The US government is pouring money into the Internet of Things

The U.S government spent $8.8 billion in the fiscual year of 2015, up from $7.7 billion in the fiscal year 2014, according to a report from Govini, which collects and analyzes data about government contracts. Overall, the federal government spent almost $35 billion on IoT solutions from the fiscal year 2011 through the fiscal year 2015.

The report split the government's IoT investments into three categories. First is infrastructure

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Xiaomi Buys 1,500 Patents From Microsoft To Aid Global Expansion

Xiaomi has signed a deal with Microsoft to acquire 1,500 patents in exchange for bundling Skype and Office apps on its smartphones and tablets, as the Chinese company seeks a way to expand its products into Western markets. The deal, which also includes a cross-licensing agreement, could hasten the launch of Xiaomi smartphones in markets such as Western Europe and North America where it is believed that a lack of a robust mobile patent portfolio is the major factor in preventing a more global launch.

The patents Xiaomi has acquired cover wireless communications, video, cloud and multimedia technologies, and come six months after the Chinese company signed a patent-licensing deal with U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm covering 3G and 4G technologies. Xiaomi has acquired 1,500 patents from Microsoft, in a deal that will

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WhatsApp Revenue Model And The Reasons Behind Facebook’s 19 Billion Dollar Acquisition !

Facebook’s owned WhatsApp had announced in March that WhatsApp will be completely free for users and will no longer change any subscription fee. The app that gained more than 1 billion users across the globe allows users to message contacts anyone who is using WhatsApp at no cost and is currently available for iPhones, Blackberries, Symbian and the web version. Facebook purchased WhatsApp in February 2014 for amount which is estimated to $19 billion. After nine months, (i.e. September 2014), WhatsApp had generated revenue of approximately $1.2 million, as per 2014 Facebook Form 10-Q. The big question is how WhatsApp generated such a revenue?

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The 2017 ARM Processor Powering the 2017 iPhone will Pack a Powerful Graphics Punch

Despite Nvidia's CEO thinking that VR's problems will take another 20 years to resolve, the industry is still racing forward to accommodate VR applications. Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 1080 will greatly assist VR applications on the desktop in 2016 and so will the new chip from ARM that's due to arrive in time for the 2017 iPhone. According to Trusted Reviews, ARM has laid its cards down for a mobile gaming future fuelled by VR. The chip architecture design company, which is behind the architecture for processors seen in phones including the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6S, has launched its new processor and graphics architecture at Computex, with particular focus on VR content consumption.

The new ARM Mali-G71 is of particular interest; mostly because

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Don't be alarmed if Android wants to get physical

Q. My Android phone popped up a notification that “Physical Web pages are nearby.” What does that mean?

A. The plain language of that Android notification suggests that if you look in the right direction, you might spot a printout of a Web page taped to a wall. What Google’s operating system is actually saying: A nearby Bluetooth beacon is broadcasting a Web page’s address, and if you open that notification, the Chrome browser on your phone will display the page. Why would you want to do that? At Google’s I/O developer conference two weeks ago, Rahul Roy-chowdhury, vice president of product management for Chrome, spelled out one such scenario in his mobile-Web talk: “Wouldn’t it be cool if you got on a bus and you

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The best tech to prevent distracted driving

While everyone knows they shouldn’t use a smartphone behind the wheel, one in every four crashes still involves someone texting, snapping, sharing, or chatting on a mobile device. So how do we save ourselves … from ourselves? I’ve tested more than a dozen apps and gadgets that promise a fix.

DriveMode Wins Top Spot

Every major cellular provider offers something to help with distracted driving. I found AT&T’s free DriveMode app for Android and iPhone works the best

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StanChart launches mobile banking push in Africa as rivals retreat

Standard Chartered is to launch its mobile and online banking platform in eight African countries, its consumer banking chief for the region told Reuters, as the lender seeks to grow in Africa at a time when some European banks are retreating. StanChart will launch the service for its 1 million customers in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the first half of 2016, the bank's regional head for retail banking

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Your Dose Of Disruptive Tech For This Week !

As a part of the tech in Techstory, we bring you the latest in the technology from around the world. This week we saw HP unveiling its Omen backpack PC for mobile VR gaming and China unveiling elevated bus to tackle traffic jams. We also saw Toyota remaking the ibot wheelchair and Samsung’s plans for IoT network. In case, if you’ve missed any of those, along with the Reddit’s latest update on hosting its own image uploading service, don’t worry just keep reading!

HP Unveils Omen Backpack PC For Mobile VR Gaming

                                                

HP unveiled a new series of gaming laptops under the Omen X branding, but apparently that’s not all the company has up their sleeves. It seems that HP is also working on a backpack PC that will allow gamers to play virtual reality on the go, or at the very least allow

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Here's Facebook's next major app: Moments

Facebook's (NASDAQ:FB) mobile app is one of the most popular in the world. More than 1 billion people use Facebook on their mobile devices each and every day. But there's more to Facebook than its core social network. The company has an increasingly impressive array of other apps, each boasting hundreds of millions of additional users in their own right. Collectively, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram reach 2.3 billion people each month, mostly through mobile devices. WhatsApp and Messenger lead the way with 1 billion and 900 million monthly actives, respectively; Instagram adds 400 million. The company has tried many times to add a fifth to that lineup, but most of its initiatives have been outright failures. Last year, Facebook discontinued Slingshot, Riff, and Rooms after they failed to gain sufficient traction. But Facebook has one up-and-coming app that may hold considerably more promise: Moments, a photo-centric app Facebook launched

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15 Latest Developments In Robotics Field !

