Moto X to be available in India via Flipkart soon

Riding high on the success of the Moto G, e-commerce site Flipkart has announced exclusively launching the Moto X in India. Though there's no word on the launch date, but reports suggest the smartphone will go official in India on March 19.

In a response to a user query, Flipkart says the Moto X "will come with a fixed set of five colours & two wood variants." The Moto X, however, will not be support Moto Maker customisation.

There's no word on the official pricing of the smartphone as well, but we expect it to be around Rs. 25,000. It's notable Moto X launched in the US for $579 (Rs. 35,000 approximately), but later price was dropped to $399 (Rs. 24,000 approximately).

The Moto X features a 4.7-inch 720p display. It runs Android 4.2.2. Jelly Bean and is powered by a 1.7GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8960Pro Snapdragon processor along with 2GB of RAM. The smartphone has 16GB of built-in storage. The Moto X has 10MP camera with LED flash and 2MP front-facing camera.

For connectivity, the phone supports GPRS, EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. The Moto X has a 2,200 mAh battery.

Razer launches new Blade gaming laptops featuring Nvidia Maxwell GPUs.

Gaming laptops manufacturer, Razer Inc has announced two new high-end notebooks, the new Razer Blade and Razer Blade Pro. Both notebooks feature power-packed specs.

The all new Razer Blade sports a 14-inch touchscreen display with a staggering resolution of 3200x1800 pixels. It runs on a 4th gen Intel Core i7 4702HQ CPU, 8 8GB of RAM and the brand new Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M GPU. It also features an SSD which starts from 128GB all the way to 512GB. The Razer Blade is only 0.7 inches thin and Razer claims that it is the "World's Thinnest Gaming Laptop." It also claims the title of "World's Highest Resolution 14-inch Laptop Display" as well.

Razer Blade Pro, on the other hand, doesn't compromise on specs either. Featuring a 17.3-inch display with a full HD (1080p) resolution, the Razer Blade Pro runs on a 4th gen Intel Core i7-4700HQ CPU with 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU. It also features an SSD between 128GB and 512GB.

Both laptops feature 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Blutooth 4.0, three USB 3.0 ports and HDMI ports.

Razer claims that the new Razer Blade weighs only 4.47 pounds which is pretty light for such a high-end gaming laptop. On the other hand the new Razer Blade Pro is heavier at 6.54 pounds.

Featuring the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 800M-series GPUs, both the laptops offer the best performance when it comes to gaming. The new 800M chips feature Battery Boost, GameStream and ShadowPlay to keep the overall performance as top notch. Nvidia claims that Battery Boost improves the battery life of any notebook by allowing users to lock in a target frame rate. This helps a system in maintaining constant frame rates instead of the usual fluctuating frame rates, thus easing stress on various system components.

With ShadowPlay, you will be able to get a DVR-like functionality from your notebook which allows you to save around 20 minutes of your gameplay. GameStream permits you to stream gameplay to devices like Nvidia SHIELD.

Apart from all that tough hardware, buyers will also get Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Maya and GIMP pre-installed on the machine.

Razer Blade is available for pre-order for $2,199 with shipments expected to start within two weeks. The Blade Pro costs $2,299 and is available immediately.

Ubuntu smartphones to cost between $200 and $400

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical which
develops Ubuntu, has said that the smartphones
running Ubuntu mobile operating systems "will
come out in the mid-higher edge, so $200 to
$400."
"We are going with the higher end because we
want people who are looking for a very sharp,
beautiful experience and because our ambition is
to be selling the future PC, the future personal
computing engine." Shuttleworth said while
speaking at Cebit, which is the world's largest
and most international computer expo.
Canonical expects to have its highest-end Ubuntu
phone to become full PCs when docked with a
monitor, mouse and keyboard. The company has
already tied up with phone manufacturers like
Meizu and BQ earlier this year to produce the
first Ubuntu smartphones. Recently, Canonical
failed to raise $32m earlier in an effort to develop
the Ubuntu Edge which would have been a
premium smartphone with prices ranging from
$600 to $830.
Shuttleworth has said that the firm was not
targeting iPhone users, who he said have an
"emotional connection" to the Apple ecosystem
and was therefore only competing against
Android which he believes "wasn't designed or
built to be a user's personal computer."
The firm is yet to reveal the specs of the
upcoming phones that will be developed by Meizu
and BQ. A Canonical spokesperson has confirmed
to Ars Technica that the prices quoted by
Shuttleworth for the upcoming smartphones are
the off-contract, unsubsidized guide prices.

