Pix- the world's first digital Backpack

The world has become digital. The news that we used to watch on TVs has now seen a drastic change from people following more news on social Medias and YouTube and apps rather than on TV. The ads that we used to see on paper boards has now be digitalized with different ads appearing one by one on a single digital board around the city. As everything is becoming digital and mobile, why don’t we make our Backpacks also digital like can we display images and widgets in our backpack? And the answer is yes.

Pix is a Kickstarter project founded in 2016 which has produced the world’s first digital bag through which you can display “smart animative” images on the front of you backpack just using your smartphone.

The Pix Backpack App

Through the pix backpack app you can select the already available images in the app or draw your desired image or message in the form of writing to be displayed on the bag. Pix backpack app is available for android and iOS where you can upload the images and widget.

You can also play 8 bit games on your pix like the Tetris, snake, arkanoid and some others.

To start using you pix, you just need to plug the USB cable available inside the backpack with a Standard 2A power bank. The battery in the backpack is of 20,000 mAH and will work for about 12 hours.

Afterwards you have to connect your smartphone app through Bluetooth to the backpack and there you are ready to show your creative writings and images to the world through Pix backpack. You can display time, weather and also your mobile notifications (ignore if privacy problem) on the backpack. 

Cycle remote

Not only images but you can also add widgets like cycling widget and use it with the help of cycle remote device available with backpack which can be fitted in to the cycle and connected through Bluetooth with the backpack. So suppose you are cycling and you want to turn left suddenly, so instead of using your hand traffic signals, you can just display the left arrow sign on your Pix Backpack. 

The Backpack features

1. The pix backpack is water resistant which means you can carry it around during rainy seasons.
   
2. The backpack is also shock resistant and sudden drop will do no harm to backpack.
3. The pix backpack weighs almost 950g without the power bank included.
4. Pix backpack is made of Cordura nylon fabric.
5. It is spacious in which you can easily keep up your 15 inch laptop and some books, stationary items and also a water bottle without any tension.
   
6. The backpack is available to the customers in 4 different varieties of color grey, yellow, magenta and cyan. More colors can be expected in the future.
   
7. It’s weight is 27L.
8. A screen with resolution of 16*20px.
9. A backpack screen with 16.5 million color variations.

Some unique uses

The pix creativity can be used for some other useful purposes also like you could use it as a name placard inside an airport when required for receiving some unknown guest. It can also be used at night times in the form of torch and also to stop a taxi at low light areas.

The pix is available for 199 U.S dollars from January 2019.

Donations in wrong hands #keralaflood

I REQUEST EVERYONE TO READ THIS.

During these heavy floods in Kerala that has destroyed many lives, living beings, and non-living things, millions of Indians and non-Indians have helped the People of Kerala through donation in the form of materials and money. But I am sadly writing this post about some pathetic, in-humane so called political party workers who are doing their part of “corruption” in many of the refugee camps located in Kerala. 

My friend from Kerala shared this video as a proof of it. The incident happened at Govt. Polytechnic College in Kalamassery, Kochi which is a refugee camp for the flood victims. Around 6 pm on Saturday, 18th August, some 10-15 party workers came into the camp and ordered that not a single donated daily usage items from this camp which are in excess will be sent to any other camp (which are facing shortage) and from now on they are in charge of the camp and asked the volunteers to leave the place. Some of them protested at this matter and they were ready to leave seeing their shouting and goondaism but one brother of the local area part of the refugee camp cried not to leave. So they were waiting outside. Around midnight 3-4 party workers were there inside and deciding what to do with the fresh donated items. Volunteers had already organized and set the items and clothes needed for the flood victims. There are many camps nearby who are requesting for the material but these party workers are going to misuse it.

This is not the only case, one of the Refugee camps in Mala, Thrissur have also witnessed the same incident. Witnesses have said they have seen some party leaders carrying the refugee items at midnight to undisclosed locations. The excess items that should be used in other camps are being misused by the party workers for their personal needs.

So I request everyone who is reading this post to share it as much as possible till it reaches the Chief Minister’s desk or the responsible persons.

OUR DONATIONS CANNOT BE IN WRONG HANDS.

Tech to curb the tech addiction

The mobile devices since introduced in this world has become the favorite time pass or friend of billions of people. With the introduction of apps, the mobile usage graph has increased with many of the people literally becoming addicts as said by the psychologists. I also try to control as much as possible to stay away from my smartphone or tab. Nowadays even children whose age range from 4 – 15 years are addicted to this device and they know the A-Z of this tech device. They know how to properly use the smart device which is a boon but there lies a major bane too.