2016 is proving to be a year of robotics and automation. We are already half way down the year and semi – autonomous vehicles are already on the roads. The robotics too has some notable achievements to boast of. Have a look yourself:

1. RoboBee Clings to the Ceiling With Static Electricity

This insect-sized flying robot is smaller than a quarter, 12 times lighter than a paperclip, and zips through the air with a pair of flapping wings. That’s not even the impressive part. Using a trick of electrostatic energy, the minuscule bot can efficiently cling to the underside of any flat surface, from tree leaves to glass skylights to your plaster

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NASA is inflating a prototype of a new habitat for astronauts in the International Space Station

The unexpanded Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is seen attached to the Tranquility module on the International Space Station in this still image taken from NASA TV May 26, 2016. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Saturday slowly inflated an experimental fabric module that may provide a less expensive and safer option for housing crews during long stays in space, a NASA TV broadcast showed. 

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Samsung braces for patent war

The total number of patents that tech giant Samsung Electronics holds in the U.S. increased by more than fifteen times over the past nine years, according to the company on Thursday. Samsung’s patents registered at the U.S. patent office stood at 38,809 last year, up from 2,457 in 2007

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South Africa: How the State Capture Controversy Has Influenced South Africa's Nuclear Build

South Africa is facing a critical decision that could see it investing about R1 trillion - or US$60 billion to $70 billion - in a fleet of new nuclear power stations. Proponents argue that it will greatly increase electrical base-load capacity and generate industrial growth. But opponents believe the high cost would cripple the country economically. What should be an economic decision has now been clouded by controversy, with political pressure to push through the nuclear build and the increasingly apparent rewards it would bring to politically linked individuals. The nuclear expansion programme needs to be considered exceptionally carefully given that the required financial commitment is roughly equal to the total South African annual tax revenue. Loan repayments could place a devastating long-term burden on

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You Won't Be Able to Use PayPal's App on These Phones Anymore

Shares of PayPal Holdings  (PYPL) are down by 1.68% to $38.11 late Thursday afternoon, as the San Jose, CA-based technology platform company announces it is discontinuing its apps on the Windows Phone (MSFT), BlackBerry (BBRY) and Amazon's(AMZN) Fire OS.

As of June 30, the only two of PayPal's money transaction apps remaining will be on Google's Android (GOOGL) and Apple's(AAPL) iOS.

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Facebook and Microsoft team up to build undersea internet cable over 4,000 miles long

Facebook and Microsoft are teaming up to build a giant undersea internet cable from the US to Spain to help them move vast amounts of data across the world more easily.

The fibre optic cable, named Marea (that's Spanish for 'tide'), will stretch from Virginia on America's east coast to Bilbao, in the Basque Country, across around 4,100 miles of seabed.

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Google's victory over Oracle: A win for developers

The ruling sets a high bar for the level of "creativity" that APIs may need to show before they

deserve protection under copyright law. When the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2014 that Java APIs deserved copyright protection, siding with Oracle over Google in the matter, it shocked many in the developer community and the tech industry at large. Some said that the ruling would have a "chilling effect" on software development, but that prediction didn't really materialize.

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What Do You Think Is The Impact Of Technological Advancements In Healthcare Industry?

Technology has brought about massive changes in every aspect of human life and healthcare is no exception. With the penetration of technology in the healthcare industry, there has been significant reduction in barriers to health care access and allowed major improvement in the understanding of disease patterns.

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Mars is emerging from an ice age that ended about 400,000 years ago

Mars is emerging from an ice age, according to a new study. Studying the Martian climate and how it changes over time can help scientists better plan future missions to Mars and even understand climate change here on Earth, the study authors say.

Models had already predicted that Mars underwent several rounds of ice ages in the past, but little physical measurements ever confirmed those predictions. Today’s study,

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SpaceX planning to launch Dragon supply ship to ISS in mid-July

On Tuesday, a SpaceX official said that in mid-July, the company will get its next chance to return a Falcon 9 booster to landing at Cape Canaveral, as it is looking forward to launch a Dragon supply ship to the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to then, Falcon 9 flights will deploy communications satellites into high-altitude geostationary transfer orbits, a place that is quite high and demand excessive speed for the initial stage to reverse course and go in the direction of landing on shore. On Monday, NASA announced that SpaceX’s next cargo run to the ISS won’t get launched before July 16. The position of the orbit of the space station that day will decide the launch time around

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Battery life to get five times better

Scientists have discovered a new catalyst material which may lead to cellphone and car batteries that last five times longer than current ones. Kyeongjae Cho from University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) in the US has found the catalyst materials for lithium-air batteries that jumpstart efforts at expanding battery capacity. “There is huge promise in lithium-air batteries. However, despite the aggressive research being done by groups all over the world, those promises are not being delivered in real life,” said Cho. “So this is very exciting progress. Hopefully, this discovery will revitalise research in this area and create momentum for further development,” he said.

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