New 4" iPhone With 12MP Camera Said to Cost $400-$500, iPhone 5s to Receive 50% Price Cut

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a research note to investors, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, in which he claims Apple'snext-generation 4-inch iPhone will feature a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, as opposed to an 8-megapixel sensor as previously rumored. 

Kuo also reiterated that the new 4-inch iPhone will have other similar hardware specs as the iPhone 6s, including an A9 chip and NFC for Apple Pay. The device's form factor is expected to be similar to the iPhone 5s, although the display is said to haveslightly curved 2.5D glass like the iPhone 6 and newer. 

Apple's new 4-inch iPhone could also feature 16GB and 64GB storage capacities, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, Live Photos support, and a slightly larger 1,642 mAh battery compared to the iPhone 5s.3D Touch will likely remain exclusive to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus as a differentiating feature. 

The well-informed analyst continues to believe the smartphone will cost between $400 and $500 in the United States. The lower price point should help Apple target the mid- to low-price segment and drive iPhone sales in emerging markets such as China and India. Comparatively, the larger iPhone 6s starts at $649. 

KGI Securities expects total 4-inch iPhone shipments to grow 131% year-over-year to 37 million units in 2016, on the strength of the new 4-inch iPhone launch and a 50% price cut on the iPhone 5s. Apple currently sells the iPhone 5s for $450 at full retail price, so the smartphone may soon be discounted to $225. 

Apple's Media Event to be Held the Week of March 21st, Not March 15th

by Arnold Kim

Re/code reports that the much anticipated Apple Media event will actually fall during the week of March 21st, not on March 15th, as originally rumored.

Or to put it another way, it’s not going to be on March 15, the time frame that other outlets previously reported, according to several sources. It is not clear if the event was moved or if this was the same timing as Apple had always planned.

Curiously, the delayed date was first floated by Korean site Underkg earlier this week.

The event, previously known to take place in March 15th, is pushed back a week to March 22nd if our source is correct. Apple allegedly have sent notifications to leave the schedule available from the 21st to 23rd, making us guess that the event will occur a week after the original known date.

Popular iOS Email App 'Spark' Expands to the iPad

Juli Clover

Readdle's iPhone email app Spark has proven to be quite popular since it launched in May of 2015, and as of today, it's expanding to the iPad. Spark is now available on all of Apple's tablets, from the 7.9-inch iPad mini 4 to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

Spark is unique because it includes a "Smart Inbox" that's able to filter emails to show you the most unread important messages first. It's able to tell if an email is personal, a notification, or a newsletter, processing it accordingly. It's designed to let users check to see if an email is important at a glance.


Like many iOS mail apps, Spark uses swipes to quickly delete and archive incoming emails. It includes a pinning feature (stars in Gmail) to denote tasks that need to be completed immediately, and there's a snooze feature for putting off emails until another day. Built-in quick replies let users reply to messages with pre-selected messages, a feature that's useful on the Apple Watch, and there's a smart search for finding messages based on name and time frame.

Using media coverage of STI to help develop Africa

Copyright: Joan Bardeletti/Panos

SciDev.Net at large

Our blog from on the road and behind the scenes at key science and development events

Gilbert Nakweya

      

[NAIROBI] Policymakers and researchers have become increasingly convinced that science, technology and innovation (STI) is the key to unlocking Sub-Saharan Africa’s development potential and I tend to agree with this line of thought.

Indeed, many experts are of the view that STI is a vital ingredient for socio-economic growth in the global South. As I delve deeper into this subject, I try to seek answers on how African countries can place STI at the heart of their development blueprints as a positive strategy.

To my knowledge, African countries and other developing nations are not doing enough to take advantage of the possibilities that STI offers to transform the lives of their citizens, especially the rural poor.

"We journalists need to amplify the voices of the most vulnerable and the marginalised in society."

