is known about the upcoming OnePlus Two.

However, on Wednesday, OnePlus CEO Liu Zuohu aka Pete Lau asked his followers on the Chinese microblogging website, Weibo as to what should be the price of OnePlus Two if it will sport a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC.

After many of his followers gave their suggestions, Lau agreed with some of the followers who had suggested a price of CNY 2,499 (roughly $400/ Rs. 25,000).

Zuohu asked his followers, “If OnePlus Two comes with Snapdragon 810, what do you think will be the price?” and then later replied, “2,499 Yuan seems to be a reasonable price.”

The Wiebo tweets now confirm two things, one is that OnePlus Two will have the Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 810 SoC onboad and other is that it will be priced in the range of  $400.

OnePlus had said last month that OnePlus Two will be a cheaper headset and perhaps the price $400 may not classify as a cheap smartphone. It also remains to be seen whether OnePlus Two could match sales corresponding to the earlier OnePlus One in view of stiff competition from Xiaomi and Asus who are bring one of the best powered smartphones to market. The company had then also said it aims to sell between 3 and 5 million smartphones in 2015, and 10 million in 2016.

OnePlus Two will have a 5.5-inch display panel similar to the one on its predecessor, OnePlus One, but with an increased resolution from full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) to QHD (1440×2560 pixels).  It is also tipped to have a massive 4GB of RAM and 32GB internal memory, in addition to the Snapdragon 810 processor. The OnePlus Two will have a 16MP rear shooter and a 5MP front-facing camera. The connectivity options included were 4G networks, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Micro-USB and OTG connectivity. It will be powered by a 3300mAh battery.

It remains to be seen how OnePlus deals with the overheating problems in the Snapdragon 810 SoC. There are conflicting reports of the heating issue in 810 chip with Qualcomm today strongly defending its latest flagship and saying that heating issues are a rumour.

YU Founder Teases One of YUphoria’s “Solid” Features

The latest trend is that brand’s themselves leak information about their upcoming products, bit-by-bit. Companies are getting more and more creative these days, and finding new ways of doing the same. Micromax just gave a sneak peek of their much awaited Yu YUphoria smartphone, ahead of its launch on the 12th of this month.

Rahul Sharma, founder of Micromax mobile tweeted a video about the phone. The video is a candid footage showing the durability and sturdiness of the phone. We would like you to watch the video for yourself; it’s a floor-cracker.

From the video, we can also tell that the new smartphone will look nothing like its predecessor. In the video you catch a glimpse of its metal frame body.

All we know about  theYUphoria till now is that it will boast the Android Lollipop version of Cyanogen OS. A 64-bit processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB onboard memory will be equipped to the handset. This is also the company’s first phone to get a crowd-sourced name.

Further information on pricing and availability will be known at the launch event itself. Keep checking back for updates.

Fitness tracker company Fitbit files to go public on the NYSE under the symbol 'FIT'.

Fitbit Inc., a pioneer in wearable fitness tracking, on Thursday filed for an initial public offering to help fend against a mounting assault from a range of corporate giants eager for a piece of the burgeoning market.

The San Francisco maker of devices that track movement and sleep quality revealed it earned a $131.8 million profit last year on revenue that nearly tripled to $745.4 million. Since 2007, Fitbit has sold roughly 20.5 million of its fitness-tracking devices—from the $60 Zip clip-on to the $250 Surge wristwatch—with more than half sold last year alone.

Fitbit said Thursday it is seeking to raise up to $100 million, although that amount is a placeholder and is subject to change. It aims to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol FIT. The company valued itself at roughly $1.2 billion in March. It isn’t yet clear what valuation the company will seek in the IPO.

Its products’ novel ability to count the number of daily steps and monitor distance traveled and calories burned seized the attention of data-obsessed modern consumers and paved the way for a new category of hardware technology.

Celebrities such as author David Sedaris and basketball player Shaquille O’Neal have professed their love for Fitbits, and President Barack Obama has been spotted wearing the Fitbit Surge in public outings.

But that success also has attracted a wealth of competitors, as Fitbit acknowledges in its IPO filing. Tech giants such as Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Samsung Electronics Inc.all have launched smartwatches with the ability to monitor exercise, while Google Inc.’s Android platform has been embraced by a number of big hardware makers. Then there are smaller electronics makers such as Garmin Ltd., Jawbone and Misfit, as well as sporting-goods companies like Nike Inc. and Under Amour Inc., which all sell fitness bands on the market.

Fitbit also has had to recover from a big knock to its brand. In early 2014, the company was stung by a series of complaints from consumers that one the company’s fitness-tracking bracelets, the Fitbit Force, caused rashes on their wrists. Fitbit recalled the product in March 2014, saying a small percentage of its customers experienced an allergic reaction to materials in the bracelet.

In addition to the reputational hit, Fitbit’s IPO filing revealed that the recall cost the company $84.6 million in pretax income in 2013 and another $22.8 million last year. The recalls also led to lawsuits filed against the company. Fitbit says it has settled all class-action lawsuits, though a number of personal-injury claims remain unresolved.

