Dish is unveiling a new streaming device at CES this year, the AirTV, which uses Android TV as its base operating systems, providing access to the wealth of Android media apps available. But it’s also able to grab over-the-air signals with an antenna for streaming live TV, and it works with Sling TV for a cable-free streaming subscription cord cutting experience.
The AirTV also handles 4K, which is good news if you picked one of these up over the holiday shopping season. The 4K support will primarily grab content from Netflix and YouTube apps, but because the underlying platform is Android TV, there are other sources available, which is not necessarily true for other smart TV devices looking to bring more 4K into the living room.
AirTV basically resembles a small, blue and white Apple TV, and it has a remote with built-in voice input, a nice pair for Android TV itself. The remote and the box combined do have a kind of toy-ish look as a result of Dish’s design choices, but looks aren’t everything when it comes to this kind of device, and it does have a healthy range of content options.
It’s also not necessary for AirTV users to even use Sling TV, the subscription over-the-top streaming service Dish owns. Which is yet another sign of the changing world that TV and cable providers now find themselves in. The AirTV is also available in both OTA and streaming only hardware configurations, and retails for $129 for the antenna-compatible version, and $99 without. Both devices are on sale today at Dish’s new dedicated AirTV website.
Dish also deputed a new “Optimized for Sling TV” certification program Tuesday, which is basically a way for platforms and streaming gadgets to signal their ability to deliver a quality streaming experience for Sling TV. AirTV obviously gains this designation, but so does Xiaomi’s Mi Box set-top streamer.

© Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/PjzlK3o6gsw/
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

Domestic robots are sort of here, with self-driving and speakers that control your smart home, but Mayfield Robotics’ Kuri could be the first real home robot, combining mobility and true interaction with approachable, friendly design.
Mayfield Robotics is a startup fully owned and funded by Bosch, with a team of co-founders that have extensive experience in the field of robotics, but also in interaction design and machine learning. Their first product is Kuri , an intelligent home robot making its official debut at CES this year, with pre-orders beginning in the U. S. and a target ship date of sometime during the holidays in 2017.
Kuri responds to voice input, and in this way is similar to other devices like Google Home or Amazon Echo. There’s a four-microphone array built into its compact, vaguely conical body so that it can hear you no matter where you are in the room, and it has a speaker built-in, too. But Kuri doesn’t respond with words; instead, it uses sounds, lights and its expressive eyes to communicate responses back to a user – all of which is a key part of its design.
The robot also has a built-in HD camera tucked behind one eye, and a range of sensors to stop it falling down stairs or bumping into furniture. it moves on a three wheels that help it rotate in any direction, and move from room to room with easy as it follows you around the house or goes where you tell it. There’s a processor on board to handle tasks like voice and image recognition processing locally, and it’s programmable through easy tools like IFTTT to expand its feature set.
The diminutive robot is only under two feet tall, and about a foot wide with a total weight of 14 lbs. Both iOS and Android apps are available to help control and interact with Kuri when you’re not using him (Mayfield genders the robot male in press materials and conversation) and it also seeks out its charging pad when its battery needs topping up.
It’s tempting to think of Kuri as a rolling Echo with the ability to blink, but the robot is much more than that. Its designed to be a companion first, and an assistant second, and that meant a design process that was far different from what Amazon undertook with its smart speaker. Kuri’s movement design was led by a longtime Pixar animator, in fact, which Mayfield believes is key to making it something that people will not only be comfortable using, but that will want to interact with regularly.
Each inclination of Kuri’s head, each blink of its eye, its body shape and its pacing and locomotion design were all carefully considered, with the thought in mind of building something that was not necessarily optimally efficient or functional, but that was approachable, calming and inviting. Kuri needed to inspire trust in its users, and so the design process involved eliminating any motion, sound or type of movement that would potentially unnerve its users.
The Pixar DNA is apparent in Kuri’s finished product. The robot looks like something that’s leapt out of Wall-E, and the end result is a robot you want to befriend. I find myself thanking Alexa absent-mindedly when using my Echo, but I’d never consider Amazon’s virtual assistant a companion, per se; with Kuri, I find myself already coveting its affection even without owning one.
Kuri is also different from things like Home or Echo because it’s designed to be its own robot; that is, at launch at least, it won’t have a long list of third-party integrations. But it will be able to control things via IFTTT; to let you check in on your house and its various rooms while you’re away using its HD camera; to read to your kid before bed; and to play games and podcasts as it tails you throughout the day.
The team at Mayfield Robotics wanted very much to create a satisfying, full experience from the moment you unpack Kuri, and so the focus was not on opening up integrations from day one, but instead on building something you’ll feel has value all on its own. It’s a good strategy, and one that will hopefully help Kuri have more broad appeal at launch, since it doesn’t require connecting a whole host of third-party services to become truly functional.
We’ve long anticipated a day when we welcome robots into our homes, as caregivers, assistants and service companions. Kuri is not the Jetsons’ Rosie, or R2D2, but it is a step in that direction, and one that focuses on the big elements still needed for getting us to that future – interaction design. Robots being truly welcomed in the home will need to arrive first at a place where we see them as comfortable presences; no one’s looking to share their domestic space with factory floor production robots, for instance.
Kuri’s lineage in the entertainment realm is a smart starting point for a domestic bot, since it plays on our familiarity and affection for robots we’ve seen portrayed in film in television, including Wall-E, Rosie and R2D2. And if we’re ever going to elevate robots in the home beyond the level of automated appliances, that’s a necessary step toward greater adoption.
Mayfield Robotics is asking pre-order customers to put down a $100 deposit now for Kuri reservations, with the balance of its $699 asking price due at shipment. It’ll still be almost a year before we see if its focus on personality is truly the right approach for broad acceptance, but from what I’ve seen, Mayfield is off to a very promising start.

© Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/3Yz1TOBuGbk/
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

The world is waiting for Microsoft’s next Surface tablet, but when it ships, it’ll have to contend with Lenovo’s new Miix 720, a 12-inch Windows tablet loaded with cutting-edge features.
The Miix 720 will start at $999 and will ship in April. That’s about $100 more than the starting price of the Surface Pro 4, but the Miix 720 has superior features.
But the Surface could catch up with the Miix 720 soon. A new Surface Pro 5 could be out as soon as early this year and have features like faster processors and a higher resolution screen that could on par or better than the Miix 720. That’s when the competition will get interesting.
But for now, it’s Miix 720 versus the Surface Pro 4. The Lenovo tablet runs on an Intel Core processor based on the latest Kaby Lake architecture and has an integrated graphics processor capable of supporting 4K video. Surface Pro 4 is a generation behind with Skylake chips, but the next Surface tablet will likely get Kaby Lake.
Lenovo has borrowed some ideas from the Surface with a kickstand at the back of the Miix 720, which helps the tablet sit upright on a desk or tabletop.
A difference-maker in the Miix 720 is the USB-C port, which is also a high-speed Thunderbolt 3 port to connect external peripherals like displays and storage devices. Surface Pro 4 only has one full-sized USB 3.0 port. Additionally, the Miix 720 has USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports.
The Lenovo tablet supports up to 16GB of faster DDR4 DRAM. The Surface Pro 4 supports up to 16GB of the older and slower DDR3 memory. Data moves faster with DDR4 memory, and that means faster computer performance.
The Lenovo’s 12-inch screen is smaller than the 12.3-inch screen on the Surface Pro 4 but displays images at a higher resolution. The Miix 720 displays images at a 2880 x 1920-pixel resolution, which is better than the 2736 x 1824-pixel resolution of the Surface Pro 4.
The Miix 720 has storage capacity up to 1TB, and a keyboard attachment turns the tablet into a laptop. Those capabilities are available on the Surface Pro 4. Lenovo will separately sell a stylus allowing users to take notes and draw on the tablet.
Lenovo’s tablet weighs about 780 grams, or 1.1 kilograms with the keyboard attachment. It has a 1-megapixel front camera with infrared, allowing users to log into Windows PCs via face recognition. The tablet also has a 5-megapixel rear camera.

