Theory’s abound as why Google made this purchase.  One theory was to compete with Apple, one to get a head in smart devices and another is to jump ahead on connected devices.  I can’t say I have any Nest devices but the jest, as I understand it, is they are sensing devices that you can also program from your phone.  If someone is in the room make it this temperature and if not turn it down.  As a geek a very cool idea, little pricey for me though.

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So now I consider that Google is going to own Nest.  For me I use their search, their social I G+, their email, and their tablet (Nexus 7).   If I was to go and buy a Nest today I would use, in a round about way, their smoke alarm or thermostat.  Now if Nest and Google press into more appliances in the home imagine the data they could collect about you beyond what they already know.

I walk into my kitchen and open my Google fridge powered by Nest and pull out milk for my cereal.  It learns how often it takes for that action to then require me to buy more milk so the fridge uses my Gmail, power by Google, to email Amazon or maybe by this time Google Groceries to then drone in my milk before the next time the fridge know I will need milk for my cereal.  Andy Rubin is building robots for Google and add in some Nest tech….

Ok so consider this.  I wake up to my Nexus 7 alarm which has all my notifications of Gmail, drive time, weather for my journey to work.  My Nest thermostat turn up the heat while I am in the shower and starts warming the spaces it know I will be in during my morning rituals.  I step into my garage and start working, because my Google self-driving car allows for me to begin work while driving to work.  Or maybe there is not garage because I am sharing the self-driving car with my local community and this is just my scheduled time for me to get to work.

The reverse at the end of the days I head home I work on my way home in the self driving car.  The house warms up as I head that way.  The Google car will know and report back that I am heading home.

I feel this thread of thought could go crazy….I am pointing out the obvious and missing other things but considering how much Google know now and could know in the future I may be re-considering my stance on how much I am connected.

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The Samsung Galaxy TabPro 10.1 was unveiled at CES 2014. The device is close to Note 10.1 (2014) in terms of specs. Having one of the best display in it’s class, the Super Clear LCD with a resolution of 2560×1600 (aka 2K) pixels that too in a screen of 10.1 which is more than the iPad and is equal to that of the MacBook Pro retina 13”.

The device is powered by either a Exynos 5 – Octa or the Snapdragon 800 based on the location variant of the device, the Snapdragon (US) version will support 4G connectivity and 3G along with other options in other regions with the Exynos processor.

The Samsung Galaxy TabPro will run Android 4.4.X, KitKat, and is powered by a 8220 mAh battery and comes with 2GB of RAM. The device features a 2MP front camera, and a back camera of 8MP. The S800 model can record videos of 1080p @ 60fps, whereas the Exynos model @ 30fps.

Both the models feature GPS with GLONASS, an IR blaster and 16/32GB of internal storage and MicroSD card slot of additional storage.

The 4g LTE version weighs 477g and the 3g one is of 469g.

Company Notes-

For additional value and productivity right out of the box, the Samsung Galaxy NotePRO and TabPRO (12.2) will feature up to approximately $700 worth of the premium pre-paid, long-term subscription offers from best-selling news, social media and cloud storage providers, including: Bitcasa, Bloomberg Businessweek＋, Blurb, Cisco WebEx Meetings, Dropbox, Easilydo Pro for Tablet, Evernote, Hancom Office for Android, LinkedIn, LIVESPORT.TV, NY Times, Oxford Advanced Learner’s A-Z, and Sketchbook Pro (content packages may vary by region).

Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 Specifications-

• 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen

• Super Clear LCD WQXGA display – 2560 x 1600 pixels

• Exynos 5 Octa (1.9GHz x 4 + 1.3GHz x 4) or 2.3 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800

• 2GB RAM

• Android 4.4 KitKat

• 16GB or 32GB internal storage

• 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash

• 2-megapixel front facing camera

• LTE/3G, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac CH Bonding, BT v4.0, USB 2.0, GPS ＋ GLONASS

• Battery: 8220 mAh

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Most benchmarks and their tools are rather arcane and are burdened by technical parameters and jargon. Mucking around with all the technical jargon may not be the right thing for everyone but whether you want to upgrade your video card or just want to see how it performs among others, you just can’t without benchmarking it to learn exactly how much better it is or if it is worth bragging about.

Benchmarking, in most cases, is extremely technical and time consuming, though it doesn’t have to. Luckily, if you just want to benchmark your old GPU against a new one, there are simple methods to do so.

3DMARK  is a great tool and is also a cross-platform tool, so you can even benchmark your android device’s GPU too. For Windows, there is a paid and a free version of the same and you can even compare your scores with other machines across the globe which are using 3Dmark.

The primary differences between the Free and Paid versions are, the paid version allows you to run the benchmark(s) is any order and even the only one that you want to, it also allows you to loop the tests for Stress testing and also run an additional extreme test.

The Free version is powerful enough if you just want to see how much better your new GPU is or you just want to compare your GPU with another. To use the free version, head to 3Dmark website, download the Demo version (use the Mirror link to download it without a steam account).

Now, install the program. Before running the test(s), just keep in mind that focus should be on the program. That means that if any kind of popup, system tray notification or anything that pops up, and you will have to run the test again, so its better to silent all update notifications, close all apps that can generate that kind of pop-ups (killing the background processes in task manager helps!).

Once you are ready, shoot it up, and believe me 3Dmark tests are beautiful to watch. You will see three major scenarios: Ice Storm, Cloud Gate, and the Fire Strike. Each one simulates different kind of gaming and tests things like frame rate, rendering, physics simulation, and other tasks.

When it’s done, you will get a result page which will show result as well as compare and rank your performance against other machines. Even if you are ranked in the bottom, keep in mind that there are a lot of hardcore gamers with cutting edge rigs out there.