Fitbit warned these claims could lead to “substantial” litigation or settlement costs.

Also, it is unclear how many Fitbit consumers remain loyal users. Of the 20.5 million devices sold since its launch, just 9.5 million were actively used in the first three months of the year, according to the IPO filing. Some earlier models may no longer be used because consumers upgraded to newer iterations.

The company, with 579 employees at the end of March, said its products are now sold in 45,000 retail stores in more than 50 countries, and commands 68% of the fitness-tracker market, according to NPD Group.

Fitbit’s 38-year-old chief executive, James Park, co-founded the company in 2007 with his business partner, Eric Friedman. Mr. Park, a Harvard dropout, came up with the idea after playing videogames at home, struck by the way the Nintendo Wii combined motion sensors and software. Messrs. Park and Friedman each own a 10.9% stake in Fitbit, according to the filing.

The company has raised at least $83 million in venture-capital funding from investors such as Foundry Group, True Ventures and SoftBank Capital. Foundry Group is the biggest shareholder with a 28.9% ownership.

Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank are listed among the underwriters of the IPO.

Google ensures your gmail account security by tracking duplicates.

No matter how much Google does to harden its servers, hire the world’s best security engineers, and root out hack able bugs in its products, it can’t stop dummies like you and me from handing our Gmail passwords over to the first cyber criminal who slaps a Google logo on a fake login page. But now, for users of its Chrome browser at least, it’s trying a new method to protect our passwords from ourselves.

On Wednesday, Google released a new extension for Chrome it calls Password Alert, designed to deal with the stubborn problem of phishing sites that impersonate login pages to steal passwords. Any time you type your Gmail password into a login page that’s not an actual Google login, the new extension shows you an alert and gives you a chance to immediately reset your Gmail password before it can be used to compromise your account. For corporate users, the extension can even be configured to automatically alert a company’s incident response team.

“In the security industry we expect users to know when it’s ok to type their password. That ‘accounts.google.com’ is ok, and ‘accountsgoogle.com’ isn't. That’s an unreasonable demand,” says Google security engineer Drew Hintz. “This helps you make that decision as to whether the place you just typed your password was a fine place to type it or not.”

 THE WARNING PASSWORD ALERT SHOWS WHEN THE USER TYPES HIS OR HER PASSWORD ON A LOGIN PAGE OTHER THAN GOOGLE’S.

Password Alert also helps to tackle another problem that internet services have often considered outside their control: Careless users who reuse the same password across many different sites. Sign up for any other service with your Gmail password, and all of Google’s expensive security is reduced to the security of that other service. Hackers learned long ago that passwords and usernames spilled by one security breach often work on other sites, too. But reuse a Gmail password with Password Alert installed, and it triggers the same alert as a phishing attempt, an annoyance that could lead users to give up the bad habit of sharing passwords between sites.

Phishing remains one of the most serious and intractable problems in information security, and is often the initial breach point for hacker schemes ranging from mass credit card harvesting to sophisticated, state-sponsored targeted attacks. Google estimates that as many as 45 percent of some well-crafted phishing emails can successfully trick users, and that 2 percent of all Gmail messages it sees are phishing attempts.

Google itself has been battling phishing attacks for years, says Hintz. He’s “refereed” Google’s own internal penetration tests, which showed again and again that password phishing was “a vulnerability you can’t patch,” he says. So three years ago, Hintz says Google began implementing a version of the Password Alert Chrome extension internally. It turned out to be effective enough that the company decided to roll out a version to users.

Hintz says that upcoming versions of Password Alert will give users the option to monitor other passwords, too, such as those for their banking or corporate accounts. In the current version, it immediately asks the user to log back into their Google account when it’s installed. Then it records and stores a cryptographically hashed version of the password locally on the user’s machine—a scrambled version of the password that the extension can check for matches but can’t in theory be used by anyone who accesses it. (Although Password Alert requests on installation the rather disturbing permission to “read and change all your data on the websites you visit,” Hintz says the extension never communicates anything back to Google’s servers.)

This is hardly the first step Google has taken to try to protect users from phishing scams. It already offers users two-factor authentication and Chrome include a “Safe Browsing” feature. In its constant crawls of the entire visible Web, Google seeks out sites that seem to be infected with malware or phishing attempts, and Chrome issues a warning if a user visits one. Firefox and Safari also use Google’s Safe Browsing data to flag those malicious sites.

Password Alert adds another layer to those protections, though it doesn't yet share that safeguard with other browsers as Google does with Safe Browsing. Hintz points out that the extension is open-source and available on Github, ready to easily port to other browsers.

If Google’s approach catches on with other internet services and browsers, it could serve as an broad new form of password hygiene, keeping your most sensitive character combinations off the sketchy websites that have been a scourge of internet security. If only the password post-its struck to the wall of your cubicle could be so easily eradicated.