Thursday 25 May 2017
Microsoft Releases New Surface Pro with extended Battery life.
Microsoft has announced the release of a new version of its Surface Pro Windows tablet that is thinner, lighter and has a longer battery life.
The company, on a roll from a previous announcement of the new Surface Laptop and Windows 10 S, launched the updated hybrid computer, which can turn from a tablet into a laptop with the addition of a keyboard, at an event in Shanghai. The new Surface Pro replaces the Surface Pro 4 and drops the numbering scheme Microsoft has used for the last five years.
The new Windows 10 tablet will have the latest, seventh generation Intel Core processors – something rivals such as Apple’s MacBook Pro line lack – and up to 13.5 hours of battery life and a smoother, as well as a more rounded design than its predecessor. A new version of the Surface Pen stylus was also released, which supports tilt recognition for sketching on the 12.3in high-resolution touch display.
A version will be available with a built-in 4G modem, while a new kickstand hinge on the back will allow the tablet to adjust to an angle of 165 degrees to make writing or drawing on the screen with the stylus easier. The Surface Dial accessory, which was launched alongside the Surface Studio all-in-one PC in October 2016, will also work with the new tablet.
Microsoft said that new versions of the Surface Pro’s optional keyboard will be available with an Alcantara fabric material – the same finish that raised eyebrows when it was used to cover the keyboard deck of Microsoft’s Surface Laptop.
Read Also Microsoft Surface Pro 5 New Leaks
Tuesday 23 May 2017
HP releases new premium laptops .
HP’s way of drawing attention to its creativity-oriented high-end laptops and hybrid tablets is by choosing the Cannes festival. The most interesting device is the Spectre x2, a Surface Pro-like tablet with a detachable keyboard and stainless steel kickstand.
HP is targeting Windows Ink users and other graphics pros with the 2.5-pound tablet, which has been significantly updated from the last model with an Ink-certified, pressure sensitive stylus, 3,000 x 2,000 pixel 12.3-inch touchscreen and detachable, full-size keyboard.
It should be no slouch in the performance department, with a 7th-gen (Kaby Lake) Core i7 processor, 360GB M.2 SSD and Intel Iris Plus 650 graphics that can support two 4K external monitors. The battery will run up to 8 hours, or a bit less if used for video playback. Other features include HP fast charge, Bluetooth 4.2 and 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi, and dual speakers "custom-tuned" by Bang & Olufsen.
Saturday 20 May 2017
New Features coming to Android O
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| android O |
Google revealed more details at last developers conference about upcoming versions of android. Though the official release is not out yet but here are a few eavesdrops.
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| broken emoji |
1. Broken emoji is gone
Android O will help ensure you never miss out on the latest releases. A new feature for developers lets them integrate a new emoji library that automatically fills in missing emoji even if you don't have it available on your keyboard yet.
2. Smart Sharing
Android O has the ability to understand what you have in your photos and recommend specific apps and actions based on what is in it the composition and your prior behavior. "If a user takes a photo of a receipt, Android O can suggest an expense-tracking app; if the user takes a selfie, a social media app can better handle the image," Google says.
This also applicable to videos, URLs, text, and other types of content — your phone can learn what you typically do with different types of content to improve its recommendations.
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| Cleaner Icon |
3. Cleaner Icons
Android developers will be able to create an array of icons to match the styles for different devices. This implies that if you use a phone that defaults to round app icons, apps that have typically used square icons now have the ability to use round ones instead.
4. Notification Snoozing
Android O places a lot of emphasis on improving notifications. One notable tweak will be the ability to snooze a notification for later.
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| badge notification |
5. Badge Notifications
One of the most significant changes to notifications is the addition of badge notifications — small dots that appear over an app icon to indicate a new notification from that app. Furthermore, you can long press on an app to check its notifications.
6. Background colors for notifications
Another little but notable method Google applies to redesigning the look and feel of notifications: Developers will have the ability to enable background colors for notifications from their app.
Hope you are not expecting your notifications tray to look extra colorful — Google recommends developers "only use this feature in notifications for ongoing tasks which are critical for a user to see at a glance," like navigation or phone calls.
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| notification channels |
7. Notification Channels
Apart from just changing the look and feel of notifications, Android O is now letting users have much more fine-tuned control over which notifications they see in the first place with something called notification channels. Notification channels let you decide which types of notifications you want to see from your apps.
