Asus ZenFone AR Google Tango Smartphone Set to Launch at CES 2017: Report

Asus may be the next smartphone manufacturer to launch Google Tango-ready smartphone. According to a report, the company is gearing to launch the 'ZenFone AR' at CES next year.

Asus CEO Jerry Shen was cited to say the "ZenFone AR will come with advanced functionality and performance at a competitive price." The Taiwanese company is expected to exhibit the Google Tango-enabled device at CES 2017, reports Digitimes, though there's no word on whether the company will work on multiple smartphones or just one like Lenovo.

For those unaware, Google's Project Tango is centred on machine vision, with a camera and sensor setup that provides motion tracking, depth perception, and area learning. This can enable augmented reality applications like indoor navigation, search, and gaming.

Shen also claimed that the ZenFone 4 range of smartphones will be unveiled in the "second quarter of 2017". He teased that the new models will feature improved camera. Shen also acknowledged that Asus suffered loss due to "lower than expected shipments".

Earlier this month, the world's first Tango smartphone - the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro - finally went on sale priced at $499 (roughly Rs. 33,300). It is the first commercial product from Google's Project Tango team that was working on machine vision in mobile devices.

The Lenovo Phab 2 Pro features a 6.4-inch QHD IPS display and a total of four cameras. It bears an 8-megapixel front camera, a 16-megapixel rear RGB camera, a depth-sensing infrared camera with an imager and an emitter, as well as a motion tracking camera. At launch, a special Tango app store was also revealed that was ready with 25 apps, with the hope to reach 100 apps by year-end.

Source: Digitimes

Intel Joule is a high performance Atom-powered IoT module targetted at hardware developers

Intel's Developer Forum (IDF) is underway at San Francisco, and Intel has some good news for hardware developers working in the IoT space. It has unveiled Joule, which is a high performance Atom powered IoT kit. Intel Joule is the successor to the Intel's Galileo, Edison and Curie line of IoT kits which were based on the Intel Quark SoC

Intel is hoping the Joule module to be used in applications as varied as drones, robotics and with support from Intel's RealSense technology to be used in VR and AR applications as well. There isn't much detail on the graphics processing power of the Joule, but according to some websites, the Joule supports 4K video capture and display.

The Intel Joule comprises two variants – the Joule 570X and Joule 550X. Unlike its predecessors which were based on a combination of Atom Silvermont cores and low power Quark CPU cores, the Joule uses Intel's Broxton-M platform – which was initially meant to be used in consumer devices but was cancelled when Intel decided to move out of the mobile chipsets space.

Both the variants use the Intel Atom Broxton-M SoC but with varying clock speeds. The Joule 570X uses 4x Goldmont cores clocked at 1.7GHz which can turbo to 2.4GHz and this is paired with 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 16GB eMMC storage. On the other hand the Joule 550X uses 4x Goldmont cores clocked at 1.5GHz with no turbo feature, along with 3GB LPDDR4 RAM and 8GB eMMC storage option.

Both the Joule 570X and Joule 550X come support 802.11ac Wi-Fi along with Bluetooth 4.1. The I/O connectivity options are also similar for both the boards such as USB 3.0, GPIO, UART, MIPI camera and display interfaces and so on. The board measures 48 x 24 x 3.5mm. This is slightly larger than the Intel Edison board.

The Intel Joule will support different operating systems, with a new Linux distro meant specifically for this hardware being the default OS. Intel is calling it the Reference Linux OS for IoT. Canonical Ubuntu Core, Windows 10 IoT Core are also supported.

The Intel Joule 570X is on sale for $369 which comes to approx Rs 25,000, and will be available with Intel partners from next month.

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Niantic aiming for rollout of Pokemon GO to 200 markets soon

The head of the developer behind Nintendo Co Ltd’s Pokemon GO said he wanted to launch the smash-hit mobile game in roughly 200 countries and regions "relatively soon" and was working on bolstering server capacity to enable the wider rollout. The game, which marries a classic 20-year old franchise with augmented reality, has taken the world by storm despite having been launched in only five countries – the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Germany.

"Why limit it?" John Hanke, chief executive of Niantic, which developed Pokemon GO jointly with Nintendo affiliate Pokemon Company, said in an interview with Reuters on Friday. He declined to go into a detailed time-frame for further rollouts but noted that the company's first location-based augmented reality game Ingress had taken a month or two to reach that number of markets.

His comments helped Nintendo shares on Friday surge another 10 percent, setting a record in daily trading volume for an individual stock on the Tokyo bourse. The shares have climbed 86 percent in just over a week, adding $17 billion in market value. He confirmed that the game would soon be coming to Japan and that he expects "ultimately to launch" the game in South Korea, where Google's mapping functions are restricted due to security issues with North Korea. Hanke said Niantic, which was spun off from Google last year, is working on the mapping issue. "There are solutions to that," he said.

South Korea is the world's fourth-biggest gaming market after China, the United States and Japan, according to Amsterdam-based research firm Newzoo. But he was more reserved about prospects for a launch in China, saying only that there are regulations that have to be considered. Hanke said the company is considering introducing a sponsorship scheme similar to one it has with Ingress, which designates sponsors’ stores and vending machines as spots in the game.

Sponsors pay per customer visit, providing a revenue stream in addition to in-app purchases. Niantic currently has eight corporate sponsors for Ingress globally, including SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T), and the number is likely to be similar for Pokemon GO, he said.

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Brazilian Rio de Janeiro mayor Mayor Eduardo Paes shared his hopes that the game would arrive in the country ahead of the 2016 Olympics games which will be hosted there.

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