Spending time on playing candy crush or posting pics on Facebook has created a distance between the child and their respected parents. Many students have been academically as well as physically affected due to this device. So looking into this matter and to help the parents all around the world, a Kickstarter project has been launched with the product named Tech Den headed by James Symons.

Tech den is a white box which can be used to store 2 smart devices at the same time. It can be 2 phones or 2 tabs or 1 tab and 1 phone. It also acts as charger so whenever you keep your devices away from you for a specific period of time, at that time your phone or tab will be charged and you can charge yourself by spending time with your family or doing some skill activities.

Tech den is a combination of Hardware (white box) and software (tech den app).

Tech den app

Through this app, the parents can manage and see their child’s phone usage. The child also has to install the app in their own devices. (Note- child installs a different app from their parents). The parents on their specific app can set the “session time” that is the time period during which the child can use the phone. It can be set for morning, evening, before going to bed, after coming from tuitions or any other specific time period. Then there is the “screen time”. This time is within the session time and is the actual time for which you can use your device. It can range from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.  Session time can range from 2-3 hrs. 

When you use your device, the app will be calculating the time left for your usage. It will even send you a notification 2 minutes before, so that you can use the device and keep it inside the white box on time.

When the device is plugged into the white box, parents will get to know through their app whose device is plugged and for how much time. The minute the child plugs out, the parents will come to know.

So what do the child get for all this discipline and hard work?

The parents along with their child can set their rewards through the goals that the parent has set. For example, if the child uses the phone for 20 minutes set by the parent during the evening session, resulted rewards like going for a movie will be rewarded to the child. That’s cool.!

And what reward can be big compared to spending time with your closed ones and indulging in skilled activities.

The Den

It can charge apple and android devices. It can be completely closed and you will not be able to see your device, so the whole phone distraction gets killed. The white box measurements are

So when you order this device you get a whole package inside a big box. The box contains

1. The den (white box)

2. 2 apple charging cables.

3. 2 Android device charging cables.

4. 2 stabilizer feet for support.

5. Power cord of Den.

 

The company has already sold 100 units in USA for 119 dollars for testing purposes and by December 2018, it plans to go Retail.

Magic leap into the future

Imagine one day you could see a NASA rocket taking off just under your eyes or too the maximum a dinosaur coming towards you. The concept of AR aka augmented reality does the same but if you have used AR app or device, you could see that there are minimum functions and visual Quality is not satisfactory.

So here comes the Magic Leap one through which you can not only see the moving 3D objects but also record them with their sounds. It is the highly advanced version of AR that you use today. Magic leap was founded by 2010 by Rony Abovitz in Florida, USA.

There has been so much Hype about this product which has been funded by big names like Google who invested around 2.2 billion dollars in this startup. Google has already made a similar kind of product called google glass way back in 2013 which was a flop. As the tech market is flooded with AR products, how can google be behind?

The 3 main parts

1. Lightwear aka Glasses – These glasses look exactly like the glasses in the “Back to the future movie”. They have 6 cameras in total and two front glasses in which chips are installed. They have silicon chips installed on them which helps in projecting high quality images directly into the user’s Retina. It is called lightwear as it is light in weight and not heavy as compared to other AR devices like Microsoft Holo lens. It has better sensors and the unique thing about magic leap one is that they have built in speakers for that real feeling. 

It also has 3.5 mm earphone port and also voice input system provided. The lightwear can be adjusted to any head size and is comfortable in wearing with its stretchable back. I know many people who wear prescription glasses and have difficulty in wearing both the 3D glasses and their personal glasses over one another while watching a 3D movie. Same problem can occur with magic leap glasses but don’t worry, there is a solution. You will be provided with your preferred prescription lenses to be fitted in the glasses of lightwear.

2. Lightpack aka CPU- It is a small device that can be carried easily by fitting inside your pocket. It is the main processor of the whole magic leap device and acts like CPU+GPU device and is connected to the lightwear through a wire and controls the whole lightwear.

Its features include a CPU of 64 bit core NVIDIA SOC and a GPU of NVIDIA Pascal with 256 CUDA cores and Vulkan API for great gaming. It has got 8 GB RAM with 128 GB storage capacity for recording and storing your creativity. It has in-built rechargeable lithium-ion battery which maintains charge up to 3 hours on a single charge. It also has Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity with USB-C port.