Gilbert Nakweya

I attended a meeting of the Kenya Environment and Science Journalists Association in Kenya last week (20 February) during which a question relating to whether STI knowledge is adequately shared among policymakers and researchers arose.

Journalists, development communication practitioners, scientists and policymakers discussed the status of science journalism in Kenya, and STI featured prominently as they debated the challenges and opportunities of communicating science.

Although Kenya was credited for increased coverage of STI issues over the last five years, participants were concerned that important issues such as climate change, energy,, research and development (R&D) and water and sanitation were not adequately covered although they are crucial to the country’s transformation.

Patrick Likobele, an agro-ecosystems and environmental management student at Kenya’s University of Nairobi, said he expects to learn more about the environment from the media,

I agree with Likobele that there is a knowledge gap that can be narrowed by journalists following up on issues at meetings that promote STI and R&D, such as the upcoming United Nations Environmental Assembly in Nairobi (23-27 May).
 

Austin Hackweek: Operation Build Awesome Things

Emiliza Gutierrez

In early February, Unity engineers from Ads, Analytics, Cloud Build, QA and R&D combined forces in Austin, Texas for a hackweek with a mission to build great things.

Hackweeks are one of the ways we encourage creativity and innovation at Unity. In the past we’ve hacked on projects that resulted in real products for you to use (e.g., Heatmaps for Unity Analytics). This is time engineers get to spend experimenting on new technologies, mashing up different systems, and working directly alongside teammates with whom they don’t ordinarily interact.
So, how do hackweeks work?   

1. Weeks before the hackweek begins, all of us engineers brainstorm innovative, exciting project ideas. By the time this hackweek week started, we had almost fifty candidate projects.  
2. At our kick-off session, the engineer that contributed each idea presents it. Teams organically form around the most compelling projects.
3. Hack. For a week.

Eleven ideas made it through this process to become hackweek projects.
Projects included:

• Unity Package Manager (UPM) – Are you an Asset Store developer tired of having to package all of your dependencies with your plugin, then dealing with conflicts when other plugins ship the same dependencies? Or are you a game dev tired of importing conflicting plugins that don’t play well together? Unity Package Manager (UPM) solves this by letting each plugin declare dependencies instead of shipping dependencies. UPM downloads the correct version of each dependency the Unity project needs, avoiding dependency clash. Even supports deeply nested dependency management.

• Asset Bundle and Content Update Service (ABACUS) – Having to deploy a new build just to update some asset bundles is inefficient. It takes time and makes your project less agile. ABACUS builds asset bundles through Unity Cloud Build, then hosts them. The developer can define rules allowing the game to dynamically fetch the correct bundles at runtime.

• WebGL Arcade – Last year we launched http://madewith.unity.com/, a platform for game devs to showcase their work made with Unity. The WebGL Arcade takes this idea further by creating a portal where you can upload your game’s demo to increase discoverability.

• Native AR for Unity – Currently to get AR running you need to install a toolkit. This project allows you to get marker tracking using only C#. And yes, this means it can even run in WebGL! Using simple and extensible APIs, devs can start including AR elements in their project in just a couple of minutes.

MasterCard's 'Fare Free Mondays' Returns to London Next Week for Apple Pay Users

MasterCard has reported that it will be relaunching its "Charge Free Mondays" advancement in London, England one week from now. Every Monday between February 29 and March 14, workers utilizing Apple Pay to touch as a part of and out of the Transport for London system will be repaid for travel costs that are paid for with a U.K. MasterCard.

The advancement is legitimate for go on London Busses, London Underground, London Trams, Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, TfL Rail, Emirates Air Line, and most National Rail administrations in London, where a yellow card peruser is available. MasterCard will repay up to £28.10 per individual on each of the three Mondays.

The precise dates and times for "Charge Free Mondays" taking into account London time:

- Monday, February 29 at 4:30 a.m. to Tuesday, March 1 at 1:00 a.m.

- Monday, March 7 at 4:30 a.m. to Tuesday, March 8 at 1:00 a.m.

