Free iOnRoad Augmented Driving Application For Android Promises A Third-Eye On The Road

Augmented Reality is no longer a science fiction or lab-technology, thanks to augmented reality applications like Atol les opticiens, Kinect Magic Mirror or AR Business Cards the technology is increasingly making it's way to the mainstream usage into our daily lives. 

To get the ball rolling forward, an uber-cool augmented reality application for Google Android is now available for free to users (free during limited period beta) - named "iOnRoad Augmented Driving". The winner of 2011 Mobile Summit App contest allows users to make use of their device camera, processing the captured data via an real-time image recognition algorithms to auto recognizes the vehicle in front, measuring the time-gap and warn the user in-case a danger is detected. The dynamic augmented reality driving and real-time collision detection application delivers a visual radar by combining realtime day/night machine vision with sensor fusion to provide better road-safety.

Developers description of features :

ADVANCED COLLISION WARNING SYSTEM

Just click your smartphone in the car mount holder and iOnRoad will use the camera, GPS and other smartphone sensors in combination with its advanced RoadAware™ algorithm to recognize traffic ahead and warn you of potential accidents. When a dangerous situation is detected, iOnRoad warns you with both audio and visual alerts, even when running in the background!

HEADWAY MONITORING & ALERTS

iOnRoad uses your camera to monitor your headway distance and gives you constant feedback in a smart augmented-reality HUD-like display. When iOnRoad recognizes insufficient headway distance, it issues a subtle notification sound to encourage drivers to self-correct risky and inefficient driving maneuvers.

SOCIAL INTEGRATION

Share your car driving achievements with friends and even challenge other drivers via Facebook and Twitter. See who is the best driver...

PERSONAL WEB DASHBOARD

iOnRoad provides a personal dashboard that displays all of your snapshots, alerts, and other driving data. Rack up safety points by maintaining sufficient headway distance during your trips and compete with other drivers. Simply log in to your dashboard using your google account to access all your information or to share your snapshots, driving maps and status!

TAKE ROAD SNAPSHOTS

Ever wanted to report something you’ve seen on the road? A hazard? A wreckless driver? Now, with the iOnRoad snapshot assistant, you can! Just tap the “snapshot” icon on iOnRoad’s main display and a snapshot is immediately saved to your phone’s gallery. Want to share your snapshots? No problem. iOnRoad can upload your snapshots automatically right to your wall on Facebook!

PROTECTS YOU WHILE OTHER APPS ARE RUNNING

iOnRoad runs in the background while you make calls, run Trapster, CarHome or other apps. iOnRoad is 100% compatible with other cool community navigation apps like Google maps, Waze, Sygic, navigon, iGo, magellan, Trapster, and Garmin nuvi. iOnRoad senses the motion of your car, not where the car is parked, unlike cool car parking apps such as MyCar Locator, Viper SmartStart, Find My Car, and Parkdroid.

AUTOMATIC DRIVING DETECTION

Have you become an iOnRoad addict? If you have, this new feature will blow you away. Just enable automatic driving detection and iOnRoad will detect when you’re actually driving to start protecting you automatically and effortlessly! Just confirm the iOnRoad icon displayed in your notification area. It will indicate whether iOnRoad is running!

TRUSTED ACCESSORY STORE

Throughout the app development process, the iOnRoad team has tried hundreds of car mount holders, car chargers and other car accessories. We’ve chosen the best accessories and put them all in one accessory portal so you can select trusted accessories easily!

iOnRoad In Action

Download Links: 
iOnRoad Augmented Driving App For Android

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Intel Haswell CPUs Could Pack Multiple GPU Cores

In 2013 Intel will introduce a new processor architecture known under the code-name of Haswell and a recent report has come to suggest that chips built using this new technology could include more than one graphics cores. 

According to an unnamed source cited by VR-Zone, Intel believes that such an approach would enable it to create more flexible processors that could cater to the needs of both the mobile and the desktop market.

Details about how these GPUs will be interconnected with eachother and about the specific configurations used are scarce at this time, but the Website suggests Intel's processors could pair 4 CPU cores with 2 GPU cores or even dual computing cores with three graphics cores to form a chip.

Intel's Haswell processors will come as the successors of Ivy Bridge and use a new architecture which the chip maker has fine tuned to reach TDPs between 10 and 20 Watts in their mobile version.

This is a significant departure from the current regular-voltage Sandy Bridge chips that are rated at 35 to 45 Watts.

The low power draw, together with the configurable TDP technology that will debut in Ivy Bridge, is expected to enable laptop makers to offer up to 10 days of connected standby battery life from their Haswell-based devices.

These will be paired with a new dynamic overclocking technology, that will massively enhance the functionality available in the second version of Turbo Core that is used in today's Sandy Bridge processors.