.
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| TV Launcher |
8. New Android TV Launcher
In addition to getting new superpowers thanks to Google Assistant, Android TV is also getting a redesigned launcher menu that emphasizes content discovery.
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| new animation |
9. New animation styles
Android O is adding support for a new animation style called physics-based animation. "Physics-based animation relies on the laws of physics to manifest a high degree of realism in animation. In our day-to-day life, when a change occurs, it comes with a physical transition that is natural for us to recognize. "
This will manifest in a few different styles of animations, but one is a new type called "fling animation," which helps you slow down motion at the end of a graphic.
10. Picture-in-picture
Android O is getting support for picture-in-picture that works with any app, not just YouTube. It will take some time before more developers start adopting the feature, which is pretty buggy in the current developer preview, but PiP will definitely level up your multitasking.
Friday 19 May 2017
Microsoft is changing windows design
The recent creators update Microsoft released for Windows 10
may sound very unattractive and unartistic, but the truth is the is filled with
artistic potential and useful features that will give users a timeline to
manage complex work sessions, APIs that tie all of Microsoft's services
together and, notably, a new design paradigm intended to radically overhaul the
flat-rectangle user interface it's known for. Microsoft's Fluent Design System
focuses on five tenets to help developers build more creative and engaging user
interfaces: depth, material, light, scale and motion.
Light
If you are a filmmaker then the read is worth it. You will
to know just how important lighting is in a scene. With design, it's no
different: How bright or dark an interface is can change how the user perceives
it. It creates atmosphere, lending an
app design a sense of place. That's true enough, but when it comes to designing
an interactive menu or app interface, it's also an important tool for drawing a
user's attention. An illuminated button can teach customers how to use an app,
or highlight a program feature they might otherwise pass over.
Depth
With earlier versions, Windows has almost relied on square
frames to present users with information and tools. Microsoft is challenging
developers to kill that paradigm by breaking information and objects free of a
traditional 2D frame With Fluent Design.
Instead of the usual flat traditional calendar, for example,
Microsoft's Build presentation imagined an "at-a-glance" agenda
zooming in and telescoping important events toward the user -- creating an
illusion of depth by layering and sizing more important appointments to appear
larger. The hope is that by using depth to lend interfaces the illusion of a
physical environment, Windows apps will be able to keep their users engaged for
longer.
Motion
An amazing animated interface is indeed an engaging one, and
the "motion" edict is all about keeping a user's attention by giving
her something active to look at and interact with. The use of motion in Fluent
Design to a director using movement is being likened to lead the viewer to the
story they want to tell. "Motion design has a special power to bring all
of our experiences to life," Belfore says, "and lead people from one
task to another with a cinematic ease."
Microsoft illustrates this with the Xbox One's live pop-in
menu, music visualization in a media player and with a motion graphic
transitioning a simple graph to a more dynamic, brightly colored array of
representational shapes -- all examples that quickly draw the attention of the
user to the task at hand, be it controlling music, managing game settings or
simply keeping the viewer engaged with a dataset.
Material
Similar to most of Fluent Design's concepts, "material" almost seems
like a dig at the visual style of Windows' past. The functional squares of the
traditional Microsoft interface may be, well, functional, but it lacks a
connection to the physical world. Belfiore suggests that the key to making
users love Windows' app design is to emulate the "sensory and
invigorating" feel of the materials that make up the real world.
"We want to bring more of that character to our designs
in the right way, with a physical quality," he says. "Inviting people
to touch and interact." This statement could easily be dismissed as an
effort to give apps more interesting textures -- but with Windows 10, the idea
of making a PC interface inviting to touch holds some merit. We may think of
PCs as simple, traditional keyboard-and-mouse interfaces, but the Fall Creator
Update leans hard on better voice control, better touch interaction and
natural-feeling stylus input. Building an interface that invites that kind of
interaction makes a lot of sense.
Scale
Microsoft's recent design language seems surfaced with
improvement on the traditional computing environment -- objects under glass
controlled with peripherals and accessories. "Scale" is a bit
different. Here, Microsoft is looking toward its own future. Specifically, the
scale of digital objects used in 3D interfaces and virtual/augmented reality.