- Monday, March 14 at 4:30 a.m. to Tuesday, March 15 at 1:00 a.m.

The advancement was initially offered on Mondays between November 23 and December 14.

The 9 Best Marketing And Sales Analytics - Every Manager Should Know About

Bernard Marr ,

Follow on Forbes 

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Deals and showcasing examination are fundamental to opening economically pertinent bits of knowledge, expanding income and productivity, and enhancing brand recognition. With the assistance of the privilege examination, you can reveal new markets, new gathering of people specialties, territories for future advancement and a great deal more. How about we take a gander at what I accept are the best and most imperative deals and promoting investigation that can offer any business some assistance with growing and succeed. This post expands on my article on the key business analytics tools, which might make good additional background reading.

Unmet need examination

Business is about addressing the necessities of clients. Unmet need examination is the procedure of revealing whether there are any unmet needs around your item or administration or inside of your business sector which you could meet to build consumer loyalty and income. Valuable devices for unmet need investigation incorporate item audits, subjective overviews, center gatherings and meetings. You could likewise utilize instruments like Google Trends to recognize what clients are hunting down.

Tip: It is presently exceptionally shabby and quick to ask your clients questions. Make gatherings and online center gatherings, or welcome clients to like your Facebook page and join a criticism bunch.

MasterCard Expanding 'Selfie Pay' Following Successful Pilot Program

 by Mitchel Broussard

After an announcement last August and an effective test case program in October, MasterCard as of late reported that the organization will start growing an element which permits facial acknowledgment programming to go about as biometric security in portable installments (through Fortune). Informally named "selfie pay," the system gives clients a chance to confirm an online installment by holding up a cell phone's camera to their face and flickering to guarantee the project isn't being tricked by a still photo.

The procedure would happen inside of MasterCard's own Identity Check application (as of now distracted in the United States) and is worked to streamline the confirmation procedure of extensive advanced buys, superseding the requirement for a MasterCard's PIN number or watchword with a snappy selfie. The United Kingdom will be one of 14 aggregate nations focused for the late spring rollout, yet past the experimental run system's backing of First Tech Federal Credit Union, the development of upheld banks was not recorded.

One major inspiration driving Mastercard's extension of its selfie pay instrument is chopping down false decreases, which happen when a honest to goodness exchange is rejected on account of suspected misrepresentation. These occasions cost the organization some $118 billion every year—13 times more than the expense of genuine misrepresentation.

Apple Seeds Fourth OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan Beta to Developers

by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an up and coming OS X 10.11.4 upgrade to designers for testing purposes, two weeks in the wake of seeding the third OS X 10.11.4 beta and over a month in the wake of discharging OS X 10.11.3. OS X 10.11.4 has been in trying since January 11.

The fourth OS X 10.11.4 beta, form 15E49a, can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center or by means of the Software Update Mechanism in the Mac App Store.

os_x_el_capitan_roundup

OS X 10.11.4 offers two or three new elements, for example, Live Photos support in Messages, the capacity to watchword secure notes in the Notes application, and an alternative to import notes from Evernote, yet like the late OS X 10.11.3 overhaul, it seems to concentrate principally on in the engine bug

IBM seeks after new school and old gatekeeper with most recent cloud products

By Serdar Yegulalp

IBM seeks after new school and old gatekeeper with most recent cloud products Credit: Thinkstock

With new cloud administrations for WebSphere, Swift designers, and GitHub Enterprise experts, IBM courts ventures of all stripes

A spate of big business cloud declarations from IBM ought to keep legacy clients fulfilled as Big Blue endeavors to convey truly new, forefront items for big business engineers.

The sheer measure of legacy and last-era base out there - from VMware to WebSphere - everything except sureties a hostage market. Be that as it may, IBM is additionally meaning to pull in new clients with most recent and-most noteworthy advances.

