You know those times when you pick up your phone and you realise you have it upside down? There is a phone from the tech giant Alcatel that will help you solve that. You would remember Alcatel from the glory days of “normal” mobile phones. Even then, they have not ceased to be pioneers in anything mobile or technology.
Meet the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3! With this smart phone, you can pick your calls with the phone upside down, yes, upside down! No the guy in the picture is not crazy!
Another idea that will make life easier for the phone enthusiasts that we at Computer Potato think may sound useless but prove useful in many mobile devices! Okay that is not the only feature of the phone, it is like most smartphones and the insides is as good. See below
Meet the Yotaphone. A phone designed to meet both your reading and smart phone needs at both ends.
Yotaphone has a normal smartphone screen you see in many new phones in front of it and an e-ink screen at the back, the kind you see in mobile devices designed just for reading.
You can use the screen at the back for both reading your favourite book and viewing your notifications without unlocking your phone. You could even personalise the back screen to show your favourite picture all the time, so you basically have your own digital case. Yes the back screen is always on.
You must be thinking battery matters now. Well the e-ink screen doesn’t use the phone’s fairly large battery as much as the normal screen giving your 5 days of using the back screen alone. The phone even lets you use the back screen for all functions which means you could use your phone for 5 days without need for a charge.
Is this useful in anyway I hear you say, here at Computer Potato we believe this is one innovation that has got a place in the current market and beyond. With time we will see this design used in many mobile devices giving you more functions. So we say kudos to the brains at Yota for their idea! See it yourself below.
The Consumer Electronics Show 2015 saw almost all big automobile manufacturers showcase their latest innovations and ideas for our future driving. Like you would have guessed from the title of this article, most of the cars have systems that are considered smart.
Now, what can they do? They have a lot of features like, calls and text integration, voice commands, parking assist, self driving, and of course infotainment. By now you must have also guessed the hub for all these features is your phone. Many companies are vying to make the standard operating system in these smart cars including Google and Apple, the latter whom has been whispered to be looking into the arena of smart cars too.
As this is only the beginning of officially smart vehicles, don’t throw away your hard earned driving license yet. Self driving cars are not yet feasible for the next few years as their are safety and legal laws and principles that need to be looked into. However, other helpful features like the internet connected car system that can give you up to date traffic information and of course real-time news are already out for grabs in the newest cars.
See below for more!
MyFord Touch
MyFord Touch redesigns the in-car interface, mirroring how consumers interact with most devices in their lives using touch-sensitive buttons, touch screens, thumb-wheel controls and voice recognition.
BMW Self Parking Car
BMW showed us a research vehicle whose Remote Valet Parking Assistant will help park your car
The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion.-540x334
This is a driverless concept car from the car giant Mercedes
Hyundai Motors infotainment syste
Indulge in entertainment with this Hyundai infotainment system.
We at Computer Potato really do give kudos to these car companies and everyone looking into backing this good idea, as this could mean cars would be much safer when it kicks off and no more DUI worries for those nights when you just had a bit more to drink!
Like recent years, this year promises even more devices wanting to make our lives a bit easier. Here at The Computer Potato, we aim to bring you the best innovations in their simplest form.
We are pleased to bring you Strone, a device that lets you divert your calls over the internet to a laptop, phone or tablet when you are travelling to avoid roaming charges.
You simply put your SIM card in this device, and all your calls and texts are routed to an the strone app which can be installed on a laptop or mobile device. All you would need is an internet connection in the country you are, whether via a local SIM card or WiFi.
Say bye to those extraordinarily expensive bills you get when you are on holiday or on a business trip and never miss a call again. The computer potato believes this fancy little device has definitely got places to go, not just with you on holiday!
Have you ever been in a hurry to attend a meeting in time and forgot your phone at home, or your phone died out of battery when you are expecting an important call?
Another piece of application is here to make sure you don’t go without communication if this happens to you again. The new app is rightly called Hotel My Phone.
Hotel My Phone lets you borrow a friend’s phone and use your number on it.
It works by cloning your phone and letting you temporarily borrow a friend or someone’s phone with the same app to make calls and text with your own number. Once checked in to the borrowed phone, you can see your own contacts, and communicate with your contacts from the app on the borrowed phone. Once you check out of the app, your information is permanently erased and the app will let you know this too.
Hotel My Phone promises this on their website “Whether you forgot your phone or have a dead battery, it doesn’t matter! Have the added insurance of your spouse’s phone or your best friends’. Stay in contact with your closest friends, now that you are all on Hotel My Phone, you’ll never miss a message or call!”
This sounds all good, but you must know there are some charges to pay if you want to do some specific things like making a call, which depends on the location you are checked into. There are also costs for checking in to phones that are not on your network that you can build within the app.