The relative "size" of digital assets happens to
be something VR developers have been working on for a few years now -- an
object that might be properly scaled when viewed through a computer monitor
might seem incredibly large or surprisingly small when viewed through an AR or
VR headset. Getting the size of virtual objects right is paramount to building
a good first-person interface. By challenging developers to think about the
scale of their interface in terms of a 3D environment, Microsoft is asking them
to imagine how their product might look through the company's Hololens
headgear.
It's quite too early to say for sure how Fluent Design will
work out, but Microsoft is clearly thinking about its user interface in a
completely new way. It's a little odd but the idea that the
next version of Windows could look completely different is absolutely exciting.
Read also Windows 10 feature: How to lock folder
Monday 15 May 2017
HP releases fix for 'keylogger' found on several laptop models
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| Hp workstation |
HP has released patches to remove the keylogger, which will also delete the log file containing the keystrokes.
A spokesperson for HP said in a brief statement: "HP is committed to the security and privacy of its customers and we are aware of the keylogger issue on select HP PCs. HP has no access to customer data as a result of this issue.
HP vice-president Mike Nash said on a call after-hours on Thursday that a fix is available on Windows Update and HP.com for newer 2016 and later affected models, with 2015 models receiving patches Friday. He added that the keylogger-type feature was mistakenly added to the driver's production code and was never meant to be rolled out to end-user devices.
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| Hp laptops |
Nash didn't how many models or customers were affected but did confirm that some consumer laptops were affected.
He also confirmed that a handful of consumer models that come with Conexant drivers are affected.
The pre-installed audio driver installs a driver located in the Windows system folder, which is scheduled to start every time the user logs in. Modzero describes the application as a crude way to check to see if a hotkey was pressed by monitoring "all keystrokes made by the user to capture and react to functions such as microphone mute/unmute keys/hotkey."
Read also Keylogger Malware discovered in some HP laptops.
Read also HP's Elite x2 1012 G2 hybrid laptop surpasses Microsoft Surface Pro 4
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| keylogger fix |
Read also Keylogger Malware discovered in some HP laptops.
Read also HP's Elite x2 1012 G2 hybrid laptop surpasses Microsoft Surface Pro 4
Saturday 13 May 2017
Ready to use Excel Formulas:Dealing with Divide-by-Zero Errors
In mathematics, division by zero is impossible. One way to understand why it’s
impossible is to consider what happens when you divide a number by another.
Division is really nothing more than fancy subtraction. For example, 10 divided by 2
is the same as starting with 10 and continuously subtracting 2 as many times as needed
to get to zero. In this case, you would need to continuously subtract 2 five times.
10-2 = 8
8-2 = 6
6-2 = 4
4-2 = 2
2-2 = 0
So, 10/2 = 5.
Now if you tried to do this with 10 divided by 0, you would never get anywhere,
because 10-0 is 10 all day long. You’d be sitting there subtracting 0 until your
calculator dies.
10-0 = 10
10-0 = 10
10-0 = 10
10-0 = 10
…..Infinity
Mathematicians call the result you get when dividing any number by zero “undefined.”
Software like Excel simply gives you an error when you try to divide by zero. In
Excel, when you divide a number by zero, you get the #DIV/0! error.
You can avoid this by telling Excel to skip the calculation if your denominator is a
zero. , screenshot illustrates how to do this by wrapping the division operation in
Excel’s IF function.
=IF(C4=0, 0, D4/C4)
How it works
The IF function requires three arguments: the condition; what to do if the condition is
true; and what to do if the condition is false.
The condition argument in this example is the budget in C4 is equal to zero (C4=0).
Condition arguments must be structured to return TRUE or FALSE, and that usually
means that there is a comparison operation (like an equal sign or greater-than sign).
If the condition argument returns TRUE, the second argument of the IF function is
returned to the cell. The second argument is 0, meaning that you simply want a zero
displayed if the budget number in cell C4 is a zero.
IF the condition argument is not zero, the third argument takes effect. In the third
argument, you tell Excel to perform the division calculation (D4/C4).
So this formula basically says that if C4 equals 0, then return a 0, or else return the
result of D4/C4.