Other features will include support for the DirectX 11.1 API, support for the AVX2 instruction set as well as a series of IPC improvements meant to increase single-thread performance.

As mentioned a bit earlier, Haswell is expected to arrive in 2013, but a more specific release date hasn't been announced.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab Might Get Banned in the US Too

Samsung has definitely not been going through the best of times lately, at least as far as its tablet business goes, as Apple might just get the Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned in the US too. 

The scuffle between Apple and Samsung has spread more or less around the whole world, as the two have been suing each other in multiple countries. 

Apparently, Apple has been doing better in court, winning injunctions in Germany and Australia, while Samsung failed in its own court actions. 

Though Samsung pleaded with a Dutch court to ban some of Apple's own devices, the request was ultimately denied. 

Meanwhile, the Galaxy tab 10.1 tablet got truly banned in Australia and things aren't looking too much better in Europe either. 

Additionally, Apple has been taking similar actions in the US, to apparent success, if new rumors are true. 

Basically, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said that the Galaxy Tab really did infringe iPad related patents. 

An injunction has not been set in place, yet, since the Cupertino company still has to prove the validity of said patents. 

All in all, it really looks like Samsung is losing this fight, after having already been forced to delay the item in most regions. 

Then again, lawsuits like this usually last months, even years, since those involved can appeal decisions several times, and this is probably what will happen here as well. 

Fortunately for Samsung, the injunction in Australia, at least, is not permanent, and the Judge even offered to speed up the next hearing. 

Samsung declined the offer, however, saying that they need time to prepare the defense against Apple's case. 

This means that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 won't be selling there during the holiday season, so there is no hope of competing with the likes of ASUS Eee Pad Transformer 2.

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PIN Entry Devices Modified to Copy Card Information

A sophisticated cybercrime was recently uncovered by UK law enforcement officials in which a German electronics engineer was arrested for helping out an organized crime network in the process of cloning cards.

The Metropolitan Police informs that Thomas Beeckmann, aged 26, was involved in an intricate operation in which PIN Entry Devices (PEDs) were altered seamlessly to record and transmit data from the cards that passed through them.

After the machines were stolen from shops all around Europe, they were brought to the UK where Beeckmann could rig them up to become data stealing devices. He would place a circuit board inside them which contained a small memory that would store info. 

What's even more interesting is that after the PEDs were reintroduced to the shops from where they were stolen from, the masterminds didn't have to physically repossess them in order to retrieve the data. Everything was transmitted through a Bluetooth component to a gang member that went near the apparatus.

The clone cards could then be easily used in places where the chip and PIN system has not yet been implemented.

"By putting this individual behind bars the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit has prevented them from defrauding the banking industry and its customers of significant sums of money. 

“There can be no doubt that the work of our specialist unit over the past few years has played a key part in driving card fraud down, and we continue to provide a clear warning to the organised gangs and those who work with them that we will track them down," revealed Investigating office Detective Sergeant Richard Maynard. 

The suspect pleaded guilty to possession of articles for use in fraud and to failing to tell the police what the password to his laptop was, after the police found a number of electronic boards that were deployed in the scheme.

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NVIDIA Launches New 3D Vision Products, 3D LightBoost technology

NVIDIA decided it was a good time to move its 3D platform forward, so it revealed both new hardware and software for people who want 3D Vision. 

NVIDIA's 3D Vision platform is a package made up of software and glasses for when users want to see a movie or play a game in 3D. 

As it happens, the Santa Clara, California-based company decided it was time for a revamp of 3D Vision altogether. 

As such, it prepared a new pair of 3D glasses and invented the NVIDIA 3D LightBoost technology, which improves brightness and sharpens colors in the 3D mode. 

"Gorgeous, bright, crystal-clear 3D worlds are created by NVIDIA's 3D Vision 2 glasses with 3D LightBoost monitors and notebooks," said Phil Eisler, general manager of 3D Vision at NVIDIA. 

"NVIDIA's engineering team has made incredible enhancements in 3D on PCs, creating a breathtaking gaming experience that's better than the best Hollywood 3D movie." 

The lenses of the glasses are 20% larger than those of the first generation, for better external light blocking and a wider viewing area. 

As for the 3D LightBoost technology, it can brighten 3D images by up to 2 times and works on certified monitors (like ASUS VG278H) and notebooks. 

"NVIDIA 3D LightBoost technology makes 3D games, movies and photos more stunning and life-like than ever before," said David Wung, senior director of product management of Open Platform Business (OPBG) Group for ASUS Computer International. 

"With 3D LightBoost and our new full-HD monitors, colors are richer, textures and subtle image details virtually jump off the screen, and the overall quality of the experience is something to behold. We are thrilled to be the first desktop display manufacturer to bring this new level of 3D visual quality to our customers with the ASUS VG278H." 