Two late declarations that spin around legacy undertaking work include a couple of well known names: VMware and WebSphere. IBM arrangements to permit VMware vSphere, NSX, and Virtual SAN clients to naturally expand their workloads into IBM Cloud, and to have IBM and VMware "mutually market and offer new offerings for half breed cloud organizations," as indicated by an IBM representative.

Apple Tops Ranking of 'World's Most Admired Companies' for Ninth Year

by Mitchel Broussard

Apple has been awarded the top spot on Fortune's list of the "World's Most Admired Companies," marking the ninth consecutive win for the Cupertino-based company on the list. After Apple, Alphabet (Google's parent company), Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Walt Disney round out the top five spots.

There's a new AAA standard in corporate America: the one-two three punch of Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon. For the fourth time, our list of the World’s Most Admired Companies Top 50 All-Stars is led by a trio of tech giants under 40 years old. They preside over a class of blue chips and even younger tech stalwarts, such as Facebook (No. 14), Salesforce (No. 34), and Netflix, which makes a return to the Top 50 at an impressive No. 19. They also are joined by newcomers Visa and Publix, which make debuts at Nos. 47 and 49.

Facebook adds new suicide prevention tool in the UK

By Felicity Morse Newsbeat social media producer

Facebook is rolling out a new feature across the UK to help users who feel suicidal.
The Suicide Prevention tool has been developed in connection with the Samaritans.
It aims to try and provide advice and support for those struggling to cope, as well as for their friends and family.

John McAfee offers to unlock killer's iPhone for FBI

By Chris Baraniuk Technology reporter

 

John McAfee has said he will decrypt the phone "for free"

Anti-virus software creator John McAfee has said he will break the encryption on an iPhone that belonged to San Bernardino killer Syed Farook.

Mr McAfee made the offer to the FBI in an article published by Business Insider.
Apple has refused to comply with a court order asking it to unlock the device, dividing opinion over whether the firm should be compelled to do so.
Mr McAfee said he and his team would take on the task "free of charge".
The offer came as Mr McAfee continues his campaign as a US presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.
"It will take us three weeks," he claimed in his article.
Security expert Graham Cluley told the BBC he was sceptical of Mr McAfee's claims.
"The iPhone is notoriously difficult to hack compared to other devices," he said.

'Dead men's tales'

For instance, Mr Cluley cast doubts on Mr McAfee's idea that he could use "social engineering" to work out the pass-code of Farook's locked iPhone.

Apple apologise for Error 53

Apple has said sorry to learn clients whose telephones were impaired after outsider repairs, and issued a fix for the issue.

A few clients found that their iPhone quit working after overhauling by a non-Apple professional and saw a "mistake 53" message in iTunes.

Already, Apple had said the mistake was a "security measure" taken to anticipate false exchanges.

Presently, the organization has discharged a product redesign to settle the blunder.

In an announcement, Apple said that "blunder 53" happens when a gadget comes up short a standard security test intended to guarantee that the Touch ID unique finger impression scanner is working effectively.

Be that as it may, the organization included: "We apologize for any weakness, this was intended to be an industrial facility test and was not expected to influence clients.

"Clients who paid for an out-of-guarantee substitution of their gadget in light of this issue ought to contact AppleCare around a repayment."

Update! China still experiencing issues with iphone

Apple-Pay-250x434 (1) copy Smartphone clients in China are confronting various framework mistakes attempting to agree to Apple Pay after it was authoritatively discharged in the nation yesterday.

Apple's versatile installment administration got to be accessible on February 18 through an organization with China's state-run interbank system, UnionPay. Nonetheless, it gives the idea that the sheer measure of clients endeavoring to join to the stage amid the initial 24 hours has over-burden the framework.

"It continued letting me know the telephone 'can't interface with Apple Pay' or the confirmation for the card is not accessible when I was connecting a bankcard," said one iPhone proprietor, who did in the long run interface the card after a few endeavors however then "couldn't open the application" to enroll another.