Lumin OS

Lumin is Linux based OS that is stored inside the Lightpack. It is similar to the windows or android OS but for the glasses respectively. Through the Lumin OS you can share your recordings or your viewings on the glass in real time and you can even chat with other person who is using the magic leap one. You can watch movies and even stream TV channels on to the glass and enjoy your day. Lumin OS also has a built-in gallery where your recordings of the 3D images and your creativity will be stored and organized. You can even share these with your friends on the social media.

So basically with Lumin OS, magic leap is trying to bring an alternative device to the mobile and laptop devices.

3. Controller aka mouse/keyboard- It is a handheld controller just like the Playstation Move but way more advanced than the latter. It has trigger, a button above the trigger, round trackpad and a tiny home button on the controller. 

You can use your control as a painting brush, as a tennis racket or for moving your designed imaginative 3D home from one block to another on the AR screen. It can be used up to 7.5 hours on a single charge and has USB-C charger.

Extras

The field of view of magic leap one is not perfect but is perfect when compared to the previous AR devices launched by other major tech companies. It comes with a magic leap one app through which you can watch videos and create other 3D objects. Lumin OS SDK is available on their site from where you can create Apps for the magic leap one device.

Rony Abovitz is also planning and working on AI that can be added to magic leap one later on. According to Rony, magic leap one is the future and it is the best mixed reality device available in the market right now.

sample images

Magic leap one was launched in USA on June 11 and is available at AT&T stores for $2,295(1,58,573 Indian rupees) which is pretty high.

Fuchsia to replace Android and Chrome

Google is one such Tech company in the world which keeps on experimenting daily on new products and technology that can make the lives of people modern and smart. They have since their launch developed as well as bought many companies under them and made them more powerful. One famous product is android OS which is used in almost 90% of the mobile systems around the world. The Chrome OS for their chrome book and Pixel book laptops is slowly gaining momentum which is seen as direct competition with Windows and Mac.

What is Fuchsia?

In 2016 google presented their new OS Fuchsia on Github website. It is seen as a successor of Android and chrome in the long future. The biggest thing about Fuchsia is that it is not based on Linux but on new google developed kernel called ‘Zircon’. Google has also embedded Apple’s swift Programming language to Fuchsia. It will provide a single platform for mobile and desktop devices like what Apple and Microsoft does.

DESKTOP LOOK

The mobile version of Fuchsia is called ‘Armadillo’ like nougat or lollypop is the version of android. The desktop version is called ‘Capybara’.

FEATURES OF FUCHSIA

Fuchsia has been designed with keeping in detail the extra security that an OS needs. It can be used in Smartphones, tablets, PCs and even IOT devices and has a good user interface.

You can see the Fuchsia working demo video here -http://video.arstechnica.com/watch/fuschia-demo    

Neat and clean UI

Fuchsia offers a neat and clean multi-tasking or multi window feature as I have seen and read from the various reviews of Fuchsia.  You can easily drag and drop one app over the other on the home screen. Every app opens up in a card format like the google card. Google assistant is also part of the Fuchsia OS. For mobile apps it uses flutter SDK which is very fast and can run heavy graphics and the material design UI.  

MOBILE LOOK

For more images and video visit https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/01/googles-fuchsia-os-on-the-pixelbook-it-works-it-actually-works/

Ledger cloud system

Through Fuchsia OS you can connect you mobile device and desktop or tablet device. So it has Ledger which is a distributed storage system where everything is stored in cloud. So if you close some app on your phone due to battery problem or something, you can continue to work from the same stage in the same app by opening in it on your desktop or tab.

Good news for android users

One of the benefits that a user will get is that if any kind of updates come from google in Fuchsia, it will be rolled out to every single user at the same time like what apple does with its devices. The android system has a problem that not every user gets the same update whenever it is rolled on and the update depends on the price of the phone.

Problems Fuchsia will face

The deployment of Fuchsia OS would take a lot of time and man power as more than 90% of the devices are running on android and major switch is big challenge for google.

Fuchsia mobile version demo- https://youtu.be/vGPwzmMFq9U

Current progress

Till now it has been tested on Pixelbook and some Chromebooks and is currently on development and testing stage. It is expected to be released by early 2019 at the google I/O event.

Right now it is an open source software and in works that can be downloaded from https://github.com/fuchsia-mirror.