Priced at $149 (108.52 Euro), the new 3D Vision 2 kit should already be up for sale, or will appear by the end of the month (October, 2011). Extra glasses are bought for $99 (72.11 Euro).

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Nokia 710 Specifications Leak

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is gearing up for the release of new handsets in the near future, and one of them has just emerged on the company's website as the Nokia 710. 

Some specifications for this device are also available, although not all of them are as consistent as one might have wanted them to be, MyNokiaBlog notes.

For example, the new device was listed at Nokia with the Maemo OS on board, which is quite strange, since the platform was dumped not too long ago, when Nokia announced the alliance with Intel aimed at the release of MeeGo. 

Even so, the rest of the phone's specs show that it is a pretty appealing device, and also put it in line with some of the currently available Windows Phone devices out there. 

Nokia is expected to make its first device running under Microsoft's mobile platform official as soon as this month, and might release them on shelves in November. 

The fact that Nokia listed the new phone with Maemo on board might be their way of hiding the fact that this device could run under Windows Phone, although Symbian is not out of the question either. 

The hardware specifications that this new Nokia 710 mobile phone might arrive on the market with include a 1.4GHz application processor, complemented by 512MB of RAM.

Moreover, the new device would also include a 3.7-inch touchscreen display capable of delivering an 800 x 480 pixel resolution. On the back, it should sport a 5-megapixel camera.

It should also pack 8GB of internal memory, which indeed suggests that Windows Phone could be the OS powering this device. 

Not to mention that recent stats from Occasional Gamer also mention a Windows Phone handset that sports the name of Nokia 710. 

For the time being, nothing has been officially unveiled on the new device, and we should wait for a formal unveiling to learn more on what the new handset might be all about.

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28nm AMD GPUs Arrive on December 6 and 9

AMD is making the news for something somewhat less unfortunate now, as rumors appear about the likelihood that some new graphics processing units will show up before this year's end. 

Recent rumors involving Advanced Micro Devices say that December 6 or December 9 is when a new GPUs is expected to show up. 

This will belong to the first-generation of 28nm series and, if this report proves valid, will precede NVIDIA's own 28nm products. 

Since the latter's GK107 will appear in the first quarter of 2012, AMD will have the holiday shopping season as an advantage. 

Unfortunately, there is a high chance of the AMD unit to be in short supply, so sales might not skyrocket as much as one would like. 

Little is known about the graphics processor (like if it is a desktop or notebook part, or its performance). 

Either way, real mass production and global availability will ramp up only next year, with or without delays the likes of which were seen with the 40nm process. 

Despite what NVIDIA and TSMC have been saying, reports suggest the latter may end up having yield problems after all. 

Depending on how severe said issues are, product delays and supply constraints could drag on, affecting roadmaps and possibly leading to higher prices than initially intended. 

Nevertheless, it is easy to say that AMD has special reasons to want to force some GPUs out before the year is out. 

Since the Bulldozer chips turned out to be a let down (enough for analysts to say AMD could become irrelevant), the company, naturally, has to hurry up and recover its reputation somehow. Impressing on another layer of its business is the most logical step. 

In related news, a different report also exposed an upcoming Trinity APU chipset, so it looks like the chip maker wants to act quickly on more than one front.

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BlackBerry Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 Unveiled

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is getting ready for the release of new devices running under the BlackBerry 7 OS, and the company has just unveiled some info on them, even if it did not make an official announcement on these smartphones. 

We're referring here to the BlackBerry Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 smartphone that should become official soon, and which have just got simulators available for developers to test their applications on. 

Boasting a 480 x 360 pixels resolution, the handset will arrive on shelves with touch support, as well as with the popular QWERTY keyboard that other Bold handsets include. 

As for the Curve 9380 smartphone, is should land on shelves with a 3.2-inch touchscreen display that boasts the same resolution as the Bold 9790. The smartphone will offer support for BlackBerry Torch 9800 smartphone applications. 

“New BlackBerry 7 OS smartphones are getting ready to launch, and to assist our developer community in preparing for this, we are posting device information, simulators, and opening up the BlackBerry App World storefront for submissions,” RIM notes in a blog post. 

The first handsets based on the BlackBerry 7 OS platform were launched only recently, and they already started to arrive on the market. RIM also launched the BlackBerry 7 SDK for offering developers the possibility to come up with software for the new devices. 

“To enable developers to start testing and optimizing their BlackBerry applications for two upcoming smartphones, we are now releasing a beta of the new BlackBerry simulators,” the mobile phone maker notes. 

“In addition, we have opened up BlackBerry App World to enable vendors to start posting their applications for sale in time to be included for consideration in launch activities for both of these upcoming devices.”

More information on the matter can be found in the BlackBerry Developer Zone.

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