Researchers develop chip that turns your smartphone into a projector

Researchers at California Institute of Technology
(Caltech) have developed a new 'light-bending
silicon chip' which could help users give
presentations that are projected on a conference
room wall via your cell phone!
The new chip eliminates the need of expensive
and bulky lens used in traditional projectors. Ali
Hajimiri and his team were able to bypass
traditional optics by manipulating the coherence
of light - a property that allows the researchers
to "bend" the light waves on the surface of the
chip without lenses or the use of any mechanical
movement.
“This chip uses a so-called integrated optical
phased array (OPA) to project the image
electronically with only a single laser diode as
light source and no mechanically moving parts,”
explained Ali Hajimiri, Thomas G. Myers professor
of electrical engineering at Caltech. “By changing
the relative timing of the waves, you can change
the direction of the light beam,” Hajimiri added.
“The new thing about our work is really that we
can do this on a tiny, one-millimeter-square
silicon chip. We can do it very rapidly to form
images since we phase-shift electronically in two
dimensions,” said Behrooz Abiri, a graduate
student in Hajimiri’s team.
“In the future, this can be incorporated into a cell
phone. Since there is no need for a lens, you can
have a phone that acts as a projector all by
itself,” Hajimiri told the gathering at the Optical
Fiber Communication (OFC) conference in San
Francisco recently.
Researchers are developing new devices with
smartphones to make our lives easier. Recently a
team of researchers from University of Houston
have developed a disease diagnostic system
based on nanotechnology that will only require a
smartphone and a Rs 1200 lens attachment to
check for diseases. The tool will assist healthcare
providers by giving them an affordable and easy
to read method to diagnose diseases.

The Sony Xperia Z2 might be faced with worldwide delays, could be pushed back to late April/early May

Over the years, the forum boards over at Esato
have proven to be quite resourceful when it
comes to insider information on Sony. This time
around, however, the intel is rather concerning, as
a user going by the alias of milukugiuniu claims to
be in the know of a possible Sony Xperia Z2
distribution delay.
Until today, the expected release date of the
Xperia Z2 was at some point in March, at least in
some parts of the globe. According to the tipster,
however, unspecified supply delays are said to
have caused a worldwide delay in the launch date
of Sony's new flagship. Apparently, only a limited
stock will be made available at first, though it
remains unknown which country these will be
allocated to. A new date hasn't been specifically
pointed out, but the wording does indicate a
release sometime in late April/early May.
This unconfirmed report was corroborated by
another user, though according to him, Europe
would be something of an exception to the delay.
The notion of any exception was shot down by
milukugiuniu, however, who says that's "miles
away form the truth", and that "Europe wouldn't
be an exception".
If such delay indeed comes to fruition, it could
spell trouble for Xperia Z2 sales, as the flagship
would enter the market after rival Samsung's new
Galaxy S5, and perhaps even HTC's All New One.
In any case, do take this with a grain of salt --
it's best to just wait for an official confirmation
before freaking out.

Gionee Elife S5.5, 'world's slimmest smartphone' to launch in India on March 30

Gionee is set to officially announce the launch its
Elife S5.5 smartphone in India on March 30.
Touted as the world's slimmest smartphone, the
Elife S5.5 is just 5.5mm thick. There's no word
on the pricing yet, but it's available for CNY 2,299
in China, that's roughly Rs. 23,500. It's notable
Gionee has already sent out press invites for a
two-day event on March 30 and 31 in Goa.
The Gionee Elife S5.5 sports a 5-inch Super
AMOLED cpacitive touchscreen with 1080 x 1920
pixels resolution. It features a 13MP rear camera
with autofocus, LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch
focus, face and smile detection. It has a 5MP
front camera.
The smartphone runs Android v4.2 Jelly Bean
(heavily customised with company's Amigo OS).
The Elife S5.5 is powered by a 1.7 GHz Octa-core
processor coupled with 2GB of RAM. The
smartphone has 16GB of built-in storage. There's
a 2,300 mAh battery.
For connectivity, the smartphone supports 3G, Wi-
Fi, Bluetooth and microUSB.
Chinese handset maker Gionee has recently
forayed into the Indian market. The company
aims to become top smartphone player in the
next five years. It recently launched Elife series
smartphones including Elife E6 , Elife E5, Elife 7
and Elife 7 mini .

New MSI laptop claims to be able to run 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.