Lumia 530

Microsoft has announced a new entry level Lumia device called the Lumia 530. It will come with Windows Phone 8.1 out of the box. Microsoft announced that the Lumia 530 will be out globally in August. It is the successor to the Lumia 520, which has become the best selling Windows Phone device.

 

Photo courtesy @evleaks

Microsoft released this video to announce the new Lumia device which is being marketed as an affordable smartphone that is capable of competing with the likes of the Moto G.

 

The Lumia 530 will have support a 128GB SD card to compensate for the 4GB of internal storage it comes with. This is what the phone looks like on paper;

Processor

• Processor type: Quad-core 1.2GHz 
• Processor name: Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 200 

Display

• Display size: 4 ''
• Display technology: LCD 
• Display resolution: FWVGA (854 x 480) 
• Touch screen technology: Capacitive Multipoint-Touch 

Memory

• RAM: 512 MB 
• Mass memory: 4 GB 
• Maximum memory card size: 128 GB 
• Free cloud storage: 15 GB

Power management

• Maximum talk time (2G): 13.4 h
• Maximum talk time (3G): 10 h
• Maximum standby time: 22 days
• Maximum music playback time: 51 h

•  The official site - Nokia.com  
  
  

Halo: NIghtfall

Halo: Nightfall is an upcoming digital feature written by Prison Break creator Paul Scheuring and produced by Scott Free Productions. It consists of five episodes which will release on a weekly basis and will be viewable as streaming video through Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Windows 8.1 devices.



Official Summary.

Taking place between the events of Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians, Halo: Nightfall follows the origin story of legendary manhunter Jameson Locke (Mike Colter) and his team as they are caught in a horrific terrorist attack while investigating terrorist activity on the distant colony world of Sedra. Led by Locke, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) agents are forced to coordinate with a Sedran commander with a remarkable history and deep-rooted mistrust of ONI. As the plot unravels, they’re drawn to an ancient, hellish artifact where they’re forced to fight for their survival, question everything, and ultimately choose between their loyalties and their lives. Agent Locke is a new character in the Halo universe poised to play a major role in Halo 5: Guardians releasing on Xbox One in 2015.

SOURCE

Teaser Trailer

Halo: Nightfall is being produced by Aliens and Prometheus director Ridley Scott. The idea is that this series will act as an origin story for Jameson Locke and will be released with the Master Chief Collection, which is a remastered version of the Halo games and will include everything from the original stories right down to the easter eggs and even the original bugs from the games. The series is set to be released on the 11th of November.

The Master Chief Collection will also contain in excess of a hundred multiplayer maps!

Destiny Beta now open to the public.

The Destiny Beta for PS4 and PS3 began on the 17th of July, a full week before it was released on the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 on the 23rd of July. Anybody who has one of the above mentioned consoles can now download the game and start playing. However, you will need an active PlayStation Plus or Xbox Gold subscription to play the Beta. The public Beta ends on the 28th of July so I suggest you get in on the action as soon as possible!

Pre-Order Destiny Here

Shape Shifting Robots!?

Yeah you read that right, shape shifting robots might actually be a thing in the not too distant future. Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made a material from foam and a sort of wax that, much like any other wax has the ability to switch between a solid and a liquid state. It doesn't sound too fancy but in reality it is a serious piece of engineering. Anette Hosoi, the developer of this material is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and said that it could be used to build surgical robots that could move through the body and reach certain parts of the body without damaging any organs or tissues.

Working with robotics company Boston Dynamics, researchers began developing the material as part of the Chemical Robots programme of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Controlling a soft structure is difficult, It's harder to predict how the material is going to move and what shapes it is going to form, than it is with a rigid robot.

So the researchers decided that the only way to build a deformable robot would be to develop a material that can switch between a soft and hard state. This is where the foam comes in. Since foam can be squeezed down to a fraction of its normal size and then bounce back, The wax is used to coat the foam. When heated it goes liquid and when cooled it becomes solid. 

If you break this coating, you can simply heat the wax and when you cool it again the damage is repaired. The research was published in the scientific journal Macromolecular Materials and Engineering.

  

iPhone 6 Fix

As the September 15 release creeps ever closer, the iPhone 6's release has been hugely anticipated and with the announcement that there are going to be two versions, a 4.7 inch and a 5.5 inch there's really an iPhone for everyone if you ask me, the bigger phablet for people who like bigger screens and the smaller 4.7 inch for people like me who don't want a huge screen nor do we want a tiny one, the 4.7 inch is sort of in the sweet spot.

There have been photos of leaked sim card trays that hint at what possible colours the iPhone 6 will be available in, based off the colours of the trays, the phone may be available in Silver, Grey and Gold.

Apple's going to be using some serious build materials for this phone, they're using a sapphire crystal display which seemed indestructible to me! See for yourself, Marques Brownlee managed to get his hands on the front panel of the iPhone 6. Here's the video.

Finally, the iPhone 6 will be coming out with a battery between 1800 and 1900 mAh and the 5.5 inch version will be coming out with a battery between 2000 and 2500 mAh.