New beta form of Windows 10 offers Edge, Cortana enhancements

After a long hold up, Microsoft is giving Windows Insiders some major new elements to play around with, in the wake of spending the recent months basically making back-end changes to its new working framework.

The organization discharged form 14267 to ahead of schedule adopters who are a part of the Windows Insider Program's Fast ring on Thursday morning, offering new elements in Cortana, Microsoft Edge, and Skype. Cortana now has a committed catch in the colleague's correct hand corner that individuals can use to distinguish what music is playing around them at any given time.

How to get an IT jobs anywhere in the world

IT employment increased in every occupation and industry last year except oil and gas.
Industry employment fell 4 percent to about 13,200 workers thanks to falling oil prices. That was the exception among all industries, including retail, health, finance and manufacturing. All of those saw IT employment gains.

iPhone 7 Said to Expand Use of Single-Chip Electromagnetic Shielding

 by Mitchel Broussard

Apple is working on electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding that will individually shield most of the device's major chips, helping to maintain the iPhone's performance as its power and complexity and thus potential for interference increases (via ETNews). The company has used EMI shielding on large portions of the iPhone's circuit board in the past, and a few individual chips have included their own shielding, but the iPhone 7 will apparently include a broader array of single-chip EMI shields, from radio frequency to wireless LAN and Bluetooth chips.

South Korean manufacturers StatsChipPac and Amkor are both said to be responsible for the production of the EMI shielding process on the iPhone 7 line. The cost of that production is also predicted to increase with the intricacies introduced using the technology.

 
A production line in Amkor Technology

“As clock signals of digital chips have increased and as diverse functions such as 3D-touch and others have recently added, reduction of electromagnetic waves have emerged as major topic of this industry.” said a representative of this industry. “As other Smartphone businesses might be looking to apply EMI Shield technology to major chips just as Apple did, packaging and other related equipment industries will benefit a lot from this.”

Noke bluetooth padlock

Noke --it's the first Bluetooth enabled pad lock. Well without the use of keys it protects your property and belongings. You can unlock it with Noke app.

Austin martin transparent phone by android.

Road on kangaroo road Australia!!!

problem with 90's computer

AIR2 first bluetooth floating speaker on its base. Air 2 CSBT-311-BLK Wireless Floating Sound 4.0 Bluetooth HD Speaker (Black)

List Price:	$179.99
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Estimated Delivery Date: Feb. 17 - 22 when you choose Expedited at checkout.

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Color: Black

• 2015 Best of Innovation - CES Innovation Awards
• The Air2's speaker and base are each fitted with magnets that repel one another, causing the speaker to hover over the base-so you can listen to "Float On" (or "Miracles," if that's your thing) and marvel at magnetic levitation at the same time.
• Levitates to Provide Acoustic Sound - Built-in microphone for hands-free phone calling and Easy to pair as well
• Built-in Li-Ion Rechargeable Battery for up to 12 hours of playtime.
• Supports Wireless Music Streaming via New Bluetooth v4.0 Technology.

› See more product details

Furniture made from recycled drums!!!

Endemic diseases R&D project gets US$7.2 million

Copyright: Samuel Aranda/Panos

       

The US$7.2 million grant for Makerere University and the Ugandan Virus Research Institute (UVRI) partnership’s infection and immunity research training programme dubbed ‘MUII plus’, was made known last month (27 January) during the programme’s launch in Uganda.

“The Ministry of Health strongly supports this endeavour and looks forward to the new knowledge that will be generated in Uganda for Africa.”

Asuman Lukwago, Uganda’s Ministry of Health

The programme, in association with UK-based Cambridge University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is funded by the Wellcome Trust and the UK Department for International Development under the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science Initiative (DELTAS).