© Source: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3154204/computers/lenovo-primes-to-take-on-microsofts-next-surface-tablet-with-miix-720.html
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

Last week, Microsoft quietly extended deep discounts on its Surface Book , and launched a new deal on its Surface Pro 4, offering up to $300 off the tablet. Both of those deals ended on December 31, but the company wasted little time in beginning a new round of savings on those devices.
Buyers can currently save up to $150 off select Surface Book and Pro 4 models, but the duration of the offer depends on the model that you wish to buy.
The entry-level Surface Pro 4 – which includes an Intel Core m3 processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD – is reduced from $899 to $749 until January 14. The Intel Core i5 model with the same RAM and storage gets a discount of $100, reducing it from $999 to $899, until January 28.
The most affordable Surface Book – with Core i5, 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD – has had its price trimmed by $150, falling from $1,499 to $1,349. The Core i5 model with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD and dGPU is also reduced by $150, dropping from $1,899 to $1,749. Both of the Surface Book discounts end on January 21.
Meanwhile, there’s still no sign of new stock for the two Intel Core i7 Surface Book models that sold out over the festive shopping season. Microsoft recently launched more powerful versions of the Surface Book i7 with a new ‘Performance Base’ , which will soon be available in more markets around the world , and it’s not yet clear if it plans to phase out the older models.
Source: Surface Pro 4 / Surface Book (Microsoft Store)
The new Surface Book 2 and Surface Pro 5 are among the devices that we’re most looking forward to across the tech world in 2017. Check out our feature article in which we discuss more of the products we’re eagerly anticipating this year.

© Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/neowin-main/~3/K5MGCFCGai8/microsoft-cuts-up-to-150-off-select-surface-book-and-pro-4-including-entry-level-models
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

Yes, it’s true: Chromebooks aren’t for everyone. But Acer has a new Chromebook that it thinks is good for people who berate their computers (or just work in unforgiving conditions).
The Chromebook 11 N7 is battle-tested and fulfills the U. S. MIL-STD 810G military standard. It can take up to 132 pounds of downward force on the top cover, with corners designed to take the blunt force off of impacts. Rubber keys on the spill-resistant keyboard (which can drain 11 oz of liquid) means that even the most fragile parts of the laptop stay intact.
Oh, and of course it can take a drop of up to four feet. As for weight: It’s a hefty 2.98 pounds (considering screen size).
Specs-wise, you won’t find too much to be impressed by here, mostly because of its price point and because it’s a Chromebook. It has an Intel Celeron dual-core processor (1.6 to 2.4GHz TurboBoost), an 11.6-inch screen at 1366 x 768 resolution, 16GB or 32GB of storage, an HD webcam, stereo speakers and, lastly, a 4090 mAh battery. Ports-wise, you get 2 USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, a 3.5 mm audio jack, a Kensington lock slot and a charging port.
So, if you’re clumsy and/or work in an environment that would destroy most technology, the Chromebook 11 N7 may be for you. It launches this month for $229.

© Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Uy52b3i_HsY/
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.

This is insanity, otherwise known as the Acer Predator 21 X, a gaming laptop with a 21-inch, G-Sync curved screen at 2560 x 1080 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. It’s undeniably worthy as a desktop replacement (on paper), but something out of a sci-fi or action movie.
Acer opted for dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 graphic cards in SLI, an overclockable 7th- generation Intel Core i7-7820HK processor, 64GB of DDR4-2400 memory, up to four total 512GB solid state drives in RAID 0 configuration (including two, faster NVMe PCIe SSDs) and a 7200 RPM hard drive with up to a solid 2TB capacity. Those specs outrank most custom gaming desktops, including the recently reviewed HP Omen X.
Maybe what is most astounding about the Predator 21 X isn’t the specs, but the parts that keep it powered and running; two power supplies, cooled by five system fans and heat mitigation with eight heat pipes.
The keyboard uses Cherry MX brown switches that include individually lit LED lights, programmable to 16.7 million colors. Regarding the touchpad, it can be flipped over and turned into a Precision Touchpad. Meanwhile, Windows Hello is supported for facial recognition, along with eye-tracking tech from Tobii; eventually supported games would allow you to aim with your eyes.
Availability for the most insane gaming laptop ever? It’s set for some time in February, starting at a whopping $8,999 — power can come with spending thousands.

© Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_WZME_-kzWI/
All rights are reserved and belongs to a source media.