Now if you want to compare your current GPU with a new one simply reviewing and saving the result and then comparing the result with that of the new GPU will do. Now you can know if you got your money’s worth when you upgraded your video card, do you think the benchmark comparisons justified the amount spent on the upgrade?

The post How to Benchmark your Video card: The Easy Way appeared first on Dragons Love Tech.

SSD drives are however more expensive than their platter counterparts though they are coming down in price, you can get 2TB or more of hard drive space for the price of 480GB of SSD storage give or take a little.  In the corporate world SSD drives are being dramatically adopted but more in the client desktop and laptop space than in the actual server platform, though adoption is growing the stability and longevity of SSD drives is still in question and their much higher prices and lower storage capacity make them less than ideal for database machines that need dozens of Terabytes of storage.

This IT survey done in August 2013 showed a trend where SSD drives were being used.  In the survey SSD drives were used in 12% of servers, but 79% of PC desktops, laptops and 42% mobile devices.

Source: Kroll Ontrack UK

SSD drives will keep coming down in price and stability will keep improving, but how long before they become more of a standard and capacities can be increased to multi-terabyte levels?  Most likely hybrid SSD’s will become more standard to allow for greater capacity and some performance gained on the most frequent operations.

I know on my personal computer I am using 2 SSD drives for my OS and some application installations/media work but I still rely on my platter disk drive for my long term storage that is relatively static.

Where do you see SSD drive adoption in 2 more years, do you predict 50% of servers will be running on SSD drives?

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There’s a lot of Buzz about wearable tech these days, be it the Google Glass, or these top of the line Smart Watches. Here are the four Smart Watches that stood above others in my list.

But which one is the best among them is not an easy statement to make. Be it the Kreyos Meteor, Pebble, Sony SW2 or Samsung Galaxy Gear. Each one has it’s unique features, some are great at media while others have slick features like Siri and Google Now support. I would tell you a little about each of them before comparing these, starting with Kreyos Meteor.

Kreyos Meteor– The Kreyos SmartWatch is in talk, since it came out and the response from people has been great after it was listed on Indiegogo for funding, the total funding has crossed a whooping 1.1 million, i.e. 1100% of what the company was asking for. But there’s a reason for such an overwhelming response and funding from everyone – Features! The Kreyos Meteor is packed with some really cool features which we would compare below.

Pebble SmartWatch– It’s not a smartphone for your wrist, in fact, it’s far less sophisticated than you might expect — the lightweight device reads out basic text, lets you skip through music tracks and, of course, displays the time. But this doesn’t mean it’s a bad smartwatch, it too has some amazing features.

Sony SmartWatch 2– Though it doesn’t make calls or snap photos, the $199 SmartWatch 2 delivers detailed updates and a wide ecosystem of apps in an attractive, water-resistant package, and many great apps that sony offer. It’s slick looks are a Big plus too.

Samsung Galaxy Gear– With a 1.6-inch AMOLED screen, upcoming third-party support and even a camera, this promises to be unlike any smartwatch we’ve talked about before. Still, $300 is a pretty high price to pay. Below you will see if it’s worth it.

Comparison– 

Compatibility

Winner: Kreyos Meteor and Pebble.

Sensors

Winner: Kreyos Meteor

Water Resistance

Winner: Pebble

Battery Life (estimated)

Winner: Kreyos Meteor and Pebble

Display

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Gear

Voice Assistance

SmartWatch	Assistant
Pebble	—
Kreyos Meteor	Siri/Voice Control
Samsung Galaxy Gear	S voice
Sony SmartWatch 2	—

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Gear/ Kreyos Meteor

Weight

Winner: Pebble

Camera

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Gear

Fitness Tracking

Winner: TIE

Swappable Band

Winner: Pebble/Sony SW2

Pricing

Winner: Pebble

Voice Calls/Speaker/Mic

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Gear

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With all of these comparisons, the “winner” will  depend on what you’re looking for in your Smart Watch. The Galaxy Gear and Kreyos Meteor gives you the most features, but Samsung Galaxy Gear’s phone compatibility is also by far the most limited in this group, not mention it’s Pricing is a little too high for a Smartphone Accessory. While Pebble lacks some of the Gear’s more smartphone-like features, but it has a lot of software support and a great price compared to other devices and if you want a premium device, Pebble 2 is on it’s Way! People are also pretty big fans of the Sony SmartWatch 2, for its “Find my Phone” feature and many other apps compatibility.

Whichever direction you choose – even if that means holding out for Apple’s and Google’s rumored takes on the smartwatch – hopefully you’re a little clearer on what is offered in these Smart watches.

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The post Which is the Best Smartwatch: Feature-by-Feature Comparision appeared first on Dragons Love Tech.

It’s not quite on the order of cybernetic implants, but it’s the first step towards an incredible augmentation of the human body. While it’s still in the developmental stages, it’s expected to be used by the military by 2015.

And straight out of the novel 1984, there’s the Nano drones. Imagine the government spying on you – not they would ever do such a thing. But, seriously, this is a piece of technology that scares some people. Insect-sized devices that can fly around and peek over your shoulder are are on their way to production. The University of Pennsylvania released a video in 2012 showing that the technology is fully functional. These devices are agile, can navigate through tight spaces, and are capable of pulling of incredibly complex flight patterns.

To get the government off your trail, you might need to clone yourself and run a distraction play. Wait – that might be possible in the future. Right now, scientists are busy cloning pets and other animals.

About the Author

Maxwell is a geek who loves all things sci-fi and is wishing that a replicator would exist in the real world so he can order “Tea, Earl Grey, Hot” every morning and have it instantly be created at the perfect temperature.

The post Insane Sci-Fi Inventions in the Real World appeared first on Dragons Love Tech.