Conclusion: Claiming to be the first phone sharing app, we at The Computer Potato think Hotel My Phone is an innovation that will be well received and will take off as more companies look into the idea and come up with better ways of making this great idea even more useful than it is right now.
Still haven’t heard of the Internet Of Things? You really should know about it because it is looking more like it is the future now. The proof was at the Consumer Electronic Show CES 2015, where we see more and more companies like Apple, Google, Samsung and Blackberry reveal plans for the next generation of electronic globalisation!
The big tech companies are all vying to be the platform everyone uses to connect all their smart devices together.
See below a fraction of new technologies that you can expect in the coming years! Some will surprise you!
Smart Cars
An array of smart cars have been showcased this year!
Smart Home Appliances
John Herrington, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics America, talks about new appliances during a Samsung news conference at the International CES Monday, Jan. 5, 2015, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Smart Baby Bottle
Yes, why don't your baby have milk in style with this bluetooth monitored bottle!
Smart Cooker Dacor
A smart cooker for all your smart food!
Smart Toothbrushes
If you taught you brush well, why don't you let these smart brushes tell you more about your brushing life.
No better way to shop than fast and responsive internet when shopping for all your favourite deals on-line this festive period. Or you remember when you are all settled in to enjoy your a movie on your Netflix, or Instant Video, and the movie starts to lag while watching? Samsung might just have solved that problem!
We might not need to wait longer for higher broadband speed as Samsung the tech giant has been working on developing the next generation of WiFi modems. Modems are the devices you have in the house, that you connect to and get internet access. Samsung claims it will be 5 times faster than the current fastest speed which in about 866 Mbps. This in theory will download your Netflix movie in under 10 seconds.
This doesn’t necessarily mean if you got this modem today your internet will be faster. There are many other factors that come into play. Things like the internet speed you currently pay for, the speed of the device you are using and the area’s coverage. However, one thing we can be sure of is this, this is good news for us as these days almost all our devices are connected to the internet, and in the nearest future, technologies like IOT (click here to read) will add more of our devices to the internet network and there is nothing more needed than a very capable modem.
Kim Chang Yong, Head of DMC R&D Center of Samsung Electronics says “New and innovative changes await Samsung’s next-generation devices, while new possibilities have been opened up for the future development of Wi-Fi technology.”
The Computer Potatoe brings you innovation technology news in its simplest form and we say we are looking forward to another inevitable generation of internet speed.
It seems there can’t be any week the technology giant Google couldn’t make itself known to the world with its innovations or news. Well they are hard at work again and we must give credit to whom it’s due.
The Computer Potato chose to bring you this news because Google is competing for the benefit of the common man or woman.This time the research is for you to experience virtual reality with just a piece of cardboard and your smart phone without spending a fortune.
Google Cardboard
All you need is a cardboard sold by Google and your smartphone, download some apps and viola you are in the your own world, literally.
How it works: Google says all you need is to “Get it, fold it and look inside to enter the world of Cardboard. It’s a VR experience starting with a simple viewer anyone can build or buy. Once you have it, you can explore a variety of apps that unfold all around you.”
Clever uh? Not just clever but very innovative. The Computer Potatoe gives kudos to those who work hard to change our world with technology. This one gets 5 stars
Yes you read the title correctly. A startup company StoreDot from Israel has developed a battery that can charge in approximately 26 minutes. Of course you will be sceptical to hear this as we are used to the hours of charging. To put away any doubt, this was demonstrated by charging a Samsung S4 in seconds.
StoreDot Battery Test
As always Computer Potatoe brings you computer innovation news without the technical mumbo jumbo. We can tell you the batteries are very big much bigger than the normal smartphone batteries we have nowadays. Because they are bigger than than the normal batteries, they don’t last as long as the current batteries we have if they were in the same size. A bit of work is still needed here and because they are made from organic material, they are cheaper to make.
StoreDot Battery
I know what you are thinking, this will give us a lot more time for our 21st century busy schedule, but don’t be bringing out the champagne yet as these batteries are still under development. They are stated for commercial release sometime in 2016. We could also see more of researches like this like the one we posted weeks ago (click to read).
Google never seizes to amaze us. They are willing to do almost anything to get their tech up to scratch.
Google wanted to give us a view of the Liwa Oasis—the largest oasis in the Arabian peninsula. The solution they chose was to place their famous Trekker (an all angle camera used to take images for the Google Maps) on a camel and get it to walk around the desert.
Google Said “To bring this stunning desert to Street View, we fashioned the Trekker to rest on a camel, which gathered imagery as it walked. Using camels for the collection allowed us to collect authentic imagery and minimize our disruption of this fragile environment.”
Conclusion: Google is a technology giant as of the date of this article. This tells us all why they are — they give everything they got to get what they want. An advice to any business in this new age!