High-altitude drones could eliminate phone signal black spots

Hello? This is your drone speaking

Richard Newstead/Getty

Can you hear me now? Drones could soon be calling home using the cellphone network. The tech could also one day eliminate signal black spots for phone users.
Small drones can usually only be controlled over line-of-sight distances, so to cover a wide area an operator needs several dedicated communication stations along the flightpath – or expensive satellite links. HAPlink (high altitude platform link) developed by Roke Manor Research in Hampshire, UK, gets around this by using the mobile phone infrastructure. By piggy-backing onto an existing network, a drone can fly over long distances without the need to set up new connections.
HAPlink communicates with cell phone masts up to 50 kilometres away. It uses a beamforming antenna, which focuses a signal in a narrow beam rather than emitting it equally in all directions. This is the first beamforming system to work with standard 3G or 4G phone signals, plugging into the antenna port of a standard 4G data card.
The aim is to develop a communications system for a solar-powered, high-altitude drone that can stay in the air for weeks at a time, says Bob Dalgleish at Roke Manor.

Tribunal rules computer hacking by GCHQ is not illegal

By Brian Wheeler Political reporter

 

Image copyright Reuters

GCHQ is operating within the law when it hacks into computers and smart phones, a security tribunal has ruled.

Campaigners Privacy International have lost a legal challenge claiming the spying post's hacking operations are too intrusive and break European law.
The case was launched after revelations by US whistleblower Edward Snowden about the extent of US and UK spying.
GCHQ admitted its agents hack devices, in the UK and abroad, for the first time during the hearings.
Its previous policy had been to "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of such operations.

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Listening devices

Hackers can remotely activate cameras and microphones on devices, without the owner's knowledge, log keystrokes, install malware, copy documents and track locations among other things, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) was told.
The Home Office has now published a code of practice for hacking, or "equipment interference" as it is also known, and aims to put it on a firmer legal footing in its Investigatory Powers Bill, which is due to become law later this year.

Image caption GCHQ's activities are coming under scrutiny from MPs

12-Inch Retina MacBooks Discounted $300 for Limited Time

 by Husain Sumra

B&H Photo has begun offering a significant $300 discount on 12-inch MacBook models for a limited time. The deal is applicable to both 256 GB and 512 GB models in all three color options, making this the cheapest price we've seen for the 512 GB models. The deal expires on February 15, 2016.


- 1.1 GHz 256 GB MacBook, regularly $1,299 - discounted to $999.
- 1.3 GHz 256 GB MacBook, regularly $1,549 - discounted to $1,249.
- 1.2 GHz 512 GB MacBook, regularly $1,599 - discounted to $1,299.
- 1.3 GHz 512 GB MacBook, regularly $1,749 - discounted to $1,449.

The 12-inch MacBook is Apple's newest entry into its laptop line. As the MacBook approaches the end of its cycle it's likely it'll see a refresh soon, making additional deals from sellers possible over the course of the next couple of months. Additional deals for the MacBooks and other Apple devices are available in the MacRumors Deals Guide.

Japan Display's Upcoming Touch Screens Feature Slimmer Bezels, Wet Finger Support

by Juli Clover Apple supplier Japan Display revealed some details on its second-generation "Pixel Eyes" LCD modules over the holidays, providing us with a look at some of the ways the display industry is advancing. Japan Display's "Pixel Eyes" modules incorporate touch functionality into the display, and in the second-generation model, there are some exciting improvements.

Using a new sensor structure and new materials, Japan Display has managed to decrease the thickness of the bezel, going from 0.8mm to 0.5mm. A deeper black level is available, and the display can accept input with a stylus as narrow as 1mm for finer detail when drawing or writing.

Perhaps the most intriguing feature in the LCD module is its ability to operate with wet fingers. Many current smartphone screens are unable to work accurately under water and when fingers are wet as water is capacitive and confuses the built-in touch sensors.


iPhones, iPads, and the Apple Watch, for example, don't respond well to touch with wet fingers or when placed in water, so technology like this could be essential if Apple wants to have a functional display in a device advertised as "waterproof." Some iPhone 7 rumors have indicated the next-generation iPhone could be a waterproof device.