Microsoft's New Mixed Reality Controllers
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| Microsft Reality controller |
Microsoft announced its own set of motion controllers made for its burgeoning Windows Mixed Reality platform, at its annual Build developer conference. The company is calling its new computing platform “mixed reality” because it is a combination of different elements of augmented and virtual reality. The platform itself is directly embedded into the Creators Update for Windows 10.
The new motion controllers announced yesterday (Friday) is to be bundled with virtual reality headsets made by partners Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo that will go on sale this holiday season. One of the first displays to be paired with the new controllers is the Acer Mixed Reality headset tested a few weeks ago.
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| Microsft Reality controller |
At first, the controllers look like a mixed breed between the HTC Vive and Oculus Touch motion controllers. The Microsoft motion controllers are wireless, feature a thumbstick, touchpad, and a ring at the end to help with spatial tracking accuracy. The controllers do not need an external sensor because they are built directly into any compatible headsets.
The motion controllers are a critical addition to Microsoft if they want people to take the new platform seriously. Until now, all of the demonstrations of new Windows Mixed Reality headsets have always required an Xbox controller.
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| Microsft Reality controller |
Finally, the controllers are not compatible with HoloLens and thus won’t work with Hololens. This shouldn’t affect many people at all since the HoloLens is still only a developer kit and is more focused on enterprise than gaming anyway. The Hololens also comes with its own gesture-tracking features built directly into the headset, so it doesn’t really need controllers like this anyways.
Friday 12 May 2017
Keylogger Malware discovered in some HP laptops.
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| Keylogger malware |
What is a keylogger?
Keyloggers are intrusive malware that, when installed, can track everything typed on a keyboard. Simply put, a piece of software records every press on a keyboard.
“The risk of keyloggers is huge”, says a malware intelligence researcher at Malwarebytes tells WIRED. "The feasible information that can be stolen is disastrous, especially on a new computer where nothing is stored in cookies and password managers".
Across the different types of keyloggers, there are two main types, in a blog post-Kaspersky says. These fall under the hardware and software categories: software exploits are typically installed as part of a larger piece of malware. Meanwhile hardware keyloggers, which are rarer, and require a person to physically access a piece of equipment. "A malicious insider could install such a keylogger at the factory level," the security firm says.
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| Hp laptop keylogging |
Use of Keyloggers
Keyloggers can be used to spy on anyone who has an infected machine or device. Any passwords, confidential messages, and private information entered through a keyboard will be captured by the keylogger.
As the technology behind them has become more readily available there has been a number of intensely awkward reports where people have spied on those they are in relationships with.
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| Hp laptop with keylogger |
How to protect yourself from keyloggers.
Protecting yourself against keyloggers can prove to be difficult. Kaspersky says "the applications don’t typically behave like other malicious programs". The loggers are designed not to be detected and stay hidden on a system; they won't give any overt indication they are there.
Keyloggers are usually detected the traditional way – via anti-malware programs, anti-spyware, and file signatures – although it is possible to detect them by programmatic behaviour.
Kaspersky also says that if you suspect a keylogger you can boot a PC from a CD or USB drive or use an on-screen keyboard to prevent input from the physical one being received.
Turn your selfies into stickers with Google Allo's new feature
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| Allo Emoji |
Google Allo has not been able to become a mainstream messaging app like its rivals WhatsApp, Messenger since it was launched. Google is still adding a lot of basic features in the app like the chat backup feature, which got it 50 million downloads lately.
Google has decided to along with the concept of Bitmoji, a popular app that creates cool avatars out of user's photograph and introduced a new feature in Allo that lets you turn your selfies into personalised cartoon stickers and emojis. It is currently rolling out on Allo on Android, while the iOS version will soon receive the feature.
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| Allo chat app |
The functionality of generating stickers out of selfies is actually not new and has already been available on Bitmoji for some time now, Google's version uses a combination of neural networks and the work of artists, which have partnered with the company.
In a plain language, Google Allo will employ machine learning to map selfies to produce the colour, structure, and animations for the stickers. These stickers can be further customised as per the user's preference.
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| Allo selfie emoji |
In a research blog post, “To create an illustration of you that captures the qualities that would make it recognizable to your friends, we worked alongside an artistic team to create illustrations that represented a wide variety of features.
Artists initially designed a set of hairstyles, for example, that they thought would be representative, and with the help of human raters we used these hairstyles to train the network to match the right illustration to the right selfie." Google's Expressions Creative Director for Allo, Jennifer Daniel explains.
Keep in mind the perspective of gender irrelevance, and the inclusion of all races and colour, Google Allo creates stickers and emojis belonging to people of all races, gender, and colour.
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| Google Allo chat aap |
Shading more light on the advancement of machine learning and algorithms used for Google Allo's sticker creation technology, google executive refers to the concept of 'Uncanny Valley' which is the hypothesis that human replicas which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings "Rather than aim to replicate a person's appearance exactly, pursuing a lower resolution model, like emojis and stickers, allows the team to explore expressive representation by returning an image that is less about reproducing reality and more about breaking the rules of representation," Google executives notes while explaining how the company takes note of emotions rather than focusing on the visible physical appearances.
Read Also Google's AutoDraw: How it works
Thursday 11 May 2017
Ready to use Excel Formula: Applying a Percent Increase or Decrease to Values
A common task for an Excel analyst is to apply a percentage increase or decrease to a given number. For instance, when applying a price increase to a product, you would typically raise the original price by a certain percent. When giving a customer a discount, you would decrease that customer’s rate by a certain percent.
The screenshot below illustrates how to apply a percent increase and decrease using a simple formula. In cell E5, you apply a 10 percent price increase to Product A. In Cell E9, you give a 20 percent discount to Customer A
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| % decrease and increase using simple formula |
How it works
To increase a number by a percentage amount, multiply the original amount by 1+ the percent of the increase. In the example in Screenshot, Product A is getting a 10 percent increase. So you first add 1 to the 10 percent, which gives you 110 percent. You then multiply the original price of 100 by 110 percent. This calculates to the new price of 110.
To decrease a number by a percentage amount, multiply the original amount by 1- the percent of the increase. In the example in Screenshot, Customer A is getting a 20 percent discount. So you first subtract 20 percent from 1, which gives you 80 percent. You then multiply the original 1,000 cost per service by 80 percent. This calculates to the new rate of 800.
Note the use of parentheses in the formulas. By default, Excel’s order of operations states that multiplication must be done before addition or subtraction. But if you let that happen, you would get an erroneous result. Wrapping the second part of the formula in parentheses ensures that Excel performs the multiplication last.
Land Rover to celebrate six year of remarkable sales with Range Rover Evoque
Land Rover is building a special edition of its entry-level compact luxury SUV, suitably called the Evoque Landmark edition, to celebrate achieving 600,000 sales in six years.
This was officially revealed at the Royal Windsor Horse Show on Wednesday, the new model is finished in a choice of three special exterior paint schemes -- Moraine Blue, Corris Grey, or Yulong White -- and comes dressed in a grey-accented body kit and with a glass roof as standard.
There is grained Ebony leather on the seats with contrasting stitching inside, a brushed satin metal effect treatment on the dashboard and console, and under the hood, there is an 180hp 2-liter turbodiesel engine calling the shots. It's good for a top speed of 195km/h and a fuel economy of 5.1l/100km on the combined cycle.
Though the SUV is proving to be the world's most popular vehicle type, even Land Rover has been taken by surprise by how popular its Evoque is proving both at home and abroad. Since its launch in 2011, the company has sold over 600,000 -- 18,000 of which were sold in March 2017 alone one-third of which in the U.K.), meaning that the production plant now completes an Evoque every 170 seconds.
"The Evoque has been an indisputable success. It's our biggest selling model in the UK and continues to thrive six years after launch, it's a fantastic achievement and worthy of celebration. The Landmark edition has new dynamic detailing and a distinctive aesthetic which takes its design credentials to an even higher level -- it looks fantastic and we know customers will love it." according to
To put those figures into perspective, it took the original Land Rover Defender 58 years to notch up 2 million sales, and it has taken Mercedes Benz (a company with a much larger selection of off-roaders and crossovers in its range) 37 years to sell 4 million SUVs.
However, the Evoque is set to face some serious competition from Land Rover's sister company, Jaguar. Its first ever SUV, the F-Pace is proving to be the most sought-after car in the company's history and sales are set to rocket thanks to it being crowned 2017 World Car of the Year in April (the first SUV to clinch the